Storm and Controversy
To many members of the American Red Cross the work in the Spanish-American War exemplified all that was wrong with their organization: lack of coordination, and the arbitrary and short-sighted rule of Clara Barton. Yet she seemed perfectly satisfied. In her book, The Red Cross in Peace and War (1898), she contended that the Red Cross took a major and laudatory part in the hospital operations in Cuba. She made no attempts at conciliation or compromise with her critics and continued to run the American Red Cross in the same individualistic style.
Clara Barton insisted that assistance and relief during peacetime become a standard Red Cross practice. Here the Red Cross gives help after the hurricane at Galveston, Texas, in 1900.
It came as no surprise to those who knew Barton when she rushed once more to a scene of a disaster. In September 1900 a hurricane and tidal wave nearly submerged Galveston, Texas, and Barton, though 80 years old, did not hesitate. Six weeks later she returned to Glen Echo laden with praise and testimonials that her achievements in Galveston were “greater than the conquests of nations or the inventions of genius.”
Her desire to remain in the field stymied the growth of the American Red Cross because she failed to delegate authority. When she spent six weeks or ten months away from Washington she left behind no organization to continue day-to-day activities, solicit contributions, or expand programs. Local chapters felt alienated from the national group and resented that they often provided the material support but saw little of the praise. One critic, Sophia Welk Royce Williams, wrote: “The National Red Cross Association in this country has been Miss Clara Barton, and Miss Clara Barton has been the National Red Cross Society.... [The Red Cross] has been of great service to suffering humanity, but when one asks for detailed reports, for itemized statements of disbursements ... these things either do not exist or are not furnished.” The better course, Williams believed, would have been for the Red Cross to adopt the organization of the Sanitary Commission. Barton’s group clearly lacked a national organization, a national board, and reports that would stand as models and guides for relief work.
If the organization suffered, the quality of relief did not. At least one initially skeptical correspondent saw much to praise in the one-woman show. While visiting the hurricane-devastated Sea Islands in South Carolina, Joel Chandler Harris wrote that the Red Cross’s “strongest and most admirable feature is extreme simplicity. The perfection of its machinery is shown by the apparent absence of all machinery. There are no exhibitions of self-importance. There is no display—no tortuous cross-examination of applicants—no needless delay. And yet nothing is done blindly, or hastily or indifferently.”
What Harris also saw was a concerted effort to assist without the demeaning effects of charity. Barton developed a knack for leaving a disaster area at the right time: “It is indispensable that one know when to end such relief, in order to avoid first the weakening of effort and powers for self-sustenance; second the encouragement of a tendency to beggary and pauperism.”
During her 23-year tenure as president of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton was both its chief asset and its greatest liability. As founder and president she promoted the Red Cross cause with all of her considerable talent, and she brought zeal and idealism to Red Cross relief work.
At the same time, her domineering, and sometimes high-handed, ways hindered organizational growth. As Red Cross historian Foster Rhea Dulles notes, her methods of administration were not always based on sound business practices and did not command the confidence of many people who might have given the association broader support.
Barton’s failure to delegate authority and to acknowledge popular contributions more formally provided the basis for the criticism that overwhelmed her between 1900 and 1904. It also accounted, at least in part, for the bitter personal attacks that led to a deepening feud between her friends and foes. Despite her adaptability in earlier days, it was almost impossible for her to adjust to the new conditions of Red Cross activity.
The group that opposed her was made up of prominent Red Cross workers and was led by Mabel Boardman, an able and ambitious society woman. Boardman’s group was anxious to see the Red Cross reorganized and their cause gained momentum during 1900 and 1901. Barton refused to consider it. Instead she divided the Red Cross into camps of “friends” and “enemies.” She accused her foes of seeking power and of trying to gain admission to the royal courts of Europe through the Red Cross. At the annual meeting in 1902 after anticipating a move to force her resignation, she rallied her forces and emerged with greater powers and the presidency for life. “Perhaps not quite wise,” she wrote, “in view of ugly remarks that may be made.” For the opposition, who believed that the new charter had been railroaded through, this was the last straw.
After the 1902 meeting Barton thought that “the clouds of despair and dread” had finally lifted, but events moved swiftly against her. Boardman’s group succeeded in convincing President Theodore Roosevelt that she was mishandling what was, by then, a quasi-governmental office. On January 2, 1903, his secretary wrote to Barton stating that the President and Cabinet would not serve—as all of his predecessors had—on a committee of consultation for the Red Cross. The President directed his secretary to announce publicly his withdrawal from the Red Cross board.
Barton was humiliated by the President’s clear endorsement of the opposition faction, but she was absolutely devastated by the subsequent decision to have a government committee investigate the Red Cross. The official charges maintained that proper books of accounts were not kept, that funds and contributions were not always reported to the Red Cross treasurer, and that money was distributed in an arbitrary and inconsistent manner. There was also a question about a tract of land located in Indiana that had been donated to the Red Cross but never reported to the organizational board. The charges were serious. Barton knew that she had often used only her own judgment to apportion relief funds and that she seldom kept accurate records in the field. She was so much a part of her organization that she often failed to differentiate between personal and Red Cross expenses—using her own funds for relief work and donations for private needs. Unofficially her foes also contended that she was too old and infirm to lead the Red Cross; they felt new blood was desperately needed.
Barton was deeply wounded by the controversy swirling around her. A loyal and patriotic woman, she felt that her friends and country had deserted her and that she had been scrupulously honest. For a time, she even considered fleeing to Mexico, but she was dissuaded by friends. Though the investigating committee dropped the charges, thereby completely exonerating her from any wrongdoing, she felt the indignity for the rest of her life.
It is ironic that the qualities Clara Barton cherished and exemplified most—loyalty and friendship, honesty and individual action—were the very ones in question during the investigation. She could not admit defeat, or even unconscious wrongdoing of any kind. There is no question that the time had come for her to give up leadership of the Red Cross, but it is sad that her foes could not have eased her out more gracefully or handled the situation with tact and sympathy. In May 1904, at the age of 83, Clara Barton resigned as president of the American Red Cross.
In retirement she broke all ties with the Red Cross but retained a lively interest in its activities. She often felt bitter about the events that preceded her resignation, and she particularly resented the way in which new Red Cross members were prejudiced against her—“ignorant of every fact, simply enemies by transmission.” She was also critical of the way in which the new Red Cross leaders approached relief work, especially during the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. A small note of satisfaction is detected in a diary entry: “The President has withdrawn the distribution of public moneys contributed for San Francisco from the Red Cross.... He finds he made a mistake in giving too much power to the Red Cross.”
Still, she usually wished the best for the Red Cross. Her “one great desire” was to “leave my little immigrant of twenty-seven years ago a great National Institution.” And she hoped her successors would be “freed from the severity of toil, the anguish of perplexity, uncertainty, misunderstanding, and often privations, which have been ours in the past.”
One of her last public efforts was the formation, in 1905, of the National First Aid Society, which helped establish community aid programs. “I thought I had done my country and its people the most humane service it would ever be in my power to offer,” commented Barton, “But ... [the Red Cross] reached only a certain class. All the accidents concerning family life ... manufactories and railroads ... were not within its province. Hence the necessity and the opportunity for this broader work covering all.”
Theodore Roosevelt
Continues on [page 62]
“I Would Never Wear Undeserved Honors”
Clara Barton was one of the most decorated women in United States history. In appreciation of her courageous humanitarian services she received ten badges and medals from foreign countries. Many of these medals were conferred upon her in person by such leaders as Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany and his daughter Louise, the grand duchess of Baden. In one instance, Abdul Mamed, the sultan of Turkey, was so impressed with Barton’s methods of relief work that he accompanied his medal with a message to the State Department: if America desired to send further relief to Turkey, please send Clara Barton and her workers.
Although she was never officially honored by the United States government, Barton received many private medals and honorary memberships from American organizations; the Loyal Legion of Women of Washington, D.C., the Waffengenossen (German-American soldiers who took part in the Franco-Prussian War), the Vanderbilt Benevolent Association of South Carolina, and the Ladies of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, were among those that honored Clara Barton in this way. One award she particularly valued was a medal presented to her in 1882 by the International Committee of the Red Cross, when America adopted the Treaty of Geneva. Barton was also proud of the numerous “royal jewels” which were gifts of her friends the grand duchess of Baden, and Augusta, empress of Germany. Barton’s favorite among these was a large amethyst, carved in the shape of a pansy.
She enjoyed her decorations without apology. They were in old boxes inside a “simple little wicker satchel,” and she rarely let them out of her sight. She even took them with her when she traveled. Visitors to her Glen Echo home were always eager to see the medals, and Barton was eager to show them. She would spend hours telling stories about the decorations beginning with a gold Masonic emblem. “My father gave it to me when I started for the front (during the Civil War),” Barton would say, “and I have no doubt that it protected me on many an occasion.”
Pansy carved from amethyst
Iron Cross of Imperial Germany
International Red Cross medal
Many of her favorite tales involved the Iron Cross of Germany; one of these took place in Massachusetts. She had been invited to a ball at which she wore a number of her medals. “I was being whirled around the ballroom by some gallant or other when I saw three German officers looking curiously at me as I passed. I wondered for a moment but promptly forgot about it until, as we swung around the room again ... the music suddenly stopped short. Everyone was gazing about bewilderedly, when I saw three officers advancing toward me and stopping, in front of me, gave the full German military salute. I was thoroughly astonished, but rallied enough to return the salute, which I fortunately remembered.” Barton thought the whole situation highly amusing. “They did not know who I was,” she concluded, “they simply dared not pass the Iron Cross without saluting it.”
Smoky topaz with pearls
Cross of Imperial Russia
Masonic emblem
Another humorous incident involved one of Barton’s royal jewels. Many of the decorations were valuable in themselves, for they were fashioned from gold and silver and set with diamonds, sapphires, and exquisite enamel work. However, one brooch in particular was precious: a large smoky topaz set in gold, and surrounded by 24 perfectly matched pearls, the gift of the grand duchess of Baden. Once Barton took the brooch to Tiffany’s in New York for repair. She was dressed simply, as was her habit, and an efficient floorwalker suspected that perhaps she was not the rightful owner of the jewel. Eventually a manager was brought in who recognized Barton and cleared up the matter. He then expressed his admiration of the topaz brooch, especially the 24 pearls. Clara Barton liked to remember how astonished the suspicious floorwalker was that “such a shabby woman should own such remarkable jewels.”
Barton enjoyed wearing her decorations as much as talking about them and she nearly always pinned on several before addressing an audience, or attending a meeting. In her later years she was often seen weeding the garden or milking the cows with one or two medals attached to her cotton workdress. On one occasion she was nearly weighted down by simultaneously wearing the Iron Cross, the Red Cross of Geneva, the Masonic badge, the Silver Cross of Serbia, and the extremely heavy Empress Augusta Medal. Said Barton: “They do brighten up the old dress.”
The business of First Aid took up much of her time, but she continued her other interests. She attended and spoke at suffrage conventions and held a party for 400 feminists at her Glen Echo home. But she viewed with a jaundiced eye the arrival of the “suffragettes.” “Huge hats, dangerous hatpins, hobble and harem skirts,” she observed in her diary of 1911, “the conduct of the Suffragettes are [sic] hard to defend.” She mourned the death of Susan B. Anthony in 1906, and gave her final public remarks on behalf of women as a tribute to Anthony’s memory: “A few days ago someone said in my presence that every woman in the world should stand with bared head before Susan B. Anthony. Before I had time to think I said, ‘And every man as well.’ I would not retract the words. I believe her work is more for the welfare of man than for that of woman herself. Man is trying to carry the burdens of the world alone. When he had the efficient help of woman he should be glad, and he will be. Just now it is new and strange, and men cannot comprehend what it would mean. But when such help comes, and men are used to it, they will be grateful for it. The change is not far away. This country is to know woman suffrage, and it will be a glad and proud day when it comes.”
In the years that Clara Barton spent at Glen Echo, she came to love her house and yard. Here Dr. Hubbell, Mary Hines, the housekeeper, and Clara Barton relax at the dinner table.
Barton was also kept busy by the work of two households—the Glen Echo house and a summer home in North Oxford, Massachusetts. She worked in the gardens, put up fruit and vegetables, did her own laundry, and even milked the cows. She also continued her voluminous correspondence, and wrote a slim autobiographical volume, The Story of My Childhood. The book, published in 1907, was intended to be the first of a series. The work of writing was taxing, however, and she never finished the second volume. But she remained active. “I still work many hours, and walk many miles,” she proudly told friends in 1909. In her diary she wrote that she had had “a hard day’s work—but I am so thankful—so grateful that I can do it, and am not a helpless invalid to be waited on.”
Barton knew she was aging but fought it. Privately she conceded that “there is a lack of coordination between the brain and the limbs,” but publicly she resented any allusion to her age. She disliked giving away recent photographs of herself and wished people would accept pictures of her in “strong middle life.” She also fooled nature—and many people—by artistically covering her age. A young relative was amazed to find that Aunt Clara “was very particular about her make-up and in those days there were few people who dared use creams and rouge and powder, but Aunt Clara used them skillfully and the result was most amazingly good. She looked years younger when she had finished ... and her eyebrows were treated with a pencil, if you please.
“Next came the combing of her coal black hair which, by the way, had been dyed. Mother told me once when she was with Aunt Clara when she was sick for a long period and couldn’t have her hair attended to, it was lovely and white, but she would not have it so and wore it dyed black to the very last.
“After her face and hair were finished ... [she] put on her waist, but before buttoning it down the front, she stuffed tissue paper all across the front to make a nice rounded bust.”
She was, in many ways, an eccentric figure. Visitors were amused to see her weed the garden, her chest plastered with the decorations of foreign governments. She was always an individual in matters of dress, but her costumes became more unusual in her later years. Her favorite dress color was green and she enjoyed wearing a dash of red. One outfit had five ill-matching shades of green for skirt, sleeves, collar and bodice, two kinds of lace, red ribbon, “and about the bottom ... was a strip of the most awful old motheaten beaver fur, about six inches wide.” Financially, she was quite well off, but in the best New England tradition she practiced economy in all things.
When a part of her dress wore out, she apparently replaced it with whatever material was on hand.
Most of Clara Barton’s friends and family died before her, and in her last years she was often lonely. She sometimes thought her achievements were worthless beside the importance of friendship. “What matters the praise of the world?” Barton asked herself in her journal on February 6, 1907, “and what matter after we leave it especially? How hollow is that thing called fame.”
Barton’s loneliness heightened what had been a mild interest in spiritualism. She used faith healers and urged them on others. From 1903 on she was a champion of Christian Science and was an outspoken defender of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. She also dabbled in astrology and became a firm believer in spiritualistic seances. Much of her time after 1907 was spent in the company of a medium. With complete sincerity Barton recorded conversations with Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman, with her family, and with old friends Susan B. Anthony, President McKinley, and Empress Augusta of Germany. She relied on these “spirits” for advice and persuaded Dr. Hubbell to depend on them, too. This had unfortunate repercussions. After Barton’s death, Hubbell was taken in by a woman who claimed to have made contact with Barton’s spirit. Hubbell was so under the influence of this woman that he actually gave her the house at Glen Echo. It was several years and court cases later before he got the house back.
Clara Barton died on April 12, 1912, at the age of 90. She had endured double-pneumonia twice in one year and was too weak to recover fully. Her last words, recalled from a favorite poem, were “Let me go, let me go.”
She was a remarkable woman. She was neither the Christ-like figure Dr. Hubbell idolized, nor the grasping Red Cross potentate that others saw. She was an individual capable of firm action, strong beliefs, and an ability to see a need clearly and fulfill it. To everything she did—schoolteaching, Civil War aid, and Red Cross relief—she brought strong idealism and unfailing energy. She was truly exceptional.
In 1902 Clara Barton was asked to be commencement speaker for Philadelphia’s Blockley Hospital nursing class. Here she poses with the graduates for the camera. By her eighty-first year she had become a national figure despite the mounting criticism of her management of the American Red Cross.