The question remained: what forum should be selected? We canvassed the possibilities: the Economic Club, of which I was then president, and a number of others. One by one, all were dismissed. Finally, it was decided to give a small dinner at the National Democratic Club on the evening of March 14th, and to follow that immediately by a large reception, at which the speech in its first form was to be delivered.

This plan was carried to a successful conclusion, and what Cummings said that night was the basis or skeleton of his soon-famous speech at San Francisco. “The rest is history.”

Meantime, my period at home was drawing to a close. I had written for the New York Times “A Vision of the Red Cross After the War.” On March 7th, I received a cablegram from Henry P. Davison. It asked me to serve as delegate to the Conference at Cannes for the formation of the International League of Red Cross Societies. Mr. Taft and Jacob Schiff both gave me advice that matched my inclinations. On March 15th, the Times published an interview giving my point of View in regard to this trip:

I am going to Europe to assist Henry P. Davison in his work of organizing the Red Cross for the great mission which I believe it is called upon to perform in the world.

We have a very definite vision of what this work is to be. The League of Nations, when it is formed, will necessarily confine its administration to the more material aspects of government, such as boundaries, armament, and economic questions. There is need, therefore, for a League to care for the human wants and moral aspirations of all peoples. This other “League of Nations” may well be the International Red Cross, which enlightened men and women are now engaged in forming. I am to assist in that work. It is a work dear to my heart, something for which for many years I have felt there is a definite need.

The Red Cross, in the new and more splendid opportunity that has come to it, because of its services in the great war, is the medium, I believe, through which all true lovers of mankind may aid in making the world a better place to live in.

I came home from the Democratic Club’s reception to Cummings, snatched a few hours’ sleep, and, on the following morning, boarded the ship that was to take me on the journey which began with the International Red Cross Conference and ended in my investigation of the Jewish massacres in Poland.

CHAPTER XVI
THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS

WE sailed on the Leviathan, formerly the Vaterland. When we boarded the ship, we found the dock was elaborately decorated for the arrival of the Secretary of the Navy; the handsome royal suite was reserved for him and his wife. Josephus Daniels, no longer wearing his customary white suit, now displayed an admiral’s cap, and was surrounded by admirals and captains who were under his orders. He was the Secretary of the Navy and to the chagrin of some of our prominent ironmasters, he had assumed the exacting supervision of naval armour plate in lieu of his effective distribution of newspaper boiler plate during the first Wilson campaign.

Other fellow passengers were seven physicians bound, like myself, for the international conference of Red Cross Societies at Cannes: William H. Welch, of Johns Hopkins, typifying to us all the wonderful accomplishments of the Rockefeller Institute; L. Emmett Holt, the medical foster-father of thousands of American babies; Hermann M. Biggs, who, in his official capacities, has lifted public hygiene into a recognized requirement of modern civilization; Colonel Russell, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the U. S. Surgeon-General’s office; Edward R. Baldwin, head of the well-known Saranac Lake Sanatorium for Tuberculosis; Fritz B. Talbot, of Boston, famous as a specialist in children’s diseases; and Samuel M. Hammill, head of the Pennsylvania Child-Welfare Board. With these was Mr. Chanler P. Anderson, ex-solicitor of the State Department.