The Life of Clara Barton, Founder of the American Red Cross (Vol. 2 of 2)

by William E. Barton

FOOTNOTES:

[2] This is not precisely the name which this rival organization assumed. There would appear to be no good reason for recording it; but the fact that there were several such organizations which sprang into being immediately after President Garfield’s recognition of Clara Barton should not be forgotten.

[3] Of this proposed treaty of October 20, 1868, the 9th article was as follows:

Art. IX. The military hospital ships remain under martial law in all that concerns their stores; they become the property of the captor, but the latter must not divert them from their special appropriation during the continuance of the war.

[The vessels not equipped for fighting, which, during peace, the Government shall have officially declared to be intended to serve as floating hospital ships, shall, however, enjoy during the war complete neutrality, both as regards stores, and also as regards their staff, provided their equipment is exclusively appropriated to the special service on which they are employed.]

In the published English text, from which this version of the Additional Articles is taken, the paragraph thus marked in brackets appears in continuation of Article IX. It is not, however, found in the original French text adopted by the Geneva conference, October 20, 1868.

By an instruction sent to the United States minister at Berne, January 20, 1883, the right is reserved to omit this paragraph from the English text, and to make any other necessary corrections, if at any time hereafter the Additional Articles shall be completed by the exchange of the ratifications hereof between the several signatory and adhering powers.

CHAPTER XI
CLARA BARTON AT SHERBORN

It will be well at this point to make plain three points which were not clearly understood at the outset, and have sometimes been misunderstood since.

The first is that Clara Barton, in establishing the Red Cross in America, was not seeking primarily to provide a place for herself. At this period she had three homes, and money enough to support herself comfortably in any one of them. We have an interesting look into the Dansville home in a letter of her brother David to his daughter, Ida Barton Riccius. He was ill, and she, not yet recovered from her own illness, took him in and nursed him back to health. He wrote:

Dansville, June 13, 1880

Clara’s friends met us at the cars and rendered all necessary assistance. I was very weak and tired.

Clara lives in a very splendid old mansion, in a location unsurpassed, and a grand view of all the surroundings. Her house is filled with almost everything that adds to health, comfort, and happiness. Clara is very attentive to me. I think it came rather hard on her the first part of the time. Perhaps she will stand it a little better now that I am better and can possibly assist her a little. I have been gradually gaining since I arrived, considering how miserable I was when I came.

The living here agrees with me exceedingly well. We have plenty of good fresh milk, fresh graham bread from the bakery, fresh graham meal to make puddings, butter, cheese, apple-sauce, any kind of canned fruit we choose, which generally constitutes our breakfast. For dinner we have meat, fish, beans, potatoes, and things of that kind. For supper we have bread, butter, tea or coffee, cheese, and fruit of any kind. This is the way we live and I enjoy it much. Clara has nearly all sorts of canned fruit in abundance, but what is best of all is plenty of nice fresh apples which I go into without mercy.

Clara Barton would have smiled a little at her brother’s arrangement of her menus. She probably would have said that she had a simple breakfast of graham bread, fresh butter, and fruit; a hearty midday meal of meat or fish and vegetables; and a light supper of bread, butter, cheese, and fruit, with abundance of sweet milk and an unlimited supply of good red apples.

This was the kind of home which Clara Barton left when she went to Washington to plead for the Red Cross. She often longed for it, and thought of going back there. Yet the purpose which had taken her to Dansville had been accomplished in her restored health. There was no important work for her to do there, or at Oxford. She could have a roof and red apples in either place, but she wanted to be promoting what had become the great object in life for her. That was what brought her back to Washington.

If, in all the weary months when she was fighting her lonely battles for the Red Cross, it ever occurred to her that this organization would give to her a life position, or bring to her either money or other emoluments, there is no hint of it in her diaries. So far as one may judge from these intimate self-revelations, her purpose was as genuinely altruistic as human nature is capable of becoming.

Nor is there any indication that she supposed that this would bring her additional honor. She already had more honors of certain desirable kinds than any other woman in America. Her Civil War record was known throughout the Nation. The lecture platform offered her an inviting and remunerative invitation to return if she cared to take it up. She had brought back with her from Europe official decorations such as royalty neither before nor since has ever bestowed upon an American woman.

Secretary Blaine inquired about these with interest one day, and a few days later she handed three of them to his secretary with the following letter:

Washington, D.C., Oct. 31, 1881

To the Hon. Secretary of State
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Blaine:

After the words unintentionally dropped at the interview so kindly granted me on Saturday, it occurs to me that it is perhaps the suitable thing for me to do, possibly a duty, to explain to you, as the Head of our foreign relations, my own connection in that direction. I will with your kind permission take the liberty to pass in, by the hand of your secretary, the accompanying “Decorations”:

The “Iron Cross of Merit” issued to me in 1872 by the Emperor and Empress of Germany on the occasion of the seventy-fifth birthday of the Emperor.

The “Gold Cross of Remembrance” presented to me by the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Baden at the close of the Franco-German War.

The “Red Cross of Geneva,” brought to Strassburg and placed upon my neck by the Grand Duchess of Baden, near whose court I suppose by courtesy I in a manner belong, as the winter of 1872 was passed there, and I left with the faithful promise to return to Europe once in two years, and pass each alternate winter with her, a promise which circumstances alone have prevented me from keeping,—the first four years after my return to America in 1873 were passed as a broken-down invalid, mainly confined to my room or bed. The four last, since on my feet, I have been held here by my efforts, and my promise given repeatedly abroad, to plant the Red Cross on our own soil, and hang its peaceful humane flag beside our “Stars and Stripes.”

I am glad, Mr. Secretary, that you have seen it, as you have in the late celebration, for you will be the better able, it may be, to comprehend and excuse my persistency. Except for this constant and exhaustive occupation, I should have passed either of the last winters at Carlsruhe; but it has been sufficient to consume my entire time, strength, and spare means, and must continue to do so, until the treaty is disposed of and the Societies of the Red Cross, so indispensable to the effectiveness and utility of the treaty, are understood by the people, and measurably established throughout the country. To this end, I have at this moment in press a small work of a hundred or so pages, explaining the entire subject, its origin, history, and purposes, and of which I have ordered five thousand copies for gratuitous circulation. They will be ready at the opening of Congress or before, and I have four thoroughly formed societies, one National in this city, completed and incorporated, one Local in Dansville, New York, one in the city of Rochester, New York, for the county of Monroe, and one similarly organized in Syracuse, New York. Both Rochester and Syracuse are forming local, town societies under them, and all, in the happy absence of war, are using up their surplus energies on the burnt fields of Michigan, to which their agents have already taken thousands of dollars to the hungry, and thousands of garments to the naked.

I must beg, Mr. Blaine, that you do not misinterpret my motive in making this little revelation of foreign recognition. If the incentive had been mere personal vanity, I should probably have found a way to make the facts known, short of a decade, but it comes to me now, that it is perhaps, under the circumstances, a kind of duty that I should report to you on “Foreign Affairs.”

Begging your pardon for my too long letter, I remain, Mr. Secretary, with the most grateful respect,

Very truly
Clara Barton

The next thing that should be kept clearly in mind is that she did not establish an organization dependent upon Government appropriations. In this respect her organization was quite unlike some of those that were hastily organized to oppose her. At least one of these was organized with an eye keenly intent upon one form of then existing Government service, with which it might possibly be affiliated, with an inviting prospect of salaried positions and official appointments. When the Treaty of Geneva was ratified, and not only the Senate but House of Representatives stood ready to do almost anything for Clara Barton, many of her friends in Congress assumed that the next step would be a request for a Congressional appropriation to cover the administrative expense of the Red Cross organization. To every such suggestion Clara Barton returned an emphatic negative. This was her little creed announced at the outset, and often reiterated:

The Red Cross means, not national aid for the needs of the people, but the people’s aid for the needs of the Nation.

She would not accept a salary or permit any friend of hers in Congress to introduce a bill for her financial advantage.

How keenly she felt the importance of establishing the Red Cross upon this basis, and how sensitive she was to the opposition which grew formidable just before the treaty was adopted, is shown in a letter of hers to her long-time friend Frances Willard, who wrote to ask the reason why she was not moving faster in her work for the relief of the people in the flooded district along the Mississippi:

Washington, Feby. 11, 1882

Dear Frances Willard:

Yes, I did get your letter telling me about the state of things in Mississippi and that all was lost there. I have no doubt but that it is the same the country through. It is hard and heavy and bitter; the shots of malice and detraction fall thick, but I must stand at the helm and steer my ship safely into port. The Treaty of Geneva must first be secured. I have but one passage to take it through and that is lined thick on every side with guns manned by the Society ladies of the Capital of the Nation. The Red Cross, a little stranger craft from a foreign land, bearing only the banner of peace and love, and her messages of world-wide mercy begging shelter and acceptance in our capacious harbor, has chosen me for her pilot to bring her in. Besides these guns that open upon her on all sides she runs against the chains which have so long held her out—fancied Government defenses of “Non-intervention,” “Self-isolation,” beware of “Entangling alliances,” “Washington’s Farewell Address,” “Monroe Doctrine,” apathy, inertia, general ignorance, national conceit, national distrust, a desire to retain the old-time barbarous privileges of privateering and piracy which we have hugged as a precious boon against every humane treaty since we began. All these my little ship has had to meet and breast and bear down, before this new and personal attack was opened upon her, so you see I cannot turn aside from my duties of a true pilot to contest a new foe. I must bring my ship through the natural dangers and anchor it safely in port, though it and I be riddled with shot. I have thrown over all extra weight, put on all sail, muzzled my guns, put my poor tired wounded crew to the pumps, nailed the little flag to the mast; and so you see us without other word or sign, plunging through the surf, breaking down chain after chain, through the fire and smoke, making for the shore. Never a messenger of mercy met a more inhospitable welcome, but the poor battered pilot has faith in the craft, and faith in God, and at no distant day, in spite of all, we shall throw out a sturdy old iron anchor to grapple with the reefs of the coast, and run up a little pennant beside the cross, “Treaty Ratified.” After this we shall be freed from our national disgrace, relieved from the charge and duties of safe conduct for our course, and then if there is call for arbitration we will be ready.

The success of her work along the Mississippi made it evident that she must continue the direction of the Red Cross. But that did not by any means convince her that she was to give up everything else and stay in Washington. She began to look for something else to do, and something that would take her far away from the seat of government.

She rather coveted than otherwise the opportunity to show without advertising the fact that she had other and visible means of support, and that her work for the Red Cross was not undertaken for lack of other employment. Moreover, it was expected that its organization would be kept simple, and its work done promptly in times of emergency. That was why almost immediately after the Red Cross had become an actual organization, and she had been constituted its official head by Presidential nomination and international appointment, and all the opposing organizations had withered and died, she was willing to accept a salaried position in work of another kind.

About this time she had a letter from Governor Butler of Massachusetts. He knew her well and had seen much of her work during the Civil War. Out of a clear sky came his invitation to her.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Executive Department

Boston, January 8, 1883

My dear Miss Barton:

There is a vacancy in the office of Superintendent of the Woman’s Reformatory Prison of Massachusetts. It wants a woman at once of executive ability and kind-heartedness, with an honest love of the work of reformation and care of her living fellow creatures. How would that suit you? The salary is not very large. It is $1500.00 a year and house and expenses of living. Please let me hear from you at your earliest convenience. I am,

Very truly yours

Benj. F. Butler

To Miss Clara Barton
Dansville, New York

Nothing could have surprised her more than this invitation and it was four months before she decided to accept it. Even then she accepted with the stipulation that she would need to close her service in time to attend the International Convention of the Red Cross in Vienna in the following year.

Her acceptance of the position involved the giving of a bond of $10,000. With her customary independence she declined to ask any one to sign her bond, but deposited with the State Treasurer of Massachusetts $10,000 of interest-bearing bonds and became her own guarantor.

Prison work was something of which Clara Barton knew nothing and she did not bring to it any considerable number of theories as to how it ought to be performed. In her first report, rendered at the end of six months, she took pains to give large credit to those who had preceded her. She disclaimed for herself either knowledge or achievement. A portion of this report will bear record here:

With only the little experience of six months, you will readily concede that it cannot be considered my work; it would be unjust arrogance in me to assume it. The noble women and men who toiled for its existence, the faithful, tireless body of commissioners, who have watched, prayed, and labored unpaid for it, often unthanked since with its first baby breath it cried aloud. We, the women of the old Commonwealth, and more than all perhaps the two grand women who have preceded me in its charge, are entitled to consider Sherborn Prison their work. The strong brave-hearted woman, Mrs. Atkinson, who first dared to lay her hand, untried, upon that mass of chaos, and command order and law, life and reformation, to come out of it, was braver than a general. The peaceful, skillful, beloved Dr. Mosher who had the womanly courage to follow her, and strive and labor to shape still more perfectly the swelling, yeasty mass of human sin and misery till, like a wounded color-bearer she fell, bravely praying some comrade to bear them on to victory. These are the people whose work that prison is, and in their name, and theirs only, let me speak of it a moment and commend it to your loving interest and tender care.

Last May I found, as I entered its great halls, 230 women convicts. It has at present 275 to 280 women convicts, and, with those who so kindly care for them, make up a family of something over 300. These convicts I am expected to feed, clothe, work, and govern, they in turn to be fed, clothed, to work and obey. The most comprehensive and I believe correct report I could make would be, that we all faithfully perform what is expected of us. The manner in which it is accomplished, and the causes which lead to the necessity for such accomplishment, are, then, the remaining points of importance. The causes are as various and widespread as the sins and mishaps which beset erring humanity, but if you asked me what proportion I thought would be left, after all the temptations of liquor and men were removed, I should not require a large sheet on which to write it down.

Sherborn Reformatory is classed as a State’s Prison, and is thus squared by the same rule of discipline as ordinary State Prisons for the retention of State criminals.

And yet it is to be remembered that not a one-fourth part of these women are guilty of, or convicted of, any real crime, simply offenses—drunkenness and unseemly appearance upon the streets; and yet these poor hopeless, misguided, rum-wrecked women and night-walking girls are sentenced to the same servitude, subjected to the same code of discipline, and go out with the same brand of shame upon the brow, nay, far deeper than the clear-headed, cool, intelligent, calculating men of Concord, where every inmate is convicted of a crime. The sad conviction settles down upon me every day that the soul, brains of the crime of the Commonwealth are in Concord; the wrecks they have made are in Sherborn; and in my dealing with these women, I cannot lose sight of this fact. They are more weak than wicked, often more sinned against than sinning. This, to my mind, invites a parental, maternal system of government, and to this they are all amenable; even the most obstinate yields to a rule of kindness, firmly and steadily administered.

The records of this period are necessarily meager. Yet there have come to the author unsought testimonials of the great work which Clara Barton accomplished while there. While she never criticized her predecessors, but gave them generous praise, she stood not at all on any precedent established by them. She changed the atmosphere of the place from an institution of punishment to one of instruction and character-building. One who visited the prison while she was there has told the author of Clara Barton’s power over the incorrigible; how women that were violent and untamable by the ordinary methods became docile under her direction. As for the younger women who were not hardened, and were often more sinned against than sinning, they idolized her. She established two letter-boxes in the halls, one to receive letters addressed to herself. Any one of the three hundred inmates was at liberty to write to Miss Barton. A number of the letters which she received were preserved by her and have been read by her biographer. They were a pathetic group, some of them absurd in their requests, and others tragic in their appeal for help. The gratitude of others was quite beyond the poor power of expression possessed by these girls. In many instances these letters were followed by personal conferences very fruitful of good.

The other box was for letters of complaint addressed to the Board of Managers. Any inmate was at liberty to write a letter and place it there, assured that it would go direct, and that neither Miss Barton nor any of her assistants would read it. The first box was in constant use, the second scarcely ever contained a letter.

This was work for which Clara Barton had no natural liking. It was very far from the type of work she would have chosen. She never supposed it to be a permanent position. She accepted it because she felt that her health was sufficiently assured to justify her in undertaking some definite responsibility, and this was a place where she could go for a limited time and from it honorably retire. She was glad of a definite position in some other work than the Red Cross, yet one which did not compel her to resign her responsibilities in that organization. She found time while at Sherborn to attend a national gathering of philanthropic organizations in Denver, and deliver an address on the Red Cross. And she continued general oversight of its affairs. She retired from the work with no desire ever to see the inside of another prison; but also with a deepened interest in all work of that character, and with increased faith that in such work, as everywhere, kindness and an appeal to honor and self-respect were more effective than punishments which degrade and destroy hope.

She continued her work at Sherborn a little longer than she intended, because the term of Governor Butler was drawing to a close, and he did not wish to make a temporary appointment. She withdrew at the close of his term, and the day of her departure was a day of mourning in the prison at Sherborn.

A few months afterward an international conference was held at Saratoga and she was invited to deliver an address on prison reform. The notes of that address are preserved:

Some steps in life are accounted unwise, some foolish, some foolhardy. Until the present hour perhaps the most foolhardy step I have ever been led to take was the temporary superintendence of a State Prison for the management, control, and reformation of women.

Though consenting, however unwillingly, to undertake a work of which I knew nothing, and under such circumstances, I did undertake it. But, good, kind, and loving friends, in point of temerity and foolhardiness the effort of this present hour beggars that. That I, with literally no experience, no knowledge of the subject, with thoughts running always in other channels,—should in any way, however tacitly, have given consent to take my place at this desk this evening beside these gentlemen who embody in themselves the experimental knowledge of the world upon this subject, and before this audience, trained to thought, the cultivated cream of the land, is to me past human comprehension. The Lord directs—let us obey.

In May, 1883, after four months of combined importunity from the then Governor, General Butler, and all the people interested in and controlling the penal institutions of the State of Massachusetts, that I take the superintendency of Sherborn Reformatory Prison (and it was, I believe, the only point upon which the Governor and the people ever did agree), I decided to take it for six months. I remained something longer.

I entered that prison feeling myself so ignorant of all that pertained to its line of work and methods and thought, that it seemed to me positively wicked, to waste my own time and that of the community and those who must come under me, in the strengthless, thoughtless vacancy of my attempted work—I seemed to myself a kind of empty balloon.

At the end of eight months I went out of it, with a burden of thoughts, plans, ways and means, possible and impossible, under which my body could scarcely hold itself erect or my feet carry me away.

I seemed more to myself like an already heavy-ladened ship, which had met another in distress and taken on shipwrecked passengers and crew, till her gunwales hugged the water and her laboring wheels wearily tugged for the land.

So piled, so criss-crossed, so intricate, so vast, contradictory, perplexing, so vexed by customs, so hampered by foolish laws, so bound by mercenary ends, so fettered by political ambitions, aspirations, asperities and jealousies, to say nothing of the immutable laws of natural descent as related to crime—so discouraging was all this to be faced from the latter half of a busy life that I wearily and gladly turned and laid the burden down on the hands of you skilled laborers, and have mainly been content to feel and leave it there.

The subject of prison reform seems to me to be so vast, and the methods by which it is to be attempted so varied, that it can scarcely be touched in one talk.

The first question might be, What is meant by prison reform? and in what degree? Palliation or cure? I well remember the one question which always confronted me from visitors at Sherborn—“Miss Barton, how is it, do you really reform any one here?” My reply was, “That depends upon what you consider reform to consist in. If you mean to ask if we take women here, badly born, worse raised, with inherited, habitual, vagrant crime in their natures, with the grogshop and the brothel for their teachers, who never lived a decent day or knew a decent night, filthy inside and out, and that by a residence of a few months here we are able to send them out to you not only good, well-behaved, industrious, cleanly, sober, orderly, honest, respectable members of society,—something they never were before,—infallible, proof against all the temptations and vices which you of the free community on the outside may throw in their path, so they shall never fall again; then, No, we reform no one, and our prison is a failure; but, if reform may mean that the habits which must incidentally grow up in the minds, characters, and tastes of these women during a term of two years of sober, industrious, and instructed life, in which they shall see only cleanliness and order, where the workroom shall replace the street, the quiet cell, the school-room, and the chapel in the place of the grogshop and the brothel, kindly spoken words of advice, prayer, praise, and song in the place of oaths and vulgarity, and a resolution at least to try to lead a better life,—if all this may be accounted in the direction of reform, then, Yes, a thousand times Yes, we reform all that come within our reach.”

The prison in itself is all well, but the danger lies beyond in the temptations, the lures, and the traps of the community into which this poor, weak creature is plunged in her first hour of regained liberty. I never saw one of these women go out with her little bundle of freedom suit, and watched the eager yet timid and half-frightened look on her face, and felt the childlike, clinging grasp upon mine, and heard the universal “Good-bye, don’t forget me,” that through the tears a great prayer did not rise up in my heart, “O God, strengthen her weakness—guard her from the temptations and the snares leading her down to death, of Thy virtuous and free, outside these prison walls.”

I recall once an official visit from about twenty members of the State Legislature, at Boston, for the purpose of overlooking the prison and seeing what it might need and how it could be best officially served; accordingly they appealed to me for my opinion generally—if the prison were what it should be in its appointments, if it were large enough or too large, etc., and in a general way what I would recommend to them to do; as by recent Act they had made me not only Superintendent but Treasurer and Steward as well. I replied: “This Prison is all very well—a model prison and certainly as large as it ought to be for the size of the State; and it is very probable that there is not very much that you can directly do for it at present, as an Institution; but, Gentlemen, the Institution from which you come has the making of the laws by which this Institution exists; any time when you there will find a way to make it impossible for the people of this State to get intoxicating liquors, upon which to get drunk, I will guarantee that in six months the State of Massachusetts may rent Sherborn for a shoe manufactory.” I am not sure that they believed what I said, but I did and still do.

True, crime will exist without drunkenness, but to no such extent as to require two miles of prison galleries for the women of Massachusetts.

In this country I regard drunkenness as the great father of crime, and the mother of prisons, almshouses, asylums, and workhouses—the parent of vice and want and the instigator of murder. Whatever bears ever so little against this is to my mind “Prison Reform.”

Then follow in their mournful train the sin-bound cortège of primal and secondary causes of vice and crime and which make necessary the various methods of treatment which have been so ably discovered that no words of mine could throw a single ray of added light upon the subject. I can only concur, or perhaps express suggestively some preferences which may have presented themselves to me.

In regard to intermediate sentences: I may not be sufficiently clear upon the technical points as presented by our good brother, but in a general way I would say I am unequivocally in favor of an unfixed term of imprisonment when the sentence is given. A fixed time of release is an independence to the prisoner beyond the power of his keepers and stands directly in the way of all reform.

I would earnestly advocate everywhere, in all prisons, police stations, houses of detention—in short, everywhere, the placing of arrested women and women prisoners in charge of women only, and men in charge of men. It is just and right for every reason of virtue and decency; here again it is largely this contact that has destroyed; it cannot restore.

I would, for every consideration of humanity, have the most careful, intelligent, and scientific investigation made in all prisons for any possible tendency to insanity on the part of any prisoner. The willful subjection to prison rules and penalties of those from whose benighted souls the light of reason and the power of self-control have been withdrawn is cruelty inexcusable and accursed in the sight of God and man.

In the name of all mercy single these out and take them to their own place.

Again, I would in the name of humanity lessen so far as possible the stimulating qualities of the food generally given out in prisons—more of grains, vegetables, and fruit, and less of meat. The result of this I am confident would be seen in the better temper, more tractable natures, lessened irritability, and happier frame of minds on the part of all convicts. I would have the food plentiful, but unstimulating, and the cooking wholesome. The records of the punishments in a prison could not fail in time to demonstrate the beneficial result of this course.

Cannot this thought find somewhere and sometime a little consideration in your deliberations? In the name of humanity I suggest it.

There remains but one subject more which I would name, and but a word of that—simply the relations and feeling to be maintained between the inmates of a prison and those in charge of them. I would recommend not only a uniform kindness and firmness of course on the part of every attendant, but a uniform politeness as well. Like begets like in spite of everything. It increases self-respect. This they have lost, and this they need to have restored so far as may be. Make punishment as rare as possible, but sure, and in all instances as light as the case will admit of. I regard undue severity of punishment as far more harmful than no correction at all. Cultivate the love of the convicts by all proper means; it is more potent than punishment.

I believe the record of my last month at Sherborn shows not a single punishment among between three and four hundred women. They grew to feel that the only hurt of their punishment was the pain it gave me. When I met them for the last night in the chapel, and told them we should not meet again, and invited each to come and bid me good-bye, the sobs and wails that went out, and the tears that went over my hands as I held theirs for the last time, were harder for me than all the eight months’ work I had done among them. As I passed down the long corridors in the dark, unheard by them, at ten o’clock, and the low moans and sobs were still going out, it was too much to bear. I sought my own room—sank down, cold and shivering with the terrible thought that rushed over me—Had it not been all wrong? Was I far enough removed from them? Surely we must be too near alike, if not akin, or they would never have clung to me with that pitiful love.

I went out from the prison walls of Sherborn next morning. I have never seen a face there since. I have never returned and I have no desire to.

CHAPTER XII
THE RED CROSS IN PEACE

The Red Cross as organized in Europe, and as Clara Barton learned of it there, had no ministry except in times of war. It was one of the distinctive features of Clara Barton’s plan that the American Red Cross should give service in any time of national, or possibly of international, calamity. So far as the Red Cross existed by virtue of an international treaty, its work was to care for the wounded of the battle-field; but the American Red Cross, as incorporated in the District of Columbia, and as operated under the direction of Clara Barton, offered an agency immediately available for the relief of suffering wherever the need was greater than could be met by local benefactions.

It will be remembered that the first service of the American Red Cross was in the autumn of 1881, in the forest fires of Michigan, almost a year before the official accession of the United States to the Treaty of Geneva. The report which reached Clara Barton and the Nation that half the State of Michigan was on fire, was, of course, an exaggeration, and she was not deceived by it, but she knew that the need was greater than could be met by local philanthropy. Already there had been organized a single unit of the Red Cross, at Dansville, New York. Clara Barton flung out the Red Cross flag in front of her home, and called her organization into activity. The two neighboring cities of Rochester and Syracuse came immediately to her assistance. Contributions which aggregated three thousand dollars were placed immediately at her disposal. Miss Barton’s home became a center of activity, a dépôt for the packing and shipping of supplies. The second auxiliary of the Red Cross in the United States was organized at Rochester, with a membership of two hundred and fifty; that at Syracuse followed immediately. The total amount received and distributed by the Red Cross in money and material amounted to eighty thousand dollars.

The Michigan fires brought to Miss Barton’s assistance Dr. Julian B. Hubbell. She had known him in Dansville as an instructor in the Seminary which was located there. She knew him as a man to be relied upon. When the forest fires occurred, Dr. Hubbell was a medical student in the University of Michigan. She wired him at once to proceed to the scene of the fire and give her accurate information. Dr. Hubbell reported that hundreds of people had been suffocated and burned to death in the rapid sweep of the flames, and that many thousands were homeless and in need of shelter, food, clothing, and medical care. Miss Barton at once commissioned Dr. Hubbell as field agent of the Red Cross. This was the beginning of a relationship which was never broken until the death of Clara Barton. Dr. Hubbell completed his medical course, and was commissioned as general field officer of the American National Red Cross. This position he occupied from 1881 until her resignation in 1904. He was with her in every one of the American fields of service; accompanied her to Turkey at the time of the Armenian massacres; went with her to Cuba at the time of the Spanish War; and was as indispensable to her as her own right hand. After the termination of her presidency of the American Red Cross, he remained near her, was with her in her last illness, and stood beside her when she died. With her nephew Stephen, he accompanied her body to the old home in Oxford and wept beside her grave. He was among the friends, and their number was not small, who were faithful to her to the very end of life.

It is not the purpose of the present author to relate in detail the story of the work of the Red Cross during the next twenty-three years. Clara Barton herself has done that in a large octavo volume of nearly seven hundred pages. To that book reference must be had for any adequate idea of her service for almost a quarter of a century. Almost every year beheld a calamity of sufficient magnitude to call for the official activity of the American Red Cross. The mere list of the fields of its service is notable:

1881, the Michigan forest fires.
1882, the Mississippi River floods.
1883, the Mississippi River floods.
1883, the tornado in Louisiana and Alabama.
1883, the Balkan War.
1884, the Ohio and Mississippi River floods.
1885, the Texas famine.
1886, the Charleston earthquake.
1888, the tornado at Mt. Vernon, Illinois.
1888, the Florida yellow-fever epidemic.
1889, the Johnstown flood.
1892, the Russian famine.
1893, the tornado at Pomeroy, Iowa.
1893 and 94, the hurricane and tidal wave in the South Carolina islands.
1896, the Armenian massacres in Turkey in Asia Minor.
1898 to 1900, the Cuban Reconcentrado relief.
1898, the Spanish-American War.
1900, the Galveston storm and tidal wave.
1904, the typhoid fever epidemic at Butler, Pennsylvania.

In almost every instance Clara Barton went in person to the field. Where she went was order, efficiency, sympathy, and comfort. In the days of the Civil War the official sign of a hospital was the yellow banner, still used in the quarantine service to designate a hospital for the treatment of contagious diseases. It was and is a respectable and worthy emblem, but there was nothing very inspiring about it. Where Clara Barton went on her missions of mercy, two flags floated, the Stars and Stripes and the beautiful white flag with its cross of blazing red.

Clara Barton loved the color red. The red rose was the flower of her family. A dash of red she almost invariably had about her clothing somewhere. It was altogether in keeping with her personal tastes that the emblem which came to symbolize her life-work was of the color which never failed to gladden her eye. In 1881 she set out, as she herself related in her first article for the Associated Press, to make the name and emblem of the Red Cross as familiar in America, as for many years it had been in almost every other civilized nation. She succeeded in doing this, not simply by a campaign of publicity, but by the practical agency of applied mercy. When fire or famine or flood devastated a region, and its victims were homeless and despairing, and local agencies for relief were overworked and working aimlessly or at cross-purposes, the unfurling of the flag of the Red Cross was the sign of hope. It meant not only human kindness and sympathy, but confidence and efficiency and success.

From every one of these twenty fields Clara Barton came back laden down with the grateful testimonials of the communities to which she had brought comfort and help.

A very brief outline of her work in these several fields may be summarized from her own reports. The work for the Michigan forest fires has already been referred to, and reference has been made to the first expedition of the Red Cross for the relief of the sufferers from the Mississippi floods. A further word should be said concerning the service of the Red Cross during the floods, and then a brief summary of the work in each of the other fields.

Mississippi and Ohio River Floods—1882-83

The spring rise of the waters of the Mississippi brought great devastation, and a cry went over the country in regard to the sufferings of the inhabitants of the Mississippi Valley. For hundreds of miles the great river was out of its bed and raging madly over the country, sweeping in its course not only the homes, but often the people, the animals, and many times the land itself. This constituted a work of the relief clearly within the bounds of the civil part of our treaty, and again we prepared for work. Again our infant organization sent its field agent, Dr. Hubbell, to the scene of disaster, where millions of acres of the richest valley, cotton and sugar lands of America, and thousands upon thousands of homes under the waters of the mightiest of rivers—where the swift-rising floods overtook alike man and beast in their flight of terror, sweeping them ruthlessly to the Gulf beyond, or leaving them clinging in famishing despair to some trembling roof or swaying tree-top till relief could reach and rescue them.

The National Association, with no general fund, sent of its personal resources what it was able to do, and so acceptable did these prove and so convincing were the beneficences of the work that the cities of Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans desired to be permitted to form associate societies and work under the National Association. This was permitted, and those societies have remained until the present time, New Orleans organizing for the entire State of Louisiana. The city of Rochester, proud and grateful of its success in the disaster a few months before, again came to the front and again rendered excellent service.

In the spring of 1883 occurred the first great rise of the Ohio River; one thousand miles in extent. This river, although smaller than the Mississippi, is more rapid in its course, and its valleys hold the richest grain lands, the most cultivated farms, representing, in fact, the best farming interests of America.

The destruction of property was even greater here than in the cotton and cane lands of the Mississippi. Again our field agent was dispatched and did excellent work. The entire country was aroused, and so liberal were the contributions to the various committees of relief that when Dr. Hubbell retired from the field, having completed the work, he had still unexpended funds in hand. But they were soon needed.

The Louisiana and Mississippi Tornado of 1883

In less than a month occurred the fearful tornado of Louisiana and Mississippi, which cut a swath clear of all standing objects for thirty miles in width and several hundred miles in length, running southeast from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.

Our special agent for the South, Colonel F. R. Southmayd, took charge of the Red Cross relief in this disaster, and so efficient was his work that societies struggled for organization under him and the Red Cross was hailed as a benediction wherever he passed. This was in May, 1883.

Our association now enjoyed for eight months a respite from active work. It was surely needed. It was the longest rest we had yet known, and afforded some small opportunity to gather up its records of past labors, organize some societies, and compile a history of the Red Cross, so much needed for the information of our people and so earnestly asked for by them as well as by the United States Senate.

The Ohio River Floods of 1884

The rapidly melting snows of February, 1884, brought the thousand miles of the Ohio River again out of its bed. A cry went out all over the country for help. The Government, through Congress, took immediate action and appropriated several hundred thousand dollars for relief, to be applied through the War Department. The Red Cross agents must again repair to the field, its societies be again notified.

But its president felt that, if she were to be called every year to direct the relief work of the association in these inundations, it was incumbent upon her to visit the scene in person, to see for herself what floods were like, to learn the necessities and be able to direct with the wisdom born of actual knowledge of the subject; and accordingly, with ten hours’ preparation, she joined Dr. Hubbell on his way and proceeded to Pittsburgh, the head of the Ohio River. There the societies were telegraphed that Cincinnati would be headquarters and that money and supplies should be sent there. This done, we proceeded to Cincinnati by rail.

Any description of this city upon our entrance would fall so far short of the reality as to render it useless.

The surging river had climbed up the bluffs like a devouring monster and possessed the town; large steamers could have plied along its business streets; ordinary vocations were abandoned. Bankers and merchants stood in its relief houses and fed the hungry populace, and men and women were out in boats passing baskets of food to pale, trembling hands stretched out to reach it from third-story windows of the stately blocks and warehouses of that beautiful city. Sometimes the water soaked away the foundations and the structure fell with a crash and was lost in the floods below; in one instance seven lives went out with the falling building; and this was one city, and probably the best protected and provided locality in a thousand miles of thickly populated country.

It had not been my intention to remain at the scene of disaster, but rather to see, investigate, establish an agency, and return to national headquarters at Washington, which in the haste of departure had been left imperfectly cared for. But I might almost say, in military parlance, that I was “surprised and captured.”

I had made no call beyond the Red Cross societies,—expected no supplies from other sources,—but scarcely had news of our arrival at Cincinnati found its way to the public press when telegrams of money and checks, from all sides and sources, commenced to come in, with letters announcing the sending of material. The express office and freight depots began filling up until within two weeks we were compelled to open large supply rooms, which were generously tendered to the use of the Red Cross. A description could no more do justice to our flood of supplies than to the flood of waters which had made them necessary—cases, barrels and bales of clothing, food, household supplies, new and old; all that intelligent awakened sympathy could suggest was there in such profusion that, so far from thinking of leaving it, one must call all available help for its care and distribution.

The Government would supply the destitute people with food, tents, and army blankets, and had placed its military boats upon the river to rescue the people and issue rations until the first great need should be supplied.

The work of the Red Cross is supplemental and it sought for the special wants likely to be overlooked in this great general supply and the necessities outside the limits of governmental aid. The search was not difficult. The Government provided neither fuel nor clothing. It was but little past midwinter. A cyclone struck the lower half of the river with the water at its greatest height and whole villages were swept away in a night. The inhabitants escaped in boats, naked and homeless. Hail fell to the depth of several inches and the entire country was encased in sleet and ice. The water had filled the coal mines, so abundant in that vicinity, until no fuel could be obtained. The people were more likely to freeze than starve, and against this there was no provision.

We quickly removed our headquarters from Cincinnati to Evansville, three hundred miles below and at the head of the recent scene of disaster. A new stanch steamer of four hundred tons’ burden was immediately chartered and laden to the water’s edge with clothing and coal; good assistants, both men and women, were taken on board; the Red Cross flag was hoisted and, as night was setting in, after a day of intense cold—amid surging waters and crashing ice, the floating wrecks of towns and villages, great uprooted giants of the forest plunging madly to the sea, the suddenly unhoused people wandering about the river-banks, or huddled in strange houses with fireless hearths—the clear-toned bell and shrill whistle of the Josh V. Throop announced to the generous inhabitants of a noble city that from the wharves of Evansville was putting out the first Red Cross relief boat that ever floated on American waters.

The destroyed villages and hamlets lay thick on either bank, and the steamer wove its course diagonally from side to side calling the people to the boat, finding a committee to receive and distribute, and, learning as nearly as possible the number of destitute persons, put off the requisite quantity of clothing and coal, and steamed away quickly and quietly, leaving sometimes an astonished few, sometimes a multitude to gaze after and wonder who she was, whence she came, what that strange flag meant, and, most of all, to thank God with tears and prayers for what she brought.

In this manner the Red Cross proceeded to Cairo, a distance of four hundred miles, where the Ohio joins the Mississippi River, which latter at that time had not risen and was exciting no apprehension. Returning, we revisited and resupplied the destitute points. The Government boats running over the same track were genial and friendly with us, and faithful and efficient in their work.

It should be said that, notwithstanding all the material we had shipped and distributed, so abundant had been the liberality of the people that, on our return to Evansville, we found our supply greater than at any previous time.

At this moment, and most unexpectedly, commenced the great rise of the Mississippi River, and a second cry went out to the Government and the people for instant help. The strongest levees were giving way under the sudden pressure, and even the inundation of the city of New Orleans was threatened. Again the Government appropriated money, and the War Department sent out its rescue and ration boats, and again the Red Cross prepared for its supplemental work.

In an overflow of the Mississippi, owing to the level face of the country and the immense body of water, the valley is inundated at times thirty miles in width, thus rendering it impossible to get animals to a place of safety. Great numbers drown and the remainder, in a prolonged overflow, have largely starved, the Government having never included the domestic animals in its work of relief. This seemed an omission of vital importance, both humanely and economically considered, and the Red Cross prepared to go to the relief of the starving animals of the Mississippi Valley. It would also supply clothing to the destitute people whom the Government would feed.

The navigation of the Mississippi River calls for its own style of boats and pilotage, the latter being both difficult and dangerous, especially with the changed channels and yawning crevasses of a flood.

The steamer Throop was left at Evansville and the Mattie Bell chartered at St. Louis and laden with corn, oats, hay, meal, and salt for cattle; clothing and cooking utensils for the destitute people; tea, coffee, rice, sugar, and medicines for the sick; and as quickly as possible followed the Government steamers leaving the same port with rations of meat and meal.

We finished the voyage of relief, having covered the Ohio River from Cincinnati to Cairo and back twice, and the Mississippi from St. Louis to New Orleans and return, occupying four months’ time on the rivers, in our own chartered boats, finishing at Pittsburgh and taking rail for Washington on the first of July, having traveled over eight thousand miles, and distributed in relief, of money and estimated material, $175,000.

The Government had expended an appropriation from the Treasury on the same waters of $150,000 in money, and distributed it well. The difference was that ours was not appropriated; we gathered it as we used it.

The Texas Famine of 1885-86

Occasional rumors reached us in the years 1885 and 1886 about a drouth in Texas and consequent suffering, but they were so contradictory and widely at variance that the public took little or no heed of them. During the year of 1886 the Reverend John Brown, a North Presbyterian minister, located at Albany, Shackelford County, Texas, began making appeals by circular and oral address to the people of the Northern States, in which he asserted that there were a hundred thousand families in northwestern Texas who were utterly destitute and on the verge of starvation. He stated that since the close of the war a large number of poor families had been constantly crowding into Texas from the Southern States principally, induced thither by land agents and others, who gave glowing representations of the character of the soil for farming purposes.

These poor people, by hard labor and industry, had been generally able to make a living and nothing more. The last fall they had planted wheat and other grain quite extensively, but the rains came not and everything perished; and in the following spring and summer, too, everything put into the ground was blasted by the hot winds, so that not a thing was raised for man or beast. For fifteen months no rain had fallen, and the condition of the people was pitiable and called aloud to the charitable throughout the land for relief. They must be carried through to the next summer or they would perish. At a meeting of the citizens of Albany, Texas, they decided that the task of relieving the sufferers was greater than the well-to-do people of the State were able to undertake, and that an appeal should be made to the good-hearted people of the North for immediate aid. The Governor of Texas also published an appeal to the people of the whole land, asking for food for these people. But as there was no concerned action, and so many denials of the stories of suffering, little or nothing in the way of relief work was accomplished for some time. Spasmodic attempts were made, and some food for man and beast was contributed, but not enough to relieve a hundredth part of the needy.

The Reverend Doctor Brown went to the State Capital and endeavored to interest the Legislature in the matter, but there were seemingly so much misunderstanding and unbelief, and so many conflicting interests to reconcile, that he failed to receive any substantial assurances and left the place in disgust. When the citizens of Texas could not agree as to the necessities of their own people, it was not to be expected that the citizens of the country would take much interest in them, hence the relief movement languished from inanition.

About the middle of January, 1887, Dr. Brown came to Washington and, as solicitor and receiving agent for the committee which had issued an appeal to the country, appealed to me, as president of the American National Red Cross, asking our organization to come to the relief of the people, who were in a deplorable state, greatly needing food and clothing. I immediately shipped to Texas all the stores that were then in our warehouse, but they were no great quantity.

An appeal direct to the Red Cross required immediate attention, and I at once sought a conference with President Cleveland, who was greatly worried over the contradictory stories that were constantly printed, and was anxious to learn the truth about the matter. When I said that I should go to Texas and see for myself, he was greatly pleased, and requested me to report to him the exact situation just as soon as I had satisfied myself by personal investigation.

Dr. Hubbell and I proceeded directly to Albany, Texas, where we arrived near the end of January. We were met by the leading citizens and most heartily welcomed and accorded every privilege and attention. We began our investigations at once in a systematic way, carefully noting everything we heard and saw; and in the course of a two weeks’ trip over the afflicted region, we learned the extent of the need and formulated plans for its relief.

Making Albany our object point, we traveled by private conveyance over such territory as we thought sufficient to give a correct knowledge of the condition of the country and the people. We met large numbers of the residents, both collectively and at their homes, and learned from them personally and by actual observation their condition and what they had to depend upon during the next few months. It will be borne in mind that when we entered upon this investigation little or no relief had come from the State, and none was positively assured.

Almost no rain had fallen during a period of eighteen months; two planted crops had perished in the ground, and the seed wheat sown the previous fall gave no signs of life. The dust was rolling over the great wind-swept fields, where the people had hidden their last little forlorn hope of borrowed seed, and literally a heaven of brass looked down upon an earth of iron.

Here were twenty to forty counties, of a size commensurate with Texan dimensions, occupied by new settlers, making their first efforts in the pioneer work of developing home life in an untried country, soil, and climate. They had put their all into the new home and the little stock they could afford for its use. They had toiled faithfully, planted two and three times, as long as there was anything to plant or sow, and in most instances failed to get back their seed. Many had grown discouraged and left the country. The people were not actually starving, but they were in the direst want for many of the necessities of life, and it was only a matter of days when they would have reached the condition of the reconcentrados as we later found them in Cuba. Hundreds of thousands of cattle had died for the want of food and water, and their drying carcasses and bleaching bones could be seen in every direction as the eye wandered over the parched surface of the plains.

I at once saw that in the vastness of its territory and varying interests the real need of these suffering communities was not understood by the Texas people—it had not come home to them; but that once comprehending, it would be their wish to have it known and cared for by themselves and not by others outside of the State.

Assuring these poor people that their actual condition should be made known to their own people, through the authoritative means of the Red Cross, and that they should be speedily cared for, we bade them farewell and hurried away to Dallas, where we intended to send out a statement to the people of the State.

Arriving there, we sought an interview with Colonel Belo, of the Dallas “News,” and laid before him the result of our observations. He placed the columns of his paper at our disposal, and through them we enlightened the people of the true status of affairs in their own State. The response was as quick as it was gratifying, and thence onward there was no further necessity for appealing to any one outside of the State limits. Indeed, that act in the first place was the greatest mistake, as to the average Texan, feeling a genuine pride in the State’s wealth and resources, it savored of frauds and imposition, and prejudiced him against the brother who would pass him by and appeal to outsiders.

The Texas Legislature appropriated one hundred thousand dollars for food, and in the meantime rain began to fall and the entire aspect of affairs began to change for the better. But there were still many needs unprovided for—clothing, fuel, seeds for gardens and fields, live stock, and many other things—and it was necessary to place these needs before the people. This the “News” took upon itself to do; and upon my suggestion it opened a popular subscription and announced that it would receive contributions of seed or cash and would publish the same from day to day and turn them over to the constituted authorities appointed to disburse them. In order to encourage the movement I inaugurated it with the first subscription, and from that time until now I do not believe any one has heard of any need in Texas that has not been taken care of by her own people.

The Texas famine brought into sharp relief the ideals of Clara Barton in emergencies of this character. It was at first proposed to meet the situation by a Government appropriation; and a bill for such relief, passed by both houses of Congress, was promptly vetoed by President Cleveland. This veto brought severe criticism upon the President, but Clara Barton sustained him. What was needed in such an emergency, as she believed, was not to fly to Congress with appeals for an appropriation, but to call upon the people to send relief through an accredited agency that would account for the money and disburse it in systematic fashion. Her success in the Texas famine abundantly proved the wisdom of her course.

The Mount Vernon, Illinois, Tornado

On Sunday, February 19, 1888, a destructive tornado occurred at Mount Vernon, Illinois. Within three minutes after the fury of the storm had struck the town, thirty people had been killed and scores of others injured, and an immense amount of property destroyed.

To add to the horrors already wrought, fire broke out in a dozen places. Those who were uninjured quickly came to the rescue, quenching the flames and exerting themselves to relieve the unfortunate victims, who were, in most cases, pinned down under the wreckage of their houses. All night long these brave men and women worked, and when morning came the few houses that remained standing were filled with the dead and injured.

Appeals for assistance were sent out to the people of the country, but, through an improper statement of the situation, the public was misled, and, not realizing the pressing needs of the stricken community, failed to take up the matter in a business-like manner, and the town was left to suffer for a little of the great abundance that was around them. In their extremity the despairing citizens appealed to the Red Cross for aid, which responded at once.

A most deplorable situation was presented: the people were homeless and helpless, neglected, and in a state of mind bordering on insanity.

After a somewhat hasty examination of the situation, the following simple message was sent to both the Associated and the United Press:

The pitiless snow is falling on the heads of three thousand people who are without homes, without food or clothing and without money.

Clara Barton

With only this little word to explain the needs, our generous American people responded promptly and liberally, as they always do when they fully understand what is needed.

It was unnecessary to remain longer than two weeks with these people, who, as soon as they recovered from the first shock of their great misfortune, and when they felt that kind friends were by their side, lending them moral and substantial support, manfully commenced to bring order out of chaos, to rebuild their town and resume their usual vocations. Large quantities of relief supplies of all kinds quickly came to hand, and, when we were ready to leave them, the Citizens’ Committee had in its treasury a cash balance of ninety thousand dollars. And thus, with their blessings ringing in our ears, we left them.

The Yellow Fever Epidemic in Florida in 1888

During the month of August, 1888, yellow fever broke out in Jacksonville, and in September it was declared to be epidemic, the usual alarm and exodus of citizens taking place. On September 8, heroic measures to depopulate the city were taken. Every person that was still well and could leave was requested to go; very little urging was necessary. Camps were established outside of the city, where those who had not the means to go farther and get better quarters were enabled to live under medical surveillance, and away from the seat of infection.

The mayor of Jacksonville had made an appeal for doctors and nurses, which had been quickly responded to, and they were doing everything possible to attend to the rapidly increasing number of patients.

On the formation of the Red Cross Society of New Orleans in 1893, it had been carefully and wisely arranged that, in case of yellow fever becoming epidemic in any place, no unacclimated persons, or those not immune, should be sent as assistants by the Red Cross. New Orleans was the home of the famous “Old Howard Association,” that had won its reputation and worn its grateful renown from the horrors of Memphis to the present time. This body freely united with the Red Cross of New Orleans, and it was arranged that the Southern States, through this society, should provide all Red Cross nurses for yellow fever, and that the northern portion of the country should raise the money to pay and provide them. We felt this to be a security, and an immediate provision which the country had never before known. Fearing that this might not, at its first inception, be fully understood, I called at once on Dr. Hamilton, then in charge of the Marine Hospital, explaining it to him, and offering all the nurses that could be required, even to hundreds, all experienced and organized for immediate action. Perhaps it was not strange that a provision, so new and so unknown in the sad history of plagues and epidemics, should have seemed Utopian, and as such been brushed aside as not only useless, but self-seeking and obtrusive. Like the entire organization of which it was a part, it had to wait and win its way against custom or even prejudice, by honest worth and stern necessity. It was the “old, old story.” The world takes reform hard and slow.

As it was, however, we did what we could. Headquarters were established at the Riggs House in Washington. The good-hearted people of the North, who felt that they must go to Florida, had by some means gotten the idea that they must have a pass from the Central Committee of the Red Cross in order to go. They came to us in hundreds and were mercifully held back from a scourge for which they would have been both food and fuel, whilst the entire people of the country, in pity and horror at the reports received, were holding meetings, raising money, and pouring funds like water into the doomed city of Jacksonville, where the scourge had centered, and to which every effort was made to confine it.

Not realizing the opposition there might prove to be to our nurses, we called upon their old-time leader, Colonel F. R. Southmayd, the efficient secretary of the Red Cross Society of New Orleans, instructing him to enlist a body of nurses and take them at once to the fever district. He enlisted thirty, both men and women, white and colored, took a part with him, the remainder following next day.

Refugees who had fled from Jacksonville carried the plague to several smaller places in the surrounding country, where in some instances it acquired quite a foothold; but, owing to their obscurity and the lack of communication with the outside world, they were left alone to fight the disease as best they could. Among these places was the little town of MacClenny, where, as soon as it became known that there was a case of fever within its limits, all trains were ordered to rush through without stopping, and an armed quarantine was placed around it with orders to shoot any one attempting to leave the town. Thus left to their fate, without doctors, nurses, or food, in any quantity, their situation was pitiable. There were a number of volunteers who had made attempts to get into MacClenny, but, owing to the unreasoning panic existing, they were not permitted to enter the place.

Colonel Southmayd had heard of these neglected people, and he succeeded while en route to Jacksonville in dropping off ten nurses so much needed at MacClenny. How he did this, I have told in a little brochure entitled “The MacClenny Nurses,” that was issued at the close of the year 1888.

The fever spread during the fall to several points in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, and resulted in the usual panic and flight from many places; but happily the disease got no great headway before the frost put an end to its career.

It was late in November when we closed this work; worn and disheartened as we were by both the needful and the needless hardships of the campaign, we were glad of the two or three months in which no call for action was made upon us.

The Johnstown Flood of 1889

On the 30th of May, 1889, occurred the calamity of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, with all its horrors. So frightful and improbable were the reports that it required twenty-four hours to satisfy ourselves that it was not a canard.

In order to get an intelligent idea of this disaster and the terrible damage wrought by the irresistible waters, it may be well to give a short sketch of the city of Johnstown and its adjacent surroundings. Before the flood there were thirty thousand people in this busy community, which embraced the city of Johnstown proper and numerous suburbs. The city is situated at the junction of Stony Creek and the Little Conemaugh, forming the Conemaugh River. These streams are liable to sudden overflows, and, owing to the contraction of the waterway in the lower part of the city by the dumping of cinders and slag from the large ironworks on the banks of the stream, and also encroachments by riparian owners, the upper portion of the city is liable to inundations. About nine miles above the city a dam had been thrown across the Little Conemaugh River many years ago for commercial purposes, but had been abandoned and the site with much surrounding property had been subsequently purchased by a sporting club, whose membership embraced some of the wealthiest citizens of Pennsylvania. These gentlemen were attracted by the picturesque scenery and the hunting and fishing of the vicinity, and they spent thousands of dollars in improving and beautifying their holdings. The dam was raised to a height of over seventy feet and held an immense body of water covering many acres.

This large mass of water was a constant source of fear to the inhabitants of the lower valleys, who were aware of the danger that threatened them, and many protests were made against the continuance of the danger; but owing to the prominence of the owners of the dam, and the strong social and political influence they exerted, they remained unmolested in the possession of the monster that was to break its bounds and carry death and destruction in its pitiless pathway.

A steady rainfall for several days in the latter part of May caused overflows in all the streams in western Pennsylvania, and much of the city of Johnstown was already under water to a depth of from two to ten feet, when suddenly the dam over the Little Conemaugh gave way, and its flood, resembling a moving mountain of water thirty feet high, was precipitated upon the doomed city. Numbers of the inhabitants, who had carried the fear of this disaster in their minds for years, had become so alarmed by the long-continued rains, and the floods that were already upon them, took their families and fled to the high grounds on the hillsides. But the great majority of the people, who, though fully aware of the danger, had lived with it so long that they had become careless and indifferent, took no precautions whatever. These were overwhelmed by the tide almost without warning, and before they could seek safety were swept away.

The number of lives lost will never be accurately known; but in all probability it reached in the entire valley nearly five thousand. It is said that property to the amount of twelve millions of dollars was absolutely lost.

It was at the moment of supreme affliction when we arrived at Johnstown. The waters had subsided, and those of the inhabitants who had escaped the fate of their fellows were gazing over the scene of destruction and trying to arouse themselves from the lethargy that had taken hold of them when they were stunned by the realization of all the woe that had been visited upon them. How nobly they responded to the call of duty! How much of the heroic there is in our people when it is needed! No idle murmurings of fate, but, true to the godlike instincts of manhood and fraternal love, they quickly banded together to do the best that the wisest among them could suggest.

For five weary months it was our portion to live amid these scenes of destruction, desolation, poverty, want, and woe; sometimes in tents, sometimes without; in rain and mud, and a lack of the commonest comforts, until we could build houses to shelter ourselves and those around us. Without a safe, and with a dry-goods box for a desk, we conducted financial affairs in money and material to the extent of nearly half a million dollars.

When our five months’ work was completed, we had only to turn over to the hands of the leaders of the town, our warehouse with its entire remaining stock, amounting to some thousands of dollars; the care of the infirmary; one of our trained clerks, with all papers and accounts of our relief work from the day of its inception; one of our experienced working men to handle transportation—to fit up for them large, warm rooms for winter use; give them our blessing; accept theirs in fullest measure; say good-bye to them and to our faithful helpers, with heavy hearts and choking voices, and return to our home, bearing the record of a few months of faithful endeavor among a people as patient and brave as people are made, as noble and grateful as falls to the lot of human nature to be. Enterprising, industrious, and hopeful, the new Johnstown, phœnix-like, rose from its ruins more beautiful than the old, with a ceaseless throb of grateful memory for every kind act rendered, and every thought of sympathy given her in her great hour of desolation and woe. God bless her, and God bless all who helped save her!

We had employed during our sojourn in Johnstown a working force of fifty men and women, whom we had housed, fed, and paid, with the exception of the volunteers who worked for the good they could do and would accept nothing. The means which we so largely handled came from everywhere; accounts were rendered for everything, and no word of business complication ever came to us. There never has in all our work.

There was much to do in Johnstown after we left; buildings to remove and property to care for when it had served its purpose and the ground became needed. But there is always a right time for any benevolent work to cease; a time when the community is ready to resume its own burdens, and when an offered charity is an insult to the honest and independent, and a degradation to the careless and improvident, tending to pauperize and make them an added burden on their better-minded fellow citizens. And then, the moment the tradesman is able to reëstablish himself, he looks with jealous eyes on any agency that diverts possible business from his channels. Thus it is not only wise, but just to all concerned to withdraw all gratuities from a people the instant they are able to gain even a meager self-support.

A rather curious circumstance, somewhat on the line of this reflection, fell to our lot after leaving Johnstown. The houses that we had built and furnished were indispensable to the tenants during the winter, when there were no other houses to be had; but in the spring the city, rejuvenated, began to build up again, and we were notified that the land on which our large houses were standing was needed by the owners, who wished to use it for their own purposes, and they requested the Red Cross to remove its buildings. We promptly sent an agent to attend to the matter, and he began the work of vacating the premises. There was no hardship involved in this, as all the tenants were by this time in condition to pay rent, the relief fund of $1,600,000 having been distributed among them in proportion to their losses, and there were houses that they could get; in a few days our houses were empty. Then a new factor entered into the situation. When it became generally known that the Red Cross must remove these immense houses, and that a large quantity of lumber and house furnishings were to be disposed of, the self-interests of the dealers in those commodities were at once aroused, and they strongly protested against the gratuitous distribution of those articles among the people of Johnstown, asserting that the inhabitants were now prospering and had the means to buy everything they needed, and that a gift from us of any of these things would be an injustice to the honest traders who were trying to reëstablish themselves.

We saw the justice of their objection and gave assurances that no injury should be done them; still, to have fully conformed to their idea and transported the entire material to some other point would have put the Red Cross to an amount of trouble and cost unjust to itself.

I am not prepared to say that our quiet field agent in charge of the work did not find resting-places for very much of this material in still needy homes, where it did no harm to any one and for which no one but the pitiful recipients were the wiser.

Notwithstanding the fact that we took away from Johnstown as little material and furniture as was possible, after quietly disposing of the greater part of it, and this at an expense and inconvenience to ourselves which we could ill afford, there were those who could not understand why we should take anything away; and their unkind misconstruction and criticisms have scarcely ceased echoing even to this late day.

The paths of charity are over roadways of ashes; and he who would tread them must be prepared to meet opposition, misconstruction, jealousy, and calumny. Let his work be that of angels, still it will not satisfy all.

There is always an aftermath of attempted relief where none is needed, and more or less criticism of any work, for it is always so much easier to say how a thing ought to be done than it is to do it.

These little unpleasantnesses, however, cannot deprive us of the thousand memories of gratitude, appreciation, and kindnesses exchanged, which were mutually helpful; nor of the many lifelong friendships formed which will bless us all our day.

As Miss Barton was leaving Johnstown the “Daily Tribune” of that city published the following editorial:

How shall we thank Miss Clara Barton and the Red Cross for the help they have given us? It cannot be done; and if it could, Miss Barton does not want our thanks. She has simply done her duty as she saw it and received her pay—the consciousness of a duty performed to the best of her ability. To see us upon our feet, struggling forward, helping ourselves, caring for the sick and infirm and impoverished—that is enough for Miss Barton. Her idea has been fully worked out, all her plans accomplished. What more could such a woman wish?

We cannot thank Miss Barton in words. Hunt the dictionaries of all languages through and you will not find the signs to express our appreciation of her and her work. Try to describe the sunshine. Try to describe the starlight. Words fail, and in dumbness and silence we bow to the idea which brought her here. God and humanity! Never were they more closely linked than in stricken Johnstown.

Governor Beaver of Pennsylvania expressed the appreciation of the people of the State in the following letter:

In this matter of sheltering the people, as in others of like importance, Miss Clara Barton, president of the Red Cross Association, was most helpful. At a time when there was a doubt if the Flood Commission could furnish houses of suitable character and with the requisite promptness, she offered to assume charge, and she erected with the funds of the association three large apartment houses which afforded comfortable lodgings for many houseless people. She was among the first to arrive on the scene of calamity, bringing with her Dr. Hubbell, the field officer of the Red Cross Association, and a staff of skilled assistants. She made her own organization for relief work in every form, disposing of the large resources under her control with such wisdom and tenderness that the charity of the Red Cross had no sting, and its recipients are not Miss Barton’s dependents, but her friends. She was also the last of the ministering spirits to leave the scene of her labors, and she left her apartment houses for use during the winter, and turned over her warehouse, with its store of furniture, bedding and clothing and a well-equipped infirmary, to the Union Benevolent Association of the Conemaugh Valley, the organization of which she advised and helped to form; and its lady visitors have so well performed their work that the dreaded winter has no terrors, mendicancy has been repressed, and not a single case of unrelieved suffering is known to have occurred in all the flooded district.

The Russian Famine of 1891-92

To understand properly the Russian Famine of 1891-92, and the relief work of the Red Cross connected therewith, one needs to keep in mind the ordinary moral and economic condition of the Russian peasantry. They were, many of them, not long ago serfs attached to the land in a condition but little better than American slaves. Though the liberation of the serfs made their legal condition better, it left them in condition scarcely less discouraging than before. They were subject to all the disabilities of hard bargains on every side, from the exactions of taxes levied in one way or another, and payable in services or goods, all of which called for an ever-increasing sacrifice. They were subject to onerous military service, and penal exactions for violations of the law. These conditions surrounded them with an atmosphere of depressing poverty, fear, and hopeless endurance, if not of despair. They have not felt the stimulating habitual influence of hope, of courage, of enterprise. They are not educated to surmount discouragements by overcoming them. Difficulties do not down easily before them; they go down before difficulties and disasters in something like apathetic despondency, or live in an amazing light-hearted, careless recklessness that easily turns to drink, to idleness, weakness, disease, and early death. Fear is with them always, as if fate was over and against them.

The climate of Russia is cold in winter, and the means of cooking and artificial warmth are scanty, and not easily procured at any time; thus, when the famine really came upon them, observers were divided in opinion whether the famine, or fear of famine, or of something worse, destroyed or paralyzed these people the more.

The harvest yields of 1889 and 1890 had been much less than an average, and at the beginning of 1891 but little of the old supplies of grain was left over. The harvest of 1891 was nearly a total failure throughout a vast region in central Russia extending from Moscow, roughly speaking, say, three hundred miles in a northeasterly direction over a plain eight hundred to a thousand miles in width, beyond the Ural Mountains, and some distance into Siberia in Asiatic Russia—a district of nearly a million square miles. Ordinarily this is the most productive part of the Empire, upon which the remainder of the country had been accustomed to draw for food supplies in the frequent cases of deficiency elsewhere. The appearance of the country is similar to our prairie States in the early days before the growth of the planted trees; and the soil is a rich, black loam that usually produces good harvests.

It was estimated by those best qualified to judge that from thirty to thirty-five millions of people were sufferers by the famine of 1891.

Count Tolstoy gave up his whole time to mitigating the suffering caused by this great disaster, and to understanding the situation broadly. He went into the homes of the people, and studied their needs sympathetically; he placed himself by their side, and with his dramatic instinct understood them, ascertained where the hurt was felt, and how it could be cured, if it could be cured at all.

At that time the Count wrote of these poor unfortunates: “I asked them what sort of a harvest they had had, and how they were getting along; and they replied in a blithe, offhand manner: ‘Oh, right enough, God be praised!’ And yet these people who reside in the most distressed districts of the government of Toula, cannot possibly live through the winter, unless they bestir themselves in time. They are bound to die of hunger, or some disease engendered by hunger, as surely as a hive of bees left to face the rigors of a northern winter, without honey or sweets, must perish miserably before the advent of spring. The all-important question, therefore, is this: Will they exert themselves while yet they possess the strength, if, indeed, it be not already wholly exhausted? Everything that I saw or heard pointed with terrible distinctness to a negative reply. One of these farmers had sold out the meager possessions which he could call his own, and had left for Moscow to work or beg. The others stayed on and waited with naïve curiosity watching for what would happen next, like children, who, having fallen into a hole in the ice, or lost their way in a dense forest and not realizing at first the terrible danger of their situation, heartily laugh at its unwontedness.”

“Unless they bestir themselves in time”—what a text is this! They are all the time overborne by the apathy of fear, of unused powers, of suppression and depression. Courage, hope, enterprise to bestir themselves, where will they come from? Not, surely, from fear and more discouragement.

The work of the American National Red Cross in the Russian famine of 1891-92 was comparatively less than in some others of the conspicuous fields in which it had done its work. The impulse to help in the work of that relief sprang up simultaneously in many American hearts and homes, in New York, in Philadelphia, in Minnesota, and Iowa. In Iowa it took the form of a veritable crusade for a most holy cause; beginning in the fervid and indomitable spirit of Miss Alice French—the “Octave Thanet” of literature—it quickly enlisted Mr. B. F. Tillinghast, editor of the “Davenport Democrat,” who became its director-in-chief and organizing force, everywhere organizing it, and promoting it in every direction and in every form. The movement was taken up by the women of Iowa, and Governor Boies became a prime mover, till the whole State at last joined in a triumphal march bearing corn, God’s best gift to man, to the Atlantic coast in a procession of two hundred and twenty-five carloads, exceeding five hundred bushels in each car. The corn was consigned to Clara Barton in New York and reached her agents there without accident or delay.

The American National Red Cross had authentic intelligence of the famine in Russia before it had attracted general attention; it had placed itself in communication with the Secretary of State, the Honorable James G. Blaine, and the Russian Chargé d’Affaires at Washington, Mr. Alexander Gregor, and had ascertained that Russia would gladly receive any donations of relief that the people of America might send to her famine-stricken people. Not only would they receive supplies, but would send their ships for them, and provide inland transportation from Russian ports to the destitute people for whom these benefactions were intended. America declined to allow her suffering sister nation to cross the seas to get this food, and quickly arranged to carry it to her. All the American agencies concerned in this movement met it in the noblest spirit; railroad companies gave free transportation, telegraph companies the free use of wires, brokers and steamship agents declined their usual commissions, and some insurance companies even gave premiums for the safe delivery of the precious cargo into the hands of the starving people. Funds to charter a steamship to carry the cargo to Russia were soon raised and placed in the hands of the Red Cross.

Dr. Hubbell, representative of the Red Cross to the international conference of the Red Cross to be held at Rome, and authorized to proceed to Riga and receive and distribute with the Russian Red Cross this gift of Iowa, was already on his ocean voyage and ready to do his part in this beautiful blending of international courtesies and services that it is the mission of the Red Cross to devise and to carry out wherever it can make or find the fitting opportunity. Dr. Hubbell arrived on time at Riga and superintended the distribution of the cargo.

The Sea Islands Hurricane of 1893-94

It is probable that there are few instances on record where a movement toward relief of such magnitude, commenced under circumstances so new, so unexpected, so unprepared, and so adverse, was ever carried on for such a length of time and closed with results so entirely satisfactory to both those served and those serving, as this disaster, which, if remembered at all at the present day, is designated as the “Hurricane and Tidal Wave of the Sea Islands off the Coast of South Carolina.” The descriptions of this fearful catastrophe I shall leave to the reports of those who saw, shared its dangers, and lived within its tide of death. They will tell how from three thousand to five thousand human beings (for no one knew the number) went down in a night; how in the blackness of despair they clung to the swaying tree-tops till the roots gave way, and together they were covered in the sands or washed out to the reckless billows of the great mad ocean that had sent for them; of the want, woe, and nothingness that the ensuing days revealed when the winds were hushed, the waters stilled, and the frightened survivors began to look for the lost home and the loved ones, and hunger presaged the gaunt figure of famine that silently drew near and stared them in the face; how, with all vegetable growth destroyed, all animals, even to fowls, swept away, all fresh water turned to salt—not even a sweet well remaining—not one little house in five hundred left upright, if left at all; the victims with the clothing torn and washed off them, till they were more nearly naked than clothed—how these thirty thousand people patiently stood and faced this silent second messenger of death threatening them hour by hour. Largely ignorant, knowing nothing of the world, with no real dependencies upon any section of its people, they could only wait its charity, its pity, its rescue, and its care—wait and pray—does any one who knows the negro characteristics and attributes doubt this latter? Surely, if angels do listen, they heard pleading enough in those hours of agony to save even the last man and woman and the helpless babe. Something saved them, for there is no record of one who died of starvation or perished through lack of care.

About the 28th or 29th of August, 1893, the press commenced to give notice, such as it could get over wrecked roads and broken wires, of a fearful storm coming up from the West Indies that had struck our coast in the region of South Carolina, sweeping entirely over its adjacent range of islands, known as the Old Port Royal group, covering them from the sea to a depth of sixteen feet, with the wind at a rate of one hundred and twenty miles an hour—that its destructive power was so great that it had not only swept the islands, but had extended several miles on to the mainland of the State.

I chanced to be familiar with the geography and topography of that group of islands, having lived on them in the capacity of war relief many months during the siege of Charleston in 1863-64. Knowing that they scarcely averaged four feet rise above the sea level, with no mountains, not even hills that could be called such, that the soft, sandy soil could not be trusted to hold its tree roots firm, that the habitations were only huts, to be washed away like little piles of boards—I thought I saw no escape for the inhabitants and that all must have perished; and so replied to all inquiries at first made as to whether this were not a disaster for the Red Cross to relieve, “No, there was nothing left to relieve.” Later and more reliable news brought the astonishing fact that it was estimated that from thirty to forty thousand had survived and were in the direst need. Was not this a call for the Red Cross? Still more emphatically, “No; if that is the case, it is beyond the Red Cross. Only the State of South Carolina or the general Government can cope with that”; and again we closed our ears and proceeded with our work.

But the first week of September brought pitiful paragraphs from various Southern sources—one I recall from the governor of the State, in which he proclaimed his perplexity and great distress at the condition of these poor people, needing everything, and who, at that season of the year, with crops all destroyed, would continue to need; and closed by wondering “if the Red Cross could perhaps do anything for them.”

It would not do to close our ears or eyes against this suggestion, and I at once sought our congressional neighbor, General M. C. Butler, of South Carolina, then in the Senate, asking his views. The response was such as would not have been looked for in that busy, hard-worked Senator, surrounded by a network of political wires, some of them only too likely to be “live”; he dropped all business, telegraphed at once to Governor Tillman at Columbia to learn the conditions, and urgently requested us to go, and he would even leave his seat and go with us as soon as we could be ready. Time is never a question with the Red Cross, and the next night, in a dark, cheerless September mist, with only two assistants, I closed a door behind me for ten months, went to the station to meet General Butler, prompt and kind, and proceeded on our way. At Columbia we were joyfully surprised at meeting Governor Tillman, prepared to accompany us with a member of his staff, and thus powerfully reënforced we made our entrance into Beaufort.

The work of relief had been wisely placed at first in the hands of committees from both Beaufort and Charleston, comprising the best business men of each city—its lawyers, merchants, bankers, all men of prominence and known practical ability. They had done and were doing all possible for them to do, with hearts full of pity, hands full of work, themselves large losers by the storm, business nearly wrecked, and needing every remaining energy for the repairing of their own damages and those of the citizens about them.

The governor, at whose request they had formed, realizing the necessities of the case, sought to release them, calling them together in each city and successively relieving them, placing the Red Cross in full charge of the relief. With the little knowledge we had of the conditions and surroundings, it would have been madness to accept, at least until both more knowledge and more numerical force were gained, and the refusal was as prompt as the proffer had been. We, however, promised to remain in Beaufort, meet with the committee each day, advise with them, study the situation and report our conclusions when we could safely arrive at them.

Thus we remained until the first day of October, realizing that the relief coming in from outside would soon diminish as the excitement should wear away, that the sum in hand was painfully small, that the number of destitute was steadily increasing, that the winter was approaching and that they must be carried through in some manner till the next year’s crops could grow; and that, in order to do this a fixed system of relief must be adopted, a rigid economy enforced, and every person who could do so must be made to work for his food and receive food and raiment only in return for labor; that this could come only from persons who had no interests but these to subserve and with the light of all experience that could be called to the task. Even then a successful result was questionable; but there was no question of the fatal result of any other course, and after a thoughtful council of our official board (which had meanwhile become nearly filled) on the night of September 30 it was decided that the Red Cross would accept the appointment of the governor and enter upon its duties the following day.

Accordingly, at the meeting of the next day, October 1, 4 P.M., the Beaufort Relief Commission, as appointed by the governor, was formally released as a committee and immediately reëlected by the Red Cross as its “advisory board,” to meet and advise with us as we had done with them.

Through all these years the tenderness springs to my heart and gathers in my eyes as I recall the kindly and affectionate intercourse of months, without one break, that grew up between us. And although some have been called to higher service and greener fields, I am confident that none of us will ever seek on this side a better, more trusted, kindlier association than were found in these.

If it be desirable to understand when to commence a work of relief, to know if the objects presented are actually such as to be benefited by the assistance which would be rendered, it is no less desirable and indispensable that one knows 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, by dependence upon others which should be assumed by the persons themselves. It has always been the practice of the Red Cross to watch this matter closely and leave a field at the suitable moment when it could do so without injury or unnecessary suffering, thus leaving a wholesome stimulus on the part of the beneficiaries to help not only themselves individually, but each other.

Seldom a field, or any considerable work of relief which may have attracted public notice, comes to a close that there does not some person or body of persons arise and propose to continue the work under some new form, but using the former well-established sources of supplies; to put out new appeals to old patrons, detailing great need, newly discovered, and thus keep the sympathetic public forever on the anxious seats of never-ending pity and help. We have been compelled to guard against this at the close of every long-continued field, notably Johnstown, where it became necessary for the citizens to organize a “Home Relief” to keep sensational strangers off the ground, and their well-arranged “Benevolent Union” of to-day is the result.

The Sea Islands were no exception, and at the last moment of our stay a well-drawn petition was discovered (for it was to be kept concealed until we were gone), and was checked only by the vigorous aid of the Charleston “News and Courier,” of June 25, 1894, always our stay and friend in time of trouble.

Armenia in 1895 and 1896

In November, 1895, the press commenced to warn us of a possible call for the relief of the terrible sufferings of Armenia, which were engaging the attention of the civilized world. These warnings were followed later by a letter from the Reverend Judson Smith, D.D., of Boston, secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, referring his suggestion back to the Reverend Henry O. Dwight, D.D., of the American Board of Foreign Missions at Constantinople. The American Red Cross was requested by these representative gentlemen to undertake the distribution of relief funds among the sufferers of Armenia. Owing to the disturbed condition of the country and of its strict laws, combined as they were with existing racial and religious differences, it was found almost impossible at the moment to distribute the relief needed. The faithful but distressed resident missionaries were themselves helpless sufferers to a great extent and practically prisoners in their own houses. These had not always been spared to them in the wild excitement which reigned for several months previous, otherwise they would have been the normal channels for distributing aid. This written request from Dr. Smith was nearly identical with a similar one from Mr. Spencer Trask, of New York, who, with others, was about to form a National Armenian Relief Committee, to be established in that city. Following their letters, both of these gentlemen, Dr. Smith and Mr. Trask, came to Washington personally to urge our compliance with the request that we accept the charge of this distribution of relief funds. Accustomed to the trials, responsibilities, and hardships of field relief labor, this proposition seemed something to be shrunk from rather than accepted and we naturally hesitated. The idea, however, became public, and a general importunity on the part of the people became prevalent. The necessity for immediate action was urged; human beings were starving and could not be reached, hundreds of towns and villages had not been heard from since the fire and sword went over them, and no one else was so well prepared for the work of field relief, it was said, as ourselves. It was urged that we had a trained force of field workers, and as Turkey was one of the signatory powers to the Red Cross Treaty of Geneva, having given its adhesion as long ago as July, 1865, it must consequently be familiar with its methods and humanitarian ideas. Thus it was hoped that she would the more readily accept its presence than that of a more strange body of workers. These are only a shadowing of the reasons urged on behalf of our acceptance. Under this pressure, coupled with our strong sympathies, the subject was taken into serious consideration with the simple demand on our part of two positive assurances: first, we must be assured by the committees that we were the choice of the people of the entire country, that there was no opposition to us, and that there was perfect unanimity between themselves; there must be nowhere any discord; the task would be difficult enough under the best conditions. Second, that they had the funds to distribute. Assured on both these points, our promise was given that we would go and do our best to make the desired distribution in the interior of Asia Minor.

With this ray of hope that something might be done, the pent-up sympathies of the people burst forth. Public meetings were held, addresses made, Armenian conditions estimated, horrors reproduced, responsibilities placed, causes canvassed, and opinions expressed; honest, humane, and entirely natural, precisely the course to rouse public sentiment and indignation, if that were the only or the main object in view. In consideration, however, of the relief effort, it was of questionable wisdom, perhaps, when it is borne in mind that we had yet to ask the opening of a door hitherto closed against the world, when we needed permission to enter, in order to reach the starving sufferers with the relief that was planning for them. In the enthusiasm of the hour, this fact seemed to be entirely lost sight of. It also seemed to be forgotten that if this difficult and delicate task were to be assigned to the Red Cross and its officers, the making of their mission, or of themselves personally, prominent or laudatory features of public gatherings where Ottoman officials or representatives were always listeners, could not fail to render the post more difficult and prospects of success more doubtful.

The international and neutral character of the Red Cross, as a medium of relief in mitigation of war or overwhelming calamity, appeared to be overlooked or wholly misunderstood. It was not recognized that only by abstaining from discordant opinions could we be in a position to perform our work. By the obligations of the Geneva Treaty, all national controversies, racial distinctions, and differences in creed must be held in abeyance and only the needs of humanity considered. In this spirit alone can the Red Cross meet its obligations as the representative of the nations and governments of the world acting under it. But American enthusiasm is boundless, and its expression limitless; and the same breath that crushed the Ottoman Empire, scattered it to the winds or sunk it in the lowest depths, elevated the Red Cross and its proposed relief out of sight among the clouds. Precautionary remonstrance from us was in vain, but it was not until after we had publicly given our consent, made all arrangements and appointed our aids, that the fruits of these ardent demonstrations became visible in a pronunciamento through the Turkish Minister resident at Washington, prohibiting the Red Cross from entering Turkey.

I found this decision on the part of the Bey and his Government very natural and politically justifiable—our own Government and people would probably have done the same or even more under similar conditions, provided similar conditions could have existed among them. I was ready to abide by the decision and remain at home. This, neither people nor committees would consent to. Of course our selected force of more than a score of trained and experienced field workers, each a specialist, must be given up. If any relief were now attempted it could only be individual, with two or three officers from headquarters as indispensable aids.

Previous to the announcement of the Turkish Minister prohibiting the Red Cross from entering Turkey, the promise had been gained from us to leave by the steamship New York on the 22d of January, and notwithstanding the reply to a cablegram from the Department of State to Constantinople, asking if the prohibition against the entrance of the Red Cross was really official and from the Government itself, or but semi-official, had not been received, our promise was kept and we sailed with this uncertainty resting over us.

The picture of that scene is still vivid in my memory. Crowded piers, wild with hurrahs, white with parting salutes, hearts beating with exultation and expectation—a little shorn band of five, prohibited, unsustained either by Government or other authority, destined to a port five thousand miles away, from approach to which even the powers of the world had shrunk. What was it expected to do or how to do it? Visions of Don Quixote and his windmills loomed up, as I turned away and wondered.

A week at sea, to be met at midnight at Southampton, by messenger down from London, to say that the prohibition was sustained, the Red Cross was forbidden, but that such persons as our minister, Mr. Terrell, would appoint, would be received. Here was another delicate uncertainty which could not be committed to Ottoman telegraph, and Dr. Hubbell was dispatched alone to Constantinople (while we waited in London) to learn from Mr. Terrell his attitude toward ourselves and our mission. Under favorable responses we proceeded, and reached Constantinople on February 15; met a most cordial reception from all our own Government officials, and located pro tem. at Pera Palace Hotel; it being so recently after the Stamboul massacres that no less public place was deemed safe.

The following day we received in a body the members of the Missionary Board in Constantinople, including its treasurer, W. W. Peet, and Dr. Washburn, president of Robert College, and here commenced that friendly intercourse which continued without interruption, strengthening as the days wore on through the half-year that followed, till moistened eyes and warm hand-grasp at parting told more plainly than words how fraught with confidence that intercourse had been. If one would look for peers of this accomplished Christian body of our countrymen, they would only be found in the noble band of women, who, as wives, mothers, and teachers, aid their labors and share their hardships, privations, and dangers. I shall always feel it a privilege and an honor to have been called, even in a small way, to assist the efforts of this chosen body of our countrymen and women, whose faithful and devoted lives are made sacred to the service of God and their fellow men.

The first step was to procure an introduction to the Government which had in one sense refused me; and accompanied by Minister Terrell and his premier interpreter, Gargiulo, perhaps the longest serving and one of the most experienced diplomatic officers in Constantinople, I called by appointment upon Tewfik Pasha, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs or Minister of State. To those conversant with the personages connected with Turkish affairs, I need not say that Tewfik Pasha is probably the foremost man of the Government; a manly man, with a kind, fine face, and genial, polished manners. Educated abroad, with advanced views on general subjects, he impresses one as a man who would sanction no wrong it was in his power to avert.

We were received at the Department of State in an uninterrupted interview lasting over an hour. As this was the main interview and the base of all our work, it is perhaps proper that I give it somewhat in detail. Mr. Terrell’s introduction was most appropriate and well expressed, bearing with strong emphasis upon the suffering condition of the people of the interior in consequence of the massacres, and the great sympathy of the people of America, their intense desire to help them, the heartfelt interest in their missionaries whose burdens were greater than they ought to bear, and the desire to aid them, and that for all these reasons we had been asked to come; that our objects were purely humanitarian, having neither political, racial, nor religious bearing as such; that as the head of the organization thus represented I could have no other ideas, and it was the privilege of putting these ideas into practice and the protection required meanwhile that the people of America, through him and through me, were asking.

The Pasha listened most attentively to the speech of Mr. Terrell, thanked him, and replied that this was well understood; that they knew the Red Cross and its president, and, turning to me, repeated: “We know you, Miss Barton; have long known you and your work. We would like to hear your plans for relief and what you desire.”

I proceeded to state them, bearing fully upon the fact that the condition to which the people of the interior of Asia Minor had been reduced by recent events had aroused the sympathy of the entire American people until they asked, almost to the extent of a demand, that assistance from them should be allowed to go directly to these sufferers, hundreds of whom had friends and relatives in America—a fact which naturally strengthened both the interest and the demand; that it was at the request of our people, en masse, that I and a few assistants had come; that our object would be to use the funds ourselves among the people needing them wherever they were found, in helping them to resume their former positions and vocations, thus relieving them from continued distress, the State from the burden of providing for them, and other nations and people from a torrent of sympathy which was both hard to endure and unwholesome in its effects; that I had brought skilled agents, practical and experienced farmers whose first efforts would be to get the people back to their deserted fields and provide them with farming implements and material wherewith to put in summer crops and thus enable them to feed themselves. These would embrace ploughs, hoes, spades, seed-corn, wheat, and, later, sickles, scythes, etc., for harvesting, with which to save the miles of autumn grain which we had heard of as growing on the great plains already in the ground before the trouble; also to provide for them such cattle and other animals as it would be possible to purchase or to get back; that if some such thing were not done before another winter, unless we had been greatly misinformed, the suffering there would shock the entire civilized world. None of us knew from personal observations, as yet, the full need of assistance, but had reason to believe it very great. That if my agents were permitted to go, such need as they found they would be prompt to relieve. On the other hand, if they did not find the need existing there, none would leave the field so gladly as they. There would be no respecting of persons; humanity alone would be their guide. “We have,” I added, “brought only ourselves, no correspondent has accompanied us, and we shall have none, and shall not go home to write a book on Turkey. We are not here for that. Nothing shall be done in any concealed manner. All dispatches which we send will go openly through your own telegraph, and I should be glad if all that we shall write could be seen by your Government. I cannot, of course, say what its character will be, but can vouch for its truth, fairness, and integrity, and for the conduct of every leading man who shall be sent. I shall never counsel nor permit a sly or underhand action with your Government, and you will pardon me, Pasha, if I say that I shall expect the same treatment in return—such as I give I shall expect to receive.”

Almost without a breath he replied—“And you shall have it. We honor your position and your wishes will be respected. Such aid and protection as we are able to, we shall render.”

I then asked if it were necessary for me to see other officials. “No,” he replied, “I speak for my Government.” And with cordial good wishes, our interview closed.

I never spoke personally with this gentleman again; all further business being officially transacted through the officers of our Legation. Yet I can truly say, as I have said of my first meeting with our matchless band of missionary workers, that here commenced an acquaintance which proved invaluable, and here were given pledges of mutual faith of which not a word was ever broken or invalidated on either side, and to which I owe what we were able to do through all Asia Minor. It is to the strong escorts ordered from the Sublime Porte for our expeditions and men that I owe the fact that they all came back to me, and that I bring them home to you, tired and worn, but saved and useful still.

Dr. Hubbell and the leaders of the five expeditions tell us that they were never, even for a portion of a day, without an escort for protection, and this at the expense of the Turkish Government, and that without this protection they must not and could not have proceeded.

At length the task was accomplished. One by one the expeditions closed and withdrew, returning by Sivas and Samsoun and coming out by the Black Sea. By that time it is probable that no one questioned the propriety of their route or longer wondered at their method of work. The perplexed frowns of our anxious committees and sympathetic people had long given way to smiles of confidence and approval, and glad hands would have reached far over the waters to meet ours as warmly extended to them.

With the return of the expeditions we closed the field, but before leaving Constantinople, funds from both the New York and Boston committees came to us amounting to some fifteen thousand dollars. This was happily placed with Mr. Peet, treasurer of the Board of Foreign Missions at Stamboul, for the building of little houses in the interior as a winter shelter and protection where all had been destroyed.

The appearance of our men on their arrival at Constantinople confirmed the impression that they had not been recalled too soon. They had gone out through the snows and ice of winter and without change or rest had come back through the scorching suns of midsummer—five months of rough, uncivilized life, faring and sharing with their beasts of burden, well-nigh out of communication with the civilized world, but never out of danger, it seemed but just to themselves and to others who might yet need them that change and rest be given them.

Since our entrance upon Turkish soil no general disturbance had taken place. One heard only the low rumbling of the thunder after the storm, the clouds were drifting southward and settling over Crete and Macedonia, and we felt that we might take at least some steps toward home. It was only when this movement commenced that we began truly to realize how deep the roots of friendship, comradeship, confidence, and love had struck back among our newly found friends and countrymen; how much a part of ourselves—educational, humanitarian, and official—their work and interest had become, and surely from them we learned anew the lesson of reciprocity.

Some days of physical rest were needful for the men of the expeditions after reaching Constantinople before commencing another journey of thousands of miles, worn as they were by exposure, hardship, and incessant labor, both physical and mental. This interval of time was, however, mainly employed by them in the preparation of the reports submitted with this, and in attention to the letters which followed them from their various fields, telling of further need, but more largely overflowing with gratitude and blessing for what had been done.

For our financial secretary and myself there could be neither rest nor respite while we remained at a disbursing post so well known as ours. Indeed there never had been. From the time of our arrival in February to our embarkation in August there were but two days not strictly devoted to business, the 4th of July and the 5th of August—the last a farewell to our friends. For both of these occasions we were indebted to the hospitality of treasurer and Mrs. W. W. Peet, and although held in the open air, on the crowning point of Proti, one of the Princes’ Islands, with the Marmora, Bosporus, and Golden Horn in full view, the spires and minarets of Constantinople and Scutari telling us of a land we knew little of, with peoples and customs strange and incomprehensible to us, still there was no lack of the emblem that makes every American at home, and its wavy folds of red, white, and blue shaded the tables and flecked the tasteful viands around which sat the renowned leaders of the American missionary element of Asia Minor.

Henry O. Dwight, D.D., the accomplished gentleman and diplomatic head, who was the first to suggest an appeal to the Red Cross, and I am glad to feel he has never repented him of his decision. One fact in regard to Dr. Dwight may be of interest to some hundreds of thousands of our people. On first meeting him I was not quite sure of the title by which to address him, if reverend or doctor, and took the courage to ask him. He turned a glance full of amused meaning upon me as he replied: “That is of little consequence; the title I prize most is Captain Dwight.” “Of what?” I asked. “Company D, Twentieth Ohio Volunteers, in our late war.” The recognition which followed can well be imagined by the comrades for whose interest I have named the incident.

The Reverend Joseph K. Greene, D.D., and his amiable wife, to whom so much is due toward the well-being of the missionary work of Constantinople. I regret that I am not able to reproduce the eloquent and patriotic remarks of Dr. Greene on both these occasions, so true to our country, our government, and our laws. The Reverend George P. Knapp, formerly of Bitlis, whose courage no one questions. Mrs. Lee of Marash, and Mrs. Dr. George Washburn of Robert College, the worthy and efficient daughters of the Reverend Doctor Cyrus Hamlin, the veteran missionary and founder of Robert College, living in Lexington, Massachusetts. A half-score of teachers, whose grand lives will one day grace the pages of religious history. And last, though by no means least, our host, the man of few words and much work, who bears the burden of monetary relief for the woes and wants of Asia Minor, W. W. Peet.

It was a great satisfaction that most of our field agents were able to be present at the last of these beautiful occasions and personally render an account of their stewardship to those who had watched their course with such interest. The pleasure of these two days of recreation will ever remain a golden light in our memories.

As the first official act of the relief work after our arrival in Constantinople was my formal presentation to the Sublime Porte by the American Minister, the Honorable A. W. Terrell, diplomatic courtesy demanded that I take proper occasion to notify the Turkish Government of our departure and return thanks for its assistance, which was done formally at “Selamlik,” a religious ceremony held on the Turkish Sabbath, which corresponds to our Friday. The Court Chamberlain delivered my message to the palace. It was received and responded to through the same medium and I took my departure, having finished my diplomatic work with that Government which had from first to last treated me with respect, assisted my work, and protected my workers.

To correct certain impressions and expressions which have been circulating more or less extensively in this country, and for the correct information of the people who through their loyal interest deserve to know the facts, I make known my entire social relations while residing in Turkey. Personally I did not go beyond Constantinople. The proper conduct of our work demanded the continuous presence of both our financial secretary and myself at headquarters. I never saw, to communicate with personally, any member of the Turkish Government excepting its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tewfik Pasha, as named previously. I never spoke with the Sultan and have never seen him excepting in his carriage on the way to his mosque.

On being informed through our Legation that the Turkish Minister at Washington, Mavroyeni Bey, had been recalled and that his successor was about to leave for his new position, I felt that national courtesy required that I call upon him and, attended by a member of our Legation, my secretary and myself crossed the Bosporusto, a magnificent estate on the Asiatic shore, the palatial home of Moustapha Tahsin Bey, a gentleman of culture, who had resided in New York in some legal capacity, and who, I feel certain, will be socially and officially acceptable to our Government.

I have received a decoration, officially described as follows:

Brevet of Chevalier of the Royal Order of Melusine, founded in 1186, by Sibylle, Queen and spouse of King Guy of Jerusalem, and reinstituted several years since by Marie, Princess of Lusignan. The Order is conferred for humanitarian, scientific and other services of distinction, but especially when such services are rendered to the House of Lusignan, and particularly to the Armenian nation. The Order is worn by a number of reigning sovereigns, and is highly prized by the recipients because of its rare bestowal and its beauty. This decoration is bestowed by His Royal Highness, Guy of Lusignan, Prince of Jerusalem, Cyprus and Armenia.

Some months after returning home I received through our State Department at Washington the Sultan’s decoration of Shefaket and its accompanying diploma in Turkish, a translation of which is here given:

As Miss Barton, American citizen, possesses many great and distinguished qualities and as recompense is due to her, I am pleased therefore to accord to her the second class of my decorations of Shefaket.

Such were the honors which Miss Barton received from the Turkish Government. Her American friends in Constantinople were no less enthusiastic. Among the foremost of American missionaries in Turkey and those longest resident in Constantinople, the Reverend Doctors Dwight and Greene deserve to be quoted as expressing the judgment of the Americans as a body:

From the Reverend Doctor H. O. Dwight, one word among the many so generously spoken:

Miss Barton has done a splendid work, sensibly and economically managed. Wherever her agents have been, the missionaries have expressed the strongest approval of their methods and efficiency. The work done has been of great and permanent importance.

From the Reverend Joseph K. Greene, D.D., to the New York “Independent”:

After some six months of service, Miss Clara Barton and her five able assistants have left Constantinople on their return to America. It was only on the earnest solicitation of the missionaries, the officers of the American Board, and many other friends of the suffering Armenians that Miss Barton undertook the relief in this land. The difficulties of the work, arising from the suspicions of the Turkish authorities, the distance from the capital to the sufferers, the perils and discomforts in communicating with them, and from unfamiliarity with the languages and customs of the people of the land, would surely have appalled a less courageous heart. Under such circumstances it is only just and fair that the American public should be apprised of the substantial success of this mission of the Red Cross.

In the first place, Miss Barton has shown a rare faculty in getting on well with everybody. To facilitate her work she, and the assistants whom she loves to call “my men,” laid aside all the insignia of the Red Cross and appeared everywhere simply as private individuals. She clearly understood that she could accomplish her mission only by securing the confidence and good-will of the authorities, and this she did by her patience and repeated explanations, and by the assistance of the American Legation. When the iradé, or imperial decree sanctioning her mission, was delayed, she sent forward her assistants with only a traveling permit for a part of the way, trusting, and not in vain, that the local authorities, instructed from headquarters, would facilitate their way. As a matter of fact, while Mr. Pullman, her secretary and treasurer, remained at Constantinople with Miss Barton, her distributing agents, namely, Dr. Hubbell and Mr. Mason, Mr. Wistar and Mr. Wood, either together or in two parties, traveled inland from Alexandretta to Killis, Aintab, Marash, Zeitoun, Birejik, Oorfa, Diarbekir, Farkin, Harpoot, Palou, Malatia, Arabkir, Egin, Sivas, Tokat, Samsoun, and back to Constantinople without interruption or molestation. They were readily and constantly supplied with guards, and could not with safety have made their perilous four months’ journey without them. Demands are said to have been made that the distribution of aid be made under the supervision of Government officials, but, in fact, Miss Barton’s agents knew how to make their distributions in every place, after careful consultation and examination, without any interference on the part of the authorities.

Miss Barton received in all about $116,000, and an unexpended balance of $15,400 was committed to Mr. Peet, the treasurer of the American Missions in Turkey, to be held as an emergency fund, subject to Miss Barton’s orders. No expense has been incurred for Miss Barton or her agents save for traveling expenses and the wages of interpreters, and with this exception the entire sum expended has gone to the actual relief of the sufferers. While the fund committed to the Anglo-American Committee, of which Mr. Peet is a member—a sum four to five times the amount committed to Miss Barton—has been expended through the missionaries, largely to save the hungry from starvation, the relief through the agents of the Red Cross has for the most part been wisely devoted to the putting of the poor sufferers on their feet again, and thus helping them to help themselves. Some five hundred liras (a lira is $4.40 of good money) were given for the cure and care of the sick in Marash, Zeitoun, and elsewhere, and some two thousand liras’ worth of cloths, thread, pins and needles were sent inland; but many times this amount was expended in providing material for poor widows; seeds, agricultural implements and oxen for farmers; tools for blacksmiths and carpenters; and looms for weavers. In some places Miss Barton’s agents had the pleasure of seeing vegetable gardens coming forward from seed furnished by the Red Cross, and village farmers reaping the grain with sickles which the Red Cross had given. The great want now—a want which the funds of the Red Cross agents did not permit them to any large extent to meet—is aid to the poor villagers to help them rebuild their burned and ruined houses, and thus provide for themselves shelter against the rigors of the coming winter. The Red Cross agents have, however, gathered a great stock of information; and passing by the horrors of the massacres and the awful abuse of girls and women, as unimpeachable witnesses they can bear testimony to the frightful sufferings and needs of the people. We most sincerely hope and pray that Miss Barton and the agents and friends of the Red Cross will not esteem their work in Turkey done, but knowing now so well just what remains to be done, and what can be done, will bend every effort to secure further relief for the widows and orphans of the more than sixty thousand murdered men—mostly between the ages of eighteen and fifty—whose lives no earthly arm was outstretched to save.

While we gratefully bear witness to the wise and indefatigable efforts of Miss Barton’s agents, permit us to add that during her more than six months’ stay in Constantinople Miss Barton gave herself unremittingly to the work of her mission. She seems to have had no time for sight-seeing, and not a few of her friends are disposed to complain that she had no time to accept the invitations of those who would have been glad to entertain her. The only relaxation she seems to have given herself was on two occasions—the first, a Fourth of July picnic with a few American friends, on one of the Princes’ Islands, and the second, another picnic on the same island, on Wednesday, August 5, when, with three of her “men,” she met some twenty American lady teachers and missionaries, in order to bid them a courteous farewell. The first occasion she unqualifiedly declared to have been the happiest Fourth of July she had ever had; and inspired by the occasion, she penned some verses which she kindly read to her friends on the second gathering, and which we very much wish she would permit the editor of the “Independent” to publish. On the second occasion, at Miss Barton’s request, the financial secretary read his report and Dr. Hubbell and Mr. Wood presented reports of the work of distribution. We gratefully acknowledged the honor done us in permitting us to hear these reports; and, remembering our concern for Miss Barton while preparing for the work of distribution six months ago, we gladly expressed our joy and congratulations now on the happy return of her faithful and efficient agents, of whom it may be truly said that they went and saw and conquered. We rejoiced that these new friends had come to know so well the American missionaries in Turkey, and were truly thankful for a mutually happy acquaintance. We wished Miss Barton and her “men” a hearty welcome on their arrival, and, now, with all our hearts, we wish them God-speed on their return home.

Miss Barton was already much bedecorated before the formation of the American Red Cross, but she brought back from Turkey additional official decorations presented to her by the Turkish Government and by prominent organizations represented by the Armenians.

DECORATIONS OF CLARA BARTON

1. “Gold Masonic Emblem,” given her by her father and worn by Miss Clara Barton through the Civil War, 1861-1865.

2. “The German official Red Cross Field Badge,” presented by the Grand Duchess of Baden, and worn by Miss Barton through the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871.

3. “The Iron Cross of Germany,” conferred by Emperor William I and Empress Augusta, 1871, in recognition of Miss Barton’s services for humanity in the Franco-Prussian War.

4. “The Gold Cross of Remembrance,” conferred by the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Baden, 1871.

5. “Royal Jewel” (gold-knot brooch), presented by the Grand Duchess of Baden, 1897. When presenting this brooch to Miss Barton the Grand Duchess said, “An unbroken friendship of twenty-six years deserves to be tied by a knot of gold.”

6. The official medal of the “International Red Cross,” presented to Miss Barton when through her efforts the Congress of the United States adopted the treaty of Geneva in 1882. Presented by the International Committee of Geneva.

7. Serbian decoration (silver, red enamel, and silver center), conferred by Queen Nathalie of Serbia, 1883, for services for humanity.

8. Gold badge of the “Waffengenosen” German soldiers in America who took part in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, presented to their Honorary Member Miss Barton in 1885.

9. Silver Medal conferred by Augusta, Empress of Germany, 1885.

10. “Grand Army and Woman’s Relief Corps” (gold with diamonds), presented to Miss Barton, the sole Honorary Member of the Relief Corps, 1886.

11. Royal Jewel (brooch, smoky topaz surrounded with pearls), presented by the Grand Duchess of Baden, 1887.

12. Royal Jewel (red topaz and gold brooch), presented by the Empress Augusta of Germany, 1887.

13. Silver medal of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association, presented in 1887.

14. Gold brooch with diamonds and sapphire setting, presented by the ladies of Johnstown, Pa., at the close of the relief work of the Johnstown flood, 1889.

15. Gold badge of the “Sorosis,” New York, presented to Miss Barton, their Honorary Member, 1890.

16. Gold badge of “The Clara Barton Lodge of the Sisters of the G. A. R. of Gloucester, Mass.,” presented to Miss Barton, their Honorary Member, 1890.

17. Badge of the Loyal Legion of Women of Washington, D.C., presented to their Honorary Member Miss Barton, 1893.

20. Gold Medal of the Vanderbilt Benevolent Association of South Carolina, presented to Miss Barton, their Honorary Member, 1894.

21. Red Cross Insignia (silver and red enamel with diamond star), in commemoration of the American Relief Field, 1896, presented by Miss Barton’s Assistants on the field in memory of the Relief Field of Armenia.

22. Armenian Decoration (silver, blue enamel, and gold), bestowed by His Royal Highness Guy de Lusignan, Prince of Jerusalem, Cyprus, and Armenia, 1896, in recognition of services in relief of the Armenian massacres.

23. The gold badge of the War Veterans and Sons Association of Brooklyn, New York, presented to their Honorary Member Clara Barton, April, 1899.

24. Turkish Decoration (gold, diamonds, and other jewels), conferred by the Sultan Abdul Hamid in 1897 through the State Department, with the request that if America desired to send further relief to his domains, she should send back the missionaries of humanity she sent before.

25. Spanish Decoration of Honor (gold and green enamel), conferred in 1898 by the Spanish Government.

26. Belgian Decoration (silver and red enamel), conferred in 1892 by the Red Cross of Belgium.

27. Russian Decoration (silver and red enamel), conferred by the Czar Nicholas in 1902. Russian famine.

The foregoing outline briefly summarizes the work of Miss Barton and of the American Red Cross in the years following its official recognition and preceding the Spanish-American War. It was a glorious record; it gave to the Red Cross a definition in the mind of America, and a place in the admiration of the world, such as no philanthropic organization ever had attained. It brought to Clara Barton honors which she accepted with modesty and quietly laid away while she devoted herself to preparation for the next field of service.

The work of the Red Cross was now a labor that occupied the whole twelve months. Her salaried force was small; the expense of administration was kept low. She maintained a skeleton organization with a stock of supplies such as did not deteriorate by storage and was certain to be needed when the first news of disaster arrived. She did not employ a large force of idle helpers. She depended upon the emergency bringing its own troop of assistants who worked under her direction and the direction of those whom she had trained.

Clara Barton knew what not all philanthropists know that it is as important for a philanthropic organization to get out when its work is done as it is for it to go in when its work is needed. In almost every field she met with requests for the continuance of the work after she knew that the time had come for the people to rely upon their own resources. She was determined that the Red Cross should never become a pauperizing institution or furnish employment for an army of official idlers.

CHAPTER XIII
CLARA BARTON AT HOME AND ABROAD

Strenuous were the years of Miss Barton’s administration of the American Red Cross. There was upon an average practically one disaster a year which called her organization into the field. In some instances the active work of the Red Cross upon the ground lasted only a few weeks; in other cases, as in the matter of the South Carolina Sea Islands, it consumed almost a year. The intervals between disasters were occupied by correspondence, addresses, articles for the press, and attendance to the many duties brought on by a widened acquaintance and a constantly growing interest in the work. They were years, too, in which Miss Barton was sometimes personally short of money. In no other period, as in this, do her diaries so clearly show the necessity which she felt for personal economy for the sake of the work. She declined the four-thousand-dollar salary which was suggested for her; she vetoed every proposal looking toward a Government appropriation for her personal benefit or for the work of the Red Cross. If during this long period she ever thought of the Red Cross in terms of a possible financial advantage to herself, her diaries betray no hint of it. If she ever thought of the possibility that Congress might take care of her, the innumerable letters which passed between her and the members of the two houses of Congress afford no indication of it.

The adhesion of the United States to the Treaty of Geneva did, however, take her abroad a number of times, once or more at Government expense, as one of the three official representatives of the United States at certain international congresses. The appropriations to cover the expenses of a delegate were never very large; generally two thousand dollars for the expense of three delegates. In connection with one of these journeys an interesting correspondence developed in which one of the delegates exceeded in expenditure his none too ample allowance of less than seven hundred dollars. He wrote a long letter explaining why it had been necessary for him to expend more, and desired Clara Barton to approve his request for an increase. This she declined to do either for herself or for either of the others. For her simple tastes the appropriation was ample; she lived within it and her associates had to do the same or make up the balance out of their own pockets.

Miss Barton had just returned from her arduous labor on behalf of the flood sufferers on the Ohio and Mississippi in the summer of 1884, when Secretary of State Frelinghuysen appointed her one of the three delegates to the International Conference at Geneva. Her associates were her friends Judge Joseph Sheldon, of Connecticut, and Mr. A. S. Sullivan, vice-president of the American Red Cross.

Miss Barton was so wearied with her labors in connection with the flood sufferers that she hesitated about accepting her appointment. To her great joy and to that of Dr. Hubbell, who accompanied her, the voyage proved an excellent tonic. There was not an unpleasant day, and Miss Barton was not ill an hour and did not miss a meal. Toward the close of the voyage she was called upon to address the passengers, who greeted her with great interest and listened to her with marked and reverent attention. She reached Liverpool on August 26, 1884, and had a happy and prosperous journey to Geneva where the Congress convened in December.

Four hundred distinguished delegates and representatives of the signatory powers to the treaty assembled at Geneva. There were titled rulers, distinguished representatives of nobility, eminent surgeons, noted scientists, and philanthropists whose names were known around the world.

It is not too much to say that Clara Barton was the most noted delegate to that convention and the recipient of its highest honors. There was not one among the four hundred delegates who did not know that it was she who brought the United States, last of all the great nations, to occupy a place in that gathering. Popular interest centered about her; she was pointed out and sought out as the most celebrated delegate to the congress. Not all of her associates were strangers to her; chief among the royal persons present to claim the honor of her acquaintance and introduce her as their friend were the Grand Duke of Baden, the Grand Duchess, and her imperial father, the Emperor of Germany.

It was the direct influence of Miss Barton which caused the introduction of what is known as the “America Amendment.” This amendment was to the effect—

That the Red Cross Society engage in time of peace in humanitarian work analogous to the duties devolving upon them in periods of war, such as taking care of the sick and rendering relief in extraordinary calamities where, as in war, prompt and organized relief is demanded.

The adoption of this resolution was a high compliment to Clara Barton. She brought to the congress not only the prestige of America’s accession to the treaty, but a new and notable enlargement of the sphere of Red Cross activity which she had invented, tested, and found practicable in America, and worthy of recommendation to all the world.

At Geneva she was joined by Antoinette Margot, whom she sent for as a companion and interpreter. For, though Clara Barton was fairly at home in conversation in French, she was glad of assistance at times. Antoinette had written her in the years of their separation. Her own life had been none too happy, and she had passed through a religious crisis that led her, though born a Protestant, into the Roman Catholic Church, and later into a cloister. Even this change she credited to Clara Barton! This amused Clara, but Antoinette said that but for Clara she would have remained “a crushed-down little unhappy baby in my father’s house”; Clara had given her courage and strength to face great questions and decide them:

Dear, dear Miss Barton [she wrote]: Never, never I shall forget what I owe to you. I owe you even my perfect actual happiness of being a Catholic, for, without your strong teaching, and your nerving of my heart, I could never have dared to take the step of following my convictions, when I had convictions to follow.

Clara’s comment was:

Poor, simple child! It is all for the best, I think. Hers is one of those unsteady, unbalanced minds that must be controlled. She has no mastery over herself, and nothing but a priest and a confessional can make her happy.

Antoinette poured out her impulsive love in extravagant protestations of devotion. She wanted to see Miss Barton, to kiss the feet of the woman who had done so much for her, and who stood in the mind of Antoinette as the realization of the noblest ideal of womanhood.

We owe to this impulsive girl, who later entered a convent, a really fine description of Clara Barton as she stood among the representatives of all the nations that were joined in the league of the Red Cross at Geneva:

The Government of the United States has done itself no greater credit than in selecting Clara Barton to represent it among the nations abroad. During the last week I have looked on as she has sat day by day in one of the greatest and grandest assemblies of men that could be gathered—men representing the highest rank among the civilized nations of the earth; men of thought, of wisdom, of power, called together from all over the world to deliberate on great questions, of nautical import, military power, the neutrality of nations, humanity in war, wisdom in peace. In the midst of this assembly of gray-haired men, glittering with military decorations, with national honors, won and conferred, sat this one woman—calm, thoughtful, self-possessed, recognized and acknowledged as possessing every right and privilege belonging to any member of the conference; not merely permitted to be there, but there by the sovereign right of nations; not merely allowed to sit there by the courtesy due to a lady, but by the right due to a nation’s representative; her vote not merely accepted as a matter of form, but expected and watched for; grave questions referred to her as the representative of a great nation, and all deference paid to her judgment: her demeanor so unobtrusive, her actions so wise, that it could not otherwise than reflect merited credit upon her and her country.

But the crowning recognition of her philanthropic labors at home and abroad was given when one of the Italian delegates, springing upon the platform, proposed to the assemblage to vote, by acclamation, that “Mademoiselle Barton bien mérite de l’humanité”.

Even Miss Barton was moved from her usual composure by the thunders of applause. I do not know whether you in America are familiar with the peculiar significance of that phrase. It is an expression of the highest approbation, honor, and esteem that the French language can convey. It is probable that Miss Barton is the first woman in the world who has ever received such a tribute.

After her return from Geneva, Miss Barton made a journey to California, in 1886, returning by way of Charleston, South Carolina, where she had a share in the relief of that city after the earthquake.

In September, 1887, occurred another international congress of the Red Cross. This was held in Germany, at Carlsruhe, the ducal capital of Alsace and home of the Grand Duchess Louise. Here she met her friends, the Grand Duke and Duchess of Baden and the Emperor of Germany, and besides these the Empress Augusta, Bismarck, and von Moltke. Her honors here were scarcely less brilliant than they had been at Geneva, and her personal joys were more, for she was near the scenes of her labors in the Franco-Prussian War. There she was the guest of royalty; crowned heads bowed respectfully to her. From Baden Baden she wrote a letter home just after the close of the congress:

Baden Baden, Germany, Oct. 28, 1887

The International Red Cross Conference has closed. Most of the delegates have left Carlsruhe, unless, like ourselves, remaining for after-work. The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, with their Court, have retired to Baden Baden for the customary birthday festivities of Her Majesty the Empress, and the Emperor and his suite would, as also customary, make his yearly visit in honor of the occasion, thus making that lovely and historic old town for the moment, the center of interest for the Empire.

Dr. H. and myself were at breakfast when the hotel porter laid a telegraphic dispatch on my plate. It will be remembered, at least by personal friends, that three years ago, while in attendance at a similar international conference, the honored pleasure of a meeting with His Majesty the Emperor of Germany had been given me. This dispatch informed me that a like honor again awaited my presence in Baden Baden. Trunks were packed, adieus made, and the midday train of the following day took us in time for the appointed hour. Whoever has visited the interior of the “New Castle,” the Baden Baden palace of the Grand Duke, and been shown through its tasteful apartments, rich in elegance, tradition, and history, will require no further reminder of the place where the interview would be given.

This was, as well, the birthday of the Crown Prince; and in tender paternal sympathy, for the painful affliction resting upon a life so treasured, and for the great anxiety of the German people, His Majesty the Emperor would pass a portion of the day with the beloved daughter and sister, the Grand Duchess, at the castle; and in honoring memory of the occasion, its halls were thronged with visitors who came to manifest both respect and sympathy.

At half-past one o’clock we were ushered in at the great castle doors, by their attendants in livery of “scarlet and gold,” the national colors of Baden; our damp wraps removed—for it was a pouring rain—and after a half-hour sitting by a cheerful fire, among pictures which quite called one out of personal consciousness, we were escorted to the grand reception and drawing room, to the center of a magnificent apartment with no occupant but ourselves. By another door one saw the Emperor surrounded by guests, who paid formal respects. Scores of visitors with coachmen in richest livery had entered while we waited and registered titled names on the open pages.

At length His Majesty turned from the group about him, and, taking the arm of the Grand Duchess, entered our apartment. It was difficult to realize all the ninety years, as he stepped toward us with even, and steady, if no longer elastic, tread. He approached with cordially extended hand, and in his excellent French expressed satisfaction for the meeting. “In the name of humanity, he was glad to meet and welcome those who labored for it.”

In recalling the earlier days of our acquaintance, Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess alluded tenderly to the winter in Strassburg of ’70 and ’71,—which I had passed among its poor and wounded people after the siege,—and, selecting two from a cluster of decorations which I had worn in honor of the present occasion, drew the attention of the Emperor to them. The one he knew; it was his own, presented upon his seventy-fifth birthday. The other he had never seen. It was the beautiful decoration of the “German Waffengenossen”—the “Warrior Brothers in arms” of Milwaukee.

It was puzzlingly familiar, and yet it was not familiar. There was again the Iron Cross of Germany, but it was on the American shield. The “American Eagle” surmounting the arms for defense; and the colors of Germany, the red, white, and black of the Empire uniting the two. His Majesty gazed upon the expressive emblem, which, with no words, said so much, and turned inquiringly to the Grand Duchess, as if to ask, “Does my daughter understand this?”

The explanation was made that it was from His Majesty’s own soldiers, who, after the “German-Franco War,” had gone to the United States and become citizens; and this device was designed to express, that, as by its shield they were American citizens, and true to the land of their adoption, so by its “Iron Cross,” they were still German; and by the colors of the native land for which every man had offered his life, and risked it, they bound the old home to the new; and by the American Eagle and arms, surmounting all, they were ready to offer their lives again, if need be, in defense of either land.

The smile of the grand old Emperor, as he listened, had in it the “Well done” of the benignant father to a dutiful and successful son. “And they make good citizens?” he would ask. “The best that could be desired,” I said; “industrious, honest, and prosperous, and, sire, they are still yours in heart, still true to the Fatherland and its Emperor.”

“I am glad to hear this; they were good soldiers, and thank God, true men everywhere,” was the earnest and royal response.

His Majesty continued, speaking of America, its growth, its progress, its advancement in science and humanity, its adoption and work of the Red Cross, which meant so much for mankind; and when assured that its people revered and loved the Emperor of Germany, that his life was precious to them, and that thousands of prayers went up for him in that distant land he had never seen, the touching and characteristic response betrayed the first tremor of the voice the ear had caught in its kindly tones.

“God be praised for this; for it is all from Him. I am only His. Of myself I am nothing. He made us what we are. God is over all.”

We stood with bowed heads while those slowly spoken, earnest, holy words from that most revered of earthly monarchs fell upon us like a benediction.

At length His Majesty gave a hand to both Dr. H. and myself in a parting adieu, and walked a few steps away, when turning back, and again extending a hand, said, in French, “It is probably the last time,” and in pleasant English, “Good-bye.” And again taking the arm of the Grand Duchess walked from the room, leaving His Highness the Grand Duke, one of the kindest and noblest types of manhood, to say the last words, and close the interview; one of the most impressive and memorable of a lifetime.

In another letter she told of her parting with the imperial party as follows:

Baden Baden, Oct. 24, 1887

I do not know if I have written since coming here or if my last was from Carlsruhe. We were here for the “Baden season.” We were invited by the Duke and Duchess to spend a few weeks at Baden Baden, and of course all the Court proper would come. The Empress came also; and the Emperor. They will be here till next Friday, when she goes to Berlin. The Crown Prince’s health is very poor. The Emperor is better than ever—bright and cheerful like a young man. We went the other evening to see him take the train for Berlin. The station reserve rooms were like a drawing-room and all the Court and royal persons were in them, to wait the coming of the Emperor, and the town. The Emperor shook hands with all, saying good-bye, made pretty gifts to some special persons, then entered the royal train, to ride all night. The day before yesterday the Empress sent for me to come to her. I spent a most delightful hour. She had a great deal to say, and made me a lovely parting gift of a ruby brooch. She insisted that we should meet again, that I should come to Europe again, and she should see me. In the P.M. the Grand Duchess sent for us to go to her and we went and spent two lovely hours. She is charming as ever. Then next evening (last evening) she sent for us to come to dine. We went and had a beautiful time. We are to go again to-morrow for a visit. After the end of this week we go to Strassburg to spend a little time. Shall most likely go to Berlin and back to Strassburg and down the French side of the Rhine to Basle, Bern, Geneva, Paris, London, Liverpool, and then we shall be on our direct way home, but it is some little time yet before we can go home.

From her journey to attend that international congress at Carlsruhe she returned in January, 1888, and was quickly called away to Mount Vernon, Illinois, to care for the sufferers from the tornado. When she returned from this campaign, she went on a short tour delivering addresses before influential bodies. She spoke in Montclair, New Jersey, addressing a State conference of Congregational churches. She then delivered a lecture in Philadelphia, and was received with every consideration and honor. Then she went home to Washington and did her washing. This combination of her work as a world leader and a woman concerned with domestic affairs is contained in two letters to Mrs. Stafford, dated May 4 and May 8, 1888:

Dearest Mamie:

I had intended to write you just a line on the train to and from Philadelphia, but one was in the night—the other so full of other things and the trip so short, I did not get to it.

I can’t think it was a week ago, but so it seems. The first day I met the Society on its Annual Meeting, and spoke to them a little. I attended a lunch party before the meeting and a reception after the opera at the elegant residence of Dr. ——, president of the Philadelphia Red Cross. That made four things after twelve o’clock.

The next day we had informal meetings with officers of the society until two o’clock P.M. Then attended a lecture given in the regular course of the Red Cross Society. Then I gave a lecture. Then home to dress for the reception to commence at eight.

This was given in Union League Hall, very large, with a band of music. The dignitaries of the city attended in bodies. The physicians—the clergymen—the lawyers—the judges—the military army and navy in uniform. I received and shook hands with all. They left after eleven. It was a splendid reception. There was still a meeting at the hotel (The Colonnade) after our return, so we are only in bed by two o’clock next morning, got a hasty breakfast and hastened to the nine o’clock train for home; found a large mail, and I was very sleepy. I did sleep a day or two mainly, and that is what makes the week seem so short, I think.

Then just think what a washing there was on hand; had never had time to have a full wash done since our return from Mount Vernon. The Woman’s Council came directly on that, and an address to write for it. Then the conference of churches at Montclair, and another address to write. Then Philadelphia, and another address to write, with all that came between. The wash went to the wall till this week, when it was taken up in its turn and put through in one day, and all ironed yesterday, and clothes put away this very minute, and I haven’t left the warehouse yet, but am just dropped down at the table in front of the window, near the store (Gaby will know all about it) while Alfred brings compost from the stable alongside ready to make up some flower-beds, etc., and I direct him from the window as I scribble, to lose no time. It is just as lovely as it can be. Tell Gaby we have moved the rosebushes all down to the front of the yard, and they didn’t mind it a bit, and went right on putting out buds, and he will appreciate how much better chance we had with a washing of twenty sheets, thirty pillowslips, and other things in proportion, and he knows how quickly and easily it all went out of the way, and no one got much tired, and not any sick.

I haven’t time for more than a word. We are making out our foreign conference accounts for the Government and I have the report to make out directly and a bill to draw up for Congress this next week and a host of correspondence, and we are having Alfred make up our garden, in front of the warehouse, and a pretty little plot it is too. I found time one night by moonlight to plant lettuce and peppergrass and radishes, and in two days they come up and are green and pretty. Yesterday we set out two dozen tomato plants a foot high, and all of our dozen grapevines are growing; splendid varieties; and when Alfred makes up the flower-beds to-day, we shall find time to plant all the seeds I have. I have no bulbs to set, but I have a dozen nice hollyhocks, fifteen inches high, and all the rosebushes and fleur de lys in bloom and bud. I can’t get time to hunt over the house for the little seeds we want to plant. I have nice seeds for kitchen-garden things from Dansville, but can’t remember where to look for them. I want a pinch of caraway seed and twelve great sage roots and I want some catnip seed for Tommy. There is not a stalk of catnip anywhere about, and I can’t get any seed. Have you some in your catnip herb bag? I like saffran, and red balm such as Julian raises; I can get plenty of elegant plants, but the old, old things are hard to find—and I have not time to look, but should so like to stick a few out in my nice beds. So here is a place for small contributions. I do hope Johny is better. Please give him all the love I can send, and try, all of you, to keep well. We are well, the Saturday work is all done up, and everything is lovely as spring can make it.

The great “Council of Women” is now over [she writes a little later]: the meetings are ended, the people are mainly leaving the city, and this hour my house has had its last visitor. Every day till now my space, and my table, has been filled to the utmost, and in addition to my full part in the “Council,” its meeting, committees, and speeches.

The next morning (yesterday) I had to meet a Senate committee at the Capitol and address them at ten o’clock. Then I go with Mrs. General Logan and others to the War Department to manage business there. And now it is eight-thirty the next morning, and at ten I must be at the War Department with another committee.

Her domestic affairs attended to, she hurried to Boston to deliver an important address and attend a reception. From there she went to Wellesley and delivered an address:

My cold entirely left me, and I have had no trouble with it. So much for right living, and good cool blood. This is the last day of the convention. I am to speak to-night. I did say a little yesterday, and they all laughed at me; I wish you could have been here. There is to be a reception given me next Friday evening. Steve and Lizzie and Myrtie are invited. I go to the Wellesley College to take tea and speak to the five hundred girls there on Saturday evening. Some things I must miss. I get back as soon as I can, so as to go on home. I am so glad of Sunday; it was a glorious day; so good to see so many together again. I hope the children are well, that you don’t wrestle too much with imaginary dirt, and are getting a little real strength.

Besides her tours abroad she had some interesting journeys in her own country, including a happy camping trip in the Yellowstone Park and the Cascade Mountains, in the autumn of 1891.

The following winter she spent in the Red Cross Headquarters in what had been the home of General Grant in Washington. It was a strenuous winter and an expensive one. She drew upon her personal resources for fuel for the large building, as well as for rent and the care of the home. She wrote to Mrs. Bullock:

17 East F Street, Washington
January 7, 1892

I have wanted to talk with you about coming to see us, but when I think how cold it is here, and how far from nice and cozy it is, I feel reluctant to invite you from a small, snug, pretty home, to this so large and, as it seems to me, less inviting one. If you did not know it, I should not dare to say you might try it, for we are having an exceptionally cold, hard winter. The ground is covered with snow, and the winds have blown an old northeaster these last days, and you will know this is not an easy house to heat. My expenses have been so heavy, and receipts so “nothing,” that I cannot afford to take on more help. I am obliged to have a woman for the work and the house, a man for the fires and walk,—shoveling snow and all the cold rough work,—and an amanuensis as my clerk and typewriter. They are drawing steadily every month; then my rent is high and no one to help share that, and, besides this, all the world expects me to give it something if it can get through the door and get a letter to me. I have had to economize on myself.

In 1893 she was led into an experiment which caused her much anxiety and proved to have been a mistake. A man and his wife, who had been associated with her in her work along the Ohio River, expressed a desire to dedicate, as a thank offering to humanity, a tract of land more than one square mile in area, or specifically seven hundred and eighty-two acres, as a home for the American Red Cross. This offer deeply touched Miss Barton, who accepted it in the following appreciative letter addressed to the donors:

American National Red Cross
Washington, D.C., March 18, 1893

Dear Sir: Referring to your letter of February 10th, made public February 23d, permit me to reply as follows:

In accepting the gift of land, in the State of Indiana, that you so generously dedicate to the American National Red Cross as “the almoner of humanity,” and by which you have so touchingly complimented me personally, allow me to say that the friendship expressed on this and many other occasions by yourself and wife, and the personal aid you have both given of time and labor in great calamities, make me free to accept this gift without reservation, assuring you of my best endeavors to attain the humane results for which this benefaction is intended.

This land, as the property of the American National Red Cross, will be the one piece of neutral ground on the Western Hemisphere protected by international treaty against the tread of hostile feet. It is a perpetual sanctuary against invading armies, and will be so respected and held sacred by the military powers of the world. Forty nations are pledged to hold all material and stores of the Red Cross, and all its followers, neutral in war, and free to go and come as their duties require.

While its business headquarters will remain, as before, at the capital of the Nation, this gift still forms a realization of the hope so long cherished—that the National Red Cross may have a place to accumulate and produce material and stores for sudden emergencies and great calamities; and if war should come upon our land, which may God avert, we may be ready to fulfil the mission that our adhesion to the Geneva Treaty has made binding upon us.

I will direct that monuments be erected defining the boundaries of this domain, dedicated to eternal peace and humanity, upon which shall be inscribed the insignia of the Treaty of Geneva, which insignia all the nations of the earth are bound by solemn covenant to respect.

Not only our own people, but the peoples of all civilized nations will have published to their knowledge that the American National Red Cross has a home and a recognized abiding-place through all generations.

For this I have striven for years, mainly misunderstood, often misinterpreted, and it is through your clear intuition and humane thought that the clouds have been swept away and my hopes have been realized.

In accordance with views expressed by you in your letter of gift, I appoint an adviser, which I insist shall be yourself, leaving you free to appoint another to work jointly with you, knowing that in the future, as in the past, your heart will be in the work.

Clara Barton
President American National Red Cross

The gift, as it developed, was not without its conditions; the donors could not quite afford to give it outright, but would sell it for a sum very much less than its value in consideration of the philanthropic purposes to which it was to be dedicated. This seemed not unreasonable, and the deed was accepted subject to the specified conditions. It seemed to Clara Barton a beautiful achievement; there was to be one spot on the Western Hemisphere where in case of war the rights of humanity would be accepted as supreme. Located as it was in the interior of the country, and removed by rail only a few hours from the great cities of Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville, Indianapolis, and Toledo, and surrounded by fertile farms, it could become in an emergency a vast storehouse of supplies, a great base hospital for the suffering.

Unfortunately, it did not prove to be all that she had anticipated. The conditions specified and implied proved to be of such a character as to render the gift unsuitable for the purposes which she had hoped to accomplish. The manager into whose hands she committed its care proved incompetent and, in the end, ungrateful. The gift had to be relinquished and the money paid toward it was written down as a total loss.

In 1896 occurred Miss Barton’s experience in Constantinople, where the Red Cross had its headquarters during her memorable work for the Armenians. There she visited Scutari, and gave an address on the scene of Florence Nightingale’s great work. She returned overland through Vienna, Strassburg, Paris, London, and Liverpool. She left London October 8, 1896. On her return to Washington she was given a great banquet attended by some of the most distinguished people in Washington.

The following year, 1897, she was appointed by the President to attend the International Red Cross Congress in Vienna, Austria.

In 1898 she did her notable work in connection with the Spanish-American War, and for the next two years was fully occupied with affairs at home.

In 1902 she went abroad again, this time as a delegate to the conference held in St. Petersburg, the last of the great conferences which she attended. This journey has its record in two letters, one to her niece, Mrs. Ida Barton Riccius, and the other to her nephew, Stephen E. Barton:

En route from St. Petersburg to the German Frontier
June 18, 1902

The conference is ended, Russia has been visited, and we are well, and well on the way toward home. It has been a most fortunate journey, no accidents, no illness. Attended a great and harmonious conference, royally met and cared for, with nothing to be regretted.

We went first to Havre, France, to Paris for a few days, then to Berlin a few days, then on toward Russia. At the crossing on the frontier, we were met by a Red Cross escort, and taken on, for transportation to St. Petersburg, about the 15th of May. Went into Hôtel de France, where we have remained till yesterday, nearly three weeks. The conference opened on the 16th with two sittings a day, and entertainments at evening unless it was necessary to take the day for some excursion, or visit to some royal entertainment. The conference lasted about eight days; it was composed of delegates from nearly fifty nations; subjects of a humanitarian character were discussed as connected with the work of the Red Cross. In Russia everything is Red Cross, all hospital work, all emergency work, nearly all relief work, care of children, orphans, foundlings. The women are educated to do this work. They enter the schools in the hospitals at eighteen to twenty, serve one year on probation, two as novices, then they may receive and wear the Red Cross and be nurses, at a small sum in money per month, board, clothes, care if sick,—a good home as long as they live. When too old, or no longer able to work, they have pensions given them and may remain in the hospital and be cared for always if they choose, or if they have relatives and want to live with them they can have their pensions and go to them, and return always if they like. The hospital is always their home, if they want it, or they may marry if they choose; then they leave. They seemed so happy, looked so healthy; many of them are orphan girls who had no home; nowhere else to be. They are not Catholic, but of the Protestant Church of Russia, though I see little difference between it and the Catholic. The churches are magnificent,—such wealth of ornamentation. The bishops seem like Catholic priests. The people are very devout, but still very lively, and kind; they seem to me to be the kindest people I ever saw. All the royal persons look kind; they have good faces; but the kindest face of all is that of the Czar. He is young, handsome, looks like a mature college graduate. The Czarina is also handsome; she was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria; they have four children, are very fond of them, and of each other.

We went on an excursion to Moscow, saw the city Napoleon went to capture, and which he found trouble in getting out of. We went to the Kremlin where he stayed; the rooms he lived in the few days while the city was burning, and the ways by which he retreated. We visited the Grand Duke, who is the Governor-General of Moscow, and whose wife is sister of the Empress, another granddaughter of Victoria, the daughter of Alice of Hesse, who died many years ago of diphtheria while nursing three children through it. The Grand Duchess is said to be the handsomest woman in Russia. I think that may be true, and after I returned to Petersburg she sent me her picture—beautiful!! Everybody was so kind to us all, but I felt they were especially kind to me. I never saw such treatment of guests; they wouldn’t let you spend money. Carriages were at the disposal of all the delegates, all places of amusement free, guides provided; lunches, like dinners, provided each day at the conference, a hundred persons fed somewhere, two or three times a day, and such feeding!! Very many of the delegates were old friends of mine. I had met them in five other conferences; they were so genial and attentive.

As I am going to ask you to let Ada and Mamie read this, and Harold, too, I must tell you about the horses, the finest I have ever seen. They have two choice kinds, the “black Orlorf,” and the dapple gray, good size, carriage horses, and they go like the wind. The Orlorf was brought into St. Petersburg (perhaps into Russia as well) by Count Orlorf a good many years ago. The males are not changed, kept as stallions in full strength and spirit, and, when past active or first-class service, are kept for breeding purposes. They are not allowed to be sold out of Russia, it is said. They weigh from one thousand to fourteen hundred pounds, are jet black, have glossy hair, high arching necks, step as proud as war-horses, with full even tails, trimmed at the bottom to keep them from touching the ground. The Russian harness is not half the weight of ours, and much less of it; the shafts are kept away from the body, and all horses are round and fat. I have not seen a poor horse in Russia. The grays are much like the black, only dappled, as if painted, so dark, and distinct dapples, with also the heavy beautiful tails. I asked to go through the Royal stalls—the Czar has eight hundred horses in his stud; a part are in Peterhof, ten miles away. The horses were in stalls about two thirds as wide, big stalls as Baba’s, say six to seven feet, with wooden floors, a narrow crack running the whole length to keep them dry, half a foot of clean dry straw in each, a little manger for grain, a little wire rack for hay, a good blanket on each, and you have the entire outfit of this beautiful “stud of Royal horses.” They were gentle and didn’t mind a strange hand on them, and the gentlemanly uniformed groom encouraged it, and smiled at their quiet, good behaviour. Some of the carriages are for two, some four, and some eight horses. The gilded and gemmed carriages are especially for Coronation occasions, some of them one hundred and fifty years old, bright and beautiful as yesterday. Ordinarily the Royal people ride in common carriages and drive a great deal, to hospitals, to all houses of charity, schools, orphanages, and churches. They are the patrons of all these, and give great sums to them.

The Empress has schools of hundreds of young women and young ladies in St. Petersburg studying from the lowest to the highest branches, art and literature, which she visits every week; they are fitting themselves, not alone for society, but to go all over Russia to teach. The Russians have all the societies we have, “Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,” which they don’t seem to need as much as we do. I might except temperance societies, which they do not have, and probably need about as much as we, only the Russian doesn’t fight and quarrel when he gets drunk; he goes to sleep.

Have I told you that there is no real night in northern Russia at this season of the year? Ask Saidee to trace it on her atlas and she will find that St. Petersburg is in the same latitude of the southern ends of Alaska and Greenland, consequently they have long days and short nights in summer, and long nights and short days in winter; it being summer now, we have no real night. The twilight lasted till eleven-thirty sure, and the sun rose at two-thirty. I went to bed by daylight, either at one end or the other of the day. I wrote without a lamp at eleven o’clock at night. The people are in the streets all night, but there is no disturbance, no one is hurt or attacked. The police are always on duty, not in the saloons, waiting to be called to some disturbance, but in the middle of the street, to see that there is no disturbance, and there is none; no people are killed in dark alleys here. The would-be killer would be killed first, unless he threw a bomb, and then he would be killed after.

This is an unmercifully long letter. I wish you would let it go to Ada and Mamie. If I had a typewriter I would duplicate it, and send to each, but I have none, and write all by hand. I will take this on to Berlin to post, where we shall arrive at ten to-morrow morning, for a few days’ stay.

With greatest love to all,

Your always loving
Clara

This is my “howdy” to all the loved ones, from Europe.

Hôtel Scribe, Rue Scribe
Paris, July 26, 1902

My dear Steve:

This is Saturday, and I sail to-morrow. I did not intend to write you in time for you to receive it, and perhaps feel that you must fly around to meet me in New York. I only wanted to tell you that—and when I would sail so you could calculate in what country I should most likely be. I go to Boulogne to-morrow, Sunday morning, July 27th, to catch the S.S. Pennsylvania as she steams on for New York. I expect to find Mr. Tillinghast on board, as he has arranged to finish his month’s tour of southern Europe in time to take the Pennsylvania at Hamburg. Boulogne is her last point of land, and any one knowing me would conclude I would stick to the land as long as possible.

We had a glorious conference, and were gloriously received, no kindness or courtesy, and sometimes it seemed as if no luxury, was omitted. There were no errors, and perfect harmony prevailed. We went on an excursion to Moscow for three days, returned to Petersburg, finished all up, did nothing carelessly, nor in too great haste; wrote my report of the conference, some twenty pages, sent it to President Roosevelt; made out all my accounts with the Government ready to present on my return; and when all was finished, left with Mr. Tillinghast, who took the place of secretary, for Berlin; remained a week, when Mr. Tillinghast started on his journey of sight-seeing. The other delegates had long gone, and I made for Carlsruhe for a stay of two weeks. My time was divided between the Grand Duchess and Princess Salm Salm, who, at present, resides there. The Salm Salm was one of the old high houses of Germany, and greatly venerated for patriotic and noble qualities. The husband of the Princess you will remember historically, perhaps. Prince Felix left Germany to fight in our war; raised a regiment, became its colonel, till the close, then followed Maximilian to Mexico, stayed by him, with the Princess, till he was shot, then returned to Germany to his estates at Gravelotte. Not a bad record!

I remained at Carlsruhe till the “close of the Court Season,” was present by invitation at the closing of the Parliament, heard the Grand Duke deliver his splendid address, spent the evening after socially, and alone, with the Grand Duke and Duchess, till eleven o’clock. At two they started for the mountains, the Princess two days later; and between them I slipped off to Strassburg, then to Geneva, then via Strassburg again to Paris, to wait for my steamer. The Pennsylvania is not a quick but is a steady-going sailer, and will, D.V., get us over in about eight days, when I will quietly slip down home, as if I had never been away. No mistakes have been made, no bad luck, not a day’s illness of any one that I know of. Well enough managed, it seems to me, and fortunately ended, if it does end well the rest of the way.

I didn’t intend to write so much. What you haven’t time to read you can put in your pocket. Love to all.

CHAPTER XIV
CLARA BARTON IN CUBA

For many years before the outbreak of the war with Spain, Clara Barton had been interested in the situation in Cuba. In a letter written from Washington, February 8, 1874, twenty-four years before the outbreak of the war with Spain, she said:

Spain is still fighting her only or almost sole remaining colony, Cuba. Spain had once immense colonies, but she has been so tyrannical and so careless of their welfare that she has lost nearly all. And Cuba, you know, “has an insurgent army,” of so-called rebels fighting for their freedom. If she ever gets free, she must come to the United States, as she is too small to stand alone against the greed of great powers which will try to gobble her up for her riches in soil and products. The Spanish authorities have just published a new list of orders, very stringent, and they hope to crush out the Cuban insurrection in six months. You must keep watch of that, too, and see how it ends. It will be history by and by to whom Cuba belongs, and, while one has to study so hard to learn past history, it is not worth the while to let slip that which all the time is making in our own day and generation. Comprenez vous?

Her forecast of events proved to be reliable. The relations between Spain and Cuba grew more and more strained. A part of the Spanish policy for stamping out the rebellion in Cuba was the concentration of that portion of the civilian population believed to be hostile to the Spanish Government, in concentration camps, from which the cry of distress was continuous. Sympathy in America grew more and more pronounced, but for a long time there appeared no way in which the United States could offer relief. The difficulties of the situation were the greater because the Spanish Government believed, with some reason, that a considerable part of the American sentiment favorable to relief in Cuba was intermixed with political designs. There were, indeed, two groups of people demanding relief for Cuba. Clara Barton thus describes them:

They might have properly been classed under two distinct heads. The one, merely the friends of humanity in its simple sense; the other, friends of humanity also, but what seemed to them a broader and deeper sense, far more complex. They sought to remove a cause as well as an effect, and the muffled cry of “Cuba Libre” became their watchword. Naturally, any general movement by the people in favor of the former must have the effect to diminish the contributions of the latter, too small at best for their purpose, and must be wisely discouraged. Thus, whenever an unsuspecting movement was set on foot by some good-hearted, unsophisticated body of people, and began to gain favor with the public and the press, immediately would appear most convincing counter-paragraphs to the effect that it would be useless to send relief, especially by the Red Cross:

First, it would not be permitted to land.

Next, whatever it took would be either seized outright, or “wheedled” out of hand by the Spanish authorities in Havana.

That the Spaniards would be only too glad to have the United States send food and money for the use of Havana.

Again, that the Red Cross, being international, would affiliate with Spain, and ignore the “Cuban Red Cross” already working there and here. As if poor Cuba, with no national government or treaty-making power, could have a legitimate Red Cross that other nations could recognize or work with.

Miss Barton had but recently returned from Armenia. Her experience with the Turkish Government made her keenly aware of all the obstructions which an unsympathetic government can put in the way of philanthropic relief. It was useless to attempt any assistance for the sufferers in Cuba unless Miss Barton had the full approval of the American Government, and in addition the sympathetic coöperation of the Spanish Government. But if she secured the consent of the Government of Spain, there was real danger that her work of relief would result less in the succor of the distressed people of Cuba than in the aid and comfort of the armies of their oppressors. Spain could not be expected to look with favor upon any kind of relief which promised to strengthen the Cuban rebellion. At length, however, the situation grew intolerable; it became evident that the United States must go into Cuba either with an army of occupation or an agency for the relief of suffering. As a matter of fact, the United States went in both capacities, but the Red Cross went in before the Stars and Stripes. Miss Barton herself has told the story of the invasion:

This state of things continued through the year of 1897, but as the present year of ’98 opened the reports of suffering that came were not to be borne quietly, and I decided to confer with our Government and learn if it had objections to the Red Cross taking steps of its own in direct touch with the people of the country, and proposing their coöperation in the work of relief. I beg pardon for the personality of the statement which follows, but it is history I am asked to write.

Deciding to refer my inquiry to the Secretary of State, I called at his department to see him, but learned that he was with the President. This suiting my purpose, I followed to the Executive Mansion, was kindly informed that the President and Secretary were engaged on a very important matter, and had given orders not to be interrupted. As I turned to leave I was recalled with, “Wait a moment, Miss Barton, and let me present your card.” Returning immediately, I entered the President’s room to find these two men in a perplexed study over the very matter which had called me. Distressed by the reports of the terrible condition of things so new to us, they were seeking some remedy, and, producing their notes just taken, revealed the fact that they had decided to call me into conference.

The conference was then held. It was decided to form a committee in New York, to ask money and material of the people at large to be shipped to Cuba for the relief of the reconcentrados on that island. The call would be made in the name of the President, and the committee naturally known as the “President’s Committee for Cuban Relief.” I was courteously asked if I would go to New York and assume the oversight of that committee. I declined in favor of Mr. Stephen E. Barton, second vice-president of the National Red Cross, who, on being immediately called, accepted; and with Mr. Charles Schieren as treasurer and Mr. Louis Klopsch, of the “Christian Herald,” as the third member, the committee was at once established; since known as the “Central Cuban Relief Committee.”

The committee was to solicit aid in money and material for the suffering reconcentrados in Cuba, and forward the same to the Consul-General at Havana for distribution. My consent was then asked by all parties to go to Cuba and aid in the distribution of the shipments of food as they should arrive. After all I had so long offered, I could not decline, and hoping my going would not be misunderstood by our authorities there, who would regard me simply as a willing assistant, I accepted. The Consul-General had asked the New York Committee to send to him an assistant to take charge of the warehouse and supplies in Havana. This request was also referred to me, and recommending Mr. J. K. Elwell, nephew of General J. J. Elwell, of Cleveland, Ohio, a gentleman who had resided six years in Santiago in connection with its large shipping interests, a fine business man and speaking Spanish, I decided to accompany him, taking no member of my own staff, but going simply in the capacity of an individual helper in a work already assigned.

On Saturday, February 6, we left Washington for Cuba via Jacksonville, Tampa, and Key West.

Thus, with that simple beginning, with no thought on the part of any person but to do unobtrusively the little that could be done for the lessening of the woes of a small island of people, whom adverse circumstances, racial differences, the inevitable results of a struggle for freedom, the fate of war, and the terrible features of a system of subjugation of a people, which, if true, is too dark to name, was commenced the relief movement of 1898 which has spread not alone over the entire United States of America from Maine to California, from Vancouver to the Gulf of Mexico, but from the Indias on the west, to the Indias on the east, and uniting in its free-will offerings the gifts of one third of the best nations in the world.

Miss Barton with her cargo of supplies reached Havana on February 9, 1898. Her supplies were unloaded and stored in a convenient warehouse. She began her work of visitation and found scenes beside which, as she wrote, some which she had witnessed in Armenia seemed humane. Six days after her arrival the Maine was blown up. The appalling news reached the United States and brought with it the practical certainty of war. The one cheering message that came as an echo of the explosion was Clara Barton’s telegram, “I am with the wounded.” The comfort of these words found expression in a little poem by James Clarence Harvey, which was published immediately in the “Christian Herald” and widely copied:

“I am with the wounded,” flashed along the wire
From the isle of Cuba, swept with sword and fire.
Angel sweet of mercy, may your cross of red
Cheer the wounded living; bless the wounded dead.
“I am with the starving,” let the message run
From this stricken island, when this task is done;
Food and money plenty wait at your command,
Give in generous measure; fill each outstretched hand.
“I am with the happy,” this we long to hear
From the isle of Cuba, trembling now in fear:
May the great disaster touch the hearts of men,
And, in God’s great mercy, bring back peace again.

Miss Barton thus related the story of the sinking of the Maine, and of the work that followed:

The heavy clerical work of that fifteenth day of February held not only myself, but Mr. Elwell as well, busy at our writing-tables until late at night. The house had grown still; the noises on the streets were dying away, when suddenly the table shook from under our hands, the great glass door opening on to the veranda, facing the sea, flew open; everything in the room was in motion or out of place—the deafening roar of such a burst of thunder as perhaps one never heard before, and off to the right, out over the bay, the air was filled with a blaze of light, and this in turn filled with black specks like huge specters flying in all directions. Then it faded away. The bells rang; the whistles blew; and voices in the street were heard for a moment; then all was quiet again. I supposed it to be the bursting of some mammoth mortar or explosion of some magazine. A few hours later came the terrible news of the Maine.

Mr. Elwell was early among the wreckage, and returned to give me news.

She is destroyed. There is no room for comment, only who is lost, who has escaped, and what can be done for them? They tell us that most of the officers were dining out, and thus saved; that Captain Sigsbee is saved. It is thought that two hundred and fifty men are lost, that one hundred are wounded, but still living, some in hospital, some on small boats as picked up. The chief engineer, a quiet, resolute man, and the second officer met me as I passed out of the hotel for the hospital. The latter stopped me saying, “Miss Barton, do you remember you told me on board the Maine that the Red Cross was at our service; for whenever anything took place with that ship, either in naval action or otherwise, some one would be hurt; that she was not of a structure to take misfortune lightly?” I recalled the conversation and the impression which led to it,—such strength would never go out easily.

We proceeded to the Spanish hospital San Ambrosia, to find thirty to forty wounded—bruised, cut, burned; they had been crushed by timbers, cut by iron, scorched by fire, and blown sometimes high in the air, sometimes driven down through the red-hot furnace room and out into the water, senseless, to be picked up by some boat and gotten ashore. Their wounds are all over them—heads and faces terribly cut, internal wounds, arms, legs, feet, and hands burned to the live flesh. The hair and beards are singed, showing that the burns were from fire and not steam; besides further evidence shows that the burns are where the parts were uncovered. If burned by steam, the clothing would have held the steam and burned all the deeper. As it is, it protected from the heat and the fire and saved their limbs, whilst the faces, hands, and arms are terribly burned. Both men and officers are very reticent in regard to the cause, but all declare it could not have been the result of an internal explosion. That the boilers were at the two ends of the ship, and these were the places from which all escaped who did escape. The trouble was evidently from the center of the ship, where no explosive machinery was located.

I thought to take the names as I passed among them, and, drawing near to the first in the long line, I asked his name. He gave it with his address; then peering out from among the bandages and cotton about his breast and face, he looked earnestly at me and asked: “Isn’t this Miss Barton?” “Yes.” “I thought it must be. I knew you were here, and thought you would come to us. I am so thankful for us all.”

I asked if he wanted anything. “Yes. There is a lady to whom I was to be married. The time is up. She will be frantic if she hears of this accident and nothing more. Could you telegraph her?” “Certainly!” The dispatch went at once: “Wounded, but saved.” Alas, it was only for a little; two days later, and it was all over.

I passed on from one to another, till twelve had been spoken to and the names taken. There were only two of the number who did not recognize me. Their expressions of grateful thanks, spoken under such conditions, were too much. I passed the pencil to another hand and stepped aside.

I am glad to say that every kindness was extended to them. Miss Mary Wilberforce had been at once installed as nurse, and faithful work she performed. The Spanish hospital attendants were tireless in their attentions. Still, there was boundless room for luxuries and comforts, delicate foods, grapes, oranges, wines, cordials, anything that could soothe or interest; and no opportunity was lost, or cost or pains spared, and when two days later the streets filled with hearses bearing reverently the bodies of martyred heroes; and the crape and the flowers mingled in their tributes of tenderness and beauty, and the muffled drums and tolling bells spoke all that inanimate substance could speak of sorrow and respect; and the silent marching tread of armies fell upon the listening ear,—the heart grew sick in the midst of all this pageant, and the thoughts turned away to the far land, smitten with horror, and the homes wailing in bitter grief for these, so lone, so lost; and one saw only the

Nodding plumes over their bier to wave,
And God’s own hand in that lonely land
To lay them in their grave.

In the days after the sinking of the Maine, Miss Barton led an active life. She journeyed through the nearer provinces, established bases of supplies and returned to Havana, not only unmolested, but with every evidence of appreciation on the part of the Spanish authorities and the Cuban people. The Red Cross supplies were distributed, though in places their distribution was impeded. Miss Barton tells of a delayed distribution at Matanzas, the delay apparently having been accomplished with intent, and how well-meant private philanthropy undertook direct action:

It is not strange that from this event went out the cry of “starving Matanzas,” although at that moment, in addition to our four tons of goods previously sent, the Fern lay in the harbor under the American flag, with fifty tons of American supplies, and fifty rods away lay the Bergen, under the same colors, bearing a cargo of fifty-two tons from the Philadelphia Red Cross, faithfully sent through the New York Committee, by request. So uncontrollable a thing is human excitement that these facts could not be taken in, and the charities of our whole country were called afresh to arms over “starving Matanzas,” which was at that moment by far the best provided city in Cuba. The result of this was an entire train of supplies from Kansas, which, remaining there after the blockade, not being consigned to the Red Cross, was, we were informed, distributed among the Spanish soldiery by the Spanish officials. Goods bearing the mark of the Red Cross were everywhere respected, and we have no record of any of our goods having been appropriated by the Spanish authorities.

When the methods of relief had been well organized, the work of distribution went mainly to others while Clara Barton devoted her own energy to the maintenance of pleasant relations with the Spanish authorities. This she was able to do until the very end; but events far beyond her control were inevitably driving the two nations into war. Miss Barton tells the story in the following record based upon the entries in her own diary:

I met the Spanish authorities, not merely as a bearer of relief, but as the president of the American National Red Cross, with all the principles of neutrality which that implied, and received in return the unfailing courtesy which the conditions demanded. From our first interview to the last sad day when we decided that it was better to withdraw, giving up all efforts at relief, and leave those thousands of poor, dying wretches to their fate, there was never any change in the attitude of the Spanish authorities, General Blanco, or his staff, toward myself or any member of my staff. One of my last visits before the blockade was to the palace. The same kindly spirit prevailed; I was begged not to leave the island through fear of them; every protection in their power would be given, but there was no guarantee for what might occur in the exigencies of war. I recall an incident of that day: General Blanco led me to the large salon, the walls of which are covered with the portraits of the Spanish officials for generations past, and, pointing to the Spanish authorities under date of 1776, said, with a look of sadness, “When your country was in trouble, Spain was the friend of America. Now Spain is in trouble, America is her enemy.” I knew no answer for this but silence, and we passed out through the corridor of guards, he handing me to my carriage with a farewell and a blessing. I could but recall my experience with the Turkish officials and Government, where I entered with such apprehension and left with such marks of cordiality.

During this interval of time important business had called me to Washington, and I only returned to Cuba sometime during the second week of April.

On April 25, 1898, Congress declared war against Spain. For two weeks it had been apparent that such a declaration was to come. American citizens were ordered by the United States Government to leave Havana some days before the outbreak of hostilities. This situation sent Miss Barton out of Cuba and quickly sent her back again. She was not, however, permitted at once to continue her relief for the distressed Cubans. The military and naval authorities of the United States were as anxious not to aid Spain as the Spanish authorities were anxious that she should not aid the rebellious Cubans. Miss Barton tells the story of her departure and return:

The order was for all American citizens to leave Havana, and the order was obeyed, but not without having laid the matter formally in council before my staff of assistants and taking their opinion and advice, which was to the effect that, while personally they would prefer to remain for the chance of the little good that might be accomplished, in view of the distress which we should give our friends at home, and, in fact, the whole country, when it should be known that we were inside that wall of fire that would confront us, with no way of extricating or reaching us, it seemed both wiser and more humane to leave. And the 9th of April saw us again on shipboard, a party of twenty, bound for Tampa. We would not, however, go beyond, but made headquarters there, remaining within easy call of any need there might be for us. Here follow the few weeks of impending war. Do we need to live them over? Do we even want to recall them? Days when the elder men of thought and memory pondered deeply and questioned much! When the mother, patriot though she were, uttered her sentiments through choking voice and tender, trembling words, and the young men, caring nothing, fearing nothing, rushed gallantly on to doom and to death! To how many households, alas, these days recall themselves in tones never to be forgotten!

Notwithstanding all this excitement and confusion and all the pressure that weighed upon him, our good President still remembered the suffering, dying reconcentrados, and requested that a ship be provided as quickly as possible, loaded from the warerooms of the indefatigable Cuban Relief Committee in New York, and be sent for the relief of the sufferers in Cuba whenever they could be reached. One need not say with what promptness this committee acted, and I was informed that the State of Texas, laden with fourteen hundred tons of food, would shortly leave New York en route for Key West, and it was the desire of that committee and the Government that I take command of the ship, and, with my staff and such assistants as I would select, undertake the getting of that food to its destination.

Some members of the staff were in New York, and with Dr. Hubbell in charge sailed from that port on Saturday, the 23d of April. A hasty trip from Washington, gathering up the waiting staff at Tampa, and pushing on by the earliest train brought us to Key West in time to meet the State of Texas as she arrived, board her and take charge of the snug little ship that was henceforth to take its place in American history. She was well built, but by no means new, nor handsome. Her dull black hull could in no way compare with the snow-white, green and red striped hospital ships, those heralds of relief that afterwards graced the waters of that bay. Still she was firm, sound, heavy-laden, and gave promise of some good to some one at some future day, that day being only when the great war monsters should have pealed out to the world that an entrance was made on the coast of Cuba, and we would be invited to follow.

By the authorities at Washington, the State of Texas had been consigned to the protection of the navy, and accordingly we must report our arrival. This was done to the senior officer, representing Admiral Sampson, in the port, Captain Harrington, of the monitor Puritan. This brought at once a personal call from the captain with an invitation to our entire staff to visit his beautiful ship the following day. The launch of the Puritan was sent to take us, and not only was the ship inspected, but the dainties of his elegant tea-table as well.

When all was over, the graceful launch returned us safely to our ship, with grateful memories on the part of the younger members of our company, who had never chanced to form an intimate acquaintance with a piece of shipping at once so beautiful and so terrible as that death-dealing engine of destruction. I record this visit and courtesy on the part of Captain Harrington as the first of an unfailing series of kindnesses extended by the navy to the Red Cross from first to last. There was no favor too great, no courtesy too high to be cheerfully rendered on every occasion.

The memories of pitiful Cuba would not leave us, and, knowing that under our decks were fourteen hundred tons of food, for the want of which its people were dying, the impulse to reach them grew very strong, and a letter was addressed to Admiral Sampson.

This brought immediately the launch of the New York to the side of our ship, and Captain Chadwick, the gallant officer whom no one forgets, stepped lightly on board to deliver the written message from the admiral, or rather to take me to the New York. Nothing could have exceeded the courtesy of the admiral, but we were acting from entirely opposite standpoints. I had been requested to take a ship, and by every means in my power get food into Cuba. He, on the other hand, had been commanded to take a fleet, and by every means in his power keep food out of Cuba. When one compared the two ships lying side by side and thought of a contest of effort between them, the situation was ludicrous, and yet the admiral did not absolutely refuse to give me a flag of truce and attempt an entrance into Havana; but he disapproved it, feared the results for me, and, acting in accordance with his highest wisdom and best judgment, I felt it to be my place to wait.

The delay which resulted was annoying but not wholly unprofitable, and there came a time when the army and navy were glad enough to have the American Red Cross in Cuba. On June 20th the State of Texas sailed from Key West with orders to find Admiral Sampson and report to him. They found him a few days later off Santiago, in time for their share in the stirring events which accompanied and followed the destruction of Cervera’s fleet, the battle of San Juan Hill, and the surrender on July 17th of the harbor and city of Santiago.

When the city had been formally surrendered and a sufficient number of mines had been removed from the harbor to permit American vessels to enter, a very gracious compliment was paid to Clara Barton by the victorious United States Navy. The first vessel to enter the harbor was not the flagship of either of the Admirals Sampson or Schley, but the State of Texas under command of Clara Barton.

Perhaps that may be called the crowning moment of her life. Clara Barton was more than seventy-eight years old, but she stood erect on the deck of her vessel, modestly appreciative and quietly thankful, not so much for the honor that had come to her as for the opportunity of serving.

Miss Barton returned to Washington in November, 1898. The work which she went to Cuba to perform, that of relieving the Cuban reconcentrados, was never wholly accomplished. That relief came with the freedom of Cuba, and for this she was profoundly thankful; but she never ceased to feel sad when she thought of the people who suffered during those weeks of waiting while her vessel was packed with the supplies which the people so sorely needed. “Cuba was a hard field, full of heartbreaking memories,” she wrote. “It gave the first opportunity to test the first cooperation between the United States and its supplemental hand-maiden the Red Cross.”

While this coöperation was incomplete, its results were most beneficial, as many an American soldier and surgeon can testify.

At the close of the war, the Congress of the United States tendered the thanks of the Nation to Clara Barton in the following resolution which was introduced in the Senate by the venerable Senator Hoar, and unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That the thanks of Congress be presented to Clara Barton, of Massachusetts, founder of the institution of the Red Cross, and to the officers and agents of the Society of the Red Cross for their humane and beneficent service to humanity in relieving the distress of the Armenians and other suffering persons in Turkey, and in ministering to the sufferings caused by pestilence in the United States, and for the like ministration and relief given by them to both sides in the Spanish West Indies during the present war.

An even higher mark of appreciation was contained in the annual message of President McKinley:

In this connection it is a pleasure for me to mention in terms of cordial appreciation the timely and useful work of the American National Red Cross both in relief measures preparatory to the campaigns, in sanitary assistance at several of the camps of assemblage, and later, under the able and experienced leadership of the president of the society, Miss Clara Barton, on the fields of battle and in the hospitals at the front in Cuba. Working in conjunction with the governmental authorities and under their sanction and approval, and with the enthusiastic coöperation of many patriotic women and societies in the various States, the Red Cross has fully maintained its already high reputation for intense earnestness and ability to exercise the noble purposes of its international organization, thus justifying the confidence and support which it has received at the hands of the American people. To the members and officers of this society and all who aided them in their philanthropic work, the sincere and lasting gratitude of the soldiers and the public is due and is freely accorded.

In tracing these events we are constantly reminded of our obligations to the Divine Master for his watchful care over us and his safe guidance, for which the nation makes reverent acknowledgment and offers humble prayer for the continuance of his favor.

CHAPTER XV
CLARA BARTON’S RETIREMENT FROM THE RED CROSS

It would have been well if Clara Barton had retired from the active work of the presidency of the American Red Cross at the close of the war with Spain. She had accomplished in her lifetime an almost incredible total of heroic work. She had completed seventy-eight years of service; she had created the American Red Cross and led it successfully in peace and war. On twenty different fields on both sides of the ocean she had raised its banner over areas devastated by fire, flood, famine, and pestilence. She had won the support of her Government to an enterprise till then unknown and but little regarded. She had made the Red Cross in America so useful in times of peace that the Red Cross societies of the world had widened their spheres of operation to incorporate her plans of service. She had crowned her long and arduous career with an achievement that won for her the heart of the American army and navy in Cuba, and brought to her the thanks of the Congress and of the President of the United States. She could have retired with honors such as no woman in America ever had won. If her judgment told her that this was the time for her to transfer her burden of active supervision to some younger person, her heart triumphed over her judgment.

She was eighty years of age when, on September 8, 1900, a tornado and tidal wave submerged Galveston, Texas. Five days later Clara Barton was on the ground. Difficulties of transportation held her back for twenty-four hours or she would have been there a day sooner.

Her plea for lumber, hardware, and other materials for providing temporary shelter met with a nation-wide response, and supplies of food and clothing, as well as considerable sums of money, were placed at her disposal.

After six weeks spent in Texas, Clara Barton returned, worn out by her exertions, but bringing the grateful thanks of the people of Galveston, and, in addition, an official letter of thanks from the governor of the State of Texas and also of its legislature. The Central Relief Committee of Galveston also tendered her a series of engrossed resolutions, declaring that she deserved to be “exalted above queens,” and that her achievements were “greater than the conquests of nations or the inventions of genius.”

In the following year occurred the seventh International Conference of the Red Cross, already referred to, held at St. Petersburg in Russia and extending from the middle of May until near the end of June of 1902. Clara Barton headed the delegation from the United States. The conference was held under the high patronage of Her Majesty the Empress Dowager Marie Feodorovna. Miss Barton was the guest of the Emperor and Empress. No delegate to the conference was treated with greater consideration than Clara Barton. At the close of the conference she was decorated by the Emperor, who conferred upon Clara Barton the Russian decoration of the Order of the Red Cross.

Two of her letters concerning this journey have been quoted in a previous chapter. Clara Barton returned to her own land crowned with additional honors, but confronting new and wholly unexpected difficulties.

The American Red Cross had been reincorporated by Act of Congress June 6, 1900. Under the new form of organization the board and its executive committee possessed large powers. There was a feeling on the part of some members of the board that the American Red Cross was too exclusively under the direction of Clara Barton. Her work for the relief of Galveston had been undertaken almost the moment that she first learned of its great need. She had not waited to call an executive committee meeting. While her work in that field was most heartily commended, there was a feeling on the part of members of the board that the Red Cross, being now virtually a representative organ of the United States Government, its fields of service should be determined, not by the judgment of an individual, but of the governing body of the organization itself. There was further criticism growing out of the fact that, when emergencies arose by reason of any great national disaster, a considerable part of the money was sent direct to Clara Barton on the field, and expended by her without passing through the hands of the treasurer.

Miss Barton admitted that she had made these decisions at times without the formal authority of her executive committee, and that she had received and expended money according to her best judgment when the emergency was at hand. She did not desire to be bound by burdensome restrictions; she wished to be at liberty to meet the need whenever it should arrive, and in the way that seemed to be necessary.

If everything had gone well with the Red Cross during the absence of Clara Barton at St. Petersburg in 1902, it may be that she would have consented to retire on her return from that notable experience. It was hardly likely that any further honor could have come to her higher than that which she had already received. Theoretically she ought to have been training up assistants who would act effectively in her absence, and in time succeed her. It was in some respects a limitation on her part that she had not found assistants to whom she could delegate authority with confidence that it would be properly used. On the other hand, she had made some experiments in training up associates, and found reason to regret it.

While Clara Barton was on her way to St. Petersburg the disastrous Mont Pelée earthquake occurred. She had left the American Red Cross organized with a board of control which gave it authority to act in such an emergency. She returned from St. Petersburg bitterly disappointed because the American Red Cross played in that disaster, as she felt, a wholly insignificant part. It seemed to her to have displayed a complete lack of that initiative which had always characterized her action under such conditions.

Rightly or wrongly Miss Barton felt that this inability to act promptly and decisively was in some measure the result of a divided authority. She thereupon set in motion an effort to amend the by-laws so as to increase the power of the president. These changed by-laws were adopted at the annual meeting of the American Red Cross in Washington, December 9, 1902. Clara Barton was elected president for life and given the authority which she deemed requisite for effective action.

An earnest protest was made against Miss Barton’s increase of power, and the disaffection increased throughout the year 1903. On January 2, 1904, President Roosevelt notified Miss Barton that he could no longer serve as an officer of the Red Cross in the condition of unrest which had developed.

Three weeks later, on January 29th, the minority of the American Red Cross presented a memorial to Congress charging that under the new form of organization practically all power was centered in the president of the society, who was elected for life and permitted to choose her own executive committee. A committee of investigation was appointed to inquire into the affairs of the Red Cross. Of this committee Senator Redfield Proctor was chairman.

It would be difficult to describe the emotions of Clara Barton when she knew of the appointment of this committee. She was shocked and horrified. She felt as if it had been a personal disgrace; and what was worse, as she viewed it, she feared that it would result in a dissension that would ruin the American Red Cross. On the other hand, she had no mind to retire while the investigation was on. Whatever happened, she would not resign until the investigation ended.

The committee of investigation appears to have been a very sensible body. It set about gathering such material as it needed, and the examination of such witnesses as were produced by the remonstrants.

The remonstrance did not contain any charges of any dishonesty on the part of Miss Barton in the administration of the affairs of the Red Cross; or, any charge of misappropriation of any property or money by Miss Barton; or any improper act or conduct of any kind which involved any element of moral turpitude.

The charges were, in brief:

(a) That proper books of accounts were not kept at all times; and

(b) that the property and funds of the Red Cross were not at all times distributed upon the order of the treasurer of the society, as alleged to be required by the by-laws of the society; and

(c) that a certain tract of land in Lawrence County, Indiana, had been donated to the society by one Joseph Gardner; that the society was reincorporated after such donation, and such donation was never reported to the new corporation.

The reply to these charges, in brief, was that, in the main, proper books of account had been kept, but, in so far as accurate books of account had not been kept, it was due to the impossibility of keeping them while active work was in progress on the field of disaster, and, in so far as the by-laws of the society had not been complied with in the making of disbursements through the treasurer, it was impossible to do so during the stress of active relief work in the field; that so far as the Gardner donation of Indiana land was concerned, no Red Cross money had ever been invested in it; that the title to the real estate was always in the Red Cross and in the then existing corporate entity of the Red Cross, but that the land had not been found to be suited to the work of the Red Cross and the title thereto had been allowed to lapse because of the accumulation of taxes and charges for maintenance which were found to be in excess of the utility of the land to the Red Cross.[4]

The committee of investigation held three meetings, on April 12, April 26, and May 2, 1904. Clara Barton did not attend in person, but was represented by counsel. It never became necessary for her to present her defense. At the close of the third meeting the chairman of the committee adjourned the hearing without day and the investigation came to an end. The committee never presented a report; there was no occasion to do so. The proceedings of the committee are obtainable by any one who cares to read them, and they indicate with sufficient clearness the reasons which presumably influenced the committee in terminating the hearing after one side had been presented. There was no reason why the committee needed to hear anything in defense of Clara Barton.

The investigation having ended, Clara Barton presented her resignation June 16, 1904. The resignation was accepted. The American Red Cross came under its new form of organization with the President of the United States as nominal President of the Red Cross. The committee of the opposition had proposed that Clara Barton be made honorary president for life with a salary to continue as long as she lived. She did not accept either the office or the money. She retired from the Red Cross, leaving it to the management of those who with her resignation came into its control. Her own relation with the organization ceased entirely.

Clara Barton was normally responsive to praise and abnormally sensitive to criticism. In all the years of her public life she never recovered from that supersensitiveness which had characterized her childhood. Fulsome and excessive praise disgusted her, but she enjoyed discriminating appreciation. Straightforward opposition she could meet and bear, but she shrank from criticism at the hands of those who had been her friends, and such criticism hurt her far more than any one could imagine who beheld her self-possession and outward calm. She seemed to the world to take opposition somewhat lightly, but she bled within her armor from wounds which the world never suspected.

She retired from the Red Cross broken-hearted. Her common sense ought to have saved her from nine tenths of the suffering which she endured in that unhappy experience. She felt that she had been denationalized, repudiated by her own country, expatriated. She thought for a time that she could not continue to live in the United States. She turned her eyes toward Mexico, and thought of going there partly to escape from the sorrows which confronted her, and which she painfully exaggerated, and partly with the thought that she might there establish something corresponding to the American Red Cross. She had a friend in California, Mr. Charles S. Young, who knew much about Mexico. On January 13, 1904, after the appointment of the congressional committee and before any of its hearings, she wrote the following letter which came as near to being hysterical as anything that Clara Barton ever wrote:

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 this 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 could, at least, tell me a road to take outside of America, and who would ask 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.

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 open the gate to show me a mile 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 mistrust that I cannot bear 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 United States for twelve months,—forgiven all, offered friendship,—and still am 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 expense of the “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 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 heartaches that mortals are called to endure.

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

Receive again my thanks and permit me to remain,

Your friend
Clara Barton

In conversation she said: “The Government which I thought I loved, and loyally tried to serve, has shut every door in my face and stared at me insultingly through its windows. What wonder I want to leave?”

In another conversation, referring to the abandonment of her dream of going to Mexico, she said: “There were but two countries where the Red Cross did not exist, China and Mexico. I did not want to go to China, but did want to go to Mexico, and fully intended to go. My friends finally dissuaded me and perhaps it was for the best, for if I had gone I probably would not have been alive now.”

From this distance it is possible to view the whole situation in perspective. The present author has no hesitation in saying that the time had come for Clara Barton to retire from the active work of the administration of the American Red Cross. The organization had grown well beyond the ability of any one person to manage it in the way that Clara Barton had managed it so successfully in its earlier years. On her return either from Cuba or St. Petersburg, she ought to have retired, accepting the honorary presidency, and giving over the control and active management to younger people. The author has witnessed in not a few instances the pathetic struggle which goes on in the minds of elderly people on their prospective retirement from positions which have outgrown them. It is a situation nothing less than tragic. A person long identified with an organization comes easily to believe, either that he cannot get on without it, or that it cannot get on without him. Clara Barton had come to believe the latter concerning the American Red Cross. She was mistaken.

There comes a time in the life of almost any organization when, if it is to prosper and enlarge, it must accept new leadership and adapt itself to changed conditions. A woman as sensible as Clara Barton was in most things should have realized this situation and not have permitted herself to be heart-broken by a change as necessary for her as it was for the Red Cross.

Nor is it necessary at this time to refer to the fact that the change might perhaps have been brought about in a kindlier spirit and with less of distress to a noble woman. If there was any lack of consideration for her, it will do no good now to remember it, nor to ascribe unworthy motives to any who had a share in it.

One thing, however, ought to be said concerning this tragic experience. If Clara Barton did not bear this sorrow like a philosopher, she bore it like a Christian. The author has searched her diaries and most intimate papers of this period without finding in any of them any spirit of personal resentment or desire for revenge. She felt that she had been deeply wronged, but she felt it not so much as a wrong done to her as an injury to the cause she loved. Her constant question was not, What will become of me? but, What will become of the Red Cross? Her books had been kept honestly and she knew it; but she also knew that, when money came to her on the field, she had been accustomed to spend it for the necessities of life for those she had come to help, and that not all of it had passed through the hands of the treasurer. She knew that no committee of Congress could find any of this money in her possession, but she also knew that her system of book-keeping had not been established with a view to a possibility of that kind of an audit. How would it affect the Red Cross if any scandal arose out of her unbusinesslike book-keeping?

She came in time to realize that she had taken this matter too seriously. She came to know the relief of lessened responsibility and to be glad that the Red Cross, with its cares and responsibilities and widening sphere of influence, had been safely transferred to other hands.

The author may be permitted to add a personal word. In his personal conversation with Clara Barton concerning these unhappy events he never heard her speak uncharitably of any of her opponents. He was not with her during the time of the actual difficulty, and has sometimes regretted that he was not there. Had he known all that he now knows from months of labor spent in the examination of her most intimate papers, he would have advised her to retire in 1898 or 1902, and to turn over all her records to her successors, and enjoy for herself a few years of unofficial honor before her long life closed. He did not at that time possess the intimate knowledge which now is in his possession, of the whole life and method of work of the American Red Cross under her administration. He is of the opinion that she ought to have accepted her retirement, not only willingly but gladly, and that she was far more troubled than she had need to be concerning the events which led to her retirement from office.

But this fact he records with sincere admiration for this noble woman, the author’s friend and kinswoman, that in her conversation with him in the years that followed, and in her diaries and intimate self-revelations of her private papers, he has found no word that seems inspired by selfish ambition, by personal resentment, or by any unworthy motive.