EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
On Saturday, December 12th, there was a telegraphic report that a hundred men had been killed by a dynamite explosion at Panama. Mr. Taft, being at that time in Washington, on his suggestion an inquiry as to the need of assistance was sent to Colonel Goethals. Fortunately the report was exaggerated and as will be seen by the following dispatches, aid was not required.
Col. Goethals, Chairman Panama Canal Commission, Panama.
Deeply concerned to hear of accident. The Red Cross Society expresses much sympathy, and is prepared to furnish financial assistance for relief if you deem it necessary. Answer.
TAFT.
To which Col. Goethals replied:
We greatly appreciate your kind message and offer of the Red Cross Society. No financial assistance necessary, and Commission hospitals fully equipped to care for wounded.
GOETHALS.
Bailey, Banks & Biddle, of Philadelphia, who have provided the insignia badge for Red Cross officers, have been asked to prepare a design for special medals to be awarded to those persons who have rendered special volunteer and unremunerated services to the Red Cross at times of war or disaster.
The Executive Committee are much indebted to the help that the American Hospital Association has rendered to the American Red Cross in its efforts to suppress the misuse of the Red Cross insignia by the passing of resolutions against the use of this emblem by civil hospitals at the annual convention held at Toronto, during last September. Dr. Babcock, the Secretary, writes that the proceedings leading up to the adoption of the resolutions will be published in the Transactions and also in The National Hospital Record. So many hospitals have been using the Red Cross on tags for sale on “Tag Day” that it is a satisfaction to report that in San Francisco the officers of The Children’s Hospital, at the request of the California Red Cross, consented not to use the Red Cross, but to substitute in its place the Hospital or Green Cross on the tags and thereby earned a rich and well-deserved harvest. The resolutions passed by the American Hospital Association reads as follows:
Whereas, by the terms of the Treaty of Geneva, 1864, and the revised Treaty of Geneva, 1906, the emblem of the Greek Red Cross on a white ground, and the words Red Cross or Geneva Cross, were adopted to designate the personnel and material of the medical departments of the military and naval forces and of the recognized volunteer aid societies in time of war, for the humane purpose of rendering them immune from attack or capture; and,
Whereas, the United States, as well as all other civilized powers, is a signatory to said treaties; and,
Whereas, the use of the Red Cross insignia by hospitals, ambulances, municipal health departments and commercial houses, as trade marks and otherwise, has become so general in this country as to materially and seriously impair the usefulness of the emblem for the purposes for which it was created and adopted;
Be it therefore Resolved, That it is the sense of the American Hospital Association that the use of the Geneva Red Cross in connection with the hospitals and ambulances of the country, other than those of the Army, Navy and Red Cross Society, should be discontinued and some other insignia, to be known as the “Hospital Cross” adopted and substituted; and,
Be it further Resolved, That the adoption of this resolution be given as wide publicity as practicable in the medical journals of the country.