The Red Cross in Peace and War

by Clara Barton

A brief statement of how I became acquainted with the Red Cross may serve to explain at once its principles and methods, as well as the present attitude of our government in regard to it.

The practical beneficence of the sanitary and Christian commissions of the United States attracted the attention of the civilized world. I had borne some part in the operations of field hospitals in actual service in the battles of the Civil War, and some public notice had been taken of that work. But, broken in health, I was directed by my physicians to go to Europe prepared to remain three years.

In September, 1869, I arrived at Geneva, Switzerland. In October I was visited by the president and members of the “International Committee for the relief of the wounded in war.” They wished to learn if possible why the United States had declined to sign the treaty. Our position was incomprehensible to them. If the treaty had originated with a monarchial government they could see some ground for hesitancy. But it originated in a Republic older than our own. To what did America object, and how could these objections be overcome? They had twice formally presented it to the government at Washington, once in 1864, through our Minister Plenipotentiary at Berne, who was present at the convention; again in 1868, through Rev. Dr. Henry W. Bellows, the great head of war relief in America. They had failed in both instances. No satisfactory nor adequate reason had ever been given by the nation for the course pursued. They had thought the people of America, with their grand sanitary record, would be the first to appreciate and accept it. I listened in silent wonder to all this recital, and when I did reply it was to say that I had never in America heard of the Convention of Geneva nor of the treaty, and was sure that as a country America did not know she had declined; that she would be the last to withhold recognition of a humane movement; that it had doubtless been referred to and declined by some one department of the government, or some one official, and had never been submitted to the people; and as its literature was in languages foreign to our English-speaking population, it had no way of reaching us.

You will naturally infer that I examined it. I became all the time more deeply impressed with the wisdom of its principles, the good practical sense of its details, and its extreme usefulness in practice. Humane intelligence had devised its provisions and peculiarly adapted it to win popular favor. The absurdity of our own position in relation to it was simply marvelous. As I counted up its roll of twenty-two nations—not a civilized people in the world but ourselves missing, and saw Greece, Spain, and Turkey there, I began to fear that in the eyes of the “rest of mankind” we could not be far from barbarians. This reflection did not furnish a stimulating food for national pride. I grew more and more ashamed. But the winter wore on as winters do with invalids abroad. The summer found me at Berne in quest of strength among its mountain views and baths.

On the fifteenth of July, 1870, France declared war against Prussia. Within three days a band of agents from the “International Committee of Geneva,” headed by Dr. Louis Appia (one of the prime movers of the convention), equipped for work and en route for the seat of war, stood at the door of my villa inviting me to go with them and take such part as I had taken in our own war. I had not strength to trust for that, and declined with thanks, promising to follow in my own time and way, and I did follow within a week. No shot had then been fired—no man had fallen—yet this organized, powerful commission was on its way, with its skilled agents, ready to receive, direct and dispense the charities and accumulations which the generous sympathies of twenty-two nations, if applied to, might place at its disposal. These men had treaty power to go directly on to any field, and work unmolested in full co-operation with the military and commanders-in-chief; their supplies held sacred and their efforts recognized and seconded in every direction by either belligerent army. Not a man could lie uncared for nor unfed. I thought of the Peninsula in McClellan’s campaign—of Pittsburg Landing, Cedar Mountain and second Bull Run, Antietam, Old Fredericksburg with its acres of snow-covered and gun-covered glacee, and its fourth-day flag of truce; of its dead, and starving wounded, frozen to the ground, and our commissions and their supplies in Washington, with no effective organization to go beyond; of the Petersburg mine, with its four thousand dead and wounded and no flag of truce, the wounded broiling in a July sun—died and rotted where they fell. I remembered our prisons, crowded with starving men whom all the powers and pities of the world could not reach even with a bit of bread. I thought of the widows’ weeds still fresh and dark through all the land, north and south, from the pine to the palm; the shadows on the hearths and hearts over all my country. Sore, broken hearts, ruined, desolate homes! Was this people to decline a humanity in war? Was this a country to reject a treaty for the help of wounded soldiers? Were these the women and men to stand aloof and consider? I believed if these people knew that the last cloud of war had forever passed from their horizon, the tender, painful, deathless memories of what had been would bring them in with a force no power could resist. They needed only to know.

As I journeyed on and saw the work of these Red Cross societies in the field, accomplishing in four months under their systematic organization what we failed to accomplish in four years without it—no mistakes, no needless suffering, no starving, no lack of care, no waste, no confusion, but order, plenty, cleanliness and comfort wherever that little flag made its way—a whole continent marshaled under the banner of the Red Cross—as I saw all this, and joined and worked in it, you will not wonder that I said to myself “If I live to return to my country I will try to make my people understand the Red Cross and that treaty.” But I did more than resolve, I promised other nations I would do it, and other reasons pressed me to remember my promise. The Franco-Prussian war and the war of the commune were both enormous in the extent of their operations and in the suffering of individuals. This great modern international impulse of charity went out everywhere to meet and alleviate its miseries. The small, poor countries gave of their poverty and the rich nations poured out abundantly of their vast resources. The contributions of those under the Red Cross went quietly, promptly through international responsible channels, were thoughtfully and carefully distributed through well-known agents, returns, accurate to a franc, were made and duly published to the credit of the contributing nations, and the object aimed at was accomplished.

America, filled with German and French people, with people humane and universal in their instincts of citizenship and brotherhood, freighted ships with supplies and contributions in money prodigal and vast. They arrived in Europe, but they were not under the treaty regulations. No sign of the Red Cross authorized any one to receive and distribute them. The poor baffled agents, honest, well meaning and indefatigable, did all that individuals without system or organization could do. But for the most part the magnificent charity of America was misapplied and went as unsystematized charity always tends to go, to ruin and to utter waste. The object aimed at was not accomplished. At the end of the report of the international organization of the Red Cross occurs something like this: “It is said that the United States of America also contributed something for the sick and wounded, but what, or how much, or to whom, or when or where, it is impossible to tell.”

In the autumn of 1873, I returned to America more broken in health than when I left in 1869. Then followed years of suffering in which I forgot how to walk, but I remembered my resolve and my promise. After almost five years I was able to go to Washington with a letter from Monsieur Moynier, president of the International Committee of Geneva, to the President of the United States, asking once more that our government accede to the articles of the convention. Having been made the official bearer of this letter, I presented it in 1877 to President Hayes, who received it kindly, referring it to his Secretary of State, Mr. Evarts, who in his turn referred it to his assistant secretary as the person who would know all about it, examine and report for decision. I then saw how it was made to depend not alone upon one department, but one man, who had been the assistant secretary of state in 1864 and also in 1868, when the treaty had been on the two previous occasions presented to our government. It was a settled thing. There was nothing to hope for from that administration. The matter had been officially referred and would be decided accordingly. It would be declined because it had been declined. If I pressed it to a decision, it would only weigh it down with a third refusal. I waited. My next thought was to refer it to Congress. That step would be irregular, and discourteous to the administration. I did not like to take it, still I attempted it, but could not get it considered, for it promised neither political influence, patronage, nor votes.

The next year I returned to Washington to try Congress again. I published a little pamphlet of two leaves addressed to the members and senators, to be laid upon their desks in the hope they would take the trouble to read so little as that, and be by so much the better prepared to consider and act upon a bill if I could get one before them. My strength failed before I could get that bill presented, and I went home again in midwinter. There then remained but a portion of the term of that administration, and I determined, if possible, to outlive it, hoping another would be more responsive. Meanwhile I wrote, talked, and did whatever I could to spread the idea among the people, and March, 1881, when the administration of President Garfield came in, I went again to Washington. The subject was very cordially received by the President and carefully referred by him to Secretary Blaine, who considered it himself, conferred fully with me, and finally laid it before the President and the cabinet. Perhaps the most satisfactory account of that transaction will be found in the letter of Mr. Blaine addressed to me, (see [page 41]), which gives the assurance that President Garfield would recommend the adoption of the treaty in his message to Congress.

What were the provisions of that treaty which had been so conspicuously and persistently neglected and apparently rejected by this whole government, whose people are as humane as any people in the world, and as ready to adopt plain and common sense provisions against evils sure to come upon themselves and those whom they hold most dear? It was merely the proposed adoption of a treaty by this government with other nations for the purpose of ameliorating the conditions incident to warfare, humanizing its regulations, softening its barbarities, and so far as possible, lessening the sufferings of the wounded and sick who fall by it. This treaty consists of a code of ten articles, formed and adopted by the International Convention of Geneva, Switzerland, held August 22, 1864, which convention was composed of delegates, two or more from each of the civilized nations of the world, and was called at the instance of the members of the Society of Public Utility of Switzerland.