Clara Barton’s success in securing ratification of the Treaty of Geneva is perhaps her most outstanding achievement. Primarily through her writing, speeches, and dedication the public and U.S. officials came to know of the Red Cross. For six years she persisted in lobbying Congress; the treaty ultimately passed without a dissenting vote. And, although she “could not believe that someone would not rise up” to help her, no one ever did. The American National Red Cross remains a monument to Barton’s singular perseverance and her powers of persuasion.
Barton and the Red Cross in Action
Clara Barton was 60 years old when the Treaty of Geneva was ratified by the Senate. She at first considered her work completed. But the immediate demands made on the young American Red Cross changed her mind; she felt it would be foolish to put the Red Cross into other hands.
Barton stamped the early Red Cross decisively with her personality. She was a woman of strong will and deliberate action, with, as biographer Percy Epler states, “a just and accurate estimate of her own power to master a situation.” By the 1880s, she was accustomed to being in command. She could, and did, inspire great loyalty—Antoinette Margot’s letters to her customarily begin “My own so precious, so precious Miss Barton,” or “So dear, so preciously loved Miss Barton”—though some complained that she demanded, rather than deserved the fealty. Barton left no doubt that she alone governed the Red Cross and that all others were subordinate. One of her most loyal aides referred to her as “the Queen.”
When many people are closing out their careers, Clara Barton was just beginning her most important work.
She had a sharp intellect, was able to see issues clearly, and was articulate. Although she had clear-cut opinions on nearly every subject, she was loath to force her ideas on others. Dr. Hubbell, writing after her death, maintained that she disliked controversy and would almost never argue, “but when she did speak she could tell more facts to the point ... with no possibility of misunderstanding than any person I have ever known.”
She was confident when she was in control of a situation, but she had difficulty working with others. She was a perfectionist. Determined always to do things in her own way, she early decided “that I must attend to all business myself ... and learn to do all myself.” Secretaries and servants came and went, but few ever satisfied her exacting demands. In her own endeavors she could tolerate no rival, but she did not aspire to widespread power.
Privately Barton was often very different from her public image. Criticism was taken with apparent calm and stoicism, but inwardly she burned and fought the temptation “to go from all the world. I think it will come to that someday,” she sadly noted, “it is a struggle for me to keep in society at all. I want to leave all.” Her temper was also controlled and betrayed itself only by a deepening of her voice and a sharpness in her eyes. She was socially insecure and given to self-dramatization. She often exaggerated her hardships to elicit pity or respect. For example, she frequently spoke of sitting up all night on trains as both a measure of economy and a guard against unnecessary personal luxury, yet her diaries contain numerous references to comfortable berths. Several times she wrote flattering articles about herself, in the third person, which she submitted to various periodicals. In one, written during the Franco-Prussian War, she showed the way she hoped the public would view her: “Miss Clara Barton, scarcely recovered from the fatigues and indispositions resulting from her arduous and useful duties during the War of the Rebellion, was found again foremost bestowing her care upon the wounded with the same assiduity which characterized her among the suffering armies of her own country.”
Her depression and insecurity were, in most cases, undetectable to others. What they noticed were her humanitarian feelings and deep and abiding empathy for those who suffered. Her friend, the Grand Duchess Louise, thought of her as “one of those very few persons whose whole being is goodness itself.” Biographer and cousin William E. Barton recalled that she “did not merely sympathize with suffering; she suffered.” Others were struck by her witty and spontaneous sense of humor. She told one friend that she was more thankful for her sense of humor than for any other quality she possessed, for it had helped her over hard times.