Clara Barton: A Centenary Tribute to the World's Greatest Humanitarian / Founder of the American Red Cross Society, Author of the American Amendment to the International Red Cross Convention of Geneva, Founder of the National First Aid Association of America

by Charles Sumner Young

THE WAIL OF AN ACHING HEART

Glen Echo, Maryland,

January 13, 1904.

My dear Mr. Young:

It is a blessing to your friends that you have a good memory. Otherwise, how should you have carried the recollection of poor me, all these weary months running into years and, through friends all unknown to me, sent such tribute of respect.

I waited, after receiving the notices from you, to be sure of the arrival. I have directed the acknowledgement to be made to Mr. and Mrs. Canfield, but words tell so little; you will, I am sure, thank them for me.

You will never know how many times I have thought of you, in this last, hard and dreadful year to me. I cannot tell you, I must not, and yet I must. So much of the time, under all the persecution it has seemed to me I could not remain in the country, and have sought the range of the world for some place among strangers and out of the way of people and mails—and longed for some one to point out a quiet place in some other land; my thoughts have fled to you, who would at least tell me a road to take, outside of America, and who would ask of the authorities of Mexico if a woman who could not live in her own country might find a home, or a resting place, in theirs.

© Hartsook.
CHAMP CLARK
Clara Barton rendered her country and her kind great and noble service.—Champ Clark, of Missouri. Congress, 1893–1895; 1897–1921; Speaker of the House, 1911–1921.

REPRESENTATIVE OF UNITED STATES CONGRESS

CHARLES F. CURRY

DENVER S. CHURCH

Clara Barton, one of the great characters of history; unselfish and altruistic in her service for humanity; an American, intensely patriotic, but with an international mind and sympathy that embraced all humanity.—Charles F. Curry, of California. Congress 1913—

I regard Clara Barton one of the greatest women that ever lived.—Denver S. Church, of California. Congress, 1913–1919.

This will all sound very strange to you—you will wonder if I am “out of my mind”—let me answer—no; and if you had only a glimpse of what is put upon me to endure, you would not wonder, and in the goodness of your heart, would hold the gate open to show me a mule-track to some little mountain nook, where I might escape and wait in peace. Don’t think this is common talk with me, I have never said it to others; and yet I think they, who know me best, may mistrust that I cannot endure everything and will try in some way to relieve myself.

To think of sitting here through an “investigation” by the country I have tried to serve,—“in the interest of harmony,” they say, when I have never spoken a discordant word in my life, meaningly, but have worked on in silence under the fire of the entire press of the U. S. for twelve months,—forgiven all, offered friendship,—and am still to be “investigated,” for “inharmony,” “unbusinesslike methods,” and too many years—all of these I cannot help. I am still unanimously bidden to work on for “life,” bear the burden of an organization—meet its costs myself—and am now threatened with the expenses of an “investigation.”

Can you wonder that I ask a bridle track? And that some other country might look inviting to me?

Mr. Young, this unhappy letter is a poor return to make for your friendly courtesy, but so long my dark thoughts have turned to you that I cannot find myself with the privilege of communicating with you without expressing them. I cannot think where I have found the courage to do it, but I have.

I know how unwise a thing it seems but if the pressure is too great the bands may break, that may be my case, and fearing that my better judgment might bid me put these sheets in the fire—I send them without once glancing over. You will glance them over and put them in the fire. Forgive me. You need not forget, but kindly remember, rather, that they are the wail of an aching heart and that is all. Nature has provided a sure and final rest for all the heart aches that mortals are called to endure.

If you are in the East again, and I am here, I pray you come to me.

Receive again my thanks and permit me to remain,

Your friend,

(Signed) Clara Barton.

Earth naught nobler knows

Than is the victim brave beneath his cross.

’Tis in the shadow that the dawn-light grows.

Archag Tchobanian.