stood with you then,—
The nurses, consolers, and saviors
of men.
Note.—Returning home from a journey, Miss Barton was notified in the afternoon that she would be expected to attend the banquet and respond to the toast, “The Women Who Went to the Field.” As there was little or no time for preparation, the foregoing poem was hastily written, and may almost be considered as impromptu.
CUBA AND THE CUBAN CAMPAIGN.
We had scarcely returned from Armenia when paragraphs began to appear in the press from all sections of the country, connecting the Red Cross with some undefined method of relief for Cuba. These intimations were both ominous and portentous for the future, something from which we instinctively shrunk and remained perfectly quiet. “The murmurs grew to clamors loud,” and, I regret to say, not always quite kind. There were evidently two Richmonds in the field, the one ardently craving food alone, simply food for the dying. The other wanting food and arms. 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.