I make a strong appeal for the formation of local committees everywhere; to coöperate with the headquarters staff of the First Aid Department in the formation of classes. I appeal earnestly to physicians in every town in the United States to render their aid. Next to the stricken victim and immediate friends will the kind-hearted doctor appreciate this timely and intelligent help.
I appeal to every employer of labor throughout the country on behalf of this movement. I need not remind him that it is a duty, for his own kind heart will call him with a tender care to the welfare and safety of those whom circumstances and conditions have, for the time being, made his own. Their well-being is his, and protection from the inevitable dangers surrounding them will be his first care. My own convictions assure me that this appeal will be heard and responded to. I have known my country people—their good judgment, good hearts, and generous natures—too well to permit a moment’s doubt.
We have established headquarters for this department at 31 East 17th Street (Union Square), New York City, where all inquiries relative to the Red Cross Emergency Corps and the formation of classes should be addressed to the General Superintendent.
The plan of organization includes the formation of a finance committee, consisting of men of national reputation, who shall have entire charge of the funds of the Red Cross. This course is made necessary by the increased scope of the work contemplated, and also because it is desirable, when one returns, worn and weary, from a field of work, that no question shall arise as to the proper distribution of funds.
I offer no excuse for making this appeal, beyond the vast importance of the work and the strong, ever-present desire to see that work which has been a part of my life grow into a great beneficent institution that shall be worthy of this country and its people; to see the Red Cross a badge of honor and distinction, and to know that the time will come when the active members of the American Red Cross will form the Légion d’Honneur of the United States.
This peace-time and year-round activity of the Red Cross was a part of Clara Barton’s programme from the first. It was a distinctive feature of the American Red Cross, as she planned it, that its operation should not be limited to the battle-field. Her work in time of great calamity was taken over by European organizations, which in time went beyond the development of the Red Cross in America, and exhibited the full practicability of what she from the outset had believed. When she retired from the Red Cross, she took up this work as a separate activity; and she lived long enough to see the Red Cross, no longer under her direction, taking up a plan which she had long advocated. She made a little smiling comment upon it in her diary, and wished it success.
It would have gratified Clara Barton exceedingly could she have known that during and after the Great World War there would be organized throughout America, under the direction of the American Red Cross, classes for the training of people, especially women, in these and kindred lines of service. It is one more illustration of the wisdom and prevision of Clara Barton.
The years following her retirement found her active in the work of the Woman’s Relief Corps, of which she had long served as national chaplain. She was also a guest of honor at two or more National Grand Army encampments, and was everywhere hailed as the friend of the soldier. During these years she seemed to grow younger rather than older. When she was past eighty-four, a newspaper reporter described her as “a middle-aged woman.”
She made two visits to Chicago in her last years, and the visits did not greatly weary her. The last of these visits was in May, 1910. She was guest at a continuous round of engagements. At the May Festival of the Social Economics Club, she shook hands with nearly two thousand people. She attended a breakfast with eleven hundred guests and shook hands with nearly all of them.
The author of this volume holds this visit in happy memory. It occupied three weeks, one of which Miss Barton spent in the home of her cousin, the author. He accompanied her to a reception given in her honor at Abraham Lincoln Center, and saw her safely on her way to a number of other engagements which she had promised to attend. She met innumerable friends, many of whom called at the house to see her, and she answered scores of letters. She rose very early in the morning and sat at her desk until late at night, and was always calm, strong, and resolute.