This state of things continued through the year of 1897, but as the present year of ’98 opened the reports of suffering that came were not to be borne quietly, and I decided to confer with our Government and learn if it had objections to the Red Cross taking steps of its own in direct touch with the people of the country, and proposing their coöperation in the work of relief. I beg pardon for the personality of the statement which follows, but it is history I am asked to write.
Deciding to refer my inquiry to the Secretary of State, I called at his department to see him, but learned that he was with the President. This suiting my purpose, I followed to the Executive Mansion, was kindly informed that the President and Secretary were engaged on a very important matter, and had given orders not to be interrupted. As I turned to leave I was recalled with, “Wait a moment, Miss Barton, and let me present your card.” Returning immediately, I entered the President’s room to find these two men in a perplexed study over the very matter which had called me. Distressed by the reports of the terrible condition of things so new to us, they were seeking some remedy, and, producing their notes just taken, revealed the fact that they had decided to call me into conference.
The conference was then held. It was decided to form a committee in New York, to ask money and material of the people at large to be shipped to Cuba for the relief of the reconcentrados on that island. The call would be made in the name of the President, and the committee naturally known as the “President’s Committee for Cuban Relief.” I was courteously asked if I would go to New York and assume the oversight of that committee. I declined in favor of Mr. Stephen E. Barton, second vice-president of the National Red Cross, who, on being immediately called, accepted; and with Mr. Charles Schieren as treasurer and Mr. Louis Klopsch, of the “Christian Herald,” as the third member, the committee was at once established; since known as the “Central Cuban Relief Committee.”
The committee was to solicit aid in money and material for the suffering reconcentrados in Cuba, and forward the same to the Consul-General at Havana for distribution. My consent was then asked by all parties to go to Cuba and aid in the distribution of the shipments of food as they should arrive. After all I had so long offered, I could not decline, and hoping my going would not be misunderstood by our authorities there, who would regard me simply as a willing assistant, I accepted. The Consul-General had asked the New York Committee to send to him an assistant to take charge of the warehouse and supplies in Havana. This request was also referred to me, and recommending Mr. J. K. Elwell, nephew of General J. J. Elwell, of Cleveland, Ohio, a gentleman who had resided six years in Santiago in connection with its large shipping interests, a fine business man and speaking Spanish, I decided to accompany him, taking no member of my own staff, but going simply in the capacity of an individual helper in a work already assigned.
On Saturday, February 6, we left Washington for Cuba via Jacksonville, Tampa, and Key West.
Thus, with that simple beginning, with no thought on the part of any person but to do unobtrusively the little that could be done for the lessening of the woes of a small island of people, whom adverse circumstances, racial differences, the inevitable results of a struggle for freedom, the fate of war, and the terrible features of a system of subjugation of a people, which, if true, is too dark to name, was commenced the relief movement of 1898 which has spread not alone over the entire United States of America from Maine to California, from Vancouver to the Gulf of Mexico, but from the Indias on the west, to the Indias on the east, and uniting in its free-will offerings the gifts of one third of the best nations in the world.
Miss Barton with her cargo of supplies reached Havana on February 9, 1898. Her supplies were unloaded and stored in a convenient warehouse. She began her work of visitation and found scenes beside which, as she wrote, some which she had witnessed in Armenia seemed humane. Six days after her arrival the Maine was blown up. The appalling news reached the United States and brought with it the practical certainty of war. The one cheering message that came as an echo of the explosion was Clara Barton’s telegram, “I am with the wounded.” The comfort of these words found expression in a little poem by James Clarence Harvey, which was published immediately in the “Christian Herald” and widely copied:
“I am with the wounded,” flashed along the wire
From the isle of Cuba, swept with sword and fire.
Angel sweet of mercy, may your cross of red
Cheer the wounded living; bless the wounded dead.
“I am with the starving,” let the message run
From this stricken island, when this task is done;
Food and money plenty wait at your command,
Give in generous measure; fill each outstretched hand.
“I am with the happy,” this we long to hear
From the isle of Cuba, trembling now in fear:
May the great disaster touch the hearts of men,
And, in God’s great mercy, bring back peace again.
Miss Barton thus related the story of the sinking of the Maine, and of the work that followed:
The heavy clerical work of that fifteenth day of February held not only myself, but Mr. Elwell as well, busy at our writing-tables until late at night. The house had grown still; the noises on the streets were dying away, when suddenly the table shook from under our hands, the great glass door opening on to the veranda, facing the sea, flew open; everything in the room was in motion or out of place—the deafening roar of such a burst of thunder as perhaps one never heard before, and off to the right, out over the bay, the air was filled with a blaze of light, and this in turn filled with black specks like huge specters flying in all directions. Then it faded away. The bells rang; the whistles blew; and voices in the street were heard for a moment; then all was quiet again. I supposed it to be the bursting of some mammoth mortar or explosion of some magazine. A few hours later came the terrible news of the Maine.