Again Clara Barton was on the battle-field. From Carlsruhe she visited in succession several of the bloody fields. But when Strassburg fell, as it did September 28, 1870, she turned her back upon the comforts of the grand ducal palace, and entered the city where a few weeks before she had been the honored guest of the United States Consul. Thousands of its inhabitants were homeless and in danger of starvation. She organized a workroom where she set two hundred and fifty poor women to work. For forty days she and Antoinette Margot did their work amid the ruins of this distressed city. At first there was nothing to do but to give relief on application. There lie before the writer some of the original meal tickets which were issued at this time. But before long she saw that this plan if continued, would pauperize the women. She devised the plan by which they were to work and be paid for it whenever they were able to work. She wrote a letter to Count Bismarck, being introduced to him by the Grand Duchess Louise, and which obtained official recognition for her type of work:
Count Bismarck
Governor-General of Alsace
Honored Count:
Through the politeness of your adjutant and his amiable lady, I learn that Your Highness will kindly permit me to communicate with you in reference to the work I am endeavoring to perform among the destitute people who are so fortunate as to fall under your protecting care. But speaking no German, lacking confidence to attempt a conversation in French, and fearing that English may not be familiar to you, I decide to write, subject to translation, the little explanation I would make of my work, its origin, progress, and design.
I entered Strassburg the second day after its fall, and, observing both the distress of its inhabitants and their bitterness toward their captors, who must always remain their neighbors, I deemed it wise, while they should receive the charity so much needed, that something of it be presented by German hands. In this view I was most cordially met by that noblest of ladies, the Grand Duchess of Baden, to whom I am also indebted for this introduction to you, and immediately, under her generous patronage, I returned with an assistant to do what we could in the name of Germany. At first, we could only give indiscriminately to the hundreds who thronged our doors. But, directly, I perceived that a prolonged continuance of this system would be productive of greater disaster to the moral condition of the people than the bombardment had been to their physical; that in a city, comprising less than eighty thousand inhabitants, there would shortly be twenty thousand confirmed beggars. Only a small proportion of these families had been accustomed to receive charity, but one winter of common beggary would reduce the larger part to a state of careless degradation from which they would scarcely again emerge. It seemed morally indispensable that remunerative employment in some form should be given them. Again I consulted Her Royal Highness, who kindly approved, generously making the first contribution of materials, and we opened our present “Work-rooms for Women” in the month of October. To say that the results have surpassed my most sanguine expectation is little, the facts are much more; but a stranger both to people and language, it is not singular that my work, which depends entirely upon public patronage, has often lacked the necessary means to attain the full measure of success.
My original design was to aid not only the inhabitants of Strassburg, but those in other portions of Alsace who are equally destitute. I thought that to be just to all and produce the best moral influence, the employment, and the payment, should be given to Strassburg, thus making of the inhabitants workers, instead of beggars, but that the warm garments made by them should be sent to the half-naked peasants of the villages, and little country homes where the harvest has been lost, and neither money nor clothing comes within reach. And to the extent of my means I have done this. The peasants have heard of the rooms, and often walk two and three leagues to ask for garments, and the clergymen from around the old battle-fields, and from Bitch, are making appeals in behalf of their half-naked and shivering people. Both my sympathy and my judgment would favor the hearing of these appeals so far as possible. This population must always be the neighbors, if not a part, of the German people; it will be most desirable that they should be also friends; they are in distress—their hearts can never be better reached than now; the little seed sown to-day may have in it the germs of future peace or war.
But pardon my boldness, Honored Count; I am neither a diplomatist nor political counselor; I am only a maker of garments for the poor.
I have objected to the purchasing of materials for my work from magazines, believing that, if the attention of some large manufacturers of stuffs were called to the subject, materials could be supplied in a much better manner.
Other noble societies, I rejoice to say, have sprung up later, all of which I believe will confine their praiseworthy efforts to the city of Strassburg, and in every respect but that of affording employment will, I trust, prove sufficient for the necessities. My little work has been the pioneer, that ploughed through the earliest and deepest drifts, and which, though often weary and disheartened, still seeks to push beyond the beaten track, over the fields, and along the hillsides, and gather the sufferers out of the storm.
After this, I fear too lengthy, explanation, will Your Highness kindly permit me, for the sake of perspicuity, to arrange under two or three distinct heads the prominent features of my work.
1st, I desire to give employment, and payment therefor at the usual rates, to some portion of the destitute families of Strassburg.