Part 23
The measure of success is the measure of the capacity for achievement. It was on her nursing record in the Civil War that she made her national reputation; on her business record, her world reputation. She was not a Hetty Green in a bank account, for she invested in the field of humanity, not of finance; but her genius shone in handling, unerringly, a great business enterprise, her record far surpassing that of the woman-wizard of Wall Street. By American Presidents, by commanders of armies, by statesmen, by financiers, by her co-workers, without an exception who were with her on fields of war and disaster, she was commended for her business acumen, business methods, and in the results obtained. From previous knowledge, from personal observation at the Galveston flood, from having, within the past five years, spent many months in her Glen Echo Red Cross home, with the accountants who were going through her business records and assisting myself in the work, I speak what I do know.
She did not come into the business world panoplied as from the head of a Jupiter, her record was not temporary camouflage; it is a record of years; nor was it solely through the heart, for other women have hearts. Clara Barton had genius, “the power of meeting and overcoming the unexpected;” had genius for work, and through work comes genius. Her business record is as firmly established as is that of her heart record; as is that of the great “captains of industry” and, as theirs, is based on _methods and success_, the only known data for such determination. In the use of her approved methods in continuous service for twenty-three years, she was without one record-failure, achieving success under varied and most trying conditions.
It is said of her by one writer, “a woman of great force of character;” by another, from the results accomplished and without prejudice toward womankind in the business world, “one of the world’s greatest personages, for greatness knows no sex;” by another, as shown in her capacity to do things, “she must be classed as a genius, for genius is the intuitive capacity for overcoming insurmountable difficulties.”
Clara Barton’s twenty-three years as the Executive Head of the Red Cross; her collection and distribution of two and one-half millions of money and material; her unanimous election three times to the Red Cross presidency for life, on her business record, is without precedent. She might have been a _Merchant Prince_; she could teach one of America’s most successful business men on _business points_; she excited _the admiration of all who were acquainted with her business methods_. Some day some man or woman may appear as her rival on the horizon of the business world but, up to the present time as an unpaid executive with unpaid helpers, Clara Barton holds the world’s record as Business Manager, in public service.
XCII
Honor any requisition Clara Barton makes; she outranks me.
GENERAL B. F. BUTLER.
The Jury passing on the prisoner’s life may in the sworn twelve have a thief or two guiltier than him they try. SHAKESPEARE.
A felon’s cell— The fittest earthly type of hell. WHITTIER.
Prison—the living grave of Crime. JOAQUIN MILLER.
Prison—Young Crime’s finishing school. MRS. BULFOUR.
Every penitentiary should be a real reformatory—the discipline of the average prison hardens and degrades—the criminal should be treated with kindness. R. G. INGERSOLL.
Even the most obstinate yields to the rule of kindness, firmly and steadily administered. CLARA BARTON.
SUPERINTENDENT OF WOMAN’S PRISON
There is a woman’s prison, supported by the state at Sherborn, Massachusetts. Its condition had been unsatisfactory. Governor Ben F. Butler[11] sent for Miss Barton, and begged her to accept its superintendency. He said: “I ask it as a personal favor.” “But, if I accept, Governor, what would be required of me?” “Well, it will be necessary first for you to put up a ten thousand dollar bond.” “Would you accept a cash bond, Governor?” “Of course,” he replied. And she put up the bond.
Footnote 11:
At a public reception in honor of Miss Barton a few years after the Civil War, the wife of a Massachusetts Congressman, addressing General Benjamin F. Butler, said: “How wonderfully well Miss Barton looks in her evening dress! What beautiful arms and shoulders she has!” General Butler replied: “Yes, I have seen those arms red with human blood to the shoulders.”
The ten thousand dollars was not in the “coin of the realm”; it was in railroad bonds, then above par. The governor had enemies who at no time closed their eyes to his faults, real or imaginary; but he also had adherents, who were his “friends to a fault.” It was reported that the governor had accepted her personal bond. His enemies adversely criticized the waiving of the requirements of the law in her case. His friends justified the official conduct of the executive, protesting that Miss Barton’s personal bond was good anywhere. While the agitation of the public mind over the bond was at its height, the governor paid an official visit at the prison. On the issue pending the governor to Miss Barton made this comment: “If the good Lord would only protect me from my ‘fool friends,’ I could take care of my enemies myself.”
Her executive ability and methodical work soon showed results. Discipline and economy had transformed the prison. Instead of insubordination, there was obedience; instead of wastage, there was frugality. The Governor and his Council paid the institution an official visit. In a public address delivered shortly after this at Springfield, the Governor said: “I’ll tell you that the _Prison Is In a Thorough Condition_, and there has been inaugurated there a system of economy that will save $10,000 within a year of her administration.”
XCIII
America’s foremost woman. Houghton (Mich.) _Gazette_.
Clara Barton’s, a career which has no parallel in American history. Cleveland (Ohio) _Plain Dealer_.
Clara Barton—in citizenship, the memory of her career must remain a rich heritage to the people of this country.
Portland (Ore.) _Telegram_.
Clara Barton’s Red Cross achievements are monumental, and because of the corner-stone she laid the present superstructure will endure. Her name is the synonym for the American Red Cross as it was, and as it is. B. F. TILLINGHAST, Delegate to the International Red Cross Conference at St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1902.
Destiny is the decree of God. A. CUNNINGHAM.
Destiny cannot be avoided. G. COWPAY.
Destiny bears us to our lot. DISRAELI.
Who can turn the stream of destiny? SPENCER.
In your own bosom are your destiny’s stars. COLERIDGE.
How circumscribed is woman’s destiny. GOETHE.
Let a woman steer straight onward to the fulfillment of her own destiny. MRS. EMMA R. COLE.
Clara Barton—one of the immortals. _Brooklyn Citizen._
Quaff immortality. JOHN MILTON.
Born of immortality. WORDSWORTH.
This longing after immortality. ADDISON.
I have an immortal longing in me. SHAKESPEARE.
Immortality! We bow before the very term, Immortality!
GEORGE DOUGLAS.
’Tis immortality to die aspiring. CHAPMAN.
No one could meet death for his country without the hope of immortality. CICERO.
Clara Barton—she earned immortality.
Boston (Mass.) _Herald_.
She passes through the portals of immortality.
Joplin (Mo.) _Globe_.
Rest thee among the immortal names that were not born to die.
Rutland (Vermont) _Herald_.
He is truly great that is great in charity.
THOMAS À KEMPIS.
The most useful is the greatest. THEODORE PARKER.
Great names stand not alone for great deeds. HENRY GILES.
He who does the most good is the greatest. BISHOP JARTIN.
He only is great at heart who floods the world with a great affection. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK.
As the stars are the glory of the sky, so great men are the glory of their country; yea, of the whole earth. HEINE.
Greatness is nothing unless it is lasting. NAPOLEON.
On eagle’s wings immortal scandals fly. STEPHEN HARVEY.
To reproach is a concomitant to greatness, as satire and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.
JOSEPH ADDISON.
Such is the destiny of great men that their superior genius always exposes them to the butt of the envenomed darts of calumny and envy. VOLTAIRE.
America has her Washingtons, Jeffersons, Lees, and others whose names are written down in the hearts of all Americans, but Clara Barton accomplished a work compared with which the career of generals fade in the distance as a shadow.
Pensacola (Fla.) _Journal_.
GREATNESS—AN IMMORTAL AMERICAN DESTINY—IMMORTALITY
From a speech by Honorable Henry Breckenridge, Acting Secretary of War, representing the United States Government, at the laying of the corner-stone of the American Red Cross Building, at Washington, D. C, March 27, 1915.
To every soldier who fought in the Union Army, and survived the war, the name of Clara Barton was known. And as long as the American Red Cross endures or its name is remembered the memory of Clara Barton will be cherished. Her sympathies were universal, her zeal unflagging. She nursed the wounded of two wars on the continents, in our Civil War and in the Franco-Prussian War. She directed the work of her association to the calamities of peace, as well as the stricken fields of war. She was in Cuba before the Spanish War—was on the “Maine” the day before it was blown up, and tended the wounded survivors in the hospital ashore. Wherever humanity called for help—in the Balkans or in Strasburg—in Cuba or in Galveston—in Paris or on the American battlefields of the sixties—there came the ministering hand of Clara Barton.
To take an historical perspective, disfavor with a temporary and passing administration means nothing in the end to a name as great and a career as long as Clara Barton’s, as this estimate shows. For a while it may mean on both sides much misconstruction and suffering, but in the end this is forgotten and the fame remains undimmed.
Florence Nightingale, at the Crimea, England’s great introducer into the world of the system of women hospital nurses, was actually so ignored by a subsequent English ministry that, though a poor invalid, she was ousted from her minor position in a Governmental office. It caused her intense pain, and although a chronic sufferer from her many labors, she saw herself ignominiously thrown out by new political leaders who, great as they were, could not understand her. But when she became an octogenarian, all this became a buried incident, and all England a few years ago bent to do her homage, when the Lord Mayor of London granted her the freedom of the city, and the Golden Casket, England’s highest of honors. Now, since her death, a monument is being erected and nothing is considered too good to let Great Britain make her memory green in the British Isles.
Thus will perish the temporary unhappy misunderstanding and misconstruction of 1902–1904, through which Clara Barton suffered. In the atoning stream that swallows time’s ticking seconds of little troubles, its unessentials will be dissolved. Indeed, as demonstrated in nearly 3000 American newspapers in 1912, they have already been dissolved, leaving her character and career eternally crystallized at the base of an enduring national foundation and an immortal American destiny—the greatest an American woman has yet produced.
XCIV
Clara Barton has built an imperishable monument for herself in the hearts of the people of all creeds. Dallas (Texas) _Herald_.
Clara Barton—her deeds lend honor to her country’s fame.
_The Outlook._
Clara Barton—the embodiment of one vital principle of all creeds, the love of humanity. _Detroit Free Press._
Before her gentle assault the steel walls of religious prejudice and race hatred melted like a mist. Leadville (Colo.) _Herald_.
Put your Creed in your Deed. RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Souls in Heaven are placed by their deeds. ROBERT GREENE.
Things of today? Deeds which are honest, for eternity.
EBENEZER ELLIOTT.
Truly does the Hindoo say, with averted face: “God only is great.” CLARA BARTON.
Without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God. A. LINCOLN.
Each of the great religions of the world seems to have some good in it. BISHOP W. F. MCDOWELL.
God bless all the Churches. A. LINCOLN.
I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. A. LINCOLN.
There are few people who have memories of harder Church work and better Church love than I. CLARA BARTON.
In regard to the Great Book, I have only to say that it is the best gift that God has given to man. A. LINCOLN.
What sensations can possess the mind but wonder and adoration for the power of Almighty God, and a humble gratitude that no words can speak. CLARA BARTON.
You believe that God is a Divine Immanence; you believe that God is now communicating himself to humanity and that his loving Presence is here now as ever. Why, then, can’t you call up a direct relationship, rather than going around to the uncertain allusions of Theodore Parker? CLARA BARTON.
In the Universalist Church at Oxford, where Clara Barton attended Church, there is carefully preserved the pulpit in which the famous Reverend Hosea Ballou was ordained in 1794.
THE AUTHOR.
Reverend Father Tyler, a memorable Universalist minister, who officiated at the funerals of Father and Mother Barton, on the occasion of her funeral pronounced also at the grave a memorial tribute to Clara. Among her religious friends also were Hosea Ballou, Phillips Brooks, Mary Baker Eddy, Archbishops Gibbons and Ireland. THE AUTHOR.
I firmly believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Jesus of Nazareth, in His life and death, His suffering to save the world from sin, so far as in His power to do so. But it would be difficult for me to stop there, and believe that this spirit of divinity was accorded to none others of God’s creation who, like the Master, took on the living form and, like Him, lived the human life.
CLARA BARTON.
Miss Barton does not wait and “wish to be an angel.” She goes right about it. A visible, substantial, present angel she is—a “ministering spirit.” W. H. ARMSTRONG.
Over all, spreading its Aegis like a benediction is the great mantle of Christianity, wrapping all in its beneficent folds.
CLARA BARTON.
WHAT WAS HER RELIGION?
Was Clara Barton a Church woman? Of herself she says: “There are few people who have memories of harder Church work and better Church love than I; I have never lost my love for the old Church of my Fathers, my family and my childhood.”
Was she a Mormon? A friend of the Mormons, and one of the biggest receptions ever tendered to her was in the tabernacle at Salt Lake City, by the Mormons of Utah. Was she a Mohammedan? She was most cordially received by the Mohammedans, and decorated by the Sultan of Turkey. Was she a Spiritualist? She attended spiritualistic meetings, studied the cult, consulted mediums, and mingled with spiritualists. Commenting on the fact, claimed, that spiritual communications occur between those of this world and those of the other world, she said: “I am more and more filled with wonder how these things can be” but—“I hope so.”
Was she a Catholic? She frequently attended the Catholic Church, and counted among her friends Sisters of Mercy, Priests, Bishops, and Archbishops. Was she a Congregationalist? She attended that Church at times. Several Congregational ministers officiated at the funeral, and a beautiful Clara Barton window is preserved in the Congregational Church at Oxford. Was she a Methodist? She attended the Methodist Church, and the Methodists now use Clara Barton leaflets, and other Clara Barton literature, in their Sunday Schools throughout the country.
Was she a Christian Scientist? She said: “I do not know enough to be one, nor to understand it,” but she also said: “I cannot see why Universalists should not become Christian Scientists.” She attended the Christian Science Church for three years, but a leading scientist editor said: “We do not claim her, nor do I think any other Church can claim her.” Was she a Universalist? She was reared a Universalist, and in her youth attended the Universalist Church where the famous divine, Hosea Ballou, was pastor and she also requested a Universalist pastor to assist in officiating at her funeral.
She attended other Churches, and ministers of several denominations officiated at her funeral. Clara Barton says: “I am not what the world denominates a Church woman; I was born to liberal views, and have lived a liberal creed.”
But really what was her religion? “Perplexed in faith but pure in deeds,” Clara Barton, to the annoying question so often asked by the curious, answered: “I am a well disposed pagan.”
XCV
I never had a mission and I don’t know what I should do with one, if I had it. CLARA BARTON.
We all tumble over opportunities for being brave and good, at every step we take. Life is just made up of such opportunities.
CLARA BARTON.
Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged.
A. LINCOLN.
There are other altars than that of Venus on which to light your fires—work, incessant, hard, earnest work. SIR WILLIAM OSLER.
How much of the sweets of life one loses in the rush of it.
CLARA BARTON.
I lost two months entire, but the time went on and spun its web each day. CLARA BARTON.
The gray haired military chieftain, whom all would recognize were I to name him, was correct when he once said to me: “Strange as it may seem, the days of ‘rest’ at the field are the hardest days.”
CLARA BARTON.
I always had a passion for service. CLARA BARTON.
Honest labor bears a lovely face. THOMAS DECKER.
Labor: All labor is noble and holy. FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD.
Work ye, and God will work. JOAN OF ARC.
Life is a great bundle of little things. O. W. HOLMES.
Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things. SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.
Nothing is of greater value than a single day. GOETHE.
Life is but a day at most. BURNS.
Life is a short day, but it is a working day. HANNAH MOORE.
Living is doing. CLARA BARTON.
“Even while we say there is nothing we can do, we stumble over opportunities for service that we are passing by in our tear-blinded, self-pity.” CLARA BARTON.
I have had more work than I could do lying _around my feet_, and try to get it out of my way so I can go on to the next.
CLARA BARTON.
There is but one method, and that is hard labor.
SIDNEY SMITH.
If God works, Madam, you can afford to work also.
JULIA WARD HOWE.
Clara Barton was a worker from infancy. She gave to the world nearly a century of work, taking neither vacation nor recreation.
ALICE HUBBARD.
Women, always—as a rule—have worked harder than men.
CLARA BARTON.
I do hope I may live long enough to get the story of my life and my life’s work in shape for publication. I am doing this ill in bed (at 90 years of age), sometimes working until two or three o’clock in the morning. CLARA BARTON.
ONE DAY WITH CLARA BARTON
How so much was accomplished in the lifetime of one woman may be understood by reading “One Day with Clara Barton,” as described by herself in a personal letter to a friend:
“How shall I manage to be a woman of business, and act like a lady of leisure? How strangely odd it seemed to me when I read your pretty description of how your time was passed, that you could dress for breakfast, help do some little things about the house, get ready for tea and walk after it. When _did_ I see such days, or even _one_ such day. If it would not take too long I could tell you something of how I pass a day. Let me try; and as one day is a fair sample of another, suppose I take yesterday as I remember it better than any other. Well, let me brush up my hair and try to think. First, I rose when I could see to dress, I suppose a little past four, went into my bath room, and bathed thoroughly in preparation for a scorching day and partly made my toilet; then read my chapter in the scriptures by _myself_, and offered my own prayer and thanksgiving (no family service to unite in like you, and I have too much of the dust of old Plymouth Rock sticking to me to omit it); then finished a hurried toilet, and sat down to a French lesson at half past six; went to my breakfast at seven, commenced my French recitation, lasted until eight; after this put my chamber and myself in order and started for the office; called on my dress-maker on my way and tried on a dress; called at the post office and found one business letter; and reached the office at nine; distance little over a mile, and then commenced the tug of war. I wrote until three o’clock P. M., took an omnibus home, took my writing, or a portion of it, along with me (don’t tell; it’s against the rule), reached home at three-thirty, took a hurried bath, went to dinner and at four-thirty was seated at my table writing for my life. Did not leave my room again, or scarce arose from my table until twelve o’clock, when I retired and slept as fast and hard as I could until daylight in preparation for a repetition of the same. Perhaps you wish, or are curious, to know how much I accomplished in all that time. Ten thousand words of bold round record which must live and be legible when the mound which once covered me shall have become a hollow and the moss-covered headstone, with ‘born’ and ‘died’ no longer to be traced upon its time-worn front shall have buried itself beneath the kindred turf.”
Working twenty hours out of the twenty-four would give almost any woman the reputation of being a _genius_. Thinking the woman who had done things held the secret of woman’s success, a touring party of ambitious young ladies called on Clara Barton, in her later years, at Glen Echo. The following conversation took place:
Vassar Girl—Miss Barton, these other ladies and myself called to pay our respects. We have heard much of you since we were little girls. A few weeks ago, in the class of ——, we graduated from Vassar College. We, as you have done, wish to do some good in the world. We cannot decide what we should do; we want your advice.
Clara Barton—My dear young lady, do the first thing that comes to your hand. Do it well. Then do the next thing. Do that well. Then do the next thing, just so keep on doing——.