Successful with her new organization, the Red Cross a few years later (in 1910) formed in its society a department to carry on relief as then carried on in Miss Barton’s new organization, the department being of like name—The First Aid Division. In her new field of humane service, Clara Barton expended from her personal funds about $5,000, besides five years of hard work, before she achieved success.
She was herself again; she was on the “firing line”; she had the support of her former Red Cross field forces,—not one had deserted her. She didn’t flee her “enemies” to Mexico, but to the “Hub”;—where, and in which vicinity, she had enjoyed social amenities with the Julia Ward Howes, the Wendell Phillips’, the George Bancrofts, the John B. Goughs, the Louisa M. Alcotts, the Lucy Larcoms, the Mary Baker Eddys, the Henry Wilsons, the Charles Sumners, the George F. Hoars. Either among such then living or their friends, she had lost none of her prestige because she had been attacked in the “Den of Character-Assassins.”
Be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow,
Thou shalt not escape calumny.
On her “First Aid” Advisory Board were Lieutenant-General Nelson A. Miles and ex-Governor John L. Bates, of Massachusetts; Dr. Eugene Underhill, of Pennsylvania; Dr. Charles R. Dickson, of Canada; Dr. Joseph Gardner, of Indiana. Associated with her in various other capacities, also, were persons of national fame and widely-known humanitarianism. She was unanimously elected and re-elected, while she lived, the Active President of the organization—the organization known as the National First Aid Association of America: now she is the President In Memoriam.
In the House Records of 1903 and 1904 there is found the following: “They (Remonstrants) suggest that Miss Barton is a party to loose and improper arrangements for securing the needed accountability for supervision of disbursements for money furnished in demand of exigency of the Red Cross by the charitable public.” In 1916, a letter signed by a leading Red Cross official was mailed to the members of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives. In that letter, among many other “charges,” was the following: “I think I have given sufficient evidence to show why the dishonest appropriation of relief funds for the personal use of Miss Barton makes the officials of the Red Cross strongly opposed to having the memorial of such a woman placed in a building that stands in remembrance of the noblest, finest, and most self-sacrificing womanhood of America.”
It is inexcusable, on the part of a member of the present management of the Red Cross, to make public “accusation” of Clara Barton’s book-records without certification to that effect by an expert accountant, in an official capacity, and then only confidentially to the organization itself for some good purpose; and in no case to the public in defamation, to support the position taken by an “enemy.” Similar conduct, on the part of an employé in a well-ordered private corporation would subject the guilty, probably, to dismissal in disgrace from the service. If in the interest of public policy such information should be made public, and become of record, it should be made officially public, and through the President of the society.
In what has been done, pro bono publico has had no consideration. In publicly attacking the Red Cross Founder’s book-records before the members of the National Legislature, there should also have been considered that conditions now are not as were the conditions a score of years ago. Then the President-Vice-President-Chairman-Vice-Chairman-Comptroller-General Manager received no salary; now (in 1919) the annual salary of four Red Cross officers is $41,400; $15,000 and $10,000 respectively, for Chairman and Vice-Chairman; $8,000 and $8,400 respectively, for Comptroller and General Manager. In re the attitude of the “Remonstrants” towards her, Clara Barton said: “I am still unanimously bidden to work on for life; bear the burden of an organization; meet its cost myself—and now threatened with the expenses of the ‘investigation.’”
In consonance with her sentiment, and statement, “The foundation on which all good government rests is conformity to its laws,” Clara Barton in 1904 turned over to the new management all Red Cross books, official papers, official records, public funds—all Red Cross matters of whatsoever kind or nature. If there were evidence of defalcation, or “dishonest appropriation of relief funds for the personal use of Miss Barton,” then was the time to have made the charges, and in the criminal court. “Instead, the post mortem charges were made twelve years after Clara Barton’s resignation of the Red Cross Presidency, and four years after her death.”
Kings, queens and states,