Part 9

The final adhesion of the United States to the treaty of the Red Cross has created a lively sense of satisfaction in all its affiliated societies wherever, throughout the world, its beneficent work is carried on; particularly, by the International Committee of Geneva, has this wise and simple act of beneficence and common sense and common humanity been regarded with sentiments of gratitude and renewed hope. The American National Association has received the following expression of the sentiments of the noble and philanthropic president of the International Committee, written upon the receipt from the United States of the official documents of recognition:

COMITE INTERNATIONAL DE SECOURS AUX MILITAIRES BLESSES, GENEVA, _September 6, 1882_.

MISS CLARA BARTON, _Washington, D.C._:

MADEMOISELLE: I come to thank and congratulate you cordially upon your new success. I have read your letters of the 11th and 14th with the most lively interest, and I have also received, through the medium of the United States consul at Geneva, all the official documents which you have announced to me.

The position of your society is now entirely (_tout á fait_) correct, and nothing more opposes itself; so that by a circular we can now make it known to the societies of other countries. I am already occupied in the preparation of this document, but I am obliged to leave for Turin, where I go to attend the reunion of the International Institute of Law, and it will not be until my return, say about the twentieth of September, that I can press the printing of the circular. In any case, it will be ready before the end of the month.

Accept, mademoiselle, the assurance of my distinguished sentiments.

G. MOYNIER, _President_.

The circular alluded to in this letter of M. Moynier announces the adhesion of the United States to the great international compact of the Red Cross, and authenticates and opens the way for the voluntary action of the people and the government in international humanitarian action, through the medium of the American Association of the Red Cross, and is in the following terms:

INTERNATIONAL CIRCULAR.

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE. FOUNDATION OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF THE RED CROSS.

FIFTIETH CIRCULAR TO THE PRESIDENTS AND MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL CENTRAL COMMITTEES.

GENEVA, _September 2, 1882_.

GENTLEMEN: When on the twenty-third of August, 1876, we announced to you by our thirty-fourth circular, that the American society for aid to the wounded had had only an ephemeral existence, and had finished by dissolution, we still entertained the hope of seeing it revive, and we asked the friends of the Red Cross to labor with us for its resuscitation.

To-day we have the great satisfaction of being able to tell you that this appeal has been heard, and that the United States is again linked anew to the chain of our societies.

Nevertheless it is not the old association which has returned to life. That which we present to you at this time has a special origin upon which we ought to give you some details.

Its whole history is associated with a name already known to you, that of Miss Clara Barton. Without the energy and perseverance of this remarkable woman we should probably not for a long time have had the pleasure of seeing the Red Cross revived in the United States. We will not repeat here what we have said elsewhere of the claims of Miss Barton to our gratitude, and we will confine ourselves to mentioning what she has done to reconstruct a Red Cross society in North America.

After having prepared the ground by divers publications, she called together a great meeting at Washington on the twenty-first of May, 1881; then a second, on the ninth of June, at which the existence of the society was solemnly set forth. On the same day President Garfield nominated Miss Barton as president of this institution.

The International Committee would have desired from that time to have given notice of the event to all the central committees, but certain scruples restrained it.

Remembering that the first American society had been rendered powerless by the distinct refusal of the cabinet at Washington to adhere to the Geneva Convention, it took precaution and declared it would wait, before recognizing the young society, until the government should have regularly signed the treaty of 1864. Miss Barton, understanding the special propriety of this requirement, redoubled her efforts to attain this end, and we know that on the first of March she gained a complete victory upon this point.

There remained another question with respect to which the International Committee did not feel itself sufficiently informed. Just how far was the American Government disposed to accept the services of this society? We have often said, and we repeat it, that a society which would be exposed, for the want of a previous understanding, to find itself forbidden access to its own army in case of war, would be at fault fundamentally, and would not be qualified to take its place in the International concert. Further upon this point Miss Barton and the members of the American Central Committee, sought to enter into our views. They conferred with the competent authorities. The desired recognition was very difficult to obtain, for it was contrary to American customs and traditions. It was, nevertheless, accomplished after considerable discussion. On this point Miss Barton has stated to us that the government, in acquiescing in the decision which had been expressed, was entering upon a path altogether new, and that the official recognition of the Red Cross Society was for the latter a very exceptional honor.

Certain documents resulted therefrom which have been communicated to us directly by the Secretary of State, at Washington, showing:

1st. That the American Association of the Red Cross has been legally constituted by an Act of Congress.

2d. That President Arthur has declared himself in full sympathy with the work, and very willingly has accepted the presidency of the Board of Consultation.

3d. That the principal members of the cabinet have consented to become members of a board of trustees, empowered to receive subscriptions and to hold the funds for the society.

4th. Finally, that Congress unanimously, without discussion or opposition, has voted a sum of one thousand dollars, to be expended by the government in printed matter, designed to inform the people of the United States of the organization of the Red Cross. The initiation of this last measure was not the work of the society but of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate; consequently it bears witness to the spontaneous impulse with which the Houses of Congress came into accord with the views of Miss Barton.

We must add that the International Committee attaches so much the more importance to the fact that this society took an official position, because there was created, at nearly the same time in the United States, two other institutions, claiming to pursue a similar object, but of which the Committee of Geneva is absolutely ignorant. One, called "The Woman's National Relief Association," which concerns itself with all public calamities, among other things with the calamities of war, but more especially with shipwrecks, and has for its distinctive emblem a blue anchor; the other has taken the name of "The Order of the Red Cross." Dr. James Saunders is the president of it, with the title "Supreme Commander." This order proposes to organize more or less in a military way and appears desirous of imitating the orders of chivalry in ancient times.

The American Central Committee of the Red Cross has its seat at Washington, but has already founded branches in other localities, at Dansville, Rochester, Syracuse, etc. Soon, doubtless, cities of the first class will also take their turn.

We will give in our next bulletin the complete text of the constitution and by-laws of the American society, which, as will be seen, has not believed it ought to limit its program to assistance in case of war, but has comprised within it, in conformity with a suggestion of the conference at Berlin, the other great calamities which might befall the country and its inhabitants.

As for ourselves, we have greeted with joy the addition of the United States to the countries already enrolled under the Red Cross; it is for our work an important and long desired reinforcement, and we doubt not our impressions in this regard will be shared by the twenty-eight central committees to which we address these lines.

We also hope that next year some representatives of the American society will cross the Atlantic in order to fraternize with the delegates of the other nations, who will certainly be happy to meet them at the conference at Vienna.

Receive, gentlemen, the assurances of our distinguished consideration.

For the International Committee of the Red Cross.

President: G. MOYNIER.

Secretary: G. ADOR.

The foregoing pages deal only with the official history of the Red Cross and its inauguration in this country, closing with the accession of the United States to the Treaty and its promulgation in 1882. The original formation of the Red Cross was had previous to the adoption of the Treaty by the government, and, indeed, primarily for that very purpose. That was the corner-stone upon which rested the entire structure of the Red Cross in America at that date, and constituted almost entirely the work undertaken by it to perform.

During the first ten years of the existence of the organization it had accomplished all that had been promised, and a great deal more; and had proved the utility of its work on almost continuous fields of national calamity of the character defined in the "American Amendment" to the Treaty. But the American government had not given the Red Cross the official recognition that it desired and was entitled to; and it could not take its appropriate place by the government of which it was so eminently a part. As long as government provides for war, so long must it recognize its adopted twin sister of peace, the Red Cross; as long as it finds it necessary to deliberately mutilate men, so long should it take part in healing them.

In order to strengthen the organization, and make its influence more widely felt, the members decided to adopt a plan that would enable them to work on a somewhat broader basis; accordingly, on April 17, 1893, the Red Cross was reincorporated and has continued its labors up to the present time under the provisions of the instrument a copy of which follows:

THE RE-INCORPORATION OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS.

CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS.

Know all men by these presents, that we, Clara Barton, Julian B. Hubbell, Stephen E. Barton, Peter V. DeGraw and George Kennan, all being persons of full age, citizens of the United States, and a majority residents of the District of Columbia, being desirous of forming an association to carry on the benevolent and humane work of "The Red Cross" in accordance with the Articles of the International Treaty of Geneva, Switzerland, entered into on the twenty-second day of August, 1864, and adopted by the Government of the United States on the first day of March, 1882, and also in accordance with the broader scope given to the humane work of said treaty by "The American Association of the Red Cross," and known as "The American Amendment," whereby the suffering incident to great floods, famines, epidemics, conflagrations, cyclones, or other disasters of national magnitude, may be ameliorated by the administering of necessary relief; and being desirous of continuing the noble work heretofore performed by "The American Association of the Red Cross," incorporated in the District of Columbia for the purpose of securing the adoption of the said Treaty of Geneva by the United States, for benevolent and charitable purposes, and to co-operate with the Comite International de Secours aux Militaires Blesses.

Now, therefore, for the purpose of creating ourselves, our associates and successors, a body politic and corporate in name and in fact, we do hereby associate ourselves together under and by virtue of sections 545, 546, 547, 548, 549 and 550 of the Revised Statutes of the United States relating to the District of Columbia, as amended and in force at this time; and do make, sign and acknowledge this Certificate of Incorporation, as follows, to wit:

_First._--The name by which this association shall be known in law is: "The American National Red Cross."

_Second._--The principal office of the association shall be in the City of Washington, District of Columbia.

_Third._--The term of its existence shall be fifty years from the date of this certificate.

_Fourth._--The objects of this association shall be, in addition to the purposes set forth in the above preamble, as follows, to wit:

1. To garner the store materials, articles, supplies, moneys, or property of whatsoever name or nature, and to maintain a system of national relief and administer the same in the mitigation of human suffering incident to war, pestilence, famine, flood, or other calamities.

2. To hold itself in readiness for communicating and co-operating with the Government of the United States, or any Department thereof, or with the "Comite International de Secours aux Militaires Blesses," of Geneva, Switzerland, to the end that the merciful provisions of the said "International Treaty of Geneva" may be more wisely and effectually carried out.

3. To collect and diffuse information concerning the progress and application of mercy, the organization of national relief, the advancement of sanitary science and the training and preparation of nurses or others necessary in the application of such work.

4. To carry on and transact any business, consistent with law, that may be necessary or desirable in the fulfillment of any or all of the objects and purposes hereinbefore set forth.

5. The affairs and funds of the corporation shall be controlled and managed by a Board of Directors, and the number of the directors for the first year of the corporation's existence, and until their successors are lawfully elected and qualified, is five, and their names and addresses are as follows, to wit:

Clara Barton, Washington, D.C.; Peter V. DeGraw, Washington, D.C.; Dr. Julian B. Hubbell, Washington, D.C.; Dr. Joseph Gardner, Bedford, Ind., and Stephen E. Barton, Newtonville, Mass.

The names and addresses of the full membership of the association, who shall be designated as charter members, are as follows, to wit:

Clara Barton, Washington, D.C.; Hon. William Lawrence, Bellefontaine, Ohio; Peter V. DeGraw, Washington, D.C.; George Kennan, Washington, D.C.; Dr. Julian B. Hubbell, Washington, D.C.; Colonel Richard J. Hinton, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. Henry V. Boynton, Washington, D.C.; Rev. Rush R. Shippen, Washington, D.C.; Rev. Alexander Kent, Washington, D.C.; Rev. William Merritt Ferguson, Washington, D.C.; General Edward W. Whitaker, Washington, D.C.; Joseph E. Holmes, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. Peter V. DeGraw, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. George Kennan, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. R. Delavan Mussey, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. Omar D. Conger, Washington, D.C.; A.S. Solomons, Washington, D.C.; Walter P. Phillips; New York, N.Y.; Joseph Sheldon, New Haven, Conn.; John H. Van Wormer, New York, N.Y.; Albert C. Phillips, New York, N.Y.; Mrs. Walter P. Phillips, New York, N.Y.; Mrs. Joseph Gardner, Bedford, Ind.; Dr. Joseph Gardner, Bedford, Ind.; Miss Mary E. Almon, Newport, R.I.; Dr. Lucy Hall-Brown, Brooklyn, N.Y.; John H. Morlan, Bedford, Ind., and Stephen E. Barton, Newtonville, Mass. But the corporation shall have power to increase its membership in accordance with by-laws to be adopted.

In witness whereof, we have hereto subscribed our names and affixed our seals in triplicate, at the City of Washington, District of Columbia, this seventeenth day of April, A.D. 1893.

Witness: STEPHEN E. BARTON, GEORGE KENNAN, } CLARA BARTON, S.G. HOPKINS, } (Seal.) JULIAN B. HUBBELL, F.H. SMITH, } P.V. DEGRAW, }

I, S.G. Hopkins, a Notary Public in and for the said District of Columbia, do hereby certify that Clara Barton, Julian B. Hubbell, Stephen E. Barton, P.V. DeGraw and George Kennan, whose names are signed to the foregoing and annexed "Certificate of Incorporation of the American National Red Cross" bearing date of April 17, A.D. 1893, personally appeared before me, in the said District of Columbia, the said Clara Barton, Julian B. Hubbell, Stephen E. Barton, P.V. DeGraw and George Kennan, being personally well known to me as the persons who executed the said certificate, and each and all acknowledged the same to be his, her and their act and deed for the purpose therein mentioned.

Given under my hand and official seal, this seventeenth day of April, A.D. 1893.

(Signed.) S.G. HOPKINS, _Notary Public_.

Immediately following our accession to the Treaty of Geneva, March 1, 1882, the president of the Red Cross was asked by the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, to prepare a history of the Red Cross for publication by them through the government printing office. This was done, and a book of two hundred and twenty-seven pages was issued, giving an account of the origin of the organization, the steps by which it became a treaty, of our own initiation, and not only the exact text by which our accession was made, but that of every other nation within the treaty up to that time, 1882.

A bill for a reprint by Congress of fifty thousand copies of this book was lost in the session of 1898 through lack of time.

No consecutive book has been published by us since that date, but the history has been perhaps even more fully told, and that scores of times, in public addresses which its president and assistants have been called to make before great assemblies, selections from some of which will appear in this volume, as the fullest information given in the most compact manner that we can render in the short space of time allotted us.

The very title of the organization, viz.: "Relief in War," has been a misnomer, and through all the early years especially was very generally misunderstood by the public. I have not unfrequently been invited and innocently urged to attend peace meetings and large charity gatherings for the poor and afflicted on the ground of needing instruction myself; inasmuch as I "was engaged in advocating war, wouldn't it be well to hear something on the other side?" And I have been invited to become party to a discussion in which the merits of peace and war should be compared.

Large organizations of women, the best in the country, and, I believe, the best in the world, have faithfully labored with me to merge the Red Cross into their society as a part of woman's work; without the smallest conception or realization of its scope, its international character, its treaty obligations, and the official ground it was liable at any time to be called to occupy.

Many charming invitations, from ladies even more charming, to address their convention or meeting, have still contained some well chosen word which might imply a question, if indeed the Red Cross really were the humane and philanthropic institution it claimed to be; naturally the address usually dealt with the question as it was put.

I name these facts as mere relics of the past, amusing now, but instructive to you of the present day (when no child even questions the motives of the Red Cross), as showing what it had to meet and live through in order to live at all.

In order to show the enthusiastic devotees of the present year how questionable the beneficence of the Red Cross appeared to the best people only a few years ago, I introduce the following address, read, by request, before a congress of women, 1895 or 1896, hoping that the charitably disposed reader will understand and appreciate the state of mind engendered by the title of the request made, and forgive any seeming acerbity:

ADDRESS.

WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RED CROSS IN ITS RELATION TO PHILANTHROPY?

I am asked to say something upon the "Significance of the Red Cross in its Relation to Philanthropy." I am not sure that I understand precisely what is desired.

If a morning paper should announce that three or four of the greatest political bosses or greatest railroad kings in the country had quietly met somewhere, and sat with closed doors till long after midnight, and then silently departed, people would ask, "What is the significance of that? What mischief have they been devising in secret?" In that sense of the word, _significance_--which is a very common one--the Red Cross has none that I ever heard of. It has no rich offices to bestow, no favorites to reward, no enemies to punish. It has no secrets to keep, no mystic word or sign. Its proceedings would, and do, make a valuable library, accessible to all men and all women from Norway to New Zealand.

I will not say that it is so simple and common in character that he who runs may read, but surely she who desires information can sit down, read and obtain it. The Red Cross has been quietly doing its work for thirty years and is now established in forty independent nations. No other institution on earth, not even Christianity, has a public recognition so nearly universal. None has ever adhered more closely to its one single purpose of alleviating human suffering. Has that any significance or any connection with philanthropy? Let us see.

An institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness. I suppose it is a philanthropic movement to try to reverse the process. Christianity, temperance and sanitary regulations in general are examples. Great evils die hard; and all that has yet been done is to keep them within as narrow limits as possible. Of these great evils, war is one. War is in its very nature cruel--the very embodiment of cruelty in its effects--not necessarily in the hearts of the combatants. Baron Macaulay thought it not a mitigation but an aggravation of the evil, that men of tender culture and humane feelings, with no ill will, should stand up and kill each other. But men do not go to war to save life. They might save life by keeping the peace and staying at home. They go solely with intent to inflict so much pain, loss and disaster on the enemy that he will yield to their terms. All their powers to hurt are focused upon him.