CLARA BARTON SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE Articles & Other Writings Printed Copies 1878-1911 & undated [*The first Red Cross publication ever issued. 1878. (in America)*] The Red Cross OF THE GENEVA CONVENTION. WHAT IT IS. BY CLARA BARTON. WASHINGTON, D.C.: RUFUS H. DARBY. Steam Power Book and Job Printer, 432 Ninth Street, 1878. The Red Cross OF THE GENEVA CONVENTION. WHAT IT IS. BY CLARA BARTON. WASHINGTON, D. C.: Rufus H. Darby, Steam Power Book and Job Printer, 432 Ninth Street, 1878. To the People of the United States, Senators and Representatives in Congress : Having had the honor conferred upon me of appointment by the Central Commission holding the Geneva Convention to present that treaty to this Government, and to take in charge the formation of a National organization according to the plan pursued by the committees working under the treaty, it seems to me but proper, that while I ask the Government to sign it, the people and their representatives should be made acquainted with its origin, designs, methods of work, &c. To this end I have prepared the following statement, and present it to my countrymen and women, hoping they will be led to indorse and sustain a benevolence so grand in its character, and already almost universal in its recognition and adoption by the civilized world. CLARA BARTON, Washington, D. C. WHAT THE RED CROSS IS. A confederation of Relief Societies in different countries, acting under the Geneva convention, carries on its work under the sign of the Red Cross. The aim of these societies is to ameliorate the condition of wounded soldiers in the armies in campaign on land or sea, and to furnish relief in cases of great national calamity. The societies had their rise in the conviction of certain philanthropic men, that the official sanitary service in wars is usually insufficient, and that the charity of the people, which at such times exhibits itself munificently, show be organized for the best possible utilization. An International Public Conference was called at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1863, which, though it has ot an official character, brought together representatives from a umber of governments. At this conference a treaty was drawn up, afterwards remodeled and improved, which twenty-five governments have signed. The treaty provides for the neutrality of all sanitary supplies, ambulances, surgeons, nurses, attendants, and sick or wounded men, and their safe conduct, when they bear the sign of the organization, viz: the Red Cross. 4 Although the convention which originated the organization was necessarily international, the Relief Societies themselves are entirely national and independent; each one governing itself and making its own laws, according to the genius of its nationality and needs. The sign of the Red Cross was adopted because it was necessary for recognizance and safety, and for carrying out the general provisions of the treaty, that a uniform badge should be agreed upon. The Red Cross was chosen out of compliment to the Swiss Republic, where the first convention was held, and in which the Central Commission has its headquarters. The Swiss colors being a white cross on a red ground, the badge chosen were the colors reversed. There are no "members of the Red Cross," but only members of societies whose sign it is. There is no "Order of the Red Cross." The Relief Societies use, each according to its convenience, whatever methods seem best suited to prepare in times of peace for the necessities of sanitary service in times of war. They gather and store gifts of money and supplies; arrange hospitals, ambulances, methods of transportation of wounded men, bureaus of information, correspondence, &c. All that the most ingenious philanthropy could devise and execute, has been attempted in this direction. In the Franco-Prussian war this was abundantly tested. That Prussia acknowledged its beneficence, is proven by the fact the Emperor affixed the Red Cross to the Iron Cross of Merit. Although the societies are not international, there is a tacit compact between them, arising from their common origin, identity of aim and mutual relation to the treaty. This compact embraces four principles, viz: centralization, preparation, impartiality and "solidarity." 1st--CENTRALIZATION. The efficiency of relief in time of war depends on unity of direction, therefore in every country the Relief Societies have a common central head to which they 5 send their supplies, and which communicates for them with the seat of war or with the surgical military authorities, and it is through this central commission they have governmental recognition. 2d--PREPARATION. It is understood that societies working under the Red Cross shall occupy themselves with preparatory work in times of peace. This gives them a permanence they could not otherwise have. 3d--IMPARTIALITY. The societies of belligerent nations cannot always carry aid to their wounded countrymen who are captured by the enemy; this is counterbalanced by the regulation that the Red Cross societies shall be extended alike to friend and foe. 4th--"SOLIDARITY." This provides that the societies of nations not engaged in war may afford aid to the sick and wounded of belligerent nations without affecting any principle of non-interference their governments may be pledged to. This must be done through the Central Commission, and not through either of the belligerent parties-this insures impartiality of relief. That these principles are practical, has been thoroughly tested during the fifteen years the Red Cross has existed. The "Convention" of Geneva does not exist as a society, but is simply a treaty under which all the relief societies of the Red Cross are enabled to carry on their work effectually. In time of war, the members and agents of the societies who go to the seat of war are obliged to have their badges vized by the Central Commission, and by one of the belligerents- this is in order to prevent fraud. Thus the societies and the treaty complement each other. The societies find and execute the relief, the treaty affords them the immunities which enable them to execute. It is further a part of raison d'etre of these national relief societies to afford ready succor and assistance to sufferers in time of national or wide-spread calamities, such as plagues, cholera, yellow fever and the like, devastating fires or floods, 6 railway disasters, mining catastrophes, &c. The readiness of organizations like those of the Red Cross to extend help at the instant of need, renders the aid of quadruple value and efficiency to that gathered together hastily and irresponsibly, in the bewilderment and shock which always accompanies such calamities. The trained nurses and also attendants subject to the relief societies, in such cases would accompany the supplies sent, and remain in action as long as needed. Organized in every State, the relief societies of the Red Cross would be ready with money, nurses and supplies, to go on call to the instant relief of all who were overwhelmed by any of those sudden calamities which occasionally visit us. In case of yellow fever, there being an organization in every State, the nurses and attendants would be first chosen from the nearest societies, and being acclimated would incur far less risk to life than if sent from distant localities. It is true that the government is always ready in these times of public need to furnish transportation, and often does much more. In the Mississippi flood, a few years ago, it ordered ration distributed under the direction of army officers; in the case of the explosion at the navy-yard, it voted a a relief fund, and in our recent affliction at the South, a like course was pursued. But in such cases one of the greatest difficulties is that there is no organized method of administering the relief which the government or liberal citizens are willing to bestow, nor trained and acclimated nurses ready to give intelligent care to the sick ; or if there is organization, it is hastily formed in the time of need, and is therefore comparatively inefficient and wasteful. It would seem to be full time that, in consideration of the growth and rapidly accumulating necessities of our country, we should learn to economize our charities, and insure from them the greatest possible practical benevolence. Although we in the United States may fondly hope to be seldom visited by the calamities of war, yet the misfortune of other nations with which we are on terms of amity appeal to our sympathies ; our southern coasts are periodically visited by the scourge of 7 yellow fever ; the valleys of the Mississippi are subject to destructive inundations ; the plains of the West are devastated by grasshoppers, and our cities and country are swept by consuming fires. In all such cases, to gather and dispense the profuse liberality of our people without waste of time or material requires, the wisdom that comes of experience and permanent organization. Still more does it concern, if not our safety, at least our honor, to signify our approval of those principles of humanity acknowledged by every other civilized nation. Articles of the Convention for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded in armies in the field. Signed at Geneva on the 22d of August, 1864. ARTICLE I. Ambulances and military hospitals shall be acknowledged to be neutral ; and, as such, shall be protected and respected by belligerents so long as any sick or wounded may be therein. Such neutrality shall cease if the ambulances or hospitals shall be held by a military force. ART. II. Persons employed in hospitals and ambulances, comprising the staff for superintendence, medical service, administration, transport of wounded, as well as chaplains, shall participate in the benefit of neutrality while so employed, and so long as there remain any wounded to bring in or to succor. ART. III. The persons designated in the preceding article may, even after occupation by the enemy, continue to fulfill their duties in the hospital or ambulance which they serve, or may withdraw to join the corps to which they belong. Under such circumstances, when these persons shall cease from these functions, they shall be delivered by the occupying army to the outposts of the enemy. They shall have the special right of sending a representative to the headquarters of their respective armies. ART. IV. As the equipment of military hospitals remains subject to the laws of war, persons attached to such hospitals cannot, in withdrawing, carry away articles which are not their private property. Under the same circumstances an ambulance shall, on the contrary, retain its equipment. ART. V. Inhabitants of the country who may bring help to the wounded shall be respected and remain free. The generals of the belligerent powers shall make it their care to 8 inform the inhabitants of this appeal addressed to their humanity, and of the neutrality which will be the consequence of it. Any wounded man entertained and taken care of in a house shall be considered as a protection thereto. Any inhabitant who shall have entertained wounded men in his house shall be exempted from the quartering of troops, as well as from the contributions of war which may be imposed. ART VI. Wounded or sick soldiers, whatever their nationality, shall be cared for. Commanders-in-chief shall have the power to deliver immediately to the outposts of the enemy soldiers who have wounded in an engagement, when circumstances permit this to be done. with the consent of both parties. Those who are recognized as incapable of serving, after they are healed, shall be sent back to their country. The others may also be sent back on the condition of not again bearing arms during the continuance of the war. Evacuations, together with the persons under whose direction they take place, shall be protected by an absolute neutrality. ART VII. A distinctive and uniform flag shall be adopted for hospitals, ambulances, and evacuated places. It must on every occasion, be accompanied by the National flag. An arm-badge shall also be allowed for individuals neutralized, but the delivery of it should be left to military authority. The flag and arm-badge shall bear a red cross on a white ground. ART VIII. It is the duty of the conquering army to supervise, as far as circumstances permit, the soldiers who have fallen on the field of battle, to preserve them from pillage and bad treatment, and to bury the dead in conformity with strict sanitary rules. The contracting powers will take care that in time of war every soldier is furnished with a compulsory and uniform token, appropriate for establishing his identity. This token shall indicate his name, place of birth, as well as the army corps, regiment and company to which he belongs. In case of death, this document shall be withdrawn before his burial and remitted to the civil or military authorities of the place of enlistment or home. Lists of dead, wounded, sick and prisoners shall be communicated, as far as possible, immediately after an action, to the commander of the opposing army by diplomatic or military means. The contents of this article, so far as they are applicable to the marine, and capable of execution, shall be observed by victorious naval forces. The Red Cross. By Clara Barton. "What is the Red Cross?" "Is it a secret society, or an 'Order?' "Does it belong exclusively to this country?" "When did it originate?" "For whose benefit is it designed?" "How shall one become a member?" "Please write me some description of it, or send me some documents which will explain the Red Cross to me." This, and much more, of a similar character, form the purport and burden of the scores of letters daily pushing their way to this central desk in Washington, where the hands are pushing equally hard to keep one day's space clear for the next. The fact that this anxious inquiry and faithful exchange have been going on uninterruptedly for at least six years, with always in increasing interest, and yet the subject so little understood, only illustrates its magnitude and comprehensiveness. A small subject would have collapsed, from exhaustion, or bloomed, shriveled and blown away, in a fourth part of the time, with the pressure which has been brought to bear upon the Red Cross. But so far from this, it is apparently at its early life, like the hard, young bud of a rose, which, through sun, wind and storm will open only in time. No proper avenue for the spread of information has been willingly declined, hence, when the door to the sanctum of the Daughters of America is indicated by its courageous editor, a few preliminary steps, at least, must enter and all the more essential from the fact that fully one-half of these anxious inquiries are from America's daughters, ever foremost in the search for ways and means for serving humanity. To them, then, let me say, first, what the Red Cross is not. It is not an "order;" it is not a "Secret Society;" it is not, in fact, a society at all, only as societies are formed to act in accordance with its principles. It is the result and indication of an International Treaty, compound in its character, like the Postal Union; one nation with many other nations, having for its object the mitigation and relief of the suffering incident to war. It seeks to do away with all needless barbarities of war in the treatment of sick and wounded men, whom it renders neutral, and not subject to imprisonment. It renders neutral, as well, all surges, chaplains, stewards and persons in attendance upon the sick and wounded upon the field or in hospital-they shall not be subject to capture. It makes neutral all hospitals, where wounded or sick may be, and all supplies designed for their use. They shall not be captured. Also, soldiers so badly wounded as to be incapable of Raina bearing arms shall, if desired, be taken back to their own lines and given up to their friends; and all surges, chaplains and attendants upon the wounded at a captured field, when no longer needed, shall be safely conducted back to the lines and given up to their own army. It requires that all inhabitants in the vicinity of a battle about to take place, shall be so informed by the Generals commanding both armies, and full protection offered to any house which will take in one or more wounded men of either side to care for; and that they shall be protected so long as any wounded remain therein, thus virtually converting every house near the scene into a furnished hospital. In order that no such mistakes be possible in the future, as always in the past, by which hospitals have been fired upon, supplies captured, convoys of wounded and prisoners in transit be set up and slaughtered from ambush, an unmistakable sign of recognition has been arranged. The Treaty provides for the adoption of a universal badge, which sign shall mark at all fields and Departments of War, in every country within the Treaty, all hospitals, material and personal connected with them, and all persons under their charge. This sign, or badge, shall be recognized by every belligerent power, and its language confirmed by all officials and officers in command, to the extent of the breaking of an International Treaty by any disregard thereof. This sign is a Red Cross upon a white ground-a Swiss cross, bearing four equal arms, and for equal angles. This is what the Red Cross means, and so well have its purposes been carried out, that to-day there is no civilized nation outside of this treaty no nation makes war without all its human provisions. There is but one military hospital flag in the entire civilized world; but one sign of War relief in Christendom, and no infraction of any of the articles or principles of this Treaty is upon record. Another painful fact had been the acknowledged insufficiency of the medical and hospital departments of all armies in time of active service. No army ever went into the field with a medical provision and staff, equal to the emergencies of a battle, or the needs of its wounded. It was this sad fact which roused the people to press their voluntary help, the first great manifestation of which, to the joy of all mankind, was Florence Nightingale at the Crimea. Next and most wonderful, the uprising of the Sanitary Commission in our own war of Secession. But this latter, wonderful, beautiful and needful as it was, was unauthorized and unrecognized by the government; had only a moral power, and was generally, in a quiet way, opposed by the regular Medical Department of the army, which, from force of habit, was wont to regard all civilians about a field, as needless intruders, and in the way. This, this enormous body of self appointed devotees, embodying in themselves the wishes, the woes, the pains and anxieties of a whole grief-stricken people, toiled on through the dreadful years at a disadvantage no mortal could estimate, and with weary, worn and baffled hearts which only themselves and their God could know. But it was known: the All-seeing Eye read the dark page, and far away is another Republic there was raising up at that moment a system which should make a reputation forever impossible; which should include recognition of this proffer of people's help for military necessities, and exacting from the military itself the needed power to carry out its purposes. Then came to life the Treaty of Geneva and Red Cross. The first act of a country after giving its adhesion to the Treaty, is the establishment of a National Society to act in accordance with its provisions, and this, with the honorable exceptions of the International Committee of Geneva, is the first intimation one gets of any Society of the Red Cross. These National Societies form others, as associate or auxiliary societies, the purpose of their members being largely to perfect themselves in every branch of humanitarian work as connected with the prevention or relief of suffering from war, as field and hospital improvements, care of wounded and sick, training of nurses, etc. After seventeen years of the existence of this Treat, and its adoption by thirty-one of the most important nations of the world, the United States of America gave its late adhesion in 1882l thus at length publicly pledging itself to practice of humanity in war, equal to that of the Spaniards, the Persians and the Turks. In the formation of its National Society, it added to the relief of war that of great national calamities, as fires, floods, famine and pestilence, proposing to place these wars of the elements, and other great visitations of Providence, upon the same footing as wars of peoples, pledging itself to wrk equally in all. This is known as the "American Amendment," or "American feature" of the Red Cross, and is watched with great interest by all other nations. In our remoteness and fortunate freedom from entangling difficulties, this additional feature with its constant activity and wide-spread field of action, becomes to our people the more absorbing, although not the more important part of the system, for- "However high on the branches soar, The trunk and root are ever more." The labors of the organization since its formation, owing to their threefold nature, have been very heavyL First, in its international relations, by which it deals and corresponds with all other nations, as well as with its Head, The International Committee of Geneva. Second, The adjustment of its own government to the requirements of the Treaty, as under it our "Articles of War" have been changed, modifications made in the Medical and Hospital Department of the Regular Army, insignia changed, and from every military hospital in the country to day floats the Red Cross in the place of its former flag of dingy yellow, which no eye could ever safely distinguish. It has not been without labor to the National Society, that these changes have been conducted. War Departments and Regular Armies are never known to exhibit an unbecoming haste in the movements, nor are the proverbially susceptible to change of established methods and customs. In the third place, and that which doubtless appeared to you to be all there was of the Red Cross, have been the varied activities arising under its civil nature, viz.: the relief of great national calamities. I cannot take you with me in these few pages, over the burning fields of Michigan, where neither homes nor inmates were spared, and the bewildered animals, from the horse, ox and deer to the timid rabbit, followed the high-raised, hissing head of the wise serpent in their mad rush to the sea. Nor down the Mississippi in its appalling flood of '82, nor the Ohio in '83; nor to both in the memorable spring of '84, when these mighty rivers burst their banks, with a rise of seventy feet above their level-where an ordinary river bed grew of one, two or three miles in width, grew to twenty, thirty, fifty and even a hundred miles in expanse; where the tall blocks of the city, the well-stocked home of the farmer, and the hut, the little all of the daily laborer, white or black, the busy mills and the mighty forest trees, from Pittsburg to Cairo and New Orleans, all left their moorings and joined in the giddy dance, to the tune of the rushing waters that bore them on their whirling, seething, devouring bosom to the gulf. I wish I could take you with me on our Red Cross boats, laden with the outpouring gifts of sympathetic people, as we ra side by side with the relief bats of the Government, freighted with the Congressional appropriation of rations, tents and blankets that I could show you this example of people's help for national necessities, and how it was recognized and welcomed by the faithful officers in charge. Entirely apart, with boats and cargo equal to their own, but no shadow of jealousy, everywhere respect, gratitude, the outstretched arm and brotherly co operation. Your courage would fail you many times in those scenes of desolation and woe, and you would alternately sicken and gladden under the sight of the famishing herds of cattle, horses, hogs and sheep, stretched on the narrow, broken levees in the bayous of the Mississippi, as they struggled to ruse and reel towards the piles of hay and grain you would help us to unload Amon them. Your hearts would reach out with your hands to the poor home-bereft, half-naked figures, white and black, that throng the landing prow of the boatel and you would utter Amen! as you steamed away and left them kneeling beside their unexpected treasures, praying blessings on the ship with the strange device, which to them was God's sign of mercy his rainbow promise to the drowning world. You would thrill with gladness, as on your homeward way you helped to furnish and make livable the crude little huts, struggling up, of scanty boards or logs, to shelter the escaped family returning to the one pitiful spot of mud, that of all the earth was theirs to hold; and here again they must make up their unstable home. You will have left with them beds, tables, chairs, dishes, tolls, stove, tubs, buckets, soap, food and raiment, again to commence home life, and you will thank the Heavenly Father for the subpath and great-hearted generosity of His people, and eve through the courage of war there had been born a system which could bring this individual help to national needs. Neither can I take you with me through the cyclone districts, the communities stricken by epidemic, the crumbling ruins of quaking Charleston, nor can I send you with the loads of goods and grains only now setting out for the arid plains of drought-stricken Texas. All this has been done, and in more or less of it you may have helped; if so, in the name of humanity and the Red Cross, I thank you. This crude little paper, mainly noticeable for what it does not tell, will yet have thrown perhaps, some indirect light pop most of the queries of correspondents mentioned at the outset. We have seen that the Red Cross is not an "order," nor a "Secret Society;" that is it did not "originate in America." Ah me! no; she came in bravely on the thirty-second round! It did originate in the Republic of Switzerland in 1863. You are to judge for yourselves "for whose benefit it is designed," and you will have inferred the fact that one "becomes a member of the Red Cross" through membership of associate societies, formed under guidance of the National, as itself, under the International, and I am led to hope, imperfect as it is, that this little twenty minutes' chat may prove to be a "document" which shall in some degree" explain to you the Red Cross." Bit its great key-note has not been struck. The hope of the philanthropic and thinking world in regard to its ultimate results, has not been here touched upon; a hunt may set you thinking for yourselves, and the conclusions one draws from his own careful reflections, are always lasting and generally correct. I think you will scarcely have decided thus far, that the Red Cross means War. In itself, in all its principles and tendencies, the Red Cross means Peace. It seeks to bring the people to a just and realizing sense of the horrors of war, by actual acquaintance with them. The Red Cross worker never signs the "glories of the battle-field" and the "victorious shouts of the dying." He knows better. It places at the heads of its organizations in foreign countries, the Rulers of the Nations; Emperors, Kings and Princes, and bids them pledge themselves to take cognizance of, and personal action in the prevention and mitigation of, the miseries of war. This, to them, is a new field of labor and though, and it is a new scene to this war-making world, when a hundred high military men, representing every civilized nation of the globe, sit down in conference with the philanthropists of the world, and pass weeks in attempts at devising the best ways, means and methods of alleviating the miseries engendered by war. As they handle this other side of the subject, and listen to the opinion and arguments of another class of people with whom they have not been accustomed to confer, new ideas dawn upon them; they see the reverse side of the shield; the waste of war presents itself; human life acquires an added value, human suffering becomes at least ponderable in the scale of consideration; sympathy finds a place, and hearts grow tender. Can this state of things fail, in time, to become suggestive that the surest method of alleviation is not to have the war? Every beat of the Red Cross pulse is for peace; its legitimate work, its self-appointed last is, to "teach war to make war upon itself." Thus believing itself to be the most powerful, practical and possible Peace Society in existence, the Red Cross takes its place hopefully in the ranks of human and humane progress, and works faithfully to the ends it seeks to accomplish. Following are the names of the American Association of the United States of the Red Cross: Chairman of the Board of Consultation, Grover Cleveland. Trustees Sec. of Treasury, Sec. of War, Sec. of Agriculture, Executice Officers Clara Barton, President; W. J. Lawrence and A. S. Solomone, Vice Presidents; Walter A. Philps, General Secretary; George Kennan, Treasurer; Dr. J. B. Hubbel, Field Agent; F. R. Southmayd, Special Agent for the lower Mississippi Valley. The officers of the German Section "Milwaukee" are: F. L. Krieger, President, Dr. Hugo Tilsner, Sec. and Treasurer; Trustees, Miss Terese Selke, E. Helwig, H. Marx and W. Klingbell. The German Section, "Milwaukee", of the Order of the Red Cross, is controlled by the American Association of the Red Cross, and by the International Society at Geneva. Das Rothe Kreuz von Clara Barton. "Was bedeutet das Rothe Kreuz?" "Ist es eine geheime Gesellschaft oder ein 'Orden'?" "Gehört es ausschliesslich diesem Lande an?" "Wann hat es seinen Ursprung?" "Für wessen Vortheil ist es bestimmt?" "Wie kann Jemand Mitglied werden?" "Geben Sie mir gefälligst eine Beschreibung, oder senden Sie mir Dokumente, welche mir das 'Rothe Kreuz' erklären." Dies, und noch viel andere Fragen ähnlichen Charakters, bildet den Zweck und Inhalt einer Unmasse von Briefen, welche täglich ihren Weg nach dem Central-Schreibtische in Washington finden, wo die Hände ebenso emsig beschäftigt find die Arbeit zu bewältigen, um für den nächsten Tag Raum zu gewinnen. Die Thatsache, dass diese dringenden Nachfragen schon seit wenigstens sechs Jahren und zwar mit immer vermehrten Interesse andauern, und die Sache dennoch so wenig verstanden wird, illustriert die Grösse und das Umfassende derselben. Ein unbedeutenderer Gegenstand würde in viel geringerer Zeit erledigt worden sein, mit dem Drucke der auf das "Rothe Kreuz" ausgeübt wurde. Doch weit davon, gleicht es in seinen frühen Lebenstagen der Rosenknofpe, welche sich durch Sonne, Wind und Sturm mit der Zeit öffnet. Der gewünschten Information wurde keinerlei Hindernis in den Weg gelegt, und daher müssen wenigstens einige vorbereitende Schritten geschehen, wenn der höfliche Redakteur die Thüren zum Sanktum der Töchter Amerika's zeigt, was um so wesentlicher ist, da die meisten der dringenden Fragen durch Töchter Amerika's gestellt werden, die stets in den ersten Reihen derer zu finden sind, die nach Mitteln und Wegen suchen, der Humanität zu dienen. Diesen will ich vorerst sagen, was das "Rothe Kreuz" nicht ist. Es ist kein "Orden," es ist keine "Geheime Gesellschaft;" es ist überhaupt keine Gesellschaft, ausser, so weit sich Gesellschaften in Uebereinstimmung mit ihren Grundsätzen bilden. Es ist das Resultat und Kennzeichen eines internationalen Vertrages, ähnlich dem Post-Verein; eine Nation mit vielen anderen Nationen, vereinigt zu dem Zwecke der Linderung und Beschränkung der dem Kriege eigenen Leiden. Es versucht, die unnöthigen Unmenschlichkeiten des Krieges bei Behandlung der Kranken und Verwundeten zu beseitigen, indem es dieselben neutral macht und vor Gefangennahme bewahrt. Es macht ebenfalls neutral all Aerzte, Geistlichen, Apotheker und andere Personen, welche sich der Pflege der Kranken und Verwundeten, im Felde sowohl als im Hospital, unterziehen. -- Dieselben sollen der Gefangennahme nicht unterworfen sein. Es macht alle Spitäler neutral, in denen sich Kranke und Verwundete befinden, und ebenfalls alle Vorräthe, welche für deren Gebrauch bestimmt find. Dieselben dürfen nicht weggenommen werden. Auch sollen Soldaten, die so schwer verwundet sind, dass sie nie wieder Waffen tragen können, wenn sie es wünschen, in ihre eigenen Linien zurückgebraucht und ihren Freunden Übergen werden; und alle Aerzte, Geistlichen und Pfleger von Verwundeten auf einem eingenommenen Felde, sollen, wenn nicht länger benöthigt, sicher nach ihren Linien zurückgebraucht und ihrer eigenen Armee übergeben werden. Es verlangt, dass die Bewohner in der Nachbarschaft bei einer bevorstehenden Schlacht, von den kommandierenden Generalen beider Armeen benachrichtigt werden, und das vollkommener Schutz jedem Haufe angeboten wird, welches ein oder mehrere Verwundete von irgend einer Seite behufs Pflege aufnimmt, und das dieselben beschützt werden sollen so lange ein Verwundeter darin verbliebt, in dieser Weise jedes Haus in der Rühe des Schlachtfeldes zu einem ausgestatteten Lazarethe machend. Um zu verhindern, dass in Zukunft Irrthümer vorkommen, wie sie in vergangenen Zeiten immer begangen wurden, indem man auf Lazarethe feuerte, oder Züge von Verwundeten oder Gefangenen aus dem Hinterhalte angriff und tödtete, wurde ein untrügliches Zeichen der Erkennung ersonnen. Der Vertrag bestimmt die Annahme eines universalen Abzeichens, und dieses Zeichen soll in jedem Lande, dass sich dem Vertrage anschliesst, alle Schlaftfelder, Kriegsdepartmente, alle Lazarethe mit dem für dieselben bestimmten Material und bei denselben beschäftigtem Personal, und die unter deren Obhut befindlichen Personen kennzeichnen. Dieses Zeichen, oder Abzeichen soll von jeder kriegführenden Macht anerkannt, und seine Bedeutung von allen Beamten und Offizieren bestätigt werden, so zwar, dass irgend ein Richtbeachten desselben als Bruch eines internationalen Vertrages betrachtet wird. Dieses Zeichen ist ein rothes Kreuz auf weissem Grund -- ein Schweizerkreuz mit vier gleichen Armen und vier gleichen Winkeln. Dies ist die Bedeutung des rothen Kreuzes, dessen Absichten so gut durchgeführt wurden, dass es heute keine civilisirte Nation gibt, die dem Vertrage nicht beigetreten wäre; keine Nation führte Krieg ohne dessen humane Bestimmungen zu beobachten. Es gibt nur eine Flagge für alle Militär-Lazarethe in der civilisirten Welt; nur ein Zeichen für Hilfe im Kriege für die ganze Christenheit; und es ist auch nicht ein Fall von Verletzung der Artikel oder Grundsätze des Vertrages bis jetzt bekannt geworden. Eine andere peinliche Thatsache war die anerkannte Unzulänglichkeit der ärztlichen und Lazareth-Departements aller Armeen im aktiven Dienst. Es ging nie eine Armee ins Feld mit einem genügenden ärztlichen State und Vorfehrungen für die Anforderungen einer Schlacht oder die Bedürfnisse der Verwundeten. Es war diese betrübende Thatsache, welche die Leute antrieb ihre freiwillige Hülfe anzubieten, und dieselbe wurde zuerst in grösserem Masse, zur grossen Freude der ganzen Menschheit, von Florence Nightingale während des Krim-Krieges ins Wert gesetzt. Ähnlich und höchst wundervoll war das Entstehen der Sanitäts-Commissionen während des letzten Bürgerkrieges. Aber diese, so wundervoll schön und benöthigt sie waren, ermangelten der Ermächtigung und Aneriennung der Regierung, besassen nur moralische Macht, und wurden im Allgemeinen, in stiller Weise durch die ärztlichen Departements der Armee unterdrückt, da die Letzteren sich daran gewöhnt hatten alle Civilisten auf dem Schlachtfelde als hinderliche Eindringlinge zu betrachten, Auf diese Weise sahen sich diese Wohlthäter des ganzen vom Elend gebeugten Volkes, genöthigt, während der langen Jahre gegen Hindernisse anzukämpfen, von denen kein Sterblicher eine Idee hat, und zwar mit müden, gebrochenen Herzen, deren Gefühle nur sie selbst und Ihr Gott kannte. Doch gelang es zur selben Zeit einer anderen, weit entfernten Republik ein System zu ersinnen und zu errichten, das eine Wiederholung früherer Unmenschlichkeiten unmöglich machte, die Anerkennung der angebotenen Volkshülfe bei militärischen Nothwendigkeiten in sich schloss, und vom Militär selbst den für Durchführung ihrer Absichten nöthigen Schutz erzwang. Damals wurde der Vertrag von Gent und das "Rothe Kreuz" ins Leben gerufen. Das Erste was ein Land zu thun hat, nachdem es dem Vertrage beigetreten, ist die Errichtung einer National Gesellschaft, um in Uebereinstimmung mit seinen Verstimmungen zu handeln, und dies, mit der ehrenwerthen Ausnahme des Internationalen Comites in Gent, ist die erste Andeutung von einer Gesellschaft des Rothen Kreuzes, die Jemand erhält. Diese National Gesellschaften bilden Hülfs-Gesellschaften, deren Zweck es ist, ihre Mitglieder in allen Zweigen der menschenfreundlichen Arbeiten zu vervollkommnen, welche zur Verhütung oder Abhülfe der durch Krieg hervorgerufenen Leiden nothwendig sind, wie Feld und Lazareth-Verbesserungen, Pflege von Verwundeten und Kranken, Heranbildung von Krankenwärtern u. s. w. Nach siebenzehnjährigem Bestehen dieses Vertrages, und seiner Annahme durch einunddreissig der bedeutendsten Nationen der Welt, erklärten in 1882 auch die Vereinigten Staaten ihren späten Beitritt, in dieser Art sich endlich zur Ausübung von Menschlichkeit im Krieg verpflichtend, ebenso wie die Spanier, Perser, und Türken. Bei Gründung der National Gesellschaft der Vereinigten Staten, wurden der Hülfe im Kriege auch Hülfe bei nationalen Unglücksfällen, wie Feuersbrünste, Ueberschwemmungen, Hungersnoth oder Seuchen beigefügt, indem man vorschlug diese Kriege der Elemente und andere Heimsuchungen der Vorsehung, den Kriegen der Menschen gleich zu stellen, und sie alle gleichmäßig zu bekämpfen. Dies ist als "Amerikanisches Amendment" oder "Amerikanischer Grundzug" des Rothen Kreuzes bekannt, und wird dessen Wirken von allen andern Nationen mit grossem Interesse beobachtet. In unserer Zurückgezogenheit und frei von Gelegenheiten uns in Schwierigkeiten zu verwickeln, wir dieser Beisatz mit seiner immerwahrenden Thätigkeit und seinem ausgedehnten Felde, für unser Volk, der meist in Anspruch nehmende aber nicht wichtigste Theil des Systems. Wegen der dreifachen Natur der Arbeiten seit Gründung der Organisation, waren dieselben sehr schwierig. Erstens, in ihren internationalen Beziehungen, vermöge welcher sie sowohl mit allen andern Nationen verhandelt und correspondirt, wie mit dem Haupt derselben, dem internationalen Comite in Gent. Zweitens, die Ausgleichung ihrer eigenen Verwaltung mit den Anforderungen des Vertrages, da under demselben die "Kriegs-Artikel" und Insignien geändert, und im ärztlichen und Lazareth-Departements weitere Bestimmungen getroffen wurden. Jetzt webt über jedem Militär-Hospital im Lande das rothe Kreuz an Stelle der trüberen, schmissig gelben Flagge, die kein Auge mit Bestimmtheit unterscheiden konnte. Nicht ohne viel Arbeit für die National-Gesellschaft konnten diese Aenderungen zu Stande gebracht werden. Kriegsdepartements und stehende Armeen sind dafür bekannt, dass sie niemals zu grosse Eile in ihren Bewegungen entwicklen; auch ist ihre Zugänglichkeit für Aenderung bestehender Methoden und Gebräuche durchaus nicht spruchwörtlich geworden. Drittens, und was Ihnen wahrscheinlich als Alles erscheinen wird, was das Rothe Kreuz bezweckt, sind die verschiedenen Thätigkeiten, welcher der bürgerliche Zug ins Leben ruft, nämlich, Hülfe bei grossen nationalen Heimsuchungen. In diesen wenigen Zeilen kann ich Sie nicht über die brennenden Gefilde Michigans führen, wo der Feuerdämon weder die Heimstätten noch deren Bewohner verschont, und die erschreckten Thiere, vom Pferde und Hirsch bis zum schüchternen Hafen herab, vor sich vertriebt, zischend mit seinen weissen Zungen nach ihnen leckend. Auch kann ich Sie nicht in das Mississippi-Thal, während der furchterregenden Ueberschwemmung in 1882, rührten, oder in das Ohiothal in 1883, oder in beider dieser Thäler im unvergesslichen Frühjahr des Jahres 1884, als sich ein gemeinschaftliches Strombett von ein, zwei und drei Meilen Breite und bis zu hundert Meilen Länge bildete, wo die stattlichen Gebäude der Stadt, die wohlgefüllten Heimstätten der Farmer, und die Hütte, das Alles des armen Taglöhners, die geschäftigten Mühlen und mächtigen Baumriefen des Waldes, von Pittsburg bis Cairo und New Orleans sich zum rasenden Tanze vereinigten, nach der Melodie der rauschenden Fluth, die sie auf ihrem wirbelnden, schäumenden und verzehrenden Busen nach dem Gulf trägt. Ich wünschte, ich könnte sie auf die Boote des Rothen Kreuze führen, beladen mit den Gaben eines mitfühlenden Volkes, als dieselben Seite bei Seite fuhren mit den Hülfsbooten der Regierung, befrachtet wir den von Congress bewilligten Nationen, Zeiten und Decken, um Ihnen dieses Beispiel von Volkshülfe gegen nationale Noth vor Augen zu führen, und mit welcher Dankbarkeit dieselbe von den damit beauftragten Beamten anerkannt wurde. Gänzlich für sich, mit Booten und Fracht den ihrigen gleich, aber ohne einen Schatten von Eifersucht, fand sich allenthalb Achtung, Dankbarkeit, die helfende Hand und brüderliches Zusammenwirken. Ihr Muth würde Ihnen häufig gesunken sein bei diesen Szenen des Jammers und Wehs, und gernden Heerden, hingestreckt auf den schmalen durchbrochenen Uferdämmen (levees) in den Baien des Mississippi, wenn dieselben strauchelnd versuchten das ihnen dargereichte Futter zu erreichen. Ihre Herzen würden mitleidsvoll geschlagen haben Bein Anblick der obdachlosen, halbnackten Figuren, weiss und schwarz, die sich an den landenen Bug des Bootes drängten; und Sie würden Amen! dazu gesagt haben, als Sie wegfuhren, dieselben bei ihren unerwarteten Schätzen zurücklassend, Segen erbetend für das Schiff mit dem fremden Zeichen, welches Rettung gebracht hatte, und zum verheizenden Regenbogen in ihrer überflutheten Welt wurde. Ihr Herz würde mit Freude erbeben, wenn Sie auf Ihrem Heimwege mithelfen könnten, die aus rohen Brettern und Holzstämmen bestehenden Hütten bewohnbar zu machen, um die gerettete Familie bei ihrer Rückkehr zur einzigen Schelle, die sie auf dieser Welt ihr eigen nennen konnte, zu schützen. Sie werden dort für diese Unglücklichen, Betten, Tische, Stühle, Geschirr, Handwerkzeug, Oefen, Eimer, Seife, Nahrungsmittel und Kleider hinterlassen, um es denselben zu ermöglichen ein neues Leben zu beginnen, und Sie werden dem himmlischen Vater danken, für das Mitgefühl und die Grossmuth seines Volkes, und dass durch die Heimsuchungen des Krieges selbst ein System ins Leben gerufen wurde, das durch individuelle Hülfe nationaler Noth steuert. Ich kann Sie auch nicht nach den von Wirbelwinden verheerten Distrikten führen, nicht nach den durch Seuchen dezimirten Gemeinden, oder nach den bebenden Ruinen Charlestons, selbst nicht zu den Zügen, die augenblicklich mit Waaren und Samenkorn nach dem von Dürre heimgesuchten Texas fahren. Alles dies ist geschehen, und Sie haben vielleicht mehr oder weniger zur Linderung der Noth beigetragen; ist dies der Fall, so danke ich Ihnen dafür im Namen des Rothen Kreuzes. Diese wenigen Zeilen, hauptsächlich bemerkenswerth durch das, was nicht in denselben gesagt wird, mögen dazu dienen den grössten Theil der am Anfange erwähnten Fragen von Correspondenten zu beantworten. Wir haben gesehen, dass das Rothe Kreuz weder ein "Orden" noch eine "Geheime Gesellschaft" ist, dass es nicht in Amerika, sondern in der Republik Schweiz seinen Ursprung hatte. Sie müssen selbst entscheiden, "für wessen Interessen es bestimmt isst," und daraus wird sich die Thatsache folgern, dass man "ein Mitglied des Rothen Kreuze" wird, indem man sich als Mitglied einer Julis-Gesellschaft aufnehmen lässt, die unter Leitung der National-Gesellschaft organisiert wurde, wie diese Letztere selbst unter Leitung der Internationalen. Ich hoffe, dass diese Zeilen, unvollkommen wie sie sind, sich als "Dokument" erweisen mögen, das Ihnen bis zu einem gewissen Grade "erklärt, was das Rothe Kreuz ist." Aber der höchste Zweck wurde noch nicht genannt. Die Hoffnungen der menschenfreundlichen und denkenden Welt bezüglich seiner schliesslichen Resultate, sind noch nicht erwähnt worden, doch mag eine Andeutung genügen. Sie zum Nachdenken zu bringen, und die Schlüsse zu denen Sie durch Ihre eigenen Betrachtungen gelangen sind jederzeit die dauerndsten, und gewöhnlich richtig. Ich glaube schwerlich, dass Sie zu der Entscheidung gekommen sind, dass das Rothe Kreuz Krieg bedeutet. In sich selbst, in allen seinen Grundsätzen und Tendenzen bedeutet das Rothe Kreuz Frieden. Es versucht, die Leute zu einer gerechten und wahrhaften Schätzung der Schrecken des Krieges zu bringen, durch wirkliche Bekanntschaft mit denselben. Der Arbeiter unter dem Rothen Kreuz wird nie an den "Ruhm der Schlachtfelder" oder die "Siegestrunkenen Rufe der Sterbenden" glauben. Er weiss es besser. Im fremden Ländern stellt es an die Spitze seiner Organisationen die Herrscher der Nationen, Kaiser, Könige und Fürsten, und verpflichtet dieselben, sich mit dem durch Kriege, hervorgerufenen Elend bekannt zu machen, und durch persönliches Handeln dasselbe zu verhüten und zu vermindern. Dies ist für dieselben ein neues Feld der Arbeit und des Denkens, und für die Kriegführende Welt eine neue Scene, wenn hundert hochgestellte Militär-Personen, jede civilisirte Nationen der Erde repräsentirend, sich mit den Philanthropen dieser Welt zur Verathung versammeln, und Wachen mit Versuchen zubringen, Mittel, Wege und Methoden auszusinnen, und dem durch den Krieg herbeigeführten Elend zu steuern. Während sie diese andere Seite der Frage besprochen, und die Ansichten und Argumente einer andern Klasse von Leuten hören, mit denen Sie nicht gewohnt waren, sich zu berathen, tagen auch neue Ideen in ihnen; sie sehen die andere Seite des Schildes; das Unnütze des Krieges wird ihnen klar; Menschenleben erlangen erhönten Werth; menschliche Leiden fallen gewichtiger in die Waagschale der Erwägung; Mitgefühl findet einen Platz und die Herzen werden empfänglicher. Kann dieser Stand der Dinge verfehlen mit der Zeit zu der Betrachtung zu führen, dass die sicherste Methode der Milderung, die ist, keinen Krieg zu führen? Jeder Pulsschlag des Rothen Kreuzes ist für Frieden; seine eigentliche Arbeit und selbstgestellte Aufgabe ist, "dem Krieg zu lehren, sich selbst zu bekämpfen." In dieser Weise sich für die mächtigste, praktische und mögliche Friedens-Gesellschaft erachtend, nimmt das Rothe Kreuz hoffnungsvoll seinen Platz in den Reihen menschlichen und menschenfreundlichen Fortschrittes, und arbeitet treu für Erreichung der Ziele, die es sich vorgesteckt. Folgende sind die Namen der Beamten der Amerikanischen Gesellschaft der Vereinigten Staten des Rothen Kreuzes: Vorsitzer des Berathungs-Collegiums, Grover Cleveland. Verwaltungsräthe: Schätzamte-Sekretär, Kriegs-Sekretär, Landwirthsschafts-Sekretär. Exekutiv-Beamten: Clara Barton, Präsident; W. J. Lawrence und A. S. Solomon, Vize-Präsidenten; Walter A. Philips, General-Sekretär; George Kennan, Schatzmeister; Dr. J. B. Hubbel, Feld-Agent; F. R. Southmayd, Spezial-Agent für das untere Mississippithal. Die Beamten der deutschen Sektion "Milwaukee" sind: F. L. Krieger, Präsident; Dr. Hugo Pilsner, Sekretär und Schatzmeister; Verwaltungsräthe: Frl. Therese Selke, E. Helwig, H. Marr und W. Klingbeil. Die deutsch Sektion "Milwaukee" des Ordens des Rothen Kreuzes steht under der Controlle der Amerikanischen Gesellschaft des Rothen Kreuzes und der Internationalen Gesellschaft in Gent. 1888 1889 Holiday Greeting. To [*Mr. and Mrs, E.E. Barton.*] COMPLIMENTS OF CLARA BARTON, President of the American Association of the Red Cross. Washington, D. C. "The MarClenny Nurses." A HOLIDAY TRIBUTE TO RED CROSS WORKERS IN Warm appreciation and grateful acknowledgement of the faithful hands that toiled, and the generous hearts that gave. BY CLARA BARTON, President of the American Association of the Red Cross. WASHINGTON D. C.: Dec., 1888. "THE MACCLENNY NURSES." During the fourth week in November a dispatch to National Headquarters announced that the last band of Red Cross nurses, known as the MacClenny nurses, had finished their work at Enterprise, and would come into Camp Perry to wait their ten days' quarantine and go home to New Orleans for Thanksgiving. Seventy-nine days ago that would mean that their little company of eighteen, mainly women, steaming.on to Jacksonville, under guidance of their old-time trusted leader, Southmayd, of New Orleans, listened to his announcement that the town of MacClenny, thirty-eight miles from Jacksonville, Florida, and through which they would soon pass was in a fearful state of distress ; a comparatively new town, of a few thousand, largely Northern and Western people, suddenly stricken down in scores ; poor, helpless, physicians all ill, and no nurses ; quarantined on all sides, no food, medicine, nor comforts for sick or well. " Nurses, shall I leave a part of you there ; the train cannot stop in, nor near the town, but if I can manage to get it slowed up somewhere, will you jump ? " " We will do anything you say, Colonel ; we are here in God's name and service to help His people ; for Him, for you, and for the Red Cross, we will do our best and out all." " Conductor, you had a hot box a few miles back ; don't you think it should be looked to after passing MacClenny ?" -4- "I will slow up and have it seen to, Colonel, although it may cost me my official head." And it did. One mile beyond town, the rain pouring in torrents, the ground soaked, slippery and caving, out into pitchy darkness, leaped three men and seven women from a puffing, unsteady train, no physician with them, and no instructions save the charge of their leader as the last leap was made, and the train pushed on. "Nurses, you know what to do; go and do your best, and God help you." Hand to hand, that none go astray in the darkness, they hobbled back over a mile of slippery cross-ties to the stricken town. Shelter was found, the wet clothes dried, and at midnight the sick had been parceled out, each nurse had his or her quota of patients, and were in for the issue, be it life or death. Those past all help must be seen through, and lost, all that could be must be saved. The next day a dispatch from Southmayd went back to New Orleans for Dr. Gill, a Norwegian by birth, tall, straight, honest, and true as the pines of his native land, to come and take charge of the sick; and the nurses at MacClenny. It was done, and under his wise direction they found again a leader. Their labors and successes are matters for later and more extended record. It is to be borne in mind that these nurses found no general table, no table at all but such as they could provide, find the food for, and cook for themselves, for the sick, the children, and the old and helpless who had escaped the fever and must be cared for. No patient could be left till the crisis was passed, and many are their records of seventy-two hours without change or sleep or scarcely sitting down. As the disease -5- gradually succumbed to their watchful care, experience, and skill, they reached out to other freshly attacked towns and hamlets. Sanderson and Glen St. Mary's became their charge, and return their blessings for life preserved. On November first it was thought they could safely leave and go into camp for quarantine; but no regular train would be permitted to take them. The Red Cross secured and paid a special train for them, and, as if in bold relief against the manner of their entry seven weeks before, the entire town, saving its invalids, was assembled at the station at seven o'clock in the morning to bid them good bye and God speed. But their fame had gone before them, and "Enterprise," a hundred miles below, just stricken down among its flowers and fruits, reached out its hands for aid, and with one accord after two days in camp, all turned back from the coveted home and needed rest and added another month of toil to their already weary record. At length this was ended, and word came again to us that they would go into quarantine. Their unselfish, faithful, and successful record demanded something more than the mere sending of money. It deserved the thanks of the Red Cross organization in the best and highest manner in which they could be bestowed; it was decided that its President, in person, should most fittingly do this, and accordingly left Washington on the morning of November twenty-second in company with Dr. Hubbell, Field Agent, for Camp Perry, the quarantine station of Florida, Two days and one night by rail, a few mile across country by wagon, where trains were forbidden to stop, and another mile or so over the trestles of St. Mary's on a dirt car with the workmen, -6- brought us into camp as the evening fires were lighted and the bugle sounded supper. The genial surgeon in charge, Dr. Hutton, who carried a knapsack and musket in an Illinois regiment in '62, met us cordially and extended every possible hospitality. Soon there filed past us to supper the tall doctor and his little flock; some light and fair-skinned, with the easy step of a well-bred lady, others dark and bony- handed, but the strong kind faces below the turbans told at a glance that you could trust your life there and find it again. They were not disturbed that night, and no certain information of our arrival got among them. It was cold and windy, and the evening short, as nine o'clock brought taps and lights out. In spite of all caution the news of our coming had spread over the surrounding country, and telegrams bringing both thanks for what had been received and the needs for more, came from all sides, and the good mayor of MacClenny made his troubled way to reach and greet us in person, and take again the faithful hands that had served and saved his people. Surgeon Hutton's headquarter tent was politely tendered for the first meeting, and as one could never, while memory lasts, forget this scene, so no words can ever adequately describe it. The ample tent was filled. Here on the right the Mayor, broad shouldered, kind faced and efficient, officers of camp, and many visitors, wondering what it all meant ; in the center the tall doctor and his faithful band. Eliza Lanier, Lena Seymour, (mother and daughter), Elizabeth Eastman, Harriet Schmidt, Lizzie Louis, Rebecca Vidal, Annie Evans, Arthur Duteil, Frederick Wilson, and Edward Holyland. -7- I give these names because they are worthy a place in the history of any epidemic ; but no country, race, nor creed could claim them as a body : four Americans, one German, one French, one Irish, three Africans, part Protestant, and part Catholic, but all from New Orleans, of grand old Howard stock, from Memphis down, nursing in every epidemic from the bayous of the Mississippi to Tampa Bay ; and hereafter we will know them as the "Old Guard." Here, in the winds of approaching winter they stand in the light garb of early September in New Orleans, thin, worn, longing for home, but patient, grateful, and glad. Some trifling "nubia" or turban about the head, but only one distinguishing feature in common. A pitiful little misshapen Red Cross, made by their own hands, of two bits of scarlet ribbon, soiled, fringed, and tattered, pinned closely upon the left breast of each, strove in mute appeal to say who they were, and what they served. A friendly recognition and some words of thanks from their president, opened the way for those anxious to follow. The rich warm eloquence of Mayor Watkins plainly told from how near his heart the stream of gratitude was flowing, and his manly voice trembled as he reverted to the condition of his stricken people, on that pitiless night, when this little band of pilgrim strangers strayed back to them in the rain and darkness. "I fear they often worked in hunger," he said, "for then, as now, we had little for ourselves, our sick, or our well ; but they brought us to our feet, and the blessing of every man, woman, and child in MacClenny is on them." It was with a kind of paternal pride that Dr. Gill advanced and placed before us his matchless record of cases attended, -8- and life preserved. "This is the record of our work," he said. "I am proud of it, and glad that I have been able to make it, but without the best efforts of these faithful nurses I could not have done it; they have stood firm through everything; not a word of complaint from, nor of, one of them, in all these trying months, and I thank you, our President, for this opportunity to testify to their merits in your presence." The full cups overflowed, and as we took each brown calloused hand in ours, and felt the warm tears dropping over them, we realized how far from colloused were the hearts behind them. The silence that followed was a season of prayer. Then came opportunity for some conversation, questions, and explanations. "We wish to introduce to our President our chief nurse, whom Colonel Southmayd placed in charge of us when we left the car, and directed us to obey him; he is younger than any of us, Ed. Holyland." A slight young man with clear, olive complexion, and dark browed earnest eyes that looked you straight in the face, came forward; his apparent youthfulness gave rise to the first remark: "How old are you, Mr. Holyland?" "Twenty-nine, madam." "And you have taken charge of these nurses?" "I have done what I could for their comfort; I think that was what the colonel desired; he knew they would need only care and advice, they would do their best of themselves. During the few days that Colonel Southmayd remained in Jacksonville," he continued "he was able to send us some such comforts, as we needed for the sick, and some nourishing food for ourselves; but this way only a few days, you know, and -9- after that we got on as well as we could do without. I know that after he left the nurses gave to the sick, the children, the old and the helpless, what they needed for their own strength." "But you did not tell us this Mr. Holyland." "No, we were dazed and frightened by the things we heard. We felt that your organization was having enough to bear. We knew we must look to you for our pay, and we thought, under the circumstances, that would be your share. But permit me, please, to call your attention to Mr. Wilson, (a stout colored man advanced), who took charge of a little hospital of six cases, and carried them all through day and night without an hour's relief from any person, and saved every case." "And permit me," chimed in the clear toned Irish voice of Lizzie Louis, "to tell of Mr. Holyland himself, who found a neglected Italian family a mile or more outside of the town. He went and nursed them alone, and when the young son, a lad of thirteen or fourteen years died, knowing there was no one to bury him there, he wrapped him in a blanket and brought him into town on his back, for burial." Holyland's face grew sad, and his eyes modestly sought the floor, as he listened to this unexpected revelation. "I wish to speak of something else," added one of the men, "which we were held back from doing, and for which we are now very glad. We should not have thought of it ourselves. It is customary," he continued, "when a patient dies in an epidemic, to give the nurse ten dollars for preparing the body for burial; this was done in our first case, but Mr. Holyland had the gift promptly returned with thanks, and the explanation that we were employed by an organization which fully rewarded -10- its nurses, and was too high to correct to accept tribute for misfortune ; it was enough that the patient was lost." By this time poor black Annie Evans, the "Mammy" of the group could hold quiet no longer, and broke silence with, "Missus President! whar is de Colonel? Colonel Southmayd; dey tells me all de time he's gone away from New Orleans, and I can't b'l'eve 'em. He can't go away ; he can't lib anywhar else, he was always dar. I'se nursed in yellow fever and cholera more'n twenty-five year, and I neber went for nobody but him; it arn't no New Orleans for us widout him dar. I doesn't know de name of dat place dey say he's gone to, and I doesn't want to; he'll be in New Orleans when we gets dar." There were pitying glances among the group, at this little burst of feeling, for in some way it was an echo of their own; and Lena Seymour added tenderly: "We have been trying for these two months to convince Mammy about this, but she is firm in her faith and sometimes refuses to hear us." But the subject changed with "How many cases did you lose in this epidemic, Mammy?" "I did'nt lose no cases! Lor' bless you honey, I doesn't lose cases if dey hasn't been killed afore dey gets to me; folks needn't die of yellow fever." We didn't supposed that "Mammy" intended any reflection upon the medical fraternity. "But now, friends, we must turn to our settlement, which cannot be difficult. Three dollars a day for each nurse, for seventy-nine days, till you are home on Thanksgiving morning. But here are only ten. There are eighteen on our list who left with you and Colonel Southmayd; where are your -11- comrades?" Some eyes flashed and some moistened, as they answered. "We do not know." "They remained in the car that night, and went on to Jacksonville." Switf, dark glances swept from one to another among them. Instinctively they drew closer to each other, and over knitted brows and firmly set teeth, a silence fell dark and ominous like a pall, which the future alone can lift. The bugle sounded dinner, and the ended our little camp- meeting, than which, few camp-meetings we believe, ever came nearer to the heart of Him who offered his life a ransom, and went about doing good. The winds blew cold across the camp ; the fires shot out long angry tongues of flame and drifts of smoke to every passer by. The norther was upon us. Night came down, and all were glad of shelter and sleep. The morning, quiet, crisp, and white with frost, revealed the blessing which had fallen upon a stricken land. Thanksgiving was there before its time. The hard rules relaxed. One day more, and the quarantine was at an end. The north bound train halted below the camp, and all together, president and agent, tall doctor and happy nurses, took places on it. The first for headquarters at Washington, the last for New Orleans, and home for Thanksgiving morning, full of the joys of a duty well done, rich in well paid labor, in the love of those they had befriended, and the approval of a whole people, south and north, when once their work should be known to them. -12- To the last, they clung to their little home-made Red Crosses as if they had been gold and diamonds ; and when at length, the tracks diverged and the parting must be made, it was with few words, low and softly spoken, but meaning much ; with a finger touch upon the little cross, " When you want us, we are there." MONEY SENT to JOHNSTOWN, by Gov. BEAVER. IN THIS NUMBER. Seventy-Fifth Year. Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur. Vol. 149: No. 2. THE [*J.B.Hubbell*] NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. [*Johnstown*] August, 1889. [*Article by C. B.*] Page. The Money Sent to Johnstown, GOVERNOR JAMES A. BEAVER, or Pennsylvania 129 Philanthropy at Johnstown, CLARA BARTON, of the American National Red Cross 142 The Lesson of Conemaugh, MAJOR J. W. POWELL, of the U. S. Geological Survey 150 A Word with Professor Huxley, THE REV. LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D. 157 An English View of the Civil War-III . VISCOUNT WOLSELEY 164 The German Army, with Personal Recollections-1848 to 1889, KARL BLIND 182 Will Reason Exterminate Christianity ? . . . . . DAVID SWING 196 The Sense of Honor in Americans . . . . PROF. N. S. SHALER 205 Great Britain and the Confederacy . . . . . . HENRY CLEWS 215 The Cash Value of a Book Review . . . . . . . . O. B. BUNCE 223 Leaves from a Drama ist's Diary . . . . . . DION BOUCICAULT 228 The Poetry of Poverty . . . . . HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER 237 Allen Thorndike Rice . The RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE 247 NOTES AND COMMENTS. Our Struggle for Existence . . . . . PROF. PETER T. AUSTEN 248 Rapid Transit in Cities . . . . . . ARCHIE EMERSON PALMER 250 Constitutional Patchwork . . . . . . . . . . CHARLES J. NOYES 253 The Advantages of Debt . . . . . WILLIAM MATHEWS, L.L.D. 255 NEW YORK: No. 3 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET. LONDON : G. E. STECHERT, 30 Wellington St, Strand, W. C. BERLIN : A. ASHER & Co. PARIS : BRENTANO'S, 17 Avenue de l'Opera. GENEVA : J. CHERBULIER. ROME : LOESCHER & Co. MELBOURNE : W ROBERTSON. YOKOHAMA AND SHANGHAI : KELLY & WALSH. Single Numbers, 50c. Published Monthly. Per Annum, $5. [*Red Cross Commissary.*] The North American Review. ANNOUNCEMENT. The publishers of the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW beg to announce, in response to numerous inquiries, that the lamented death of Mr. Allen Thorndike Rice will cause no interruption in the publication of the REVIEW. No effort will be spared to maintain for it the unrivalled position among the periodicals of the world which it won and occupied under Mr. Rice's guidance and control. The lines projected by Mr. Rice will be in the main adhered to by the new management in so far that the REVIEW will continue to be essentially A MAGAZINE OF THE TIMES, calling to its aid the leaders of original thought and action in every field of human progress. Much has already been done to make the present volume one of the most notable ever i-sued, and the August, September and October numbers will contain important articles by Gen. JOHN A. POPE, JEFFERSON DAVIS, Senor M. ROMERO (the Mexican Minister), FREDER C HARRISON, ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, LORD WOLSELEY, MARION HARLAND, Prof. N. S. SHALER, EDWARDS PIERREPONT, AUSTIN CORBIN, LORD BRASSEY, ANDREW LANG, LYMAN ABBOTT, Mrs. SCHUYLER VAN RENSSELAER, DION BOUCICAULT, Commander V. L. CAMERO s, R N., MONA CAIRD, HENRY CLEWS, Archdeacon FARRAR, the late E. P. WHIPPLE, and many others. Indeed nothing that can help to preserve the high character and extraordinary circulation of the REVIEW will be left undone. Much, however, cannot be announced in advance, as it is the policy of the REVIEW to deal promptly with questions of immediate interest, and space is reserved every month for the discussion of the subjects uppermost in the public mind. Office of The North American Review, 3 East 14th Street, New York, June 20, 1889. Copyright, 1889, by CHARLES U. COTTING, Administrator. Entered at the Post-Office at New York, and admitted for transmission through the mails as second-class matter. PHILANTHROPY AT JOHNSTOWN. BY CLARA BARTON, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS. THE DIFFICULTIES attendant upon relief work at the field- and I have no experience in any other-can scarcely surpass that of attempting to record them in any collected or intelligible manner. The work of relief committees for the alleviation of distress resulting from great disasters must necessarily be two-fold. One part is the raising of funds and preparing of material among the people at home, which admits of the most perfect and methodical system, and hence can be thoroughly learned and transmitted from call to call. But for those who go to the scene itself to learn the needs, and, to some extent, receive and apply the contributions sent, it is quite another affair. Perhaps one of the chief difficulties to be encountered in the administration of relief at the scenes of disaster or need lies in the variety which it must assume in order to meet the ever-changing features presented. One can only adapt measures and invent methods ; yet it is to be remembered that the principle of adaptation amounts almost to a science, and can be studied. Of the twelve fields* on which the officers of the American Red Cross have operated since its organization in 1881, and borne a part more or less prominent, no two have been the same in general character, and only three or four in any manner similar. Yet it would probably be difficult to throw these people hors du combat in any field which they could reach ; and much depends upon the ability to reach a field in time for greatest use. True, it is seldom that a body of victims are so completely cut off, not only from the help of the world, but from the world itself, as the fated residents *Forest fires of Michigan, 1881; Mississippi floods, 1882; Ohio Floods, 1883; Mississippi cyclone, 1883; Ohio flood, 1884; Mississippi flood, 1884; Virginia epidemic, 1885; Texas drought, 1887; Charleston earthquake, 1887; Mount Vernon cyclone, 1888; yellow fever in Florida, 1888; Conemaugh Valley floods, 1889. THE MONEY SENT TO JOHNSTOWN. 141 and afterwards under the supervision of the Adjutant-General of Pennsylvania. This entire work has now been transferred to the hands of the citizens of this region, who are undoubtedly able to conduct it successfully in the future. The police work of the State will be carried on under the direction and the immediate supervision of the secretary of the State Board of Health. If the fidelity, discretion, and devotion of the Commission having charge of the distribution of the great charity herein referred to shall be, in any degree, equal to the generosity which has prompted it, the full measure of the hopes of its members will be reached, and the desires of the donors and recipients of the funds fully met when this work has been completed. This is not to be expected. The members of the Commission are human, but this charity, so sublime in its proportions, and so beautiful in its inception, is something more than human. JAMES A. BEAVER. PHILANTHROPY AT JOHNSTOWN 143 of the Conemaugh Valley. The first despatches of Saturday were so wild in statement as to throw a doubt over their veracity. Sunday morning made it evident at Red Cross headquarters in Washington that the field must be reached if possible. The Potomac spread itself over Pennsylvania Avenue, and the Baltimore and Potomac station was reached only in boats. The Philadelphia auxiliary society was telegraphed to in the hope that it could find a way of reaching the ground direct. On Sunday evening we started for Baltimore, ordering all communications to be sent to Harrisburg, as probably the nearest point to be reached. The Pennsylvania Railroad was a sealed book, and so were our despatches and mails, two weeks elapsing before we got them, and we were from Sunday until Wednesday morning in going from Washington to Johnstown, and this by the first train. The few houses left, being mainly upside down, were not habitable, and a place in a car was retained till a camp could be selected and tents unpacked and erected, which our resolute Philadelphians were not long in accomplishing. This was their first experience at the field, and although they were surgeons and physicians, equipped with all the fine instruments for surgery, I counted the blisters on their hands left by the shovels and axe- handles in pitching tents and digging trenches. The rain fell in continuous torrents. Access from the west had been more fortunate, and Pittsburg and Ohio were towers of strength to these bewildered wrecks of human beings. The town being under military control, it was, by nature of its international treaty, obligatory upon the Red Cross to report directly to the military officer in command. Headquarters were two miles from our camp ; mountains of wreckage obstructed every pass way ; the horses of the town were mostly lying dead along the banks. It remained only to make one's way in mud over boot-top and rain over head ; but the cordial welcome of the gallant General Hastings, in command and his genial neighbor, Axline, of Ohio, would have richly repaid a more difficult journey, if it had been possible to perform one. Other relief societies from the West were already arriving, and establishing quarters for work. Great depots of supplies were opened and filling up, and the crowds and lines of applicants swaying in front of the wide-open doors told a pitiful tale of want and woe. Here were arriving the supplies so systematically gathered and gloriously sent from the home relief, to whom their 144 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. indiscriminate outpouring would doubtless have seemed sacrilegious waste. In the first dreadful moments, this was scarcely to be avoided; but the struggle comes in the herculean effort which must later be made to correct and discriminate in all this wholesale distribution. It is probable that no other problem is so difficult to solve. No question has lain more heavily on the hearts and brains of good men; for it has been mainly men who have had these matters in charge, and more than one, perplexed and discouraged in his unaccustomed role, has said to me, with a sad shake of the head: "But this is work of which women should have charge; we men are wasteful." And as often as I have heard this, my own heart has been touched by the unskilled and patient efforts which these men were making to do this kind of woman's work. Time and experience will later point a remedy for this state of things. Great advances have been made even in the last ten years. No sooner was the terrible loss of life realized than the mother hearts turned to the little children. Every aid society in the land stirred its sleeping embers, and a perfect blaze of orphan-aid burst out over the entire country. All who could, send deputations to gather up the orphans who were supposed to be wandering and crying in herds about the town. Others opened great places of refuge in city and country to receive them for either permanent or transient care, and every family that could arrange to take in a child wrote to some one on the spot to get one for them, to be sent by express or any safe conveyance to some point where it could be met; often the color of the eyes designated, the disposition specified, and the point urged that it be of good family. It is safe to say that applications for several thousands of these little waifs have been received in the mails of the Red Cross alone, which was known not to be in any connection with this feature of the work. What must it have been for those who were? and how difficult for them, as for us, to write continually to these good, tender-hearted people that there were no orphans in Johnstown — certainly not more than in ordinary times; that the same foe that swept the parents in full strength did not spare the helpless children! I have pitied the mistaken efforts of orphan-aid societies, for I knew that the noble representatives and workers they had sent here had blotted the pages with tears as day after day they wrote out the pitiful refrain: PHILANTHROPY AT JOHNSTOWN 145 "There are no orphans here; the children are dead, save the few that have been carried through the waters of death by miracle, whose friends cannot give them up." Another mistake growing out of an illusion of a very similar nature has been that of the prevalence of sickness and wounds, and the consequent need of great numbers of physicians and nurses. The same argument applies here as to the children; the weak ones could not outlast the fatigue and exposure of days and nights in the water, climbing and leaping from wreck to wreck, crushing and grinding between floating timbers, iron girders, and even driving engines plowing through the waters twenty feet beneath them. These went down from exhaustion, even if not wounded. Those who were hit and disabled found the second foe waiting. The water took them where the wounds left them, and between the two the end came; and even if there might have been in some instances an escape from a place of security sought on floating wreckage, the fire crept in—the third foe—and the most terrible of all deaths ensured. Thus is became literally a "survival of the fittest." The chronic invalids and the weak were mainly gone; those remaining were the strong, healthy, and vigorous. The excitement and constant exertion for life prevented colds and harm from exposure, and the rates of illness of any kind resulting from the flood have been marvelously small. The epidemics and typhoids which have really cast a shadow over the whole country have never existed here. Up to this time there may have been some cases with typhoid symptoms, but that would be possible in any place and under any circumstances. I should doubt if to-day is, or at any time since the flood has been, any greater percentage of illness than would have been the case if no catastrophe had taken place. Some local physicians were lost and all were broken up in their practice, but the survivors are trying to get on their feet again. Volunteers from abroad are endeavoring to do the work gratuitously while there is no money to pay for medical attendance, and thus to hold the practice for the resident physicians when they shall be ready to take it. Even this has been misunderstood and sent out to the world as a great strife between the local and volunteer physicians. The truth is, they are excellent friends; no paying case of a local physician is touched by any volunteer, or in any way taken from his hands, and the Philadelphia surgeons, at least, have labored assiduously Vol. CXLIX- NO. 393. 10 146 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW to restore the instruments and medical outfit lost by the town physicians. The Red Cross physicians established several small hospital tents at first, and later they consolidated them in one good hospital, where excellent work is being done. They have had their difficulties and met them manfully, and, as young physicians, have learned some practical lessons in field work. The proffer of volunteer help from physicians and nurses so abundantly tendered has been most creditable to both as valuable classes of the community. After all, it is, perhaps, the vast contributions of money and material around which the greater interest clusters, and in the dispensation of which the greater skill is required and the greater danger to be faced. To the worthy committees of Johnstown citizens who have been made the custodians of the vast sums contributed within the last five weeks for the relief of this valley too much manly and womanly sympathy cannot be extended. Many of them have seen their last dollar of earthly possessions swept from their grasp, and, side by side with the poor laborers whom they once employed, have dug day and night among the wrecks for some trace of the wife, son, or daughter, or all three, whom they believed to be crushed and buried beneath the ruins, and would fain take to a more fitting sepulchre. What absurdity to doubt that these men have the best good of their stricken neighbors at heart! What cruelty to suspect them! And yet before they are through with their task, their ears will hear these criticisms, and their weary souls will many times yearn for the peaceful rest that has come to their loved and lost. It is always thus. I have never known it fail, and it comes to me over and over to doubt the wisdom and humanity of making the citizens of an afflicted town the custodians of the means contributed towards relief and restitution; to question whether it were not more kind and humane, and equally just, to place all this duty in the hands of a competent committee of strangers who are not to reside among the people; who, being perfectly disinterested, cannot be harmed by complaints and accusations. Indeed, would not the complaints be fewer, and the satisfaction more general, if these leading citizens, so needed among the people, should be left to them in good faith and confidence, to lead and advise them as they have been wont to do? But as is generally the case, the citizens who serve on the committee are forever lost to the PHILANTHROPY AT JOHNSTOWN. 147 people through the scandal and distrust which the greed of the ignorant populace brings upon them. Of the little dissensions and jealousies, State, city, town, and otherwise, mainly growing out of ambition and what in women would be vanity, I have nothing to say, but much to hope for, when it all shall have worked itself clear and settled down to good steady purpose. These committees find difficulties enough which require no pointing-out in order to be seen. Coming nearer home, our own work pictures itself in bright relief to my gaze as having met few difficulties, thus far, which hard work, patience, and the exercise of the best judgment possessed could not overcome. As previously mentioned, the Red Cross here has consisted of a two-fold force -- a portion of the National Association from its headquarters at Washington, with valuable acquisitions in the persons of its members drawn from over the United States. Of these we have called nearly a score for the sake of their aid and counsel. The second force, consisting of the Branch Society of the Red Cross of Philadelphia, has brought to its aid some forty or some persons, mainly physicians and nurses, and has held a valuable commissary department, distributing largely. It would be gratifying to mention by name some of the ladies and gentlemen whose volunteer service the labors of these few weeks have called to our aid, and of whom it might literally be said that it was a liberal education to know them. One whose privilege it is to preside over assistants like these is humbled to the dust by praise tendered for effort or success: with such lieutenants as gather to the national standard of the Red Cross, what captain could fail? But there were some perplexities, not to say trials, as, for instance, before one had a dry corner of a box on which to transact business the mails commenced to bring in a hundred letters and telegrams per day, containing checks, drafts, money-orders, postal notes, orders to draw, and money by the United States Express, American Express, and Adams Express. The banks had all gone down stream, the safes were in the bottom of the Conemaugh, half the business men dead, our desk a dry-goods box turned sidewise, our combination-lock the tangled strings that drew together the sides of a flyless tent flapping and swaying in the wind. The Western Union was so overcrowded that despatches were often twenty-four hours late. But if thanks went for anything, if words were of any avail, what would one try to say of the tire- 148 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. less courtesy of its worn-down clerks? Sleepless, vigilant, weary, and faint, they toiled on, stimulated, one knows, by the great- hearted, generous example above them, which bids them ever, in the name of humanity, to count all loss as gain, so the afflicted are comforted and the needy find a friend. The consolation and safeguard was the steady-browed stenographer with her hundred and seventy words a minute. Checks were not immediately available, but express funds came to the rescue ; and before even a tent was prepared the material commenced to arrive from every source-boxes, barrels, trunks, baskets, bundles, car-loads. Letters upon letters told that such and such boxes had been sent, special distribution desired in special ways, and "Please acknowledge as soon as received." Every station and express office were thronged with similar freight-perhaps thousands of packages every day-and a dozen commissaries were open, with thrifty agents and active drivers claiming their goods immediately for distribution. The teams drove up with a score or more of ponderous boxes and barrels all marked to the President of the Red Cross, at Johnstown, Pennsylvania ; but from nowhere, if one shall except Philadelphia, with the distinctive regulation sign which would have insured safety. Then commenced the search to find who had sent all this. Often not a modest word, not even a pencil-mark, or a mere pencil-mark, if anything, and no intimation of what it contained. How shall it be "acknowledged as soon as received"? You want immediately some sheets and bedding for some one who waits, and you commence on one of these boxes. After the labor of a man is expended, and five minutes consumed, you discover that the box contains dresses and shoes. Attack another-men's clothing; another-sundries, dried fruit, pickles; another-canned goods, condensed milk, rice and ground coffee, the two latter broken open and sifted through. The weary, waiting woman is tired, and so are you, and you give up the search, call off your men, and resolve to tell all givers in the land before you sleep to place their address plainly, and a schedule of contents, on the outside of every package of relief goods ever sent. Soon the anxious letters commence to arrive asking if "our boxes are received." You presume they are, but are not quite certain by whom. Every agent or employee indignantly affirms that he "never took anything with a red cross on it to this headquarters"; PHILANTHROPY AT JOHNSTOWN. 149 and so one believes. These are difficulties which, if not quite surmountable, have at least been borne, and will lessen in time. This necessary display of opening all boxes at once, whether needed at the moment or not, gave to youthful and unaccustomed eyes, more likely to look among storehouses and headquarters than the crowded haunts of the people in the mud and on the ground, the impression of far more material than was actually here ; and forgetting the appalling fact that twenty thousand people were to be supplied over and over with every necessary of life, they were misled, formed hasty and damaging conclusions, and before two weeks had passed the reports went out to all the country that there was nothing more needed at Johnstown-they could not use what they already had in two years, and no more should be sent. Poor, dazed, speechless, uncomplaining, homeless, frightened, and bereft ! weary mourners digging in the river banks, watching in the morgues ! poor Johnstown ! poor fifty miles of Conemaugh ! Who has named your spokesman ? who has appointed your guardians ? Then doubled the letters on our desks. "Is it true, what we read ? Can all be supplied so soon ? Must we hold our goods or money ? Can you make no use of them or us in all that region ? Tell us at once, we beg of you." Then came need for two stenographers, that one be not worn out; and here they are day and night; and here is a woman's brain, busy with houses, lots, workmen, workwomen, trains, lumber, and applicants of all descriptions, dictating in hurried snatches this crude, disconnected article, which must be left where and as it is, to the mercy of the magnanimous and forgiving ; for the work is at its height and cannot be told until accomplished. For an impression of the interesting personality of this individual, the readers must be referred to the illustrations so profusely placed before them in the great journals of the day- namely, a chubby face and form, curly hair, fixed smile beaming with unintelligence, affecting a nurse's cap, neatly-folded kerchief, regulation dress, and benignly bearing a teacup. Alas ! I am dreadfully afraid she does not always wear that becoming smile ; is too hard worked and hard thought for a plump, chubby face and figure ; that the regulation suit and nurse's cap would suffer in two-weeks' rain and mud ; and as for the teacup- CLARA BARTON. THE LESSON OF CONEMAUGH By Major J. W. Powell, Director of the United States Geological Survey. The experiences of civilization teach many lessons that go unheeded until some great disaster comes as an object-lesson to recall to men's minds things known but half-forgotten. The Conemaugh disaster belongs to this category. For more than four thousand years civilized men have been constructing reser- voirs in which to store water for various purposes. The condi- tions has to be fulfilled in their construction are well known, for the lesson has been enforced upon mankind from the dawn of civili- zation to the present time by disasters too many to be enumerated. Hydraulic engineering is the oldest scientific art. No other can compare with it in this respect, except that of architecture in its application to the building of temples and pyramids ; but scientific engineering is even older than scientific architecture. Everywhere throughout the world civilization began in arid lands, and hydraulic engineering was the first great problem to be solved ; and for this reason it was solved at an early time, and well solved. Something has been added through the years, but not much. In our own times these problems have come to be of far greater im- potance than they were in antiquity, and the civilized world has now reached the dawn of a day of hydraulic engineering of such magnitude that all the works hitherto accomplished are insignifi- cant compared to those now to be planned and executed. Let the significance of this statement be briefly set forth. One of the purposes for which hydraulic engineering has been prosecuted in late civilization is the utilization of powers other- wise running to waste. For a time a check has been given to this form of development by the introduction of steam, but at present the great transition in modern industries is from the employment of muscular power to the employment of the physical powers of nature, and it is probable that the resort to water-power will rapidly increase in the immediate 4 11-R t ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ THE EVERETT NEWS ------------------------------------------ EVERETT, WASHINGTON SATURDAY...........................MARCH 30,1895 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPECIAL HOSPITAL EDITION. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FROM MISS CLARA BARTON. --------------- President of the American National Red Cross. --------------- WRITTEN FOR THIS ISSUE. ----------------- Society Formed Thirty-Six Years Ago- Conference of the Nations at Geneva, Switzerland-Adoption of Red Cross Badge-The World the Field of its Work. -------------------- WASHINGTON, D.C., March 14,1895.- My Dear Mrs.Foster-It is with much pleasure that I acknowledge the receipt of your very kind letter requesting something concerning my work-the Red Cross-that you can publish in your forthcoming issue of the Everett News in aid of your newly-established hospital. Although my time is,as you presume, constantly occupied, I feel that I could not spare an hour of it in a more worthy way than by responding to your request. The successful efforts of yourself and your associates in establishing the Everett Hospital in the midst of the depressed business conditions which I know to exist in your new part of the country are most praiseworthy and entitle you to the highest commendation of a grateful community. I will endeavor to tell you in a story that shall not be too long something about the Red Cross, which means the assuaging of human suffering among the wounded, sick and dying wherever war is waged upon the earth. You will understand by that that the honor has fallen to me to be the humble advocate and representative of but one unit or star in the galaxy of nations which have espoused the great humanitarian cause. In about forty countries there exists a National Red Cross Committee or Society, all working and maintaining their organization that they may be prepared and in readiness to act upon the first alarm of dreaded war. These societies exist by virtue and under the authority of a solemn international treaty entered into by the forty governments of the Red Cross nations. This treaty stipulates that in time of war any soldier who becomes sick or wounded shall be regarded as a neutral, no longer as an enemy or combatant, and as a neutral he shall be mercifully treated regardless of nationality- whether he falls into the hands of his friends or foes. In other words, when he falls by wounds or sickness he has no foes. The history of warfare as far back as history goes has always told of the insufficiency of the military medical service and the consequent dreadful suffering of the poor maimed and mutilated beings who have lain where the shot and shell and clash of arms left them, often for days and days, thirsting, broiling in the midday sun, shivering in the chilly blasts or soaking rain, moaning and calling for the relief that did not come even in death. If the sum of all such agonies that have existed since human wars began could reach the comprehension of all men I think we would have no more wars ; but alas, few save the few suffering wretches realize the pain. About thirty-six years ago, Monsieur Henri Dunnaut, a tender hearted and benevolent gentleman, witnessed for several days such needless suffering as I have described. It was at the battle of Solferino, Italy, when three hundred thousand soldiers fought over a line, five leagues in length, and passed on, leaving thousands of their dead and wounded with the customary scanty medical service provided by the armies. He brought the matter before a society of benevolent Swiss gentlemen, of which he was also a member-the Society of Public Utility, of Switzerland. The co-operation of the Swiss Government was secured, and in October, 1863 a conference of nations was assembled at Geneva , to discuss the subject. The German States, France, Great Britain, Austria, Russia, Belgium, Italy, the United States, and other great nations, were there represented. The session was of long duration, fundamental rules were agreed to, and on the 8th of August, of the following year ('64) another formal convention assembled and accomplished the formation of the treaty. A distinctive flag and arm badge must be agreed upon, by which the hospitals and medical persons of every army of the treaty nations, and of the persons, hospitals, materials, etc., of the civil societies of each nation should be known and protected. Out of compliment to the little Swiss republic, whose officers had been instrumental in securing the treaty her national flag with the colors reversed was chosen as the symbol or sign to mark the workers under the treaty. A Greek red cross on a white field was the reversal of the Swiss white Greek cross on a red field, and thus the treaty and everything that pertains to it, became known as the Red Cross. There is probably today no emblem so From the 1864 until 1870 the Untied States had been appealed to in vain, to accept the Geneva treaty. For some supposed objection, it had been declined. Whether fortunately or not, I do not know, but I happened to be in Switzerland in the early season of 1870. The Franco- Prussian war broke upon the peaceful silence like a tornado. I had never heard of the Red Cross, nor did I know any member of the Geneva International Committee until I reached Switzerland late in 1869, but they knew of me, possibly through my humble services during and after our own war of the rebellion. They came to me at once upon my arrival and explained the Red Cross to me. and in 1870 they invited me to join them and work with the Red Cross amid the terrible scenes they saw before them. I went to Switzerland for the rest that nine years of exciting labors had made necessary. However, I joined them, but I must not prolong this letter by reciting the noble work of the Red Cross at Haguenau, Strasbourg, Metz and Paris. After the guns were silenced, the dead were buried, and the wounded and sick were healed, I returned to my own country under solemn promise to re-urge upon my government its favorable consideration of the treaty. After long years of discouraging labors are past, a beneficent provision of nature enables one to forget the disheartening disappointments, and so I have nothing to record until the success that crowned my efforts, through the warm recognition of the treaty by the Garfield administration. If good deeds are recorded in the unknown somewhere, then I must believe that there is one bright entry against the names of Garfield, Blaine, Windom and Arthur-all now passed to the unknown themselves. The treaty was proclaimed to our people in 1882. I have digressed, as I do upon every possible occasion, to render unto the Garfield administration the deeds that are theirs. In forming my association-the American National Red Cross-I recognized the far greater or more frequent needs of organized national relief in the great calamities caused by the elements, by disease, and by the many catastrophes that befall us. We organized with that addition to the original purposes, and asked permission of the other nations. Our request was granted and it was denominated the "American Amendment." It has since been adopted by some of the other nations. Your readers are doubtless familiar with our work on peaceful fields during the fourteen years of our existence, and I will simply enumerate the occasions on which we have distributed the relief in money, clothing, shelter, food, tools, seeds and animals that has been so bountifully donated by the generous public and sent to us for the purpose. The list is as follows : Michigan forest fires, 1881; Mississippi river floods, 1882; Mississippi river floods, 1883; Ohio and Mississippi flood, 1884; Texas famine, 1885; Mt. Vernon (Ill.) cyclone, 1887; Florida yellow fever epidemic, 1888; Johnstown (Pa.) flood, 1889; Russian famine, 1891-2; Pemeroy (Iowa) cyclone, 1893; Carolina sea islands tidal wave, 1893. Many months were consumed in this relief work in each case, and the value of actual distributions in money and material alone aggregates more than one million dollars. Our practice is not simply to shelter, clothe and feed the distressed people that have been overtaken by their misfortunes, but also to aid them in reorganizing their devastated means of support ; to instruct and in all ways within our power to reinstate them as nearly as possible in their former prosperous conditions. We do not act except in cases that are beyond the local means of relief, nor until the call comes and we are satisfied that our services are needed. The Red Cross has no auxiliary societies in this country. In the earlier years we recognized some few such organizations, but there being no law nor power in our hands to regulate or confine the work to proper uses, the danger of a tendency to drift into improper courses admonished us of the unwisdom of further recognition under existing circumstances. We have our faithful and unpretending workers throughout the land who, in time of need, give of their wordly goods and their time as a duty they owe to themselves and their fellow-beings, and they do it with modesty, without ostentation- satisfied with a duty well and conscientiously performed. They are actuated by such motives as those which inspire you and your associates in the good cause you have undertaken. May success attend you. Your blessings will come from those whose benefactors you have been. Sincerely yours, Clara Barton President American National Red Cross. about the red Cross, which means the assuaging of human suffering among the wounded, sick and dying wherever war is waged upon the earth. You will understand by that that the honor has fallen to me to be the humble advocate and representative of but one unit or star in the galaxy of nations which have espoused the great humanitarian cause. In about forty countries there exists a National Red Cross Committee of Society, all working and maintaining their organization that they may be prepared and in readiness to act upon the first alarm of dreaded war. These societies exist by virtue and under the authority of a solemn international treaty entered into by the forty governments of the Red Cross nations. This treaty stipulates that in time of war any soldier who becomes sick or wounded shall be regarded as a neutral, no longer as an enemy or combatant, and as a neutral, he shall be mercifully treated regardless of nationality— whether he falls into the hands of his friends or foes. In other words, when he falls by wounds or sickness he has no foes. The history of warfare as far back as history goes has always told of the insufficiency of the military medical service and the consequent dreadful suffering of the poor maimed and mutilated beings who have lain where the shot and shell and clash of arms left them, often for days and days, thirsting, broiling in the midday sun, shivering in the chilly blasts or soaking rain, moaning and calling for the relief that did not come even in death. If the sum of all such agonies that have existed since human wars began could reach the comprehension of all men I think we would have no more wars; but alas, few save the few suffering wretches realize the pain. About thirty-six years ago, Monsieur Henri Dunnaut, a tender hearted and benevolent gentleman, witnessed for several days such needless suffering as I have described. It was at the battle of Solferino, Italy, when three hundred thousand soldiers fought over a line, five leagues in length, and passed on, leaving thousands of their dead and wounded with the customary scanty medical service provided by the armies. He brought the matter before a society of benevolent Swiss gentlemen, of which he was also a member — the Society of Public Utility, of Switzerland. The co-operation of the Swiss Government was secured, and in October 1863, a conference of nations was assembled at Geneva, to discuss the subject. The German States, France, Great Britain Austria, Russia, Belgium, Italy, The United States, and other great nations, were there represented. The session was of long duration, fundamental rules were agreed to, and on the 8th of August, of the following year ('64) another formal convention assembled and accomplished the formation of the treaty. A distinctive flag and arm badge must be agreed upon, by which the hospitals and medical persons of every army of the treaty nations, and of the persons, hospitals, materials, etc., of the civil societies of each nation should be known and protected. Out of compliment to the little Swiss republic, whose officers had been instrumental in securing the treaty her national flag with the colors reversed was chosen as the symbol or sign to mark the workers under the treaty. A Greek red cross on a white field was the reversal of the Swiss white Greek cross on a red field, and thus the treaty and everything that pertains to it, became known as the Red Cross. There is probably today no emblem so universally known and revered. It marks no creed. It knows no nation. It has no territorial bounds. The world is its country; to do good its religion. Christian, Pagan, civilized and semi-civilized, keep their hands off, sheath their swords, and lower their guns, wherever that little banner floats. Perhaps I ought to tell you how I came to be identified with this work, although the story has often been told by others, but may not be known to all of your readers. Garfield administration the deeds that are theirs. In forming my association—the American National Red Cross—I recognized the far greater or more frequent needs of organized national relief in the great calamities caused by the many catastrophes that befall us. We organized with that addition to the original purposes, and asked permission of the other nations. Our request was granted and it was denominated the "American Amendment." It has since been adopted by some of the other nations. Your readers are doubtless familiar with our peaceful fields during the fourteen years of our existence, and I will simply enumerate the occasions on which we have distributed the relief in money, clothing, shelter, food, tools, seeds and animals that has been so bountifully donated by the generous public and sent to us for the purpose. The list is as follows: Michigan forest fires, 1881; Mississippi river floods, 1882; Mississippi river floods, 1883; Ohio and Mississippi flood, 1884; Texas famine, 1885; Mt.Vernon (Ill.) cyclone, 1887; Florida yellow fever epidemic, 1888; Johnstown (Pa.) flood, 1889; Russian famine, 1891-2; Pemeroy (Iowa) cyclone, 1893; Carolina sea islands tidal wave, 1893. Many months were consumed in this relief work in each case, and the value of actual distributions in money and material alone aggregates more than one million dollars. Our practice is not simply to shelter, clothe and feed the distressed people that have been overtaken by their misfortunes, but also to aid them in reorganizing their devastated means of support; to instruct and in all ways within our power to reinstate them as nearly as possible in their former prosperous conditions. We do not act except in cases that are beyond the local means of relief, nor until the call comes and we are satisfied that our services are needed. The Red Cross has no auxiliary societies in this country. In the earlier years we recognized some few such organizations, but there being no law nor power in our hands to regulate or confine the work to proper uses, the danger of a tendency to drift into improper courses admonished us of the unwisdom of further recognition under existing circumstances. We have our faithful and unpretending workers throughout the land who, in time of need, give of their worldly goods and their time as a duty they owe to themselves and their fellow-beings, and they do it with modesty, without ostentation— satisfied with a duty well and conscientiously performed. They are actuated by such motives as those which inspire you and your associates in the good cause you have undertaken. May success attend you. Your blessings will come from those whose benefactors you have been. Sincerely yours, Clara Barton President American National Red Cross How the Red Cross came to the United States, and What it Has Done. How the Red Cross came to the United States and What Its Has Done. The Red Cross is an international organization, the result of a treaty framed by a congress known as the "International Convention of Geneva" (Switzerland), held in that city in 1864. Its object is the relief of the wounded and sick of armies at the field, by holding all such persons and all supplies, hospitals and attendants for their use neutral, doing away, so far as possible, with the needless severities and restraints of military regulations and giving to the people in civil life, under proper restrictions, the privilege hitherto unknown in the world, of reaching, supplying and nursing the sick and wounded within military lines. In the pages of history, from the Old Testament down, through all the wars and bloodshed recorded, there appears no provision for the sick or wounded soldier. If we except the labors of a few hospitaller Knights of the crusades, the war of the Crimea in 1854 brings a solitary record; Florence Nightingale trod a pathless field. Her labors filled the world with gratitude and covered England with glory. Still, strange as it may seem, the world was satisfied with admiring, and learned no real lesson; no organized provision against the needs of future wars was made. Our own great civil war, which followed in 1861, found us not only without a hospital, or nurse for our disabled soldiers, but even suitable food for our well men. But two years previous to this, in 1859, the wars of Northern Italy, Solferino and Magenta had taken place; and an incident occurred there destined to wake the world from its dream of satisfied admiration, teach it the value of provisional activity and set it at work. It had been the desire and intention of Napoleon III. to provide the fields as no battlefields had ever been provided. He invited reporters, and carried the telegraph on to them. All that could be done consistent with the dignity of war and the iron rule of the military, unbroken for ages, was designed to be done, and yet a day realized its failure. The thunder of guns at Solferino drew the attention of Mr. Henri Dumant, a Swiss gentleman journeying at leisure in his carriage. He went to the field, gained admission to the wounded and the privilege to work among them. The scenes he met there were so horrible, the suffering so terrible through lack of medical help and supplies-- not one surgeon to fifty men; no suitable food; lacking all that suffering, dying men might need-- that months after it was difficult for him to relate the conditions. He did do so, however, and wrote a volume, "Souvenir de Solferino," which was taken up with avidity and soon published in most of the leading languages of Europe. In the progress of humanity the world had grown ripe for it. The book proved a sensation and so far encouraged Mr. Dumant in his one great idea that he asked if it might not be presented at the next yearly conference of the Society of Public Utility to be held in Geneva in October, 1863. This request was granted, and his proposition formed the main discussion of the conference of several days. He desired to know if it would not be possible for the great war-making powers of the world to be brought to consider the needless suffering inflicted on the faithful soldiers of their armies, and to agree to enter into some legal compact for their relief, some arrangement by which all wounded, sick or disabled men should be held neutral-- be no longer regarded as soldiers, but as suffering men. "They could no longer harm any one," he said, "why treat them as foes" and prisoners-- "why needlessly add to the suffering they must endure?" And, inasmuch as no army in action could ever take suitable care of its wounded, why not provide some way by which civilians could reach, provide and care for them? These reasonable and human ideas so far gained favor as to result in the calling of a convention for the following year-- 1864 -- to be composed of delegates commissioned from the head or ruler of every government in the world, to discuss the proposition of Mr. Dumant. They met August 8th, by request of the Supreme Council of Switzerland, sat nearly two weeks, created and agreed upon the ten articles known as the "Treaty of Geneva," or more familiarly the "Treaty of the Red Cross." These articles were taken respectively by the delegates to their governments, and each country that signed the compact within four months was considered as having signed at the convention. At the end of the four months, twelve of the leading nations of Europe had acceded to the treaty. The people of these countries commenced at once, each country forming its central or national committee. Seven of the leading gentlemen of Geneva who had called and held the convention were appointed as the international head of the organization. The President of the convention, M. Gustav Moynier, was made President of the International Committee and fills the same position to-day after thirty-six years of high and faithful service. It will be borne in mind that all this was enacted during the two most severe and dubious years of our civil war, and although invited to send delegates to the convention the invitation was most naturally declined by our honored Secretary of State, Wm. H. Seward, on the grounds of being ourselves in war, with no time to attend to other duties. Still, two delegates were self-appointed from Paris and did represent America in the convention, but nothing further was heard of it. In 1868, during the Paris exposition, Rev. Dr. Henry W. Bellows, the great head of Sanitary Commission, had been consulted in Paris. He recognized the benefits of the movement, and promised to do all in his power to interest our government and our people in the subject. He was appointed representative from the convention in Paris to lay the matter before the American Government. The articles were presented by him, but declined. He, however, formed a society, but lacking the treaty and the privileges and powers conferred by it, his effort withered away, and died like a sapling without a root. In 1869 Miss Barton visited Geneva, Switzerland, and was waited upon by the International Red Cross Committee, who asked why America did not unite in the treaty. She frankly said she had never heard of it, but promised, as requested, to study the subject and bring it to the attention of the United States Government. Early in the administration of President Garfield the subject was brought to the attention of Mr. Blaine, Secretary of State. It was at once taken up by him and by Mr. Windom, Secretary of the Treasury, aided by Senators, Members and other persons of prominence, among whom were conspicuous, Senator Omer D. Conger, who remained a lifelong friend of the Red Cross; Senator Morgan of Alabama; Hon. E. G. Lapham, of New York; Judge Edmunds, of Vermont; Hon. Wm. Lawrence, Comptroller of the Treasury, who later became first Vice-president of the Association; General R. D. Mussey, who became its first counsellor and so remained during his lifetime, and others. At the instance of President Garfield, it was decided to reorganize and enlarge the society of 1877 as an aid to the getting of the treaty by the Government. A meeting was called and the presidency of the new society, which then took the name of an association, was tendered to President Garfield, who, with thanks, declined in favor of Miss Barton, sending his nomination formally into the meeting through its honored Vice-President, Judge Lawrence. President Garfield had designed to lay the matter before Congress in his first annual message, but the first message never came, and it remained for President Arthur to grandly carry out the design of his lamented chief. During the interregnum between the retiring administration of the martyr President and the advent of Mr. Arthur's administration, Red Cross matters hung, momentarily, in the balance and the suspense was intense and uncomfortable. It was at this juncture that the late Sevallon A. Brown, then Chief Clerk of the State Department, stepped blandly forward and completely filled the breach by writing for Secretary Frelinghuysen's consideration the paragraph which that sterling-hearted Cabinet Minister passed on to President Arthur, and which was incorporated in that memorable document, the latter's first annual message to Congress. How its presence there led to the ratification of the Geneva Treaty, by the Senate, is a circumstance with which all the world is now familiar. There were still lingering delays in the Senate, the subject was new and strange, it's language foreign, but the Red Cross became a law of the land by signature of President Arthur, and on the 26th day of July the treaty was proclaimed by President Arthur to the people of the United States. The basis of the treaty was neutrality. It made neutral all sick, wounded or disabled soldiers at a field; all persons as surgeons, nurses and attendants who cared for them, all supplies of medicine or food for their use, all field and military hospitals with their equipments, all gifts from neutral nations for the use of the sick and wounded of any army, all houses near a battlefield that would receive and nurse wounded men, all persons properly identified as surgeons, stewards, chaplains, nurses found on a field attending to the wounded. None of these should be subject to capture. It provided for the sending of badly wounded soldiers to their homes rather than to prison; that friend and foe should be nursed together and alike in all military hospitals, and most of all, that the people who had heretofore been forcibly restrained from approaching any field of action for purposes of relief, however needed (with the single exception of our Sanitary Commission, and that under great difficulties and often under protest), should not only be allowed this privilege, but should prepare and equip themselves with relief supplies of all kinds, with the right to enter the line for the helpless, thus relieving not alone the wounded and dying but the armies for their care. For the proper distinction of such persons, for their safety and for the security of the armies as well, a universal sign was designated. A Greek red cross on a white field was for this purpose, in honor of Switzerland, the country which gave birth to the treaty, its flag being a white Greek cross on a red field, the colors were by her permission reversed and became the insignia adopted for the treaty with no reference to any other cross or sign This insignia would hereafter become the military hospital flag of all nations within the treaty, be worn by all persons at a field serving under it, would mark all hospitals and all supplies for their use; whatever bore this sign should be regarded as sacred to humanity and free from capture by the military of either army; any departure from this constituting a treaty infringement and to be so regarded. The badge for field service is a band (or brassard meaning band) worn on the arm. The wounded soldier on a captured field held by the enemy seeing this sign, may know his friend and safely call for help. The sign was received with great favor, and became so popular as to give its name to the treaty and to the entire movement. IT HAS BECOME THE GREATEST HUMANITARIAN SIGN AND NAME IN THE KNOWN WORLD. With the variations of every language, to the soldier it means the same. No matter how far from home, how lone and desolate, he knows it for his own; the glazing eye can discern it and next to God or Allah it is his saviour, the Annie Laurie of the wounded soldier. It recognizes one head, the International Committee of Geneva. By and through this committee all communications to a country or a government are made. One national head in each country and only one, receives such communications and transmits them to its government. The ratifying power of the treaty is the Congress of Berne. The Central or National body, in each country receives from its government recognition and its high moral sanction, but is in no way supported or materially aided by it. THE RED CROSS MEANS, NOT NATIONAL HELP FOR THE NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE, BUT THE PEOPLE'S HELP FOR THE NEEDS OF THE NATION WHEN SUCH NEEDS BEFALL IT. IT IS THE PATRIOTISM OF A PEOPLE SUBSTANTIALLY DEMONSTRATED. In the year 1881 the American Red Cross Association requested the International to permit it to enter the treaty with the privilege of treating great natural disturbances and other national disasters when they should occur, on the same basis of relief for war ; thus by its readiness being able to reach the field at once with supplies and an experienced corps of workers. This request was officially and graciously considered and granted and is known as the "American Amendment." It was under this permission that all the work of the American Red Cross has been done until the outbreak of the Spanish war in 1898. Seventeen fields in nineteen years. It was the relief admin- istered at these fields that had constituted the Red Crosswork in this country until midsummer of 1819, and also a portion of 1899. Their history would require a volume, and cannot be given in this statement. The declaration of war with Spain found the National Red Cross at work under the civil code by request of our humane President, on the soul-sickening reconcentrado fields of starving Cuba. It not being deemed practical to withdraw from the active scenes of the war, the justly famed great relief committee of New York was formed in the aid of the national. It was in these days of wide spread need that the first appeals ever went out for contributions to the Red Cross, and it was under the call of this committee that the splendid auxiliaries were formed all over the country; thousands of persons, mainly women, engaging heart and soul in the work, to whom the Red Cross had ever before been a meaningless term. These enormous war supplies were called for by the committee in the name of The American National Red Cross; they were gathered by the auxiliaries, and sent to the armies in the field, to camp and hospital for the comfort of the sick and wounded soldiers who gratefully partook and came back into life, or who wearily thanked and died. When the Army and the Navy were called to the Orient, San Fransisco came to be the point of arrival and departure of troops and thus the center of Red Cross activities. The Red Cross Societies of the coast nobly responded; their heroic service is beyond calculation and is still conducted. In recognition of this history and knowledge of present need, the Congress of the United States last winter, by special act of incorporation established the Red Cross as the Emergency Arm of the Government and made it responsible to it for its work. Very Respectfully Yours, Clara Barton President American National Red Cross. [?] 1901 The American National Red Cross Auriliaries HOW THE RED CROSS CAME TO THE UNITED STATES AND WHAT IS HAS DONE. BY CLARA BARTON, President American National Red Cross. BY-LAWS For Auxiliaries of the AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS, Adopted by Board of Control, Aug. 11, 1900, at Washington City, D. C. How the Red Cross Came to the United States, and What It has Done. In conformity with the usages of corporate or co-operate bodies, The American National Red Cross is about to institute a system of auxiliary societies over the entire country, to act in conjunction with it in the various humanitarian and relief movements that fall to its share and to its care. A code of by-laws suitable for the government of such a body has been drawn up with great care, combining the largest liberty with the most exact justice to all parties that its measure of wisdom could devise. A copy of these by-laws has been courteously passed to me for consideration. While giving to them my fullest approval for the early stages of an untried organism, the committee still further requests that I preface these by-laws by a brief history of the Red Cross itself-what it is, and what it is not-when and how it originated-how it came to this country-how we are connected with it-its uses- its methods and work. Believing as they do that these explanations will be not only of interest to the parties about to form, but necessary for the intelligent conduct of the work to be undertaken, I yield to their request and repeat for 4 the thousandth time, it seems to me, the story of the Red Cross. If the narration savor of egotism, I beg the reader to kindly consider that I have been, perforce, so intimately connected with the subject that I can scarcely present it truthfully without a sacrifice of good taste in that direction. First, then, What the Red Cross is not. It is not an "order," and should never be spoken of as such, possessing none of the characteristics of such a body. Neither should the entire Red Cross be termed a society, combining as it does the central or national societies of some forty nations of the world. There are at present remaining outside of the treaty compact only China and Mexico. The entire Red Cross is international and properly named an organization. The Red Cross of any one country is national, and may be appropriately termed a national society or association, but is in itself not international. Thus we should never speak of the international society of the Red Cross of America, or of England, or of France. They are international only by affiliation with the international body at Geneva, in whom by common consent of all nations the treaty powers are vested. It is in no way a secret organization. Properly speaking, the Red Cross is an international organization, the result of a treaty framed by a congress known as the "International Convention of Geneva" (Switzerland), held in that city in 1864. Its object is the relief of the wounded and sick of armies at the field, by holding all such persons and all supplies, hospitals and attendants for their 5 use neutral, doing away, so far as possible, with the needless severities and restraints of military regulations and giving to the people in civil life under proper restrictions the privilege hitherto unknown in the world of reaching, supplying and nursing the sick and wounded within military lines. In the pages of history, from the Old Testament down, through all the wars and bloodshed recorded, there appears no provision for the sick or wounded soldier. If we except the labors of a few hospitaller Knights of the crusades, the war of the Crimes in 1854 brings a solitary record ; Florence Nightingale trod a pathless field. Her labors filled the world with gratitude and covered England with glory. Still, strange as it may seem, the world was satisfied with admiring, and learned no real lesson ; no organized provision against the needs of future wars was made. Our own great civil war, which followed in 1861, found us not only without a hospital, or nurse for our disabled soldiers, but even suitable food for our well men. But two years previous to this, in 1859, the wars of Northern Italy, Solferino and Magenta had taken place ; and an incident occurred there destined to wake the world from its dream of satisfied admiration, teach it the value of provisional activity and set it at work. It had been the desire and intention of Napoleon III to provide these fields as no battlefields had ever been provided. He invited reporters, and carried the telegraph on to them. All that could be done consistent with the dignity of war and the 6 iron rule of the military, unbroken for ages, was designed to be done, and yet a day realized its failure. The thunder of the guns of Solferino drew the attention of Mr. Henri Dumant, a Swiss gentleman journeying at leisure in his carriage. He went to the field, gained admission to the wounded and the privilege to work among them. The scenes he met there were so horrible, the suffering so terrible through lack of medical help and supplies-not one surgeon to fifty men-no suitable food-lacking all that suffering, dying men might need-that months after it was difficult for him to relate the conditions. He did do so, however, and wrote a volume, "Souvenir de Solferino," which was taken up with avidity and soon published in most of the leading languages of Europe. In the progress of humanity the world had grown ripe for it. The book proved a sensation and so far encouraged Mr. Dumant in his one great idea that he asked if it might not be presented at the next yearling conference of the Society of Public Utility to be held in Geneva in October, 1863. This request was granted, and his proposition formed the main discussion of the conference of several days. He desired to know if it would not be possible for the great war-making powers of the world to be brought to consider the needless suffering inflicted on the faithful soldiers of their armies, and to agree to enter into some legal compact for their relief, some arrangement by which all wounded, sick or disabled men should be held neutral-be no longer regarded as soldiers, but as suffering men. "They 7 could no longer harm any one," he said, "why treat them as foes" and prisoners-"why needlessly add to the suffering they must endure?" And, inasmuch as no army in action could ever take suitable care of its wounded, why not provide some way by which civilians could reach, provide and care for them ? These reasonable and humane ideas so far gained favor as to result in the calling of a convention for the following year-1864-to be composed of delegates commissioned from the head or ruler of every government in the world, to discuss the proposition of Mr. Dumant. They met August 8th, by request of the Supreme Council of Switzerland, sat nearly two weeks, created and agreed upon the ten articles known as the "Treaty of Geneva," or more familiarly the "Treaty of the Red Cross." These articles were taken respectively by the delegates to their governments, and each country that signed the compact within four months was considered as having signed at the convention. At the end of the four months, twelve of the leading nations of Europe had acceded to the treaty. The people of these countries commenced at once, each country forming its central or national committee. Seven of the leading gentleman of Geneva who had called and held the convention were appointed as the international head of the organization. The President of the convention, M. Gustave Moynier, was made President of the International Committee and fills the same position to-day after thirty-six years of high and faithful service. 8 It will be borne in mind that all this was enacted during the two most severe and dubious years of our civil war, and although invited to send delegates to the convention the invitation was most naturally declined by our honored Secretary of State, Wm. H. Seward, on the ground of being ourselves in war with no time to attend to other duties. Still, two delegates were self-appointed from Paris and did represent America in the convention, but nothing further was heard of it. Our own great commissions of the civil war, the Sanitary and Christian, rose, and in the face of an astonished world, performed a work of army relief never before known in the annals of history, but which fell with the close of the war, forming no lasting organization, preserving nothing of all the thousands in hand for future use, and settled the question once for all, that we should never have any more war in America. To me, who had witnessed such dire need in the early days of the war, who had trailed in blood and want from Bull Run to Malvern Hill, and seen how lightly asperities arose, it was a source of regret that I could not heartily join in this hopeful view of unbroken peace, but looked on pityingly as the thousands vanished in air, and the valuable and abundant supplies found their way through the highest bidder to the inevitable junk shop. But even then I did not know that any better plan was being worked out in the world, and it was only in September, 1869, that worn out like another soldier and medically "ordered to the rear," which meant Europe for the invalid, that I found 9 myself in Geneva, face to face with the honorable body of the International Red Cross (Comite International De Secours Aux Militaires Blesses), who, learning of my arrival in the city, had come to ask of me why America did not unite with the treaty. There were now thirty two governments in full relation, and although sending all literature to our government, they failed to get any response. That in 1868, during the Paris exposition, Rev. Dr. Henry W. Bellows, the great head of the Sanitary Commission, had been consulted in Paris, that he recognized the benefits of the movement, and promised to do all in his power to interest our government and our people in the subject. That he was appointed representative from the convention in Paris to lay the matter before the American Government. The articles were again presented by him, and again declined. Still, he formed a society, but lacking the treaty and the privileges and powers conferred by it, his effort withered away, and died like a sapling without a root. Until brought to me in 1869 no more was heard of it. Indeed, I had never heard of it, and frankly so informed the honored committee, but assured them that doubtless their papers of years were all safe in our government archives, but that as they were all in foreign languages, it was probable that the American people had never heard of them. I was anxiously requested to study the subject, which I did diligently, with the promise to bring the matter before our Government and our people on my return. 10 The 15th of the following July brought the declaration of war between France and Germany, and on the 18th I was waited upon at my villa in Berne by a portion of the International Committee of Geneva, led by M. le Docteur Louis Appia, on its way to the front, with the request that I join them and see for myself the Red Cross in action at a field. I did so, following up the valley of the Rhine through Strasburg and crossing over to the Alsatian battlefield, helped to gather up the the first wounded of that war at Hagenau: following on through the various battles and sieges till the Commune in Paris, and for months after relieving that shattered and distressed people of both countries. I had learned the use of the Red Cross. I had learned to love, and respect it―to realize what misery and what lives it would have saved in our own civil war if we had had it, and day by day, I pledged myself anew to its service in my own country if I could ever see it introduced there, and I promised the societies and the sovereigns of other nations to use every endeavor to bring it to the knowledge and the attention of the American government and the American people. I had very little strength left by that time, less even than I carried, and it was three years before I returned, and then to years of helplessness and uselessness here. I forgot many things in that dark era, but I remembered my promise, and in 1877, armed with a letter from the International Committee, I laid the matter before President Hayes. It was respectfully received and referred. 11 The old declinations stood in the way and there was no hope of that administration. Still we formed a little committee of four persons―three ladies and one gentleman―styling it the American Committee or Society of the Red Cross, for the relief of suffering by war, etc. In the following year, 1878, a pamphlet of a few pages entitled "The Red Cross of the Geneva Convention" was issued. Our small society devoted itself to the dissemination of knowledge, both written and oral, making every effort toward the gaining of the treaty, but it was not until nearly four years later, with the incoming of the administration of President Garfield, that any favorable response was made to the continued and persistent rappings of humanity through the seventeen faithful years. Early in that administration the subject was brought to the attention of Mr. Blaine, Secretary of State. It was at once taken up by him and by Mr. Windom, Secretary of the Treasury, aided by Senators, Members and other persons of prominence, among whom were conspicuous, Senator Omer D. Conger, who remained a lifelong friend of the Red Cross; Senator Morgan of Alabama, Hon. E. G. Lapham of New York; Judge Edmunds of Vermont; Hon. Wm. Lawrence, Comptroller of the Treasury, who later became first Vice-President of the Association; General R. D. Mussey, who became its first counselor and so remained during his lifetime, and others. At the instance of President Garfield, it was decided to re-organize and enlarge the society of 1877 12 as an aid to the getting of the treaty by the Government. A meeting was called and the presidency of the new society, which then took the name of an association, was tendered to President Garfield, who, with thanks, declined in favor of one so unworthy as myself, sending his nomination formally into the meeting through its honored Vice-President, Judge Lawrence. This society organized with about thirty charter members. The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Mr. Walter P. Phillips, who has so recently occupied the same position in our late meeting under re-incorporation by the Government. President Garfield had designed to lay the matter before Congress in his first annual message; but the first message never came, and it remained for President Arthur to grandly carry out the design of his lamented chief. During the interregnum between the retiring administration of the martyr President and the advent of Mr. Arthur's administration, Red Cross matters hung, momentarily, in the balance and the suspense was intense and uncomfortable. It was at this juncture that the late Sevallon A. Brown, then Chief Clerk of the State Department, stepped blandly forward and completely filled the breach by writing for Secretary Frelinghuysen's consideration the paragraph which that sterling-hearted Cabinet Minister passed on to President Arthur, and which was incorporated in that memorable document, the latter's first annual message to Congress. How its presence there led to the ratification of the Geneva Treaty, by the 13 Senate, is a circumstance with which all the world is now familiar. Despite all this, there was still lingering delays in the Senate, the subject was new and strange, its language foreign. At length, to get over these difficulties, I was asked to meet with and to explain the subject to the committee on Foreign Relations. Myself, counsel and other members met with this committee, every member present, explained the subject thoroughly, and the following day, but one, the Red Cross became a law of the land by signature of President Arthur. The news was cabled to the anxiously waiting International Committee of Geneva, telegraphic notice given by it to the principal Red Cross societies of other nations, and illuminations were held in honor of the advent of the "far-away sister Red Cross over the seas." So much for the interest of the humane world at large in the mere birth of an association, with nothing yet accomplished, which now stands before the people, with full governmental recognition, and the record of nineteen years of successful work behind it. The national society having been previously formed, its constitution adopted, its officers elected and its work commenced, there remained only the formal enactments of the treaty to adjust. All requirements were duly complied with by the national association, all documents were officially forwarded through the State Department, our constitution considered at Geneva, forwarded to Berne, considered there, passed and ratified; and on the 26th day of July the treaty was proclaimed by 14 President Arthur to the people of the United States. The basis of this treaty was neutrality. It made neutral all sick, wounded or disabled soldiers at a field; all persons as surgeons, nurses and attendants who cared for them, all supplies of medicine or food for their use, all field and military hospitals with their equipments, all gifts from neutral nations for the use of the sick and wounded of any army, all houses near a battlefield that would receive and nurse wounded men, stewards, chaplains, nurses found on a field attending to the wounded. None of these should be subject to capture. It provides for the sending of badly wounded soldiers to their homes rather than to prison; that friend and foe should be nursed together and alike in all military hospitals, and most of all, that the people who had heretofore been forcibly restrained from approaching any field of action for the purposes of relief, however needed (with the single exception of our Sanitary Commission, and that under great difficulties and often under protest), should not only be allowed this privilege, but should prepare and equip themselves with relief supplies of all kinds, with the right to enter the line for the helpless, thus relieving not alone the wounded and dying but the armies of their care. For the proper distinction of such persons, for their safety and for the security of the armies as well, a universal sign was designated. A Greek red cross on a white field was selected for this purpose, in honor of Switzerland, the country which 15 gave birth to the treaty, its flag being a white Greek cross on a red field, the colors were by her permission reversed and became the insignia adoped for the treaty with no reference to any other cross or sign. This insignia would hereafter become the military hospital flag of all nations within the treaty, be worn by all persons at a field serving under it, would mark all hospitals and all supplies for their use; whatever bore this sign should be regarded as sacred to humanity and free from capture by the military of either army; any departure from this constituting a treaty infringement and to be so regarded. The badge for field service is a band (or brassard meaning band) worn on the arm. The wounded soldier on a captured field held by the enemy seeing this sign may know his friend and safely call for help. The sign was received with great favor, and became so popular as to give its name to the treaty and to the entire movement. It has become the greatest humanitarian sign and name in the known world. With the variations of every language, to the soldier it means the same. No matter how far from home, how lone and desolate, he knows it for his own; the glazing eye can discern it, and next to God or Allah it is his saviour, the Annie Laurie of the wounded soldier. Collecting these fragmentary writings a few words will give the formula of this compact. It recognizes one head, the International Committee of Geneva. By and through this committee all communications to a country or a government are made. One national head in each country and 16 only one, receives such communications and transmits them to its government. The ratifying power of the treaty is the Congress of Berne. The Central or National body in each country receives from its government recognition and its high moral sanction, but is in no way supported or materially aided by it. The Red Cross means, not national help for the needs of the people, but the people's help for the needs of the nation when such needs befall it. It is the patriotism of a people substantially demonstrated. It had been the design of the conference of 1863 and was so recommended by it, that this national aid should be provided by the people through auxiliary societies in each country, which would become contributory to the central or national body. This system was early commenced with us; but unfortunately it was soon found that the popularity and attractiveness of the insignia and name offered inducements to enterprising persons and to associated bodies of persons to adopt and use them for their own benefit. This not only lost these contributions to the real Red Cross to which they were made—the body actualty performing the work at the fields of relief—but practiced an unjust deception upon the charitable public, which deception must be guarded against. There were two methods open to us, and we adopted both; the one to form no more auxiliaries, ourselves and to let it be known that we had no auxiliaries, that all that all contributions must come direct to the national body and that body never solicited. Therefore no solicitation from the Red Cross could be genuine. The 17 second method was to ask Congress to pass a law for protection of the name and insignia, making it an offense for any but the body to which it had been consigned to use it. The first bill was introduced by Senator Sherman nearly thirteen years ago. Since that date there has been no Congress without a similar bill praying governmental recognition and protection of the name and insignia of the Red Cross. As these were by treaty the property of the government, the bills only asked it to protect its own, and to guard the charitable portion of its people from imposition. In the very best sense of the term, our Congress may be termed a "busybody," and we doubtless merit all the congratulations which we are receiving on every hand, that even by twelve years of waiting and working our bills have at length passed; that our President has signed them, and graciously passed the signatory pen to the keeping of the American Red Cross forever. Meanwhile the national body has not been idle. Foreseeing the small likelihood we had at that time of wars in America, and perhaps presuming a little upon the personal acquaintance and friendship of the foreign committees, the courage was taken of accompanying our first constitution of 1881 by a formal request, never before made of the framers of the treaty. The nature of the request was this, that American, being so remote from the great war centres and so wide in latitudinal extent, thus peculiarly subject to elemental changes, might be permitted to enter the treaty with the privilege of treating these great natural disturbances and 18 other national disasters when they should occur, on the same basis of relief for war; thus by its readiness being able to reach the field at once with supplies and an experienced corps of workers. This request was officially and graciously considered and granted and is known as the "American amendment." It was under this permission that all the work of the American Red Cross had been done until the outbreak of the Spanish war in 1898. Seventeen fields in nineteen years. It is the relief administered at these fields that has constituted the Red Cross work in this country until midsummer of 1898, and also a portion of 1899. Their history would require a volume, and the more important can only be touched upon in this paper. I name the forest fires of Michigan as having been undertaken almost before the completion of our society in 1881; a year before the treaty. Our first three Auxiliaries were formed to work in this relief. Dansville, Rochester and Syracuse in New York. The amount of relief sent in money and material to this field was estimated at $80,000. Next followed the three successive hard years of floods of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. First, the Mississippi in the spring of 1882, to which we sent only an inspector with relief................................................................ $8,000. Mississippi flood of 1883—Material, and especially seeds to replant the denuded ground..................................................................... 18,500. Mississippi cyclone, 1883....................................... 1,500. 19. Ohio and Mississippi flood of 1884, where we chartered our first boats, and besides the people, fed the starving stock down the Mississippi, thus saving the animals for the crops when the waters should subside. In this relief the cities of Chicago and St. Louis took most generous and important parts while the whole country manifested an active interest. Scores of little houses along the Ohio were put up and furnished and the farmers supplied with tools for work where all had been swept away. We were four months on our boats. The estimate of relief, largely materials was.................................................................................. 175,000. Texas famine 1887. Appropriations made upon our statement and contributions made on personal investigation of the conditions, valued at................................................ 120,000. Mt. Vernon cyclone, 1888. In money and supplies.......................................................................... 85,000. Yellow fever. Florida, 1888. Physicians and nurses.................................................................... 15,000. Johnstown disaster, 1889. Money and all kinds of material, buildings, furnishings, from 150-foot house to a paper of pins—a working force of 50 people during six months...................................................... 250,000. Russian famine, 1891, 1892. Mainly food. It was in this relief that the Red Cross sent the Tynehead laden entirely with corn from the State of Iowa; 307 car loads distributed personal in Russia by Dr. J. B. Hubbell, General Field Agent. The expedition was a great success from a humanitarian point of view. Relief estimated................................................ 125,000. Pomeroy, Iowa, cyclone, 1893. Money and nurses....................................................................... 2,700. 20 South Carolina Island, tidal-wave, 1893, which lost over 400 lives and left 30,000 persons homeless and destitute. 10 months labor, distribution of all kinds of relief, money, food, supplies, clothing, materials, tools, seeds, lumber, estimate.............................................................................................. 65,000. Armenian massacres, 1896. Money sent through committee of Mr. Spencer Trask of New York entirely receipted for by the Board of Foreign Missions at Constantinople.............................................................................. 116,000. Cuban relief money and material for reconcentrados relief.................................................................................................. 321,619. New York Red Cross Committee in money and materials in Spanish war..................................... 420,344. ————— $1,803,663 The declaration of war with Spain found the National Red Cross at work under the civil code by request of our humane President, on the soul-sickening reconcentrado fields of starving Cuba. It not being deemed practical to withdraw from the active scenes of the war, the justly famed great relief of New York was formed in aid of the national. It was in these days of widespread need that the first appeals ever went out for contributions to the Red Cross, and it was under the call of this committee that the splendid auxiliaries were formed all over the country; thousands of persons, mainly women, engaging heart and soul in the work, to whom the Red Cross had ever before been a meaningless term. These enormous war supplies were called for by the committee in the name of The American National Red Cross; they were gathered by the 21 auxiliaries, and sent to the armies in the field, to camp and hospital for the comfort of the sick and wounded soldiers who gratefully partook and came back into life, or wearily thanked and died. These wonderful auxiliaries were in the height of prosperity at the dawn of peace. They had been formed to work with the great relief committees, to whom they reported. The committees were formed for the war. Busy business men, they naturally laid down their burden when no longer urgently needed. The protection bills of the National Red Cross were still with Congress, awaiting action. It could make no honorable tender to auxiliaries which it could not protect. Thus they have drifted valuable and honored as they were; the majority probably out of legal existence; but the lessons have been learned; they know how to form and work; to them the Red Cross is no longer an empty name; the memory of their services under it is their treasured jewel -- their pearl of great price. The above statement will suffice to explain to all, the major inability of the National Red Cross to either form new auxiliaries, or to invite those already formed, while it had no power to protect them, or even to protect itself against fraud and double dealing. It could only look on pityingly and see dissolved one by one that glorious galaxy of efficient patriotic American men and women for whom it had always longed. From time to time we have issued a circular suggesting to them to wait the moving of the waters. This time we say to them that the waiting is over. The clouds are past, and with 22 the bow of promise in the future the National holds out a welcoming hand to the auxiliaries of the war who stand with their imperishable records of honor in their hands and a wreath of bay upon their brows. In these days of gathering darkness the fields grow apace and the sickles wait. Very Respectfully Yours, Clara Barton. President American National Red Cross. 23 By-Laws for Auxiliaries OF THE American National Red Cross. ARTICLE 1 -- Object. SECTION 1. The object of this association is to collect funds and material for use in calamities by war, famine, flood, fire and other causes so serious as to be regarded national in extent by the American National Red Cross. SEC. 2. Material and funds thus collected shall be held in trust for the American National Red Cross and subject at all times to the order of the President and Secretary of the American National Red Cross. Provided however, that if national disaster shall be adjacent to the location of the Auxiliary, it may, having first notified the National, take up the work of provisional temporary relief until such time as the officers of the American National Red Cross may assume direction. A failure to give such notice will be regarded as cause of forfeiture of the charter of the Auxiliary. SEC. 3. A further object of the association is to disseminate information concerning the world's great disasters and to show how suffering may be alleviated by emergency aid, by medical and surgical skill, by hospital service, by nursing attend- 24 ance, by sheltering the homeless, by cultivating the soil, by establishing industries, and in other economic ways acknowledging and strengthening the universal human tie. ARTICLE II — Membership Any person subscribing to these By-Laws, and by paying a membership fee of not less than $2.00, and paying annually to the Treasurer of the Association a sum not less than $1.00, may become a member of this Auxiliary Association, provided he shall have been proposed and approved as hereinafter provided. Each member of the Auxiliary may be furnished by the Secretary with the Red Cross Insignia to wear as a badge upon payment of $.50, but if his membership lapses the right to wear the insignia ceases, and the badge must be returned to the Secretary. ARTICLE III — Officers The officers of this association shall be a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary and a Treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot from the membership of the Auxiliary for the term of one year. ARTICLE IV — Board of Control The business and property of the Auxiliary shall be managed by a Board of Control, consisting of the President, the Vice-President, the Secretary, the Treasurer, and fiver persons chosen by ballot from the members of the Auxiliary to serve one year. At the first meeting of the auxiliary three persons shall be chosen for one year, three persons for 25 two years and three persons for three years; thereafter each member shall be chosen for one year; provided, however, all terms of membership and of officers shall be reckoned from — of October of each year, and members and officers shall serve until their successors are elected and qualified. ARTICLE V — Committees Two standing committees of three persons each shall be appointed by the President — viz.: A Committee on Finance and a Committee on Public Meetings and Literature. Other committees for special work may be appointed by the President at any time ARTICLE VI — Duties SECTION 1. The President shall be the general executive manager of the business of the Association and shall be ex officio a member of all committees. He shall perform the duties usual to his office. SEC. 2. The Vice-President shall keep informed of the general work of the Association and perform such duties as may be required by the President or Board of Control. SEC. 3. The Secretary shall keep records of all meetings of the Association and of the Board of Control; shall sign with the President all orders for money; and other papers which need such signature; shall issue notices of meetings; shall, with the approval of the Board of Control, make annual and special reports whenever required of the work of the Auxiliary to the American National Red Cross; and shall perform such duties as are incident to the office. 26 SEC. 4. The treasurer shall receive and receipt for all material and monies of the Auxiliary, shall pay out the same on the order of the President countersigned by the Secretary, and shall transmit semi-annually to the Secretary of the American National Red Cross an amount equal to two dollars ($2) membership dues for each new member, and one dollar ($1) for annual dues of each member. He shall give bond for the faithful discharge of his duties in such manner and amount as the Board of Control may determine. SEC. 5. (a) The Board of Control shall pass upon all applications for membership, signed by two members of the Auxiliary. Membership and officers may consist of, and be filled by men or women. (b) The Board of Control may confer the title of Honorary Vice-President of the Auxiliary on one or more persons who represent institutions and associations in sympathy with the work of the American National Red Cross who are specially qualified to honor or advise the work the Auxiliary. (c) It shall make, through the Secretary of the Auxiliary, semi-annual reports of the work of the Auxiliary to the Secretary of the American National Red Cross, and shall transmit through the Treasurer of the Auxiliary to the Secretary of the American National Red Cross a sum equal to $2.00 membership dues for every member and $1.00 for annual dues for each member, and all sums raised for the use of the American National Red Cross. 27 SEC. 6. The Committee on Public Meetings and Literature shall provide for public meetings, shall prepare interesting programs, and shall direct the attention of the Auxiliary and the general public to current and standard literature concerning the world's great calamities and Red Cross methods of relief. SEC. 7. The Committee on Finances shall aid the Treasurer in securing membership fees and the annual dues, and shall devise other methods to provide for the expenses of the Auxiliary, and to secure monies and materials for the use of the American National Red Cross in its humanitarian work. ARTICLE VII. — Meetings SECTION 1. The annual meeting of the Auxiliary shall be held in October of each year, at which time the general officers and members of the Board of Control and the delegates to all conferences ordered by the American National Red Cross shall be elected by ballot. The general officers and the chairman of committees shall make a full report of their work to the Auxiliary at the annual meeting. SEC. 2. Regular meetings of the Auxiliary and of the Board of Control shall be held at least quarterly, but the President may at any time call special meetings of the Auxiliary or of the Board of Control. ARTICLE VIII. — Quorum. The members present at any regular, or regularly called meeting shall constitute a quorum. 28 ARTICLE IX -- National Red Cross Conference. Upon call of the President of the American National Red Cross, delegates will be elected to attend all conferences and conventions so ordered, in the manner heretofore provided. ARTICLE X. -- Amendments. Additional By-Laws may be adopted by a two-thirds vote of the members present at any regular meeting of the Auxiliary, provided such By-Laws do not conflict with the preceding form of By-Laws approved by the American National Red Cross. Story of the Red Cross by Clara Barton The American National Red Cross 49 East 58th Street New York First Aid Department 31 East 17th Street New York The Story of the Red Cross. By Clara Barton. I have been asked to tell the story of the Red Cross, as a story, so far as possible in the treatment of a subject which is only solid, historical matter of fact, from which not the slightest deviation from the exact truth could in any wise be permitted, and which has no shadow of romance, beyond the pathos of the pitiable conditions of humanity which at length led up to its existence. We may fail in our attempt, but with your kindly promise and effort to make the best of it, let us try. From our childhood our earliest Bible lessons told us mainly of war; how foes fought for days, until at length the forces of one or the other prevailed and tens of thousands were slain. Through the wars of Alexander, Hannibal and Napoleon we find the same relations, but where do we find the relation of any humane efforts to relieve the sufferings of the slaughtered victims, or scarcely,y except by inference, any intimation that they did suffer? Were surgeons or nurses sent to them? Some two hundred years ago a few regimental doctors were provided for armies; only however when Florence Nightingale went to the Crimea, was a nurse for sick or wounded soldiers ever heard of. It was some years later than this that our story begins. Napoleon I. had died in exile, and France had brought his ashes home. The succession, for which he had set at naught both justice and happiness had fallen before the great, Divine command, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me," and Napoleon III. was Emperor of France. Political complications brought on his wars in Northern Italy, where he met the enemy at the fields of Solferino and Magenta. The Crimea had taught a lesson in progressive humanity which Napoleon, with great credit to his kindly nature, endeavored to put in practice by every means open to him; but in spite of all provisions he could make, there was still the iron rule of war that excluded all civilians from a field of battle, however great the need or ready the help. The battle lasted for days, with terrible effect, until there was not one surgeon for fifty wounded men, and these exhausted beyond power to work. It chanced that a humane Swiss gentleman, Henry Dunant, of Geneva, was journeying through Italy in his carriage, and coming in contact with the battle, in some way got across to the field. The conditions which he found, the terrible sufferings he witnessed, were not only a shock but a revelation to him. Without further preliminaries or permission he arrested his journey and commenced to work among the wounded and dying, remaining several days; all the time wondering, as he worked, and witnessed the appalling need of help and material, realizing how full the waiting, anxious, pitying world was of both, why they could not be had. What was the necessity of that iron military rule that shut all outside help away from such scenes of suffering and need—such haunts of woe and death! Was not much of this suffering needless? Would the people of the world permit it if they could know and realize as he did the real situation? The thoughts haunted him until he determined to make them known and wrote a little book— "Souvenir de Solferino" and published it in French. In a few months this little book was translated into most of the leading languages of Europe (you will be glad to know that it exists in English), and people commenced to awaken to the conditions. In the following year, the Society of Public Utility of Switzerland would meet at Geneva, for the consideration of important social questions. Its president was M. Gustav Moynier—(kindly remember this person as we shall have occasion to recall him). Mr. Dunant presented the request that the society take up the subject of the needless sufferings of war, and try, in its deliberations to find some way of lessening them. The proposition was accepted and the subject proved so important as to occupy the entire meeting of a couple of weeks, resulting in what is historically known as the Conference of Geneva. As conferences can only discuss subjects for conventions to act upon, it was decided to call a convention, to be held in Geneva, one year from that date, August, 1864, to which convention the state of Switzerland invited the governments of every nation in the civilized world to send delegates to consider the question of needless inhumanity in war, and attempt some measures of mitigation. Invitations were sent to every government. You will recall that this was during the hardest years of our Civil war, and the request to send delegates was declined by our government, as having too much business of its own. Nearly every other nation was officially represented in the convention and ten articles of agreement, known as "The Treaty of Geneva for the relief of the sick and wounded in war" were adopted. These articles provided that all wounded or sick soldiers, and all surgeons and nurses attending them, all hospitals and material for their use, should be held neutral, sacred to both armies, and could not be captured by either. That citizens properly authorized could go to a field of war or battle, carry provisions and work as in other distress or suffering. That badly wounded men should not be held as prisoners, and much more of a similar nature quite unknown to the people of this good old warring world of ours before. At length, on reaching the seventh article of the treaty a serious difficulty presented itself. They had provided for the admission of properly authorized civilians to a field in action, but how were these persons to prove or to show that they were authorized? How should it be known that a man were not a spy? How should even the wounded man know that he was his friend and not an enemy seeking to kill him? After much perplexing thought it was decided that the person must wear some badge or sign that all the world should know—some sign common to every nation and never to be questioned. But what? This would be the greatest sign in the humanitarian world. At length it was proposed in the convention that as Switzerland, the smallest of all countries, and a republic, had the courage to call all these kingly nations to her, to speak of their faults, they would honor her by making her flag—(a Greek white cross on a red field) this sign. But Switzerland could not yield her flag. Then it was proposed and accepted, to reverse the colors, and make the sign a sign of humanity in war forever more. This changed every hospital flag in the world. There is now only the Red Cross hospital flag, and every soldier knows and respects it. The Red Cross band (or brassard) is on the left arm of every worker at a field ; it marks all hospital supplies from friend or foe, never to be captured by either, and sacred to all as the bread and wine upon the altar. Here, then, my friends, is your Red Cross, and which I fear you have never quite understood till now. The sign that in some form I trust you will all one day wear, lovingly, honoring and proudly, feeling that on the whole earth there can be only one sign higher, or nearer to Heaven :— the Cross of the Master that sanctifies all. But how did we become connected with it, you ask ? Let us first keep in touch with our characters as we go on. When the convention closed, with an invitation to every government to accept, through its delegate, the form of treaty submitted, an international committee was formed as the one international head, composed of seven leading gentlemen of the city of Geneva, with Monsieur Gustav Moynier as its president. These gentlemen constitute the "International Comite de Secour," of to-day, residing at Geneva, the body which communicates with the national committees of all other countries. It was decided that every nation, on adhering to the treaty, would establish one national society, and only one, through which the international committee should communicate with that government. This committee is national, and not international, and is what you know as the American National Red Cross, which is sending to you this article. You ask for Mr. Henry Dunant. He is still a hale, hearty gentlemen, residing near lake Constance, Geneva. If you should chance to read from the pen of some enterprising correspondent that Mr. Dunant is "living in a hospital in great dependence and poverty," do not allow either your sympathies or your indignation to take possession of you. Monsieur Dunant is, from very natural choice in an institution, such as is common in Switzerland, founded by his ancestral family, which is by right, his home if he prefers it—has every comfort at his command, enjoys the respect, gratitude and correspondence of the highest of all nations. Several years before her death, Empress Victoria of Germany, mother of the present Kaiser, settled a handsome pension upon him, and there is not a Red Cross nation in existence, but would do the same, if he needed or desired it. The bestowal of the great Nobel prize rests between Mr. Dunant and another gentleman with a prospect of a division between them. He writes most interesting books. The writer if this sketch received a charming historical volume, direct from him a few months ago. We come now to your question of how we came in connection with the Red Cross, inasmuch as we declined participation in its treaty. Notwithstanding we declined to take part with it, the committee did not declined us, and continued to send to our state department all literature prepared by it for circulation. There was even a code of "Additional Articles," including the Navies prepared in Paris, in 1868, which the original treaty of 1864 did not include, and which was never officially acted upon, but which we did accept with our treaty, and made use of in the Cuban war. Our renowned citizen, Dr. Henry Bellows, head of the great sanitary commission in our Civil war, attempted to establish a Red Cross society in America but it received little encouragement from either government or people , and was abandoned. While other nations to the number of thirty or more had united with the treaty, and their relief had been applied in several wars, still nothing was known of it in America, and the international committee got no response to its invitations. Coming now to a point where, as our story progresses, it must include some personal reference to myself, I wish you would be so indulgent as to permit me to drop the use of the personal pronoun, so distasteful to me, and speak of myself in the third person, or rather as another person. Let us see if we can do this as we go on. It chanced that late in 1869, Miss Clara Barton, who from having done some service in the Civil war, where everyone did so much, had become a victim of nervous prostration, and was sent abroad by medical advice. Arriving in Geneva, Switzerland, the international committee of the Red Cross, with Monsieur Moynier its president, sought her out to ask why America declined to become a party to the treaty. She could only plead ignorance for all, even she herself did not know of it, and it was not known in America. She was asked to acquaint herself with it, and commenced a diligent study of the subject in French, its only literature at hand. After a winter divided between study, illness, and travel, she found herself in July a resident of Berne, Switzerland. On the 15th of that month, Napoleon III. of France declared war upon Germany. The international committee of Geneva, personally urged Miss Barton to accompany them to the field and learn the practical working of the Red Cross in war. Accepting the invitation she went with them through nearly all the battle scenes of that short but terrible war, where the German armies drove the French from the Rhine back to Paris, captured Napoleon and crowned King William of Germany Emperor in the Palace of Versailles—through the siege of Paris and the dreadful days of the Commune, and long months after in war relief of the distressed cities of France. Having commenced a worn out invalid, in 1869, you will conclude that two such years as '70 and '71, had not restored her strength. More weak and ill she sought England in the autumn of '72, for a long winter of illness, and America in 1873 for still long years of other helplessness. But she had learned the Red Cross and the Treaty of Geneva, and had pledged herself to the best nations of Europe, and to the international committee, if she lived to get home, to make America understand that wise and beneficent treaty, and unite with it if possible. It was the winter of 1876, before she was able to seek the President of the United States with this suggestion and with letters of Mr. Moynier addressed to him. So many were the obstructions that it was five years of the utmost diligence before the object was attained. In 1882, during the administration of President Arthur the hard lines slipped and that gentlemanly President, carrying out the purpose of his martyred predecessor, President Garfield, proclaimed to the American people the Treaty of Geneva for the relief of the sick and wounded in war. A year previous to this, in 1881, at the instance of President Garfield, the present National Society of the Red Cross had been formed, as a means of advancing the treaty, and Miss Barton had been made its president. We had now a treaty for relief in war, but no war at hand and the country full of the most assured hope that we never should have, but we had other afflictions, great disasters of flood, fires, pestilence and even famine; often as hard to endure as battles in war, and it entered into the mind of the National President, when presenting the treaty to the other nations for ratification, to ask of them the privilege to so extend the powers of the treaty for America, as to permit it to work under the rules of the Red Cross in great national calamities as in war. The request was graciously granted and became known as the American amendment. (All nations now aid in great calamities the same.) With the exception of the Spanish-American war, this is all the knowledge we have of Red Cross relief in this country, but not less than eighteen fields of disaster have been helped by the American people, under the Red Cross since the treaty. You will recall the great river floods, Johnstown, the South Carolina Sea islands, the Russian famine, Galveston and many others where you longed to, and many did go, and rendered timely aid to the unfortunate, and to the National society at the field. Thus the Red Cross in America is twenty years old. In the world it is twice that age. It originated in the desire to alleviate the sufferings of soldiers, to aid the military and the government in the care of the wounded, and to reduce so far as possible the needless severities of war, if wars must exist, by bringing to the medical department of an army the ready help of the people, on the assured ground that no army could ever be sufficiently provided to meet the needs of its soldiers in battle. It could not march or move with such an equipment. Thus the Red Cross is designed as the civil arm of the military at the field; subject to its direction, and working in all ways in conformity with its instructions. In great disasters in civil life it works independently, unless, as at Johnstown, the militia is also at the field. There is but one Red Cross. The military and civil are the same. All have the same origin and object. The Greek Red Cross on the modest dress of the hospital nurse in civil life, on the uniform of the hospital steward or gracing the cap of his surgeon-in-chief at the field, are one and the same; all answering the same high behest, and dating back alike to the seven articles to the Treaty of Geneva. Let us keep in mind the fact that the Red Cross was instituted as the help of the people for the government in time of war and distress; and never the help of the government for the people, consequently not a dollar is ever received from the government. The people alone sustain their Red Cross. Its thousands of subscribing members would constitute its support and create its fund, and the membership is purposely made so small that no one is deprived of the privilege. Its officers have never received salaries; and often its most devoted field workers refuse compensation, beyond their plain field living and the hardships endured. In most countries the Department of First Aid to the injured has been incorporated into the organization of the Red Cross. This is now being done by the National Society of the American Red Cross; and a few words must be added in explanation of this new movement in which you will be more personally interested than in the larger national and international concerns of the Red Cross. Knowing, however, as you now do, the meaning of the Red Cross, its true significance and all that it implies, you will the more readily appreciate what an immense power for good this new First Aid Branch may become in the fostering hands of all the men and women of these United States who have learned the true meaning of the symbol of the Red Cross. The First Aid Department is organized to encourage the formation of classes of instruction in First Aid Methods of Treatment to the injured, in every community in the United States. Its chief concern is to provide such facilities that every person may become equipped with sufficient expert knowledge to deal intelligently with any case of accident. Graduates of these classes will be organized into permanent Red Cross Brigades; and from this trained Red Cross army will be drawn volunteers for active field service in the event of national disaster or of war. Diplomas, orders of merit and medals for distinguished service will be awarded by the department. These are the salient features. The many minor details are beyond the scope of this article. And now I want to quote for you one of the by-laws of the Red Cross of which you, and I am sure hundreds of thousands of American citizens are totally ignorant. Section 5. "Any reputable person may become a subscribing member upon the payment, to the secretary, of $1 per year, and upon the payment of $1 additional said subscribing member shall be entitled to a subscribing member's diploma with the autograph signature of the president and a Red Cross badge." This means in effect that every man or woman in the United States may become a subscribing or sustaining member of the Red Cross upon the payment of one dollar per annum, which is the full membership due. A Red Cross badge in the form of pin or button, is fifty cents, and a diploma of membership for framing is also fifty cents. Either or both of these will be sent with a card of membership, if so desired. Name and address in full, with post office order for the amount of annual dues, etc., should be addressed to the American Red Cross, 49 East 58th St., New York. Can you not see in this, as I do, vast possibilities for building up one of the grandest humanitarian institutions the world has ever seen—an institution created and supported by the whole people, for the relief of the people everywhere and for the help of the government in the time of national trial? Is it too much to believe, that in this great country of ours; with its many reversals if the traditions of time, that this great humanitarian institution, builded by the whole people, should become the fountain of honor and all honorable distinctions; so much more glorious than the old-time source of honors and titles which flowed from the fields of battle, and murder and sudden death? It should be the pride and glory of every American man and woman to wear the badge of the Red Cross as a sign of humanity and a pledge of practical help to the suffering. Vast as the fund might be, so contributed by the whole people, it could no more than meet the needs growing out of the daily roll of death and disaster and the periodical overwhelming calamities that afflict this country. The mere binding up of the wounds of the crushed and the maimed on a field of disaster or war is a very small thing and a very small part of the human misery involved. Often and often as I have knelt by the side of a crushed and bloody figure trying my best to hold in its life, I have looked across the body and seen down a long, grey vista the wife and children and many dim suffering figures in want and distress because of the thing that has happened to the poor, moaning, bleeding form beneath my hands. Do you not see this great need, my sisters? I do not appeal to you, I want you to become a member of the Red Cross and wear the badge always, and you will do it -- not just because I ask it, but because of the thought that you are contributing to a great, national, humanitarian beneficence that embraces every one in these United States and may, perchance, in a time of great trial have occasion to succor you or yours. [*TELEPHONE 1118-GRAMERCY Intended for......... Clara Barton "O wad some power the giftie gi'e us To see oursel's as ithers see us." HENRY ROMEIKE, INC. 33 UNION SQUARE, BROADWAY NEW YORK CABLE ADDRESS "ROMEIKE," NEW YORK The First Established and Most Complete Newspaper Cutting Bureau in the World From......... Endeavor Address...... *] [ August 24, 1905 THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR WORLD CONTINUING THE GOLDEN RULE Copyrighted, 1905, by the Golden Rule Company] [*H - 11*] The Wickedness of War By Clara Barton [Miss Clara Barton has given the crowded years of her life to the unselfish service of others, and is one of the world's greatest philanthropists. She was born in Oxford, Mass., and she has written this article for us in her native town. When quite young, she founded a seminary for girls. Later she became a clerk in the national Patent Office,—the first woman to hold a regular clerical position under the government. In the Civil War her energies were given unstintedly to the care of the soldiers. She led in organizing the Sanitary Commission, and ministered to the wounded on many awful battlefields. At the close of the war, organizing at Washington a bureau of records for missing men, she traced out the fate of 30,000. In the Franco-Prussian War she joined the Red Cross Society, helped to organize the German Hospital service, nursed the sick and wounded, and entered into many scenes of danger. She returned to America, and after years of effort she secured governmental recognition of the Red Cross Society, becoming president of the American branch when it was organized in 1882. Her time and strength and money have been given since then, in ways and on occasions to numerous to mention, in aid of the sufferers by fire and flood and earthquake, as well as the sufferers from the scourge of war. Certainly no one in all the world is so well fitted as Miss Barton to write upon the subject which we have asked her to treat.—ED.] It is suggested that I write "some words on the wickedness of war." A modest suggestion that,—some volumes, nay, libraries, would fail of justice to the subject. As well might a few remarks explain the relations between day and night, or the diurnal revolutions of the earth. Since the first knowledge man has of himself war has been a chief condition, if not an occupation, with him. For every reason under the sun it has found cause to exist, to propagate, and to thrive. No climate has been too severe, no distance too remote, no cost too much, no cause too trivial, no sacrifice too great, no woe too pitiful; and its willing votaries were everywhere. In the days of the patriarchs, as chronicled in the Book of books, the hosts gathered at the command of the king, and the Lord was thought to give or to withhold victory; and so accustomed have we been to these recitals that even from childhood we have read the sacred pages without a thought for the cause, or a pang for the sufferings, of the hundreds of thousands that lay dead in a day. When history less sacred has claimed the time and attention of the student or youth, and the growth and occupations of the nations and peoples of the world are sought for, scarcely a mention is found of the faithful labors and industries of those who through the centuries had toiled for bread, planted the peaceful vineyard, nourished the fig-tree and the olive, felled the forests, cleared the land, and reared the grain that fed the growing world; but even his school-books told him that "The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee." He read that Alexander conquered the world and died at thirty-three, that Caesar ravaged Gaul and take the Roman armies even into England, that Hannibal climbed and crossed the Alps to give battle, that Napoleon Bonaparte deluged Europe in blood; and Macedonia, the Rubicon, Moscow, the Elbe, Waterloo, and St. Helena are impressed on the very convolutions of the student's—nay, even the schoolboy's— brain. He learned patriotism at his mother's knee, and that it was his duty to die for his country. He watched the trophies on the wall with a loving pride approaching worship, and, if need be, he "let them take whate'er they would, but kept his father's sword." Thus instructed, thus believing uninterruptedly, until of comparatively recent date, the world has gone on without questioning the actual right of war, whether moral, social, or political. The baleful character of certain attributes attending it no one has doubted. Its cruelties are beyond question; they have been enough to shock God's From a stereograph, copyrighted, 1905, by Underwood & Underwood One of the Great Events in the World's History The Peace Envoys of Russia and Japan, with President Roosevelt in the cabin of the Mayflower, on August 5. They are beginning at the left of the picture, M. Sergius de Witte and Baron de Rosen, of Russia, President Roosevelt, and Baron Jutaro Komura and Minister Kogoro Takahira of Japan. The President's toast, at luncheon on this occasion, was as follows: "Gentlemen, I propose a toast to which there will be no answer, and I wish to ask you to drink in silence, standing. I drink to the welfare and prosperity of the sovereigns and peoples of the two great nations whose representatives have met one another on this ship. It is my most earnest hope and prayer, in the interest of not only these two great Powers, but of all mankind, that a just and lasting peace may speedily be concluded between them." beings here below and His angels above. The accounts of the daily journals of the past months are quite sufficient for this proof. No sensitive reader desires one even to refer to them. Again, the injustice of war is only too apparent. If it were right that settled the dispute, and finally coiled the banners, there would seem to be at least one point gained; but it is ever to the "strong battalions," and might, not right, prevails. War actually settles no dispute; it brings no real peace; it merely closes an open strife; it is simply Buried Embers When at the termination of the Franco-German war, the articles of surrender were signed by France, peace was proclaimed, and it was decreed that henceforth the Rhine should flow through German, and not French, soil, does any one suppose that France thought justice had been done, that the Alsatian was at peace in his heart, or that he would not always seek to rake open the smothered embers? He may be compelled to take as his refrain "Die Wacht am Rhein" to the day of his death, but "Vive la France" will be found imprinted on the lobes of his dead heart. He feels that he has tasted the injustice as well as the cruelty of war. The wanton destruction of human life and the terribleness of war are also its unfailing attendants; and these in the progress of ingenuity and invention increase rather than diminish. More than thirty years ago I helped to pick up and count on the field of Hagenau, in a space of twenty square feet, the various headgears of twenty-six soldiers fallen in that little space and taken away dead,—the black helmet of the German, the scarlet of the French, the turban of the Turk, the cap of the Zouave, the horse-tail of the Arab, all in one mass of broken sabres, pistols, and knives. They had evidently contested for a flag, and twenty-six human lives had gone out in agony. In whatever spoken language, every man's prayer had gone to the God he worshipped. I recall a scene of one morning at daybreak, where over a fresh-fought field we searched for any who might still be alive. We came to a ditch of some feet in depth, running alongside a fence or wall, which the advancing army at double-quick had been compelled to leap from the opposite side. Naturally the men, not seeing the ditch, fell into it; others followed, trampling them, until it was full; and the advancing battalions leaped and trod on those trampled men as so many logs, till a section of an army had passed over. It was the burying of these men that constituted the scene of the morning. I need not name the time or place. There are many gray-haired veterans wearing a bronzed button to-day who will name it as readily as I. Of the terribleness of the war there can be no doubt, neither is there any escape from it. Even in our own day and generation, with all its advancement in science and humane methods, we can merely soften, we cannot avert. There is still another condition, inseparable from war, which in its results seems to be more disastrous to mankind in general than even those already named. The utter waste of war seems a thing to be more deplored by the whole people of the world than any other feature, however sad. The populations increase, and must be fed. So far as yet discerned all food must come from the ground. Upon the highest authority given, nay, divinely so, it is decreed that man shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. One need not weary with pages of statistics. Germany alone is said to have two millions of men under arms; from this may be estimated the ration for other nations. All have their armies to be fed, clothed, and in every way provided, — consumers, but entirely non-producers. What class of people composes these armies? The feeble in body and mind, the crippled or disabled? Ask the examining surgeon. He will tell whom he may [918 THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR WORLD August 24, 1905] accept for military duty, and whom he is to reject and leave at home to till the ground and raise the food. He takes the sound and strong of body and limb, the firm of heart and clear of brain. He must admit no physical weakness or mental blemish. The men who have the determination to meet the exigencies of life and the strength to carry it out are his. These men are selected and carried away to serve the country. Who are left? The aged father, who has already served; the weak, incompetent, or crippled brother, if such there be; the ungrown boys; the mother and sisters,—on these largely must depend the raising of the food, the wool, flax, hemp, that provide the raiment of the neatly dressed thousands under musket and lance who "serve the country." What are the others doing? Early and late at their toil, without respite or rest, side by side with their beasts of burden, with Self-denial for a handmaid, they journey on through the years. Under these conditions can we wonder that hunger assails and the cry of starvation pierces our ears and our hearts? Thousands upon thousands in Russia, they tell us, pine for food. Millions upon millions in India die of starvation. Sophistry may exhaust itself in giving us political reasons for this condition of things; but the cold facts of supply and demand, over-consumption and non-production, are here. Argue them as we will, face them as we must, the waste of war is ever at the base. But what remedy? you ask. There can be but one, and yet for the moment this may seem even more difficult of accomplishment than the bearing of ills as they exist. We must be generous with faults as well as misfortunes. No one is personally to blame for the conditions which have grown up around us. They are the result of ages of ignorance, of old customs and blind misrule. It is easy to say, "Reduce the armies; cut down the military force." God grant it may one day be easy to do; but, when we consider that at this hour there is hardly a geographical boundary-line on the face of the earth that was not put there by the sword, and is not practically held there by the same dread power, it becomes a nice point who shall take the first step. Our Last Great War? It might only provoke a contemptuous sneer if one were to suggest that the Czar of Russia not long ago earnestly sought to open a door broad enough for the nations to commence an entrance safely. If that be so, and his surroundings proved stronger than himself, let us not be too severe in our criticism. "Judgment is mine," saith the Lord; and who shall say that through this terrible ordeal the waters of enlightenment and redemption are not seeking a channel, that out of this roaring, sulphurous cataract of war and bloodshed may flow the clear, limpid waters of peace on earth, good will toward men; that this may be our last great war; that men may come to learn better ways and produce better results? And let every American thank God that to their ruler has been given the wisdom and the power to take the advance step towards this great pacification; a brave step, worth a great man, statesman, and legislator, among his many foremost acts, by far the grander and more brilliant, and destined to live in history when all others have been forgotten. When this great step towards the enlightenment of the nations shall have been taken, then will commence the reduction— may we not hope the abolition?—of the wickedness of war,—the time when contending nations, as men, submit their grievances, and reason together before the declaration is made or the sabres are drawn. In the present rate of progress one may venture to hope this, escaping the charge of blind optimism. Human nature will still be human nature; but it must be borne with, forgiven, and encouraged if we would instruct and elevate it. The old world will still have its waywardness and faults, but let us be kind and patient with it. Up to this time it is the best we have. However ardently we may desire peace, we cannot force it, we cannot purchase it, we cannot fight for it. We can only wait and hope wisely and hopefully, trusting in the day when the "wickedness of war" shall be a thing unknown in this beautiful world. Oxford, Mass. The Mother-Heart. By Emma A. Lente. I heard a baby cry in the dark, It was not mine, O no, not mine! But my heart uprose to pity its woes, And I could not choose but hark; And I could not sleep still I heard the tone Of a mother who ministered to her own. But once a baby cried in the dark, And it was mine, Oh! mine and mine! And I would not choose but hark; And quickly I rose to quiet its woes, For a baby's need is a thing to heed, And I could not sleep till it smiled again In dreams, forgetting its transient pain. My baby cries no more in the dark. No grief has mine, No fear has mine. But yet I leap from the deepest sleep If I hear a little insistent cry, And I softly whisper a hush-a-by, And, listening, wait for the mother's tone That gently comforts and soothes her own; And because of a baby that used to be All babes lie close to the heart of me. Poughkeepsie, N.Y. "Kept." An Account of a Few Striking Incidents in My Life. By Rev. F. J. Horsefield. V.—Two Narrow Escapes. There was another and more recent occasion in my life, when what might have proved a fatal carriage accident had such a disastrous termination averted only by the interposition of God. I had been conducting a mission in London, and the day after its close I was being driven by my host's coachman to the railway station, along with a friend who had been helping me during the mission. I never knew quite how it happened, but I ENDEAVORED TO LEAVE THE VEHICLE, Drawn by H.P. Barnes. the coachman apparently tried to turn a corner much too abruptly, with the result that the wheel of our conveyance caught the curbstone, and the vehicle was so much tilted that both the driver and my luggage were thrown off. The startled horse immediately commenced a wild gallop, and in the crowded streets there was imminent danger, not only of our being speedily upset, but that some of the innumerable children and foot-passengers in that locality would be run over. The brougham was swaying most dangerously from side to side, and after sitting shut up in it for a brief space of time I came to the conclusion that I must somehow get out and endeavor to check the horse's career. The shouting of the people as we sped along seemed to terrify the animal more and more, and it was impossible to foresee the result unless some steps were instantly taken. Lowing one of the windows, I opened the door, and endeavored to leave the vehicle but found myself somehow caught and unable to do so. Almost instantly the swinging door collided with a coal-cart, which was standing in the road, but which I had not seen, and was wrenched from its hinges. Had I been able to step out, as I had designed, nothing could have saved me from being dashed against this obstruction; and I must instantly have been very seriously, if not mortally, injured. It transpired that the top of the sleeve of my overcoat had caught upon a hook or nail just above the door, and this had held me fast, thus preventing my leaving the carriage. The horse was stopped by a policeman almost simultaneously with the collision, and it was really remarkable that we had performed so dangerous a journey without any more serious mishap than the smashing of the carriage door, a wound on the coachman's forehead, and some little damage to our personal belongings. It is quite true that the coat was torn, but my life had been preserved; and, although my friend's nerves and my own were badly shaken, we were able to walk to the nearest railway station. We are liable to accidents, however, not only in the open air, but when quietly sitting in our own homes. One of the most startling of these occurred late one evening. I had been sitting for some hours in my study, busily engaged with some writing that had to be done that night; and, when I had finished this, I rose to leave the room. Opening the study door, I was startled by a sudden thud, and, looking round, I found that a heavy iron weight connected with the gas pendant immediately over my desk had fallen. It had a very sharp point, and in its fall had gone right through the manuscript book that was still lying open upon my desk, and had made a great hole in the woodwork of the desk itself. How did it come to pass that I had moved from my seat at the moment after working there for hours? The sight of my desk, which I still preserve, always fills me with a sense of grateful wonder, for truly nothing but the hand of an overruling Providence had led me away from my desk at that instant. All of these instances may seem but comparative trifles to some people, but to me they are all indications of the truth of that text which, embossed upon cardboard, hangs in my bedroom and which accompanied me across the Atlantic last year, "The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil." Bristol, England ———— UNREASONABLE IMPORTUNITY. One of Nantucket's summer visitors, according to Lippincott's Magazine, strolled into the little shop kept by an old man, a native of the place. In looking about she found a kind of linen cloth which she bought for fancywork. Some friends who saw and liked it went to the shop and purchased all that remained. In a few days the proprietor went to the "mainland" to replenish his stock, and bought more of the same goods, which also were soon sold. "Well," exclaimed Uncle Hi as the last yard went, "if any more of you folks want that stuff, you can get up ter the mainland an' git it. I can't keep nothing in this here shop!" ———— The Labyrinth. Reversed Cities. The reversed name of an American city or town is concealed in each sentence. 1. His address is Charles Graham, Oshkosh, Wis. 2. There was a tacit understanding between the two. 3. "O, that is not so bad," he said encouragingly. 4. The teacher said she found the children of Honolulu apt scholars. 5. Soon we saw another rabbit come out of the hole. 6. You had better omit labels on those exhibits until we have them all in place. 7. His mother becoming very sick, Roy went for the doctor. 8. He came last night on the midnight train. 9. The politician offered Hanna vast inducements to vote for the measure. 10. The boys find dominos a pleasant game. 11. Yes, I obtained permission to try the experiment. 12. We tried to bake potatoes in the ashes of our camp-fire. MORTON L. MITCHELL. Diamond. 1. A letter. 2. To allow. 3. Plain 4. A day-dream. 5. Sententious. 6. To remain. 7. A letter. EDITH, J. BAKER. Cross-Word Enigma. My first is in apple, but not in peach; My second in learning, but not in teach; My third is in ocean, but not in sea; My fourth is in coffee, but not in tea; My fifth is in wagon, but not in cart; My sixth is in loving, but not in heart; My seventh in Anna, but not in Bess; My whole was a president of the United States. HELEN D. FISH. Changed Vowels. By substituting the letter o for some other vowel change 1. A sail to a piece of work. 2. A narrow passage to destruction. 3. A young girl to destruction. 4. Praise to noisy. 5. To wash to affection. 6. Rule to mean. 7. A mechanical power to an admirer. 8. A mirror to brightness. 9. Soft hair to a preposition. 10. Chance to fastening. J. S. G. Answers to Puzzles in the Last Number. A Field of Corn. 1. Cornwall. 2. Corneous. 3. Acorn. 4. Cornet. 5. Corncrake. 6. Cornucopia. 7. Corner-stone. 8. Cornea. 9. Unicorn. 10. Capicorn. 11. Corneto (a town near Rome). [*Very Sincerely Yours.*] [*Clara Barton*] Greetings To the friends of these, and other days, those who have known me longest and best, who have walked life's varying paths beside me, I come to bring my greetings, and my wishes for the traditional "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year." Ay! Many New Years, each happier than the last. I would also tell you that all is well with me; that although the unerring records affirm that on Christmas Day of 1821 - eighty-four years ago - I commenced this earthly life, still, by the blessing of God, I am strong and well, knowing neither illness nor fatigue, disability nor despondency, and take the privilege of bringing to you an outline of MY LATER WORK. This announcement will not surprise you. You have never known me without work; while able, you never will. It has always been a part of the best religion I had. Some, ah! far fewer than I wish, can in memory go back with me to an earlier work; the dark days that tried men's souls, the -trampled fields that claimed their bodies; when the weeping mother clung to her son, the sister to her brother, the wife to her husband, and the open-eyed innocent child looked on, and wondered what it all meant; when our nation lay in the toils of distraction, menaced by dissolution, and a jeopardy scarcely less than that of torn Russia today; — and in that terrible moment, great, , silent Russia was our friend "Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget." Others, and a still larger number, can go back with me to my return from the war fields in foreign lands, bringing with me a strange device; — a "blood red cross," as a gift to our Government and our people. The Government was not ready, and could not accept; and the people, blindly and unhelped, took with me the part that you have known and watched through nearly twenty years of peace. But the first touch of war revealed that under that little device contending nations could confer, that under its provisions the commander could save and succor his men, the admiral could sail and save his ships, and the relief boats sailed the waters, free, and safe with their cargo of human misery. Then the Government was ready. The device is in its fostering hands, and none too high to do it reverence. A finished effort! But this does not finish the need of help for the woes of the world about us. Another work reaches out its hands to me, and I have taken them. The humane and the far-sighted are pressing to its standard,—the standard of ORGANIZED FIRST AID FOR THE INJURED Here are the words of one who knows whereof he speaks:-- "Peace has her battlefields, no less than war. The sweat of blood, the dust, dirt, and grime-glued frame, the aching stress on full-strained muscle and sinew, blunt the purpose, blind the eye, deafen the ear, and divert the craftsmen's will; the sickening stab of sharpened steel, the rending of saws, the tearing of drills, the crushing gnaw of couplers, the pinch of belts, become a biting agony—all conquering pain racking the workman to dire distress. "Not for him the glorious medal of the warrior ; not his the guerdon that goes alike to patriot and self-seeker in times of war. At such trials as these there is one other sadness,—the grief of him who stands helpless, or who, for the want of knowing what to do, can do nothing. If only our men and women, our boys and girls, could learn a little ; if our firemen, our policemen, our railroads, steamships, and manufactoring employés could have First Aid training ! Surely, any employer would be glad to know that among his force were some men trained and proficient, and anyone might be grateful for a chance to join in so useful a cause, such an accompaniment to working conditions. "Its badge should be as honored as any. We shall see it grow, and may the hands be held high." The prophecy is correct. It has come, and we see it grow. Not alone, in the cities and great establishments, but in the household it will take its place. The appliances, the remedies, and the knowledge of their use will be there, and the distressed mother, no longer terror-stricken, frantic or paralyzed, but calm and wise, will know how to hold her injured child in life, till the saving medical aid can reach. This system is not new. We did not originate it. It is the time-honoered "Saint John Ambulance" of England, and Germany, and other European countries,saving hundreds of lives, and thereby millions of property year by year. It will become time-honored in America as well, for it has come to stay. Its charter is broad and firm, its title clear ; and although young, its organization is complete. It has its own characteristics, in keeping with its nature,—neither ambition, self-seeking, nor vain-glory, but good-will, helpfulness, kindliness, the Spirit of Him who gave his life for others, whose example we seek to follow, and whose blessed birth was God's great Christmas gift to the world. [*Clara Barton*] The National First Aid Association of America Incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia President CLARA BARTON Assistant to the President ROSCOE G. WELLS Vice President MRS. J. SEWALL REED Treasurer and Medical Director H. H. HARTUNG, M.D. Secretary MARY I. KENSEL Advisory Board Lieut.-Gen. Nelson A. Miles Boston, Mass. Charles R. Dickson, M.D. Toronto, Canada. Eugene Underhill, M.D. Philadelphia, Pa. Ex-Gov. John L. Bates Boston, Mass. Joseph Gardner, M.D. Bedford, Ind. Major James Evelyn Pilcher Carlisle, Pa. Gen James R. O'Bierne New York City, N.Y. Finance Committee Samuel M. Jarvis, Chairman New York City, N.Y. Mrs. J Sewall Reed Boston, Mass. Gen. George H. Harries Washington, D.C. I. Newton Williams New York City, N.Y. Mrs. Allyn K. Capron Washington, D.C. Roscoe G. Wells, Secretary Boston, Mass. Executive Office 6 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS U.S.A. 1909-10 -- Christmas Greetings Greetings To Friends of the Olden Days and the New Four years ago I sent to you my Greetings for a "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year." I said that although eighty-four years of earthly life had passed, I was still "strong and well, knowing neither illness nor fatigue, disability nor despondency." I also brought you an outline of my "Later Work," saying that, "You had never known me without work. While able, you never would, for it was a part of the best religion I had.' Four years more have passed, and I come again to bring my Greetings and to repeat without change, what I said then. I still work my many hours, and walk my many miles. The heart is still open to the welfare and the woes of the world, and the hand-grasp ready for a friend. The ''Later Work" has taken root, grown, and is bearing fruit. In more than two-thirds of the states of the Union, the banner of The National First Aid Association of America cheers the eye and comforts the heart. Thousands have studied it wholesome lessons and hundreds have taken its instructions and wear its insignia. They serve in the hospitals, in the workshop, and manufactories, with the railways, the police and fire departments, with the man at his labor the boy at his play, and the tender mother in her isolated home. The policeman, in a press of distress from panic, opens wide his ranks for aid when the little brown button on the lapel appears. The child in school turns joyously from the hum-drum studies of the day for a lesson in "First Aid." The boy leaves his baseball to study it, and no longer sees his little companion in the water sink and drown, without an intelligent and well- directed effort to succor and restore him, and the little girl bandages and splints her broken doll on "First Aid" principles. Think, for a moment, what this will mean for these girls and boys and those about them, when they are women and men? Five years more of such advancement as the past, will plant the seeds of this world-wide humanity in every hamlet in the country. It will kindle a torch of human help for human woe where all was dark, and the helplessness of ignorance shrouded even the school and the church. It is a glimpse of the patient work of five years that I bring to you, five incipient years, and I would, now that it is so thoroughly founded as to admit of assured membership, that each and all of you stand with us in the work. If ever from the hardworked, tireless staff at Headquarters, comes an invitation to its rolls for membership, I pray you accept it, if you will, knowing that in standing with them, you stand with me, as well. In all the world are none so dear to me as the "Old Guard" that toiled by my side in the years agone. They made it their work, no less than mine. It is to them, and to you all, that I bring my Greeting of 1909 and 1910, and my report of five years' work for the betterment of humanity, in the name and the love of the Master and the glory of the great Father who so loved His children, and so cared for them, that He sent His own to show them the way. Let us follow. [*Clara Barton*] The National First Aid Association of America Incorporated under the Laws of the District of Columbia President CLARA BARTON Assistant to the President and Treasurer Vice-President ROSCOE G.WELLS MRS. J. SEWALL REED Medical Director Secretary A. E. SOHMER, M. D. MARY I. KENSEL Counsellors CREED M. FULTON I.NEWTON WILLIAMS Washington, D. C. New York City, N Y. The Board of Directors CLARA BARTON Mrs. J. SEWALL REED Roscoe G. WELLS JULIAN B. HUBBELL, M. D. MARY I. Kensel A. E. Sohmer, M. D. Advisory Board Lieutenant-General Nelson A. MILES, Washington, D, C. EUGENE UNDERHILL, M. D. . . . . Philadelphia, PA. CHARLES R. DICKSON, M. D. . . . . Toronto, Canada JOSEPH GARDNER, M. D. . . . . . . Bedford, Indiana JULIAN B. HUBBELL, M. D. . . . . . Glen Echo; Md. Colonel B. E. ORR . . . . . . . New York City, N. Y. HENRY CHAPMAN . . . . . New Jersey State Branch General William H. Sears . . . . Lawrence, Kansas Colonel G. Sterling Ryerson, M. D., A. M. C. Secretary for Canada, St. John Ambulance Association. Executive Office 6 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A. Glen Echo, Maryland Dear Friend: For the hundreds of communications, full of anxious solicitude and friendly sympathy, received by me during my illness of last winter and spring, I beg through this unsatisfactory, although only may open to me, to return this reminder of the heartfelt thanks which words can never express. May the blessings of health and strength be yours, and the measure of loving sympathy that has been given me be meted back to you. It were easy to search for the gems of the sea, The jewels and gold hid in mountain and lea ; The thin veins of silver that line the green sod, But health is of wisdom, and strength is of God. Ever Gratefully, Clara Barton, No reply expected. June 1, 1911 Glen Echo, Maryland Dear Friend: For the hundreds of communications, full of anxious solicitude and friendly sympathy, received by me during my illness of last winter and spring, I beg through this unsatisfactory, although only way open to me, to return this reminder of the heartfelt thanks which words can never express. May the blessings of health and strength be yours, and the measure of loving sympathy that has been given me be meted back to you. It were easy to search for the gems of the sea, The jewels and gold hid in mountain and lea ; The thin veins of silver that line the green sod, But health is of wisdom, and strength is of God. Ever Gratefully, Clara Barton, No reply expected. June 1, 1911 [*11 R x*] For The Golden Rule. The Red Cross. By Clara Barton, President of the American National Red Cross. The Red Cross is often spoken of as the "Red Cross Society," and sometimes as the Red Cross "Order," as if it had some secret features, or some special requirements for initiation into it. By some it is supposed to be a charitable institution for general charity relief. In fact, it is a great treaty, one of the greatest ever entered into ; and the nations that are parities to it are Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, Russia, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Italy, Servia, Persia, the Roman States, Switzerland, the United States, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Argentine, Japan, and other governments to the number of forty or more. They have bound themselves to regard all sick or wounded persons in time of war as neutral, and to care for one another's disabled as they do for their own. A sick or wounded solider, to whatever army he may belong. into whatever hands he may fall, is a Red Cross subject ; his nationality is merged in the humanity of the treaty, and is tenderly cared for. If cured, he is sent to his home as a noncombatant. No days of suffering, relieved only by death, can ensue, even if his comrades have passed beyond reach of him, leaving him to the neglect or cruelty of the enemy as in the days gone by. No starvation, no death from neglected disease, can happen within the boundaries of a treaty nation. The civil arm of the Red Cross can extend through the lines to reach the suffering, although the lines be bristling with the engines of war. One has but to recall the pitiable conditions of the sick and wounded in the great American war in order to appreciate what the Red Cross might have done, had it existed then. It is true that the Confederate States could not have been a party to the treaty, not being a recognized nation; but the Red Cross societies of neutral nations could not have been stayed from carrying succor to Libby, Belle Isle, and Andersonville prisons. By the terms of the treaty, the hospital flag of every nation must be a red Greek cross, on a white ground; and every person, ambulance, or other part of the service, must be so designated. The prime thought that inspired the promoters of the treaty was the unavoidable insufficiency of the military hospital service. History during all time had demonstrated the sad deficiency; but, said these noble men of the Geneva Society of Public Utility, the great sympathy of the people outside of the military will supply means and nurses in the most generous manner, and they will administer the relief in co-operation with the military, if we can secure recognition and protection for them. They interested the officials of the Swiss government, and, with General Dufour, commander-in-chief of the Swiss army, at its head, a committee was appointed February 9, 1863, to forward its movement. That date marks the beginning of the Red Cross; although the great honor of conceiving the ideas that culminated in the treaty of Geneva in August, 1864, belongs to Mr. Henry Dunant, who had been the unhappy witness of terrible and needless suffering by the wounded at the great battle of Solferino, June 24, 1859. The labors of the committee resulted in a formal international conference in October, 1863, and the final convention in August, 1864. So delicate and arduous was the work before the delegates of these great nations in convention assembled for the purpose of mitigating the severities of war -- men whose energies had previously been given to the mutilating of men and the conquests of war -- that a fortnight was consumed in their deliberations. But it was the greatest fortnight's work ever known. The great nations of the earth had been conquered by a humane idea. War had been robbed of its most barbarous aspects. It had been solemnly agreed that henceforth one common flag should be the symbol of mercy, and, that wherever it floated, there should the fallen heroes find friends and tenderness, there should they be secure against the further horrors of war. The Red Cross flag has no Christian meaning in the sense that many suppose. It is broader than Christianity itself, because it has neither prejudice nor bounds; Christian, Mohammedan, and Pagan are the same in the eyes of the Red Cross. The choice of the flag was a well-merited compliment to Switzerland, who had given her kind services in the cause by officially issuing the invitation to the nations of the world to meet in conference, and by providing the place. Her national flag is a white Greek cross on a red ground, and the colors were simply reversed. In each country that adopted the treaty, one national society is formed, and that society alone is recognized by its national government, also by each other national society and an International Committee located at Geneva, Switzerland, the latter being the medium of communication and assistance between nations, in order to prevent any possible complications by reason of nationality and jealousy. The national societies have the right to carry on the work of gathering funds and materials in such manner as they may deem best. In those countries where strict laws have been passed to prevent the misuse of the Red Cross (and such is the case in most countries) local auxiliary societies are formed. In our own country no such laws exist; therefore it has not seemed wise or just to sanction subsocieties. With no power to restrain them, the tendency of local societies would be to over-reach and subvert the purposes of the treaty. I can make but the briefest reference to the work performed by the societies. The first war to bring the treaty into practical operation was that of 1866 in Germany, Austria, and Italy. Austria had not yet joined, but her citizens raised and applied nearly half a million dollars. Italian societies raised nearly fifty thousand dollars. French and Swiss societies aided, this being the first instance of neutral aid. Germany's societies were fully prepared, and more than three million dollars were applied, and half a thousand volunteers, men and women, were employed. The results of this war fully proved the incalculable value of organized, authorized civil aid. Next came the Franco-Prussian war and the Commune, 1870-71. In Germany more than two thousand committees arose at once, with a central committee at Berlin. More than fourteen million dollars of money was raised. Hospitals, hospital trains, and preparations of the grandest scale were organized. France was not so well prepared, but upwards of two million dollars was expended, and more than one hundred thousand wounded were cared for. Neutral societies also rendered great aid. One striking instance was that of eighty-five thousand French soldiers who peacefully invaded Switzerland in a famished condition, ten per cent of them being sick. Their every want was provided for by the Red Cross of Switzerland. The International Committee asked for and obtained from Germany twenty-five hundred incurable French soldiers, supplied all their wants on their way through Switzerland, and returned them to their homes. The wars of 1876-78, involving Turkey, Servia, Montenegro, Greece, and Russia, furnished the next scenes of activity. The work of the Russian Red Cross was the most notable. Regarded with jealousy at first by the military, it was soon solicited to take control. It raised nearly seventeen million dollars, and applied more than thirteen millions of it. In Turkey the Red Cross emblem found its first obstruction. The Turkish soldiers regarded it from a religious point of view, and so strong was their prejudice that a red crescent had to be substituted by that society. The latest display of the Red Cross work has been in the Japanese army. How frequently we heard it remarked that the Japanese displayed such astonishing mercy and civilization, that they are so quick to adopt the ideas of more advanced nations, etc.! In 1886 Japan joined hands with the Red Cross nations. Her ruler, the Mikado, became president of the Red Cross society in a civil capacity, and therein lies the secret of Japan's wonderful development in humane ideas. She has been an apt scholar, and deservedly receives the commendation of the world. Picture, if you can, the scenes that would have ensued in this war in the absence of the kindness and mercy inculcated by the Red Cross. In our own country the war signal has not been heard since 1882, when we entered the treaty; but the elements have wrought sad destruction. Foreseeing these conditions, I asked of the other societies, through the international head, the privilege to include calamities other than war when I organized The American National Red Cross. My request was cordially granted and hailed with enthusiasm. Other nations have since adopted it. I need only tell in a few words of our own work. It includes thirteen fields of disaster in as many years. Floods, famines, fires, epidemics, and storms have caused the suffering, and more than one million dollars has been applied in the aggregate, by the willing hands of those that have for the most part volunteered their services in behalf of the great cause of humanity. Washington, D. C. OUR WORK AND OBSERVATIONS IN CUBA. BY CLARA BARTON, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS. Perhaps next to the actual doing of the work at a relief field, the most difficult thing is the telling of it. There is so much in detail, both important and imperative, that does not seem worth mentioning ; so much to be improvised that does not class with regular work ; usually so many excellent persons to be met and considered, whose untried opinions nothing short of a trial will satisfy and nothing short of a failure will convince ; and the unexpected so often happening; that any description afterwards seems either too tame or too confused to be understood ; and yet the kindly and repeated request of the editor of the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW that, for "public enlightenment," I could write a few words, telling of my work and observations in Cuba induces me, even in the hurry of changes and journeys, to comply with it. It was as far back as November, 1897, that I was made aware of the intention of our President to address a personal appeal to the people of the United States, with a view to bringing about concerted effort of sufficient magnitude to afford adequate relief to the perishing population of Cuba. It is, perhaps, not too much to say that my own thoughts, and such little influence as I might possess, had been directed to the same object since our return from Armenia, fourteen months before. These like conditions naturally resulted in a conference. From that time there could have been no doubt in the mind of the Executive as to the moral expediency of a call. At or near the moment selected occurred the touching event which in its faithful, filial simplicity challenged the tender respect of the world. This great man forgot that he was President of the OUR WORK AND OBSERVATIONS IN CUBA. BY CLARA BARTON, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS. ------------------------------ PERHAPS next to the actual doing of the work at a relief field, the most difficult thing is the telling of it. There is so much in detail, both important and imperative, that does not seem worth mentioning ; so much to be improvised that does not class with regular work ; usually so many excellent persons to be met and considered whose untried opinions nothing short of a trial will satisfy and nothing short of a failure will convince ; and the unexpected so often happening; that any description afterwards seems either too tame or too confused to be understood ; and yet the kindly and repeated request of the editor of the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW that, for "the public enlightenment," I would write a few words, telling of my work and observation in Cuba induces me, even in the hurry of changes and journeys, to comply with it. It was as far back as November 1897, that I was made aware of the intention of our President to address a personal appeal to the people of the United States, with a view to bringing about concerted effort of sufficient magnitude to afford adequate relief to the perishing population of Cuba. It is, perhaps, not too much to say that my own thoughts, and such little influence as I might possess, had been directed to the same object since our return from Armenia, fourteen months before. These like conditions naturally resulted in a conference. From that time there could have been no doubt in the mind of the Executive as to the moral expediency of a call. At or near the moment selected occurred the touching event which in its faithful, filial simplicity challenged the tender respect of the world. This great man forgot that he was President of the 554 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. At the time of our arrival supplies had been landed only at Havana, and no outside distribution had commenced-indeed, to all appearance, the home market was quite sufficient. Distributions were made in weekly rations by tickets. Sunday was the day of distribution of the American supplies. The first sight of this, as we drove from house to house, is not easily forgotten. The crowds of gaunt hunger that clustered about the door-the streets far back filled with half-clad, eager masses of humanity, waiting, watching, for the little packages, for the morsel of food that was to interpose between them and the death that threatened them. The first station had issued one thousand tickets ; the second, thirteen hundred ; the third, eighteen hundred ; and the largest, twenty-two hundred. About twelve thousand persons received rations that day. The gatherings were orderly, patient, respectful, but pitiful beyond description. The question constantly coming up was, Where do these wretched people stay ? Sent away from their homes, ignorant, helpless, where do they find others ? It was suggested that LOS FOSOS, a large, old establishment that had once formed one of the landmarks, if not defenses, of the city, had been used for this purpose. A visit to it revealed what human wretchedness-without force, without intentional inhumanity, indeed, with perhaps the opposite-a modified disposition to relieve-could mean. On these dark, bare, wet, filthy floors, a hundred feet unbroken by partition, with few cots or any other provision for sleeping, were huddled from six hundred to eight hundred human beings, largely women and children, although many feeble men and boys were among them. Very few could walk ; a piece of a blanket or shawl ; often no dress underneath ; no mattress. Sometimes a few rags were visible. The "rations "(for this was a municipal arrangement) had lately been discontinued and only the charitable gifts of the city people sustained it. American food had not yet entered. A few physicians looked in on them, but there were no medicines ; and, to add to my terror, I felt these long unbroken floors trembling and yielding beneath the ever increasing weight put upon them. It required but a few days to get a member of the Consul's committee in charge and American food in well cooked meals served twice a day ; cots and clothing for all ; rooms partitioned [*No. Am. Review articles by C.B Cuba. Press Article by CB C-11*] THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC HEALTH. 551 vasion of infectious diseases. This bureau should collect information relative to health matters, both at home and abroad ; it should be equipped with laboratories for original research and investigation, and in different ways act as an educational centre, and in this manner stimulate local officials to become competent sanitarians and not discourage them in these efforts. This bureau should have the power to assume direct charge in different localities only when it is clearly proven that local officials are unable or incompetent to act. In the making of general rules and regulations it should have the advice and council of expert sanitarians who are familiar with the needs of the different sections throughout the country. A bill conforming to the above ideas has already been introduced into the Senate by Senator Spooner, of Wisconsin. The bill is broad in its application, is meant to bring about uniformity of action by education, encouragement, and co-operation, and not by antagonism and force. It is safe to say that no bill of this character which has ever been presented to Congress has appealed so directly and forcibly to the element which is best able to judge of the value of such measures, and it is gratifying to know that at the time of writing it has every prospect of success. ALVAH H. DOTY. OUR WORK AND OBSERVATION IN CUBA. 553 United States of America, and remembered only the wrinkled face and parting message of the mother at whose beside he humbly knelt-forgot that an impatient Congress waited for his message in order to convene, whilst he laid the last tribute of a morning son lovingly upon her grave. With deepened gaze and saddened face he hastened back to the stern duties of the statesman, remembering all the more keenly the woes of other sons and other mothers, and the wail of the perishing little children to whom hunger means so much. It was then decided to make the call upon the people of the country, to contribute in money and material for the relief of the suffering "people of Cuba" ; and that a committee should be appointed to receive and ship from New York the contributions made for that purpose. The great courtesy of the direction of this committee was tendered to myself, and I had the pleasure of naming its present Chairman, Mr.Stephen E. Barton, for many years a vice-president of the National Red Cross, and a member of its staff. The honorable and efficient treasurer of the committee, Mr. Charles A. Schieren, was named by the President of the Chamber of Commerce of New York, and Mr. Louis Klopsch, proprietor of the Christian Herald, who had previously addressed a letter to the Administration proposing to raise money for relief, was made a third member of the committee, now known as the Central Cuban Relief Committee. The shipment of supplies was, naturally, consigned to Consul General Lee as the highest-bonded officer on the island, to receive and distribute ; and I was requested by the same authority to follow to Cuba and assist in the distribution. Consul-General Lee having asked the committee for an assistant in handling the supplies, rapidly increasing in quantity, Mr. J.-K. Elwell, a gentleman of several years residence i Cuba, and familiar with the language, was appointed by the committee. He accompanied me on my first visit to Havana, and still holds that position. Shipments of supplies had been made by some eight or ten Ward Line streamers. They were stored by courtesy in the great San José warehouse, adjacent to the custom house, and were being distributed from a number of depots, mainly the private residences of citizens, members of a committee, consisting of leading people of Havana, appointed by the Consul-General. OUR WORK AND OBSERVATIONS IN CUBA. 555 off for dispensary, clothing and stores; with kind physicians glad to serve, when they had something to serve with ; brooms, brushes and dusters into the hands of those who had a little strength to use them ; stairs and floors securely bridged and shored ; and, when our genial Dr.Lesser grasped the welcoming hand of these noble hearted surgeons, and "Sister Bettina" took in her band of trained nurses, one drew a long breath of glad relief and felt that LOS FOSOS was a thing of history. A homeless man now finds shelter there for the night and a hungry man or woman a plate of food ; and so far from beings reproach it is a credit to the city. By this time the supplies were coming in larger shipments. The warehouse not only provided free storage, but the free use of its force of help, in handling, as well. Too much praise could not be rendered that competent business firm, and the custom house officials were equally obliging and helpful. True, their laws are like the laws of the Medes and Persians and as strictly enforced, but therein consists of the security and safety we have at all times enjoyed. The cordiality that met us on all sides was remarkable. On February 14, only five days after our arrival, we were begged to leave our duties long enough to visit our splendid battleship, the "Maine," lying a "thing of beauty" scarce a quarter of a mile from shore. Our luncheon with Captain Sigsbee and his gallant officers remains a sad pleasant memory. Thirty hours later, the doors and windows of our rooms in the Inglaterra (for we were still at the hotel) rattled and flew open, the thunder of the heaviest artillery pealed over the city and heavens were filled with lurid blaze and bursting bombs. We have little need of the poet's stirring battle-cry of to-day, "Remember, the 'Maine.'" We who saw her destruction, the agony of her survivors, and the burial of her dead can never cease to remember. Directly following this we rented and removed to a comfortable house in Cerro, Villa Jorrin, a delightful suburb of Havana, two miles out and reached by streetcars ; sufficiently capacious for the members of the staff who might follow, and which, to-day, constitutes the headquarters of the American Red Cross in Cuba. Members and assistants, to the number of a dozen of more did follow immediately, including Dr. A. Monae Lesser, surgeon of the Red Cross hospital in New York, and "Acting surgeon-in- 556 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. chief,'' by appointment, of the National Red Cross at the field, and his accomplished wife, "Sister Bettina," bearing a relation to nurses similar to that of her husband with physicians and surgeons. Years of faithful service, devotion, skill, and successful attainment have richly won for them this distinction. Their trained nurses are now in Tampa, waiting to return to Cuba as soon as they may be permitted. In this connection I should name our veteran field agent, Dr. J. B. Hubbell, who has stood on every field of disaster, nearly twenty in number, where the American Red Cross has given relief, and Dr. E. W. Egan, of Boston, equally faithful and devoted. Such is the nucleus of a staff of war relief which would at once swell to scores, nay hundreds, if occasion demands. Before the end of the first week we had a commenced sending to the country towns all the food that could be spared from Havana, and when the "Vigilancia" came in with fifty-two tons we felt that we might go ourselves and see how best to place it. Jaruco, only twenty miles to the east of us, had suffered greatly. No aid had reached it. Its one train a day necessitated a start from home at four-thirty in the morning, dark, damp and chilly. A ferry and a train brought us there at nine o'clock. A royal welcome awaited us from all the dignitaries of the town. The mayor, judge, doctor and priest, who led the way to the church, followed by a crowd of people that filled its entire centre, kneeling in prayer, with tears of gratitude to God that at length some one had remembered them, and as the word "America" in broken accents burst out in their sobbing prayers, we remembered the plentiful, peaceful American homes and happy hearts, and thanked God that we were of them. Alas! how poorly I took in the terrible danger threatening to engulf us in the direst of woes that could befall a peaceful, prosperous people. From the church our way led to the hospitable but plain table of the mayor, for breakfast with the leaders of the .town and with them to visit the village of reconcentrados that had built itself up in the midst of them. A remarkable fact regarding Jaruco is that more persons have actually died in that town during the three years of the war than comprised its own entire population when it began. The charities of the town people have been something enormous in proportion to their means, but they have given themselves unto poverty. They could not even keep up OUR WORK AND OBSERVATIONS IN CUBA 557 the furnishing of a hospital, although nearly every little palmetto hut had its suffering patients. We asked to be shown what would be their hospital if it could be kept-a fairly good building capable accommodating fifty to seventy, with only four patients, evidently left to die ; but the conditions surrounding them forbade the entrance of cleanly persons. The stench as of something dead drove us back ; but rallying we decided to make battle, and called for volunteers. Arming them with weapons of shining Spanish gold and silver we ordered them to enter the town for purchases, first, carts of water, for in its scarcity even that had to be bought in Jaruco ; barrels of lime, brooms, whitewash brushes, disinfectants and whatever else was needed ; next, taking out into the air the four poor wretches, to commence on the building grounds. Here were twenty strong men, full of unwonted courage and aroused impulse, to wage a battle with filth and death At noon we left, for duties in another part of the city and to arrange for the sending of heavy supplies. At five o'clock the return messenger found a perfectly odorless building, clean, whitewashed from floor to ceiling, grounds policed and limed, and clothes, eating crackers and condensed milk. The next day went out new cots, blankets and outfit for a hospital, a Cuban Surgeon, Dr. Jose Sollosso, to superintend it; medicines, clothing, delicacies, with directions to take all the sick from the huts to hospital. The women of the town, filled with renewed hope, begged to be allowed to assist. Reports came regularly to us to the last of our stay; few deaths. The town grew comfortable and happy under its rations of food, and the terrors of Jaruco, like those of Los Foso, had passed into history. We were meanwhile apprised that shipments for other ports would be made ; notably Matanzas, Sagua and Santiago de Cuba, and some very heavy work was required of our men to avoid the harmful results of mistaken orders in the disruption of the ships. It was at this juncture, the last of February, that senator Proctor, with his friend, Col. M. M. Parker, arrived in Havana, whose calm, faithful report of what he saw and learned, with no attempt oratory, effect or sensation, has been the balance wheel that has steadied many a swaying mind and doubtful opinion. 553 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW We were informed that the "Ferm" would leave New York with 50 tons of food dor Mantanzas; we knew of great destitution there; but hitherto our supplies had not been equal to the relieving of a city of fifty thousand. We decided to go personally, learn the condition, and arrange for the expected distribution. On the 2d of March, inviting Senator Protector to accompany us, we made another early morning start, to be warmly welcome, our reception of patriotic and pathetic interest which marked the passing of the day, can find no place in the lines of this short and hasty sketch. However, they are history and can afford to wait their turn, when readers shall have more time both to read and reflect. The condition of the hospital when they were reached was pitiful beyond description, and no description will be here attempted. I may only add that to us, with out work-a-day ideas and customs, it seemed that deeper interest and greater care on the part of some one could have improved conditions even as discouraging as these. We gave all we had to give, with the positive and repeated assurance that the next train from Havana would bring supplies of food suitable for the sustenance of all the hospitals, and we promised that a ship would bring relief to every hungry reconcentrado; then we hastened back by the one returning train late in the day to fulfil our promise. I may only add that we did fulfil it. The Friday morning train, March 4th, took four tons of the choicest hospital supplies in the warehouse of Havana to Matanzas. Resting in this certainty, and fearing that similar conditions might exist elsewhere, we continued our navigations through these dark early morning journeys, Senator Proctor and friends always accompanying till Artemisa, Sagua le Grande and Cienfuegos had been reached and investigated withing the week. Having learned the condition and needs of these great points, and prepared ourselves to report correctly to the committee at New York, and having learned that the "Fern" had arrived at Matanzas, it was proper to repeat our visit and arrange for distribution. Our first Senatorial visitors had returned to Washington, and a second larger party of honored representatives of the government, together with Mr. Louis Klopch, of the New York committe, had taken its place, and also accompanied us on this second visit to Matanzas. It pains me to write that, in spite of all our efforts, we arrived to find the hosptal in worse condition, if possible, than before and the four tons of hospital supplies for which we had held the way bills, sent on the 4th, eight days before still lying perfect and compact order in the freight room of the station, each bearing the relief sign of the Red Cross, and plain;y addressed to the American authorities there. All the authorities of the town were Cubans and Americans: and at that moment the greet our eyes the steam ship "Fern" lay under the American flag withing the gunshot of the shore with 50 tons of American supplies; and fifty rods away lay the "Bergen" under the same colors, bearing a cargo of fifty- two tons, from the Philadelphia Red Cross, faithfully sent through the New York committee, by request. I simply name these circumastances to emphasice the fact, that, at the moment when the appeal went out over our paralyzed country for "starving Matanzas," there were lying in her station, or with gunshots of her shores, in plain veiw, one hundred and fifty -six tons of the best food our great, generous-hearted people could contribute. It is needless to add that our field agent Dr. Hubbell, remaind, and that the inmates of the four hospitals partook of their supper from the waiting supplies. With the seven hundred tons that have since been promisuously sent to the Matanzas, her people should not be hungry. Dr. Hubbell remaind at Matanzax and Sagua intil official notification come form America that provision had been made to take all Americans from the island. No exceptions were made in favor of anyone, and presuming that, in the event of hostilities, our government would prefer its citizens to be in the rear rather than in front of its funs, we ovediently and respectully withdrew. From no authorities or people on the island have we ever received and but the most considerate and courteous treatment Clara Barton. THE INSURGENT GOVERNMENT IN CUBA. BY HORATIO S. RUBENS, COUNSEL OF THE AMERICAN DELEGATION OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY PARTY. The Cuban Rebellion of 1868 proved the power of endurance and resistance of the Cuban people. The present uprising proves that the Cubans are good organizers, thoroughly practical and amenable to discipline. The Ten Years' War was projected by the more educated part of the community; the present insurrection is the result of a popular upheaval. The great secret of the success of the present Cuban movement lies in its organization. It is claimed that the Cuban people are incapable of self-government, but the facts prove the falsity of this statement. It is not my purpose to show the causes which led to the uprising. However, it must be borne in mind that on the termination of the Ten Years' War, and the failure of Spain to keep faith with the Cubans and give them that home rule for which alone they laid down their arms, a large number of Cubans left the island to live in the United States, Central America, and the West Indies. Most of these were veteran fighters; all were opposed to Spanish rule. Time passed; Spanish rule had become more intolerable than ever. The Cubans on the island looked to the veteran leaders abroad for counsel and aid. The spirit of revolt was there, but organization was needed. José Marti assumed the great task. He organized the Cubans abroad into clubs, and these clubs were associated to constitute the Cuban Revolutionary Party. Every member of the party became not only a worker, but a regular contributor to the revolutionary fund. The veterans were pledged to lead in the coming conflict. It was agreed that General Maximo Gomez, then in Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.