Woman's work in America

by Unknown

Therefore the following little sketch of a woman’s work in the direction of originating and applying the methods of the Red Cross in this country, written by one connected officially with the society is presented, with the editor’s apologies to the modesty of the President of the Red Cross: “It is with great pleasure I am permitted to add a few words of explanation to Miss Barton’s story of the Red Cross, and in as brief a space as possible present the colossal magnitude of this remarkable woman’s work on Battlefield, in Hospital, amid Cyclone, Fire, and Flood; Standing ‘alone’ among women even as a Napoleon or a Lincoln does among men.

“Endowed by nature with a dual being, as it were; possessing the strong, reasoning, powerful brain of a leader and the gentle, tender, loving heart of the most delicate of women, Clara Barton stands before us a symbol of what woman might be when she bursts the bonds that dictate to her ‘woman’s work.’

“Confined in this note to the relation of Miss Barton with the ‘Red Cross work,’ I still consider it fitting to suggest that the services rendered by her in the war for the Union, in organizing, conducting, and leading the service of field nurses upon actual battle-fields, in directing hospital organization, in managing other details of field relief, and, more than all, in conceiving and carrying out the great work of tracing and recording the fate of many thousands of missing soldiers, were naturally and necessarily a proper prelude to the great service she has since rendered in European combat, in presenting the Geneva Treaty to her own government, and in so broadening its field of service as to include that of help in great natural and national calamities.

“Miss Barton has herself explained the object of the Geneva International Committee; and has given an account of the long-delayed acceptance of the Treaty by the United States.

“In 1870 Miss Barton joined the Red Cross workers in the Franco-Prussian War. We see her leading in beneficence in Strassburg; working day and night organizing the frightened and bewildered women and children; not doling out charities, but vitalizing and making them self-reliant by work; presenting the truest of all ways of helping themselves by helping others. In sober words, Miss Barton’s work in Strassburg was the founding of workshops and the employment of women and others to labor therein. So successful was she that when Metz passed into German hands, with loaded cars, bearing clothes and food, she entered that city again to help the stricken inhabitants; afterward in Paris, at that awful hour when the ‘Commune fell,’ and the streets were black with fire and red with blood, we see this American woman reaching the stricken city with her train of garments, ready for the naked; hope and comfort following in her path; healing and binding wounded bodies and minds. She was called on by Monsieur Thiers himself, and honored as few men are. The cross of the Legion of Honor should be among her rewards, but the law governing its bestowal is that it be formally solicited by the one by whom it might be received.

“Clara Barton has never sought it. In 1873, invalided and entirely prostrated, Miss Barton returned to America, promising to use her influence with the government to open the Red Cross treaty. Her health entirely failing her, it was 1877 when she was able to call for the documents lying unused in our State Department; the communications were all in foreign languages, and they seemed almost incomprehensible to the American mind.

“From the year 1877 to 1881, we see Miss Barton in a new rôle. She translated, wrote, published, and lectured, all at her own expense, trying to educate some minds into the work of the Red Cross. In constant communication with the heads of foreign governments, with the eyes of all of them watching and waiting for the success of this patient, earnest, pleading woman with her stubborn nation, ready to publish the least progress in her task, it was not until 1881, at the commencement of President Garfield’s administration, that her labors had any success. President Garfield and his Cabinet listened, comprehended, and approved.

“President Arthur faithfully carried out his noble predecessor’s idea. After one year’s consideration, during which Miss Barton personally explained, before the Senate and House Committees on Foreign Affairs and Relations, the work of the Red Cross, the United States unanimously acceded to the Treaty of Geneva.

“Since the adhesion of the United States to this treaty, there have been two International Conferences, to which Congress appointed Miss Barton as chief delegate to represent the United States. The conferences were composed of delegates sent by the heads of the nations adhering to the treaty. The first conference met in Paris, the second in Berlin, the third in Geneva, the fourth in Carlsruhe. Miss Barton was present at the two latter.

“The legal application of the Red Cross to great national calamities, already referred to as the American Amendment to the Red Cross, is the work of Clara Barton.