I desire to have it better comprehended and more fittingly appointed in our great and advancing country. I would like to see for it a headquarters which, in point of activity, would be a national honor to us. The Red Cross of America should successfully undertake some difficult problems. Hospital and emergency work naturally fall to it. It has come to be the first thought of by any community suddenly overtaken by disaster.
With all our misdirected, criminal and incendiary immigration, which nothing seems to hinder, with our dangerous foreign leaders and teachers, our strikes, mobs and dynamite, who can foresee the moment when the United States flag shall be called to make peace and hold it? And wherever that symbol goes, the Red Cross must follow, and only one step in the rear. The first man who falls must see it on the arm that raises him, and the last must know it has not left him. The National Red Cross of America is not without possibilities for occupation, and these neither theoretical nor sentimental.
Gentlemen, there are some points in reference to which I desire to guard against misapprehension on your part. Of all things, I would not have you get the impression that I desire to foist the Red Cross upon the government for support. That, because I say it is liable to equal a government bureau in point of work and care, I desire to have it made a government bureau. Nothing is more impossible. I would not have you feel that we have carried it to a certain extent, and now want the government to take it up. These things could not be; it would at once defeat the very objects of the organization, which mean people’s help for national needs, not national help for people’s necessities. Still, there is a certain fitting and customary connection between the two, which it is proper to recognize. Certain protection of the rights and welfare of the organization, which it is suitable and for the interest of the government to maintain, as, for instance, the protection of the insignia. Its acts of incorporation—some aid in the circulation of information respecting it, its charters, etc., through its official printing bureaus, and some direct channel of communication, and advice opened between the government and the organization, as customary in other countries, and without which I think we cannot reasonably hope to stand upon a respectable basis in their estimation.
If Germany can place Count Stolberg, one of its highest official dignitaries and officers, at the active head of its Red Cross, we can scarcely do less than to permit a small advisory committee of our legislature to at least confer with ours.
These are all very small and inexpensive demands upon a government like ours, and from their apparent unimportance, likely to remain unconsidered. Still, they are important to the work that seeks them. With these assured, the National Committee can safely permit the people to take their place in the work, and if the time never comes when the country has need of the help for which they organize, it will be only a too fortunate land.
The part which I have thus far been privileged to take in this work has but one merit. It has been faithful, and I believe, unselfish. With better judgment, greater strength, wealth, power and prestige, or the ready help of those who had, I might have accomplished more. I have nothing to gain from it, and never have had. I have no ambitions to serve, and certainly no purposes. I regret only the years which have gone by in feeble, unaided effort, which, I feel, with stronger help, might have been more serviceable.
All I am worth to it to-day is the experience I have gained. I have no more time for trials, nor proof, and of these, no more are needed. The facts are established. I have stated what is needed of the government, before it can go on, and I ask your kind consideration of the same.
TO THE COMMITTEES OF THE RED CROSS.
An Acknowledgment.
To our tireless Executive Committee, and to the great and energetic Red Cross Relief Committee of New York, who undertook the concentration of the war relief and the administration of the generous gifts of the people, and who have so faithfully stood by me in the work during all these months, no words can adequately express my gratitude and the appreciation of the National Committee.
For them no task was too great; no requisition was ever refused. To their zealous labors is due, in a great measure, whatever success may have attended the Red Cross in its mission for the relief of the sick and the wounded.