Appeal to the American People
The President having signed the Treaty of the Geneva Conference, and the Senate having, on the 16th instant, ratified the President’s action, the American Association of the Red Cross, organized under provisions of said treaty, purposes to send its agents at once among the sufferers by the recent floods, with a view to the ameliorating of their condition so far as can be done by human aid and the means at hand will permit.
Contributions are urgently solicited. Remittances in money may be made to Hon. Charles J. Folger, Secretary of the Treasury, chairman of the board of trustees, or to his associates, Hon. Robert T. Lincoln, Secretary of War, and Hon. George B. Loring, Commissioner of Agriculture. Contributions of wearing apparel, bedding, and provisions should be addressed to “The Red Cross Agent,” at Memphis, Tenn., Vicksburg, Miss., and Helena, Ark.
Clara Barton
J. C. Bancroft Davis
Frederick Douglass
Alex. Y. P. Garnett
Mrs. Omar D. Conger
A. S. Solomons
Mrs. S. A. Martha Canfield
R. D. Mussey
Committee
Washington, D.C., March 23, 1882
The response to this appeal was generous. The Red Cross immediately effected its permanent organization; and during the next twenty years it was seldom without a task of some kind.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] This is not precisely the name which this rival organization assumed. There would appear to be no good reason for recording it; but the fact that there were several such organizations which sprang into being immediately after President Garfield’s recognition of Clara Barton should not be forgotten.
[3] Of this proposed treaty of October 20, 1868, the 9th article was as follows:
Art. IX. The military hospital ships remain under martial law in all that concerns their stores; they become the property of the captor, but the latter must not divert them from their special appropriation during the continuance of the war.