In tracing these events we are constantly reminded of our obligations to the Divine Master for his watchful care over us and his safe guidance, for which the nation makes reverent acknowledgment and offers humble prayer for the continuance of his favor.
CHAPTER XV
CLARA BARTON’S RETIREMENT FROM THE RED CROSS
It would have been well if Clara Barton had retired from the active work of the presidency of the American Red Cross at the close of the war with Spain. She had accomplished in her lifetime an almost incredible total of heroic work. She had completed seventy-eight years of service; she had created the American Red Cross and led it successfully in peace and war. On twenty different fields on both sides of the ocean she had raised its banner over areas devastated by fire, flood, famine, and pestilence. She had won the support of her Government to an enterprise till then unknown and but little regarded. She had made the Red Cross in America so useful in times of peace that the Red Cross societies of the world had widened their spheres of operation to incorporate her plans of service. She had crowned her long and arduous career with an achievement that won for her the heart of the American army and navy in Cuba, and brought to her the thanks of the Congress and of the President of the United States. She could have retired with honors such as no woman in America ever had won. If her judgment told her that this was the time for her to transfer her burden of active supervision to some younger person, her heart triumphed over her judgment.
She was eighty years of age when, on September 8, 1900, a tornado and tidal wave submerged Galveston, Texas. Five days later Clara Barton was on the ground. Difficulties of transportation held her back for twenty-four hours or she would have been there a day sooner.
Her plea for lumber, hardware, and other materials for providing temporary shelter met with a nation-wide response, and supplies of food and clothing, as well as considerable sums of money, were placed at her disposal.
After six weeks spent in Texas, Clara Barton returned, worn out by her exertions, but bringing the grateful thanks of the people of Galveston, and, in addition, an official letter of thanks from the governor of the State of Texas and also of its legislature. The Central Relief Committee of Galveston also tendered her a series of engrossed resolutions, declaring that she deserved to be “exalted above queens,” and that her achievements were “greater than the conquests of nations or the inventions of genius.”
In the following year occurred the seventh International Conference of the Red Cross, already referred to, held at St. Petersburg in Russia and extending from the middle of May until near the end of June of 1902. Clara Barton headed the delegation from the United States. The conference was held under the high patronage of Her Majesty the Empress Dowager Marie Feodorovna. Miss Barton was the guest of the Emperor and Empress. No delegate to the conference was treated with greater consideration than Clara Barton. At the close of the conference she was decorated by the Emperor, who conferred upon Clara Barton the Russian decoration of the Order of the Red Cross.
Two of her letters concerning this journey have been quoted in a previous chapter. Clara Barton returned to her own land crowned with additional honors, but confronting new and wholly unexpected difficulties.
The American Red Cross had been reincorporated by Act of Congress June 6, 1900. Under the new form of organization the board and its executive committee possessed large powers. There was a feeling on the part of some members of the board that the American Red Cross was too exclusively under the direction of Clara Barton. Her work for the relief of Galveston had been undertaken almost the moment that she first learned of its great need. She had not waited to call an executive committee meeting. While her work in that field was most heartily commended, there was a feeling on the part of members of the board that the Red Cross, being now virtually a representative organ of the United States Government, its fields of service should be determined, not by the judgment of an individual, but of the governing body of the organization itself. There was further criticism growing out of the fact that, when emergencies arose by reason of any great national disaster, a considerable part of the money was sent direct to Clara Barton on the field, and expended by her without passing through the hands of the treasurer.
Miss Barton admitted that she had made these decisions at times without the formal authority of her executive committee, and that she had received and expended money according to her best judgment when the emergency was at hand. She did not desire to be bound by burdensome restrictions; she wished to be at liberty to meet the need whenever it should arrive, and in the way that seemed to be necessary.