Senator John Sherman was then a tower of strength in this country. She approached him on the subject. He was against it; said that he did not see any use of going to this trouble; that making such preparation for war would have a tendency to agitate the public, and bring on war. Oh, no, Miss Barton, I can’t support such foreign organization as is your proposed Red Cross. Besides, we will never have another war in this country. Having given his final answer and subsided, the ever-ready-with-answer Miss Barton remarked that it seemed to her years ago, back in 1858, a certain Senator Sherman had made such a statement in the Senate. Caught in a trap set by himself, yet graciously smiling, the Senator replied, “Yes, I believe we did have a little brush after that.” A second “brush” occurred, in 1898. Senator Sherman, then Secretary of State, had occasion in connection with Red Cross work to issue to the head of the Navy the following order: “I have the honor to commend Miss Barton to the kind attention of your department.”
One of the ablest arguments ever presented on any national issue was presented in an address in November, 1881, by Clara Barton on the Red Cross issue “To the President, Congress and the People of the United States.” In that masterful address among other things she said: “Yes, war is a great wrong and sin and, because it is, I would provide not only for but against it. But here comes the speculative theorist! Isn’t it encouraging a bad principle? Wouldn’t it be better to do away with all war? Wouldn’t peace societies be better? Oh, yes, my friend, as much better as the millennium would be better than this, but the millennium is not here. Hard facts are here; war is here; war is the outgrowth, indicator and relic of barbarism. Civilization alone will do away with it, and scarcely a quarter of the earth is yet civilized, and that quarter not beyond the possibilities of war. It is a long step yet to permanent peace.... Friends, was it accident, or was it Providence, which made it one of the last acts of James A. Garfield, while in health, to pledge himself to urge upon the representatives of his in Congress assembled this great national step for the relief and care of wounded men? Living or dying, it was his act and wish, and no member of that honored, considerate, and humane body but will feel himself in some manner holden to see it carried out.”
Among the first who became champions in her cause for the Red Cross were Senators Conger of Michigan, William Windom of Minnesota, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and who was the first to investigate, and take the matter up, as a member of President Garfield’s Cabinet. Senator E. G. Lapham, of New York, “who spared neither time nor thought, patience nor labor, in his legal investigations of the whole matter;” Senators Morgan of Alabama, Edmonds of Vermont, Hawley of Connecticut, Anthony of Rhode Island, Hoar of Massachusetts, “all accorded to it their willing interest and aid.” And also she had the support of the eminent Secretary of State James G. Blaine, Presidents Garfield and Arthur, as well as many other statesmen of whose services on this measure there has been left no official record.
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (in 1898)
Resolved: That this conference declares that in obtaining the accession
the United States of America to the Convention of Geneva, Miss Clara
Barton has well merited the gratitude of the world.—International Conference
of the Red Cross, Geneva, Switzerland, 1884.
Early Red Cross history reads like a tale of romance from some long ago past century, the leading woman character inspirited by a power superhuman. Was Clara Barton the Founder of the American Red Cross? Of the millions of Americans who would esteem such honor, no one else so much as lays claim to it. In appreciation, Monsieur Moynier, President of the International Red Cross Committee, in an address delivered in Europe on September 2, 1882, on “The Foundation of the American Society of the Red Cross” in part said: “Its whole history is associated with a name already known to you—that of Miss Barton. Without the energy and perseverance of this remarkable woman we should probably not for a long time have had the pleasure of seeing the Red Cross revived in the United States. We will not repeat here what we have said elsewhere of the claims of Miss Barton to your gratitude;—we know that on the first of March she gained a complete victory.”
Commenting on her struggles, and expressing her natural desire for the Red Cross, Clara Barton says: “A time will come when I shall lay down my work. Out of the many years I have given to it has grown one great, natural desire, a desire to leave my little immigrant of twenty-seven years ago a great National Institution, in the hands of the people, supported by the people, for their mutual help and strength in the face of disaster; and I would have those who take it up and follow in our footsteps freed from the severity of toil, the anguish of perplexity, uncertainty, misunderstanding, and often privations, which have been ours in the past.”
LXXVIII
War, although more tragic, is not the only evil that assails humanity. Clara Barton.
Do you know that more than 1,500,000 persons were killed or injured in automobile accidents in 1921? Boston American, May 16, 1922.