CLARA BARTON

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CLARA BARTON
A CENTENARY TRIBUTE
 
TO
THE WORLD’S GREATEST HUMANITARIAN
FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN RED CROSS SOCIETY
AUTHOR OF THE AMERICAN AMENDMENT TO THE INTERNATIONAL
RED CROSS CONVENTION OF GENEVA
FOUNDER OF THE NATIONAL FIRST AID
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

CHARLES SUMNER YOUNG, A.M. Ph.D

ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON

RICHARD G. BADGER

THE GORHAM PRESS

This book is respectfully dedicated to the Boys and Girls of the World; and to the Men and Women who are still Boys and Girls, in their love for humanity.

The author, in the preparation of his pen pictures, begs to acknowledge with sincere thanks the courtesies extended to him by Mr. Stephen E. Barton, the Executor of the Clara Barton Estate; by Doctor J. B. Hubbell, for many years the manager for Clara Barton; by the Oxford (Mass.) Memorial Day Committee of 1917; by the Twenty-First Massachusetts Regiment G. A. R.; by many of the Army Nurses of the Civil War; also for material assistance in data by the American National Red Cross; by Mrs. J. Sewall Reed Acting-President, National First Aid Association of America; by Honorable Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress; by General W. H. Sears for the use of his data in his book of 177 pages, prepared for and used in the defense of Clara Barton before the Library Committee of Congress, and his generous contribution of incidents in the life of his personal friend; by Honorable Francis Atwater for data in “The Story of My Childhood,” by Clara Barton; by the Macmillan Co., Publishers of the Life of Clara Barton by Percy H. Epler, the book of the best data on her life now before the American people; by the National First Aid Association of America and likewise to many other associations, personal friends and admirers of America’s most remarkable woman.

Honor women! they entwine and weave heavenly roses in our earthly life. Schiller.

The author undertakes to produce a few pen pictures of a personal friend—humanity’s friend. They are pictures of sentiment, pictures of reality—pictures of humanity.

Although precluded the use of data left by Clara Barton for her biography the author, nevertheless, is conforming to the sentiment of her oft expressed wish that he write the story of her life. Recognizing the 8wish to be a sacredly imposed trust, for the past six years he has gleaned what he could for his sketches from public documents, from her personal friends in California, New England, New York, Washington and elsewhere, as well as from his memory of facts developing through the years he enjoyed her confidence and received from her highest inspirations.

The author assumes not a rôle literary—has herein no aspirations, literary. His impulse to write is not fame; it is sentiment, a love-sentiment for a woman whom all the world loves and whose “life gives expression to the sympathy and tenderness of all the hearts of all the women of the world.” His motive in writing is to point a moral in “a passion for service”; to limn scenes, vivid, along “paths of charity over roadways of ashes”; to depict for the lesson it teaches a career, a career the memory of which must remain a rich heritage to the American people.

In life’s drama, wherein Clara Barton played the leading rôle, there appear faces to inspire, faces to instruct, but also the faces of intrigue. In the closing incidents of a life-heroic time’s detectives disclose the plotters, and the motive in their plot to destroy—

Except now and then in dim outline, the faces of intrigue in the tragic scene do not appear. These faces are un-American—inhuman—and would mar humanity’s picture.

The Divine Humanitarian forgave His enemies, but the picture of the crucified on the cross ever suggests the Pontius Pilate and the executioners. Clara Barton 9also forgave her enemies, and yet some day a literary artist may portray the Judasette Iscariot, or possibly the plotting Antony and Cleopatra, to make a Clara Barton picture historically and tragically complete.

In biography is the world’s history. If, in human logic, the silencing of truth in biography be an imperative virtue, then literature should be relegated to the ash-heap of forgotten lore. As “in a valley centuries ago grew a fern leaf green and slender,” leaving its impress on what have become the rocks of the centuries, so truth leaves its impress imperishable on what become the tablets of history. Truth crushed to earth again and again will appear; and, when Clara Barton’s Gethsemane appears with all its delineations in a picture complete, there will be none so poor to do reverence to Clara Barton’s character assassins, nor to the Clara Barton ghouls who desecrate her tomb and use the United States mails to traduce the dead.

Sentiment is the soul of action. The highest tribute to mortal is the angel-sentiment—the tribute to self-sacrificing woman that blazes her “path where highways never ran.”

and yet more powerful than armies is the soul-sentiment that protects fame,—the fame of the Florence Nightingales, the Clara Bartons and the Edith Cavells.

Her “friends” say time will vindicate Clara Barton. The more such “friends” the more’s the pity. It’s not time, it’s truth, that vindicates. “Procrastination is the thief of time.” The thief of time must not be permitted to steal from the present, even under pledge to disgorge 10in the future. The present is ours to possess, ours to enjoy. It’s not that the millions can do something for Clara Barton; instead, the Clara Barton spirit can do something for the millions. The plotter may revile the Red Cross Mother; the Red Cross Artist may picture the cross of red on the breast of a fictitious “Greatest Mother in the World;” the self-constituted autocrat in Red Cross literature may suppress, and belie, truth; but the spirit of Clara Barton is the Mother-Spirit still, the real spirit of the American Red Cross, the Red Cross spirit in all Christendom. The fighting sons of America on the “Western Front” may not have read of Clara Barton in recent Red Cross literature but, trooping under the Red Cross peace-banner that Clara Barton brought here from Europe, were more millions of her followers in America than in the world war there were soldiers marshalled under the military banners in all the armies in Europe.

Grant was “Grant the Great” at Appomattox; Lincoln was more than “six feet four” when in the home of Confederate General Pickett he stooped down to kiss the brow of “Baby George” Pickett; Stephen A. Douglass was more than “the little giant” when at the inauguration on the east steps of the capitol he held the hat of Abraham Lincoln; Clara Barton was more divine than human when, with love for her enemies, in her last world prayer she gave expression to the forgiving sentiment of the Divine Humanitarian.

Clara Barton said that the bravest act of her life was crossing the pontoon bridge under fire at Fredericksburg. The historian will say that the bravest act of her life was snatching her Red Cross child from the social—political—fat-salaried-swiveled-chair clique at 11Washington, and handing over her best beloved unharmed to the country for which in the smoke of battle and terrors of disaster she had many times risked her life. The historian will further say that in refusing to accept a pension of $2500 for life and Honorary Presidency of the Red Cross from that “clique” as the price of her child, and suffering persecution for life as the penalty, there was shown the true mother spirit that must commend her for all time to those who respect the spirit of self-sacrificing Motherhood.

President Warren G. Harding, the president also of the Red Cross, “entertains the highest sentiment regarding the splendid service of Miss Barton.” Ex-President Woodrow Wilson—also ex-president of the Red Cross—has voiced the sentiment of the American people in no uncertain sound as has a second Clara Barton,—the soldier-angel Margaret Wilson. General John J. Pershing has not been silent in his admiration of the great woman, nor have the hundreds of thousands of American boys on the “Western Front” been unmindful in gratitude to the Founder of the American Red Cross; and, if signs fail not, from the American Congress there will come to America’s greatest humanitarian a testimonial—accompanied by an acclaim that will be heard around the world.

On a certain state occasion the statement was made that there is less to censure, and more to commend, in the public life of Clara Barton for the twenty-three years she was President of the Red Cross than in the public life of any one of the twenty-eight Presidents from George Washington to Woodrow Wilson. There commenting on the statement, America’s beloved Mrs. 12General George E. Pickett significantly said: “Yes, that’s true, but Clara Barton was a woman.” But woman is coming into her own, and Clara Barton said, “My own shall come to me.” Never was prophecy more certain of fulfillment. With hundreds of thousands of Americans receiving the benefits of “First Aid”; with more than thirty thousand brave American nurses, ten thousand of these following the illustrious example of Clara Barton by going to the battlefield; with more than thirty millions of Americans serving the Red Cross in time of war; with more than a billion of human beings making use of the Red Cross American Amendment in times of peace and war, Clara Barton already has come into her own.

The American nation will come into its own, as did respectively two great nations of Europe, when she wipes out from the scroll of history its foulest blot,—by giving national recognition to a national heroine; the American Red Cross will come into its own when it shall repossess the name Clara Barton; the American people will come into their own when they patriotically recognize, and sacredly cherish, that immortal Mother-Spirit which, after a half century of heroic sacrifices in the war of human woes, passed triumphant through the archway ’twixt earth and heaven.

If these pen pictures give to the boys and girls of America inspiration to loftier patriotism and higher ideals in achievement; if truth in the biography give renewed impulse to American Red Cross philanthropy; if through this volume immortal deeds, and a name unsullied, be treasured for world-humanity then Clara Barton’s dying message to the author shall not have been in vain.

CHARLES SUMNER YOUNG

13The only picture of myself that I have cared anything about at all is the one taken at the time of the Civil War (1865), in which I am represented in the uniform of a nurse. If my friends had let me have my way, I would never have had another picture taken. (Frontispiece)

17I want the last picture of the friends I love to show them in their strength, and at their best, not after time and age shall have robbed them of all characteristic features which represented them in actual life.—Clara Barton, from her diary of December 13, 1910.

I take my pencil (at 86 years of age) to describe the first moment of my life that I remember. Clara Barton—In The Story of My Childhood.

Do not sin against the child. Genesis.

The rude wooden cradle in which Clara Barton was rocked is now one of the very interesting curios in possession of the Worcester (Mass.) Historical Society. The Author.

The child’s grief throbs against the round of its little heart as heavily as the man’s sorrow. Chapin.

Baby lips will laugh me down. Tennyson.

Dispel not the happy delusions of children. Goethe.

Happy child! The cradle is to thee a vast space.

Babyhood repeats itself. Babyhood is practically the same yesterday, today and forever. And yet who does not try to recall first impressions and first experiences? Clara Barton says her first baby experience that she recalls was when she was two and one half years of age. She thus describes it:—

“Baby los’ ’im—pitty bird—baby los’ ’im—baby mos’ caught ’im.

“At length they succeeded in inducing me to listen to a question, ‘But where did it go, Baby?’

“Among my heart-breaking sobs I pointed to a small round hole under the doorstep. The terrified scream of my mother remained in my memory forevermore. Her baby had ‘mos’ caught’ a snake.”

Her second experience that she recalls was when four years old, at a funeral of a beloved friend of the family. She previously had been terrified by a large old ram on the farm. On this occasion she was left in care of a guardian, in a sitting room. The four windows were open. Suddenly there came up a thunder storm. Sharp flashes of lightning darted through the rising, rolling clouds. She thought the whole heavens were full of angry rams and they were coming down upon her. Her screams alarmed, and her brother rushed into the room only to find her on the floor in hysterics.

Sorrows put permanent wrinkles on the face, in maturity; on the mind, in childhood. Only strangeness may produce fear in babyhood but, with a baby, strangeness is everywhere. Darkness and strange noises frighten. Forms of phantasy float on the imagination; 23when gradually, it’s comedy; when suddenly, it’s tragedy.

These tragic moments left their impressions on Clara Barton’s plastic mind. Such impressions ever must remain. Miss Barton said she remembered nothing but fear in her earlier years; and terror-stricken she remained to the end, except when she could serve someone in distress, or rescue someone from danger of death. An English philosopher says: “the least and most imperceptible impressions received in our infancy have consequences very important and are of long duration.” The greatest minds of earth, in all ages, have tried to recall baby experiences, and have wondered what they had to do with success or failure.

At three years Clara Barton was taken a mile and one-half to school on the shoulders of her brother Stephen; at eleven years she ceased growing, then but five feet three inches. The Author.

When I found myself on a strange horse, in a trooper’s saddle, flying for life or liberty in front of pursuit, I blessed the baby lessons of the wild gallops among the beautiful colts.

Clara Barton—The memories of her childhood belong to our little town, and are our most precious heritage.

Remember that you were once a child, full of childish thoughts and actions. Clara Barton.

The sports of children satisfy the child. Goldsmith.

Children’s plays are not sports, and should be regarded as their most serious actions. Montague.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. I Corinthians.

A sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature. C. Lamb.

The scenes of childhood are memories of future years.

I do not like to beat my children—the world will beat them.

The Baker homestead (Bow, N. H.)—Around the memory thereof cluster the golden days of my childhood.

A long way seems the dear old New England home—its sheltering groves and quiet hills; amid the clustering memories my tears are falling thick and silently like the autumn leaves in forest dells.

Children have more need of models than of critics.

Children think not of what is past nor of what is to come but enjoy the present time, which few of us do.

Women are only children of a larger growth.

The only fun is to do things. Clara Barton.

I pledged myself to strive only for the courage of the right and for the blessedness of true womanhood. Clara Barton.

SCHOOL—CHILDISH MEMORIES—MILITARY

What woman has not said “I remember when I was a girl....” Clara Barton at eighty-six years said, in 26the story of her childhood, I remember ..., I remember riding wild colts when I was five years of age. I remember how frightened I was, but acquired assurance when my brother used to tell me to “cling fast to the mane.” To this day (at eighty-six years of age) my seat in the saddle, or on the bare back of a horse, is as secure and tireless as in a rocking chair. I remember I thought the President might be as large as the meeting house and the Vice President perhaps the size of the school house. I remember telling my teacher that I did not spell such little words as “cat” and “dog,” but I spell in artichoke, artichoke being the first word in the column of three syllables.

I remember writing verses, many of which for years were preserved—some of these verses by others recited to amuse people—some verses to tease me. I remember, in school, making a mistake in pronouncing ‘Ptolmy,’ when the children laughed at me, and I burst out crying and left the room.

I remember that my father taught me politics; and that, as an old soldier,^[1] he amused the other children and myself by giving us practical lessons in military life. We used improvised material, such as children are accustomed to use in “playing soldier,”—paper caps, plumes, banners, kettle for the kettle drum, tin swords, sticks for guns and bayonets—all of which were perfectly satisfactory to us.

The armies played havoc with each other, had fearful encounters and, what seemed to our young minds then, suffered disastrous results. Camps, regiments, brigades, military terms, she said, thus became familiar to her as the most ordinary matters of home.

In my home here at Oxford, we would listen with intense interest to the story of her early years, to childhood and girlhood, and to scenes and events in her old home on the hillside. Clara Barton, by her shining example to our children and our children’s children, has left a rare legacy to the town of her birth.

Bucephalus was calmed, and subdued, by the presence of Alexander and became his favorite war-horse.

My brother David was the “Buffalo Bill” of all that surrounding country.

My father was a lover of horses, one of the first in the vicinity to introduce blooded stock.

The first horses imported into the United States were brought to New England in 1629. Surviving the ocean voyage were one horse and seven mares. Oxen being used for all farm work, horses did not come into general use until one hundred years afterwards.

Joan of Arc, Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale was each an expert horsewoman and each made use of her skill in horsemanship, in war.

ON HER FAVORITE BLACK HORSE

Like many other country girls, Clara Barton was fond of horseback riding. When twelve years of age, 29on one occasion, she ran away from home to go for a ride. She came down stairs quietly and slipped out for a ride on her favorite black horse.

Falling from the horse, she injured her knee. Determined to keep the injury a secret she joined her brothers in the field as though nothing had happened. But she limped, and her brothers noticed it. She merely told her brothers she had injured her knee, but would say no more. They sent for a doctor. By plying many questions as to how it happened, the doctor drew from her a confession. In later life—in the Civil War, in the Franco-Prussian War, in the Spanish American War, her skill as a horseback rider was of great service to her. On several occasions she had to “ride for her life.” In speaking of this accomplishment, she used to say “When I was a little girl I could ride like a Mexican.”

Clara Barton—the pitying sweetness which fills her eyes and the sympathetic lines which have been drawn about her mouth bear witness to a long intimacy with suffering and death.

Physiognomy is the language of the face. Jeremy Collier.

Physiognomy is reading the handwriting of nature upon the human countenance. Chatfield.

Palmistry is a science as old as the history of the human race. The mind deceives; the hand tells the truth; the thumb in particular, the tell-tale of character.

Show me an outspread hand and I’ll show you whether or not its master is honest, is kind, is affectionate.

Human nature, as unfolded by phrenology, is being universally accepted by all classes of people. Cranium.

Phrenology can be used in every phase of life. C. S. Hardison.

Phrenology is very fruitful in its capacity to paint mental images.

Phrenology,—a science that has been of great help to us in the progress of life. Doctor Charles H. Shepard.

The shape of the brain may generally be ascertained by the form of the skull. O. S. and L. N. Fowler.

Phrenology professes to point out a connection between certain manifestations of the mental and peculiar conditions and developments of the brain. O. S. and L. N. Fowler.

31Of all the people in England, I was most glad to meet Doctor L. N. Fowler, the same gentle, kind man he used to be so many years ago, and who has done so much for the middle classes of England, giving them helpful advice they could not get from other sources. Clara Barton.

Remembering that fully one-fifth of my life (1856) has been passed as a teacher in schools, it is not strange that I should feel some interest in the cause of education. Clara Barton.

’Tis education forms the common mind; just as the twig is bent the tree is inclined. Alexander Pope.

PHRENOLOGY—READ HER CHARACTERISTICS—BASIS OF FRIENDSHIP

The physiognomist reads character in the face; the palmist in the hand; the phrenologist in the skull. Physiognomy since the origin of man has been nature’s open book. The science of palmistry is at least five thousand years old; but the science of phrenology is of comparatively recent origin. When Clara Barton was a little girl phrenology received its really first great impulse in this country, through the lectures and writings of the Doctors Fowler of England. In England, as in this country, phrenology was then the subject of much ridicule. Of this strange science Thomas Hood sarcastically writes:

32Little Clara was bashful, afraid of strangers, too timid to sit at the family table when guests were present; would not so much as tell her name when asked to do so. When spoken to by a stranger she would burst out crying—sometimes leaving the room. Now and then she would go hungry rather than ask a favor even of a member of the family. Doctor L. N. Fowler visited Oxford. While there he was a guest at the Barton home.

Doctor, what shall we do with this girl, asked the mother; she annoys us almost to death. We can hardly speak to her without her crying, from fear. The doctor examined her head. He replied, she is timid, that’s all. The “bump” of fear is over-developed. Nothing will change a child’s innate fear; that is a characteristic of her nature. She may outgrow it to some extent but her sensitive nature will remain as long as she lives. The doctor advised the parents to give her something to do; to keep her at work, and thus to let her forget herself. Don’t scold her; encourage her. When she does anything well, give her full credit—compliment her. Throw responsibility on her; when she is old enough give her a school to teach.

To be understood is the basis of friendship. The Doctor understood Clara; little Clara understood the Doctor. They became friends. That friendship lasted through life. Many years after the Doctor visited Oxford Clara Barton visited the Doctor, in London. They spent evenings together. The Doctor renewed his interest in the people of those early days in New England. He especially recalled the characteristics of Miss Barton’s father;—they became mutually reminiscent of the days of her childhood. The Doctor 33had then become old and decrepit but was still giving lectures on phrenology. The happiest hours Clara Barton spent in England were in the home of the Fowlers; with the Doctor, his charming wife and three beautiful daughters.

The earth can never have enough women like Clara Barton.

Clara Barton belonged not only to the United States but to the entire civilized world. Boston (Mass.) Globe.

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. Proverbs.

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

The next best thing to a very good joke is a very bad one.

If ever there were lost, or omitted, a well-turned joke or a bit of humor by the various members of the Barton family it was clearly an accident. Clara Barton.

Joking decides great things stronger and better of’t than earnest can. Milton-Horace.

THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH, MAIN STREET, OXFORD, MASSACHUSETTS

Where Clara Barton attended church. Oldest Universalist Church in the world, built 1792. Society second oldest. Organized April 27, 1785. Denomination organized here, September 14, 1785.

SUMMER HOME OF CLARA BARTON, OXFORD, MASSACHUSETTS

Arrow points towards the window of the room where Clara Barton was bed-ridden for several months, through her last fatal illness, in the latter part of 1911.

A timid child is invariably the butt of jokes. Clara Barton, in her youth, was not an exception. As a little girl she had learned to weave, working in a North Oxford satinet mill. She had not been it work there very long when the mill took fire and burned down. Then, as no satisfactory explanation of the cause could be given by the members of the Barton family, the fire was attributed to spontaneous combustion, brought on because Clara had worked so fast as to set the mill on fire. Clara Barton did not object to, but rather enjoyed, a joke on herself. She used to tell her friends of this joke and said that in her own town and among her playmates that joke was “told on me for many years.”

Forget not Christmas. Henry IV. of England.

A Christmas baby! Now, isn’t that the best kind of a Christmas gift for us all? Father Stephen Barton (1821).

Clara Barton was a Christmas present, given to the world.

The sweet love-planted Christmas tree. Will Carleton.

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

This day shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.

37I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year. Charles Dickens.

On Christmas Day we will shut out from our fireside nothing.

’Tis the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial fire of charity in the heart. Washington Irving.

I was born on one bright Christmas day, and I am told that there was a great family jubilation upon the occasion. Clara Barton.

CHRISTMAS
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
(1894)

The life of Clara Barton should be familiarized to every child.

Learning to ride, Clara, is just learning a horse.

How can I learn a horse, David? Sister Clara.

Catch hold of his mane, baby, and just feel the horse a part of yourself—the big half of the task being.

Love me, love my dog. Heyward’s Proverbs.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, and the one that never proves ungrateful, or traitorous, is his dog. Senator Vest.

We are two travellers, Roger and I—Roger’s my dog—so fond, so unselfish, so forgiving. John Townsend Trowbridge.

A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse! Shakespeare.

O for a horse with wings. Cymbeline.

A good rider on a good horse is as much above himself and others as the world can make him. Lord Herbert.

Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession, many.

How senseless is the love of wealth and treasure. Guarini.

Remember not one penny can we take with us into the unknown land. Seneca.

“BUTTON”—“BILLY”—CLARA BARTON OWNERSHIP

A dog is a real philanthropist, his whole existence is living for others. The best “war-scout” known is the Red Cross dog, wearing the insignia. In a dog Miss Barton found a congenial spirit. Her first ownership was a dog, and known by the name of “Button.” 40He was medium-sized, very white, with silky ears, sparkling black eyes, and a very short tail. “Button” was Clara Barton’s guardian in the cradle, her playmate in childhood.

“Button” would try to pick her up when she fell down, sympathize with her in her troubles,—ever unselfish, helpful, loyal.

Clara Barton’s second individual ownership was “Billy.” “Billy” was a horse. She said he was high stepping; in color, brown; of Morgan ancestry, with glossy coat, slim legs, pointed ears, long black mane and tail, and weighing nearly nine hundred pounds.

Ownership endowed “Billy” with wonderful characteristics. He could trot, rack, pace, single-foot,—a Bucephalus worthy of world fame. “Like beads upon a rosary” she would count and recount the joys of memory, memory of her saddle horse, and she on his back, riding like mad, at ten years of age. He had many characteristics, doubtless, that she didn’t recount. As a horse is known to be “a vain thing for safety” “Billy” could probably run away, get frightened at a shadow, senselessly “kick up” and “smash-up,” as do other horses. But fun is in the danger; the greater the danger to life and limb the greater the fun. “Billy” would not stand over her to guard her, nor help her up when she fell down, but was useful and gave her pleasure. “The true, living love is love of soul for soul,” hence mankind loves, in return for love, only what gives love; but mankind also pretends to love 41what it can force to serve man’s purpose. The dog spirit and the horse spirit satisfy the longings of human nature—all the world loves a dog and assumes to love a horse.

In hearing of the cannon’s roar one afternoon, an officer galloped up asking, “Miss Barton, can you ride?” “Yes sir.” “But you have no saddle—could you ride mine?” “Yes sir, or without it, if you have blanket and surcingle.” “Then you can risk an hour.” An hour later the officer returned at breakneck speed—and leaping from his horse said: “Now is your time Miss Barton; the enemy is already breaking over the hills.”

Romance enters into ownership of pet animals. Probably “Button” was just a dog and “Billy” only a horse. But one has said that the right of ownership is the cornerstone of civilization. Ownership of what is worthy of love at least enriches character—contributes to the happiness of human existence. If the Father of his Country was right, that the object of all government is the happiness of the people, then the love of animals serves a very high purpose.

With the first “gold dust” suddenly acquired, an illiterate Western miner built on the desert a stone mansion. He ornamented it with gold door knobs 42door hinges of silver—the doors opening but to golden keys.

Where human beings throng, and men and women suffer, Clara Barton built a structure and ornamented it with a RED CROSS on a white ground—the emblem of service to the suffering. With unusual earning capacity for seventy-five years, and at all times practicing greatest economy, Clara Barton’s ownership at her passing was but $21,000. The Glen Echo Red Cross home that had been used, free of cost to the RED CROSS, was valued at $5,000. While the owner lived she continued to keep it as a charity center—a home for the homeless and indigent—ex-soldiers, civilians, children.

In her closing years she had, therefore, for her own personal and exclusive use in money and realty, not to exceed $21,000. This was nine thousand dollars less than the value of her property when she first became interested in Red Cross work. “Mere money,” she said, “never separates me from my friends. I don’t care for money; I wish only not to become an object of charity, and to be a burden to my friends when I am unable to work for others.”

BIRTHPLACE OF CLARA BARTON, NEAR OXFORD, MASSACHUSETTS

On March 14, 1921, the title to the Barton Homestead was transferred by Carl O. Carlson to The Woman’s National Missionary Society of the Universalist Church. It is now known as The Clara Barton Memorial Home. Mementoes, Red Cross literature and all else possible to obtain that appertain to Clara Barton’s life work will be assembled here and become a part of the Memorial. The homestead consists of the house where Clara Barton was born, and eighty-five acres of land. It was dedicated as a shrine for the public, October 12, 1921.

Arrow points to the room where Clara Barton was born. Size of the room 8 × 10 feet. Ceiling 8 feet high. Clothes closet 5 feet 2 inches × 2 feet 5 inches. Two windows each 4 feet 5 inches high × 2 feet 3 inches wide. Two sashes in each window; six panes of glass in each sash.

OFFICERS OF THE W. N. M. A. PRESENT AT THE DEDICATION OF THE CLARA BARTON MEMORIAL ON OCTOBER 12, 1921.

Left to Right: Mrs. Bertram O. Blaisdell, Trustee; Mrs. Ethel M. Allen, Rec. Sec’y (now President); Mrs. Marietta B. Wilkins, President; Mrs. Fred A. Moore, Literature Secretary; Miss Susan M. Andrew, Trustee (Chairman Clara Barton Guild).

Every child in the country has known of Clara Barton.

Pestalozzi was the Father of the Public School; Washington the Father of his Country; Lincoln, the Father of a Race; Clara Barton, the Mother of the Red Cross. The Author.

The building which housed Clara Barton in her efforts for popular education is still standing along with other historic landmarks.

If you will let me try, I will teach the children free for six months. Clara Barton.

I thank God that we have no free schools—in the colony—and I hope we shall not have these hundred years.

The first incorporation to provide free schools, under the provisions of the State, was passed in New York in 1805.

The basis of free government is in education; in a republic the hope of the millions is the free public school.

The hope of all modern civilization is the public free school.

I taught in an uninclosed shed at North Oxford, there being no house for that purpose. Clara Barton.

The first meetings for the establishment of a kindergarten system at Washington was held at the Clara Barton home, in Washington; 44among others present Phoebe Hearst and Mrs. Grover Cleveland, wife of the President, the chairman. The Author.

Let us live in our children. Frederick Froebel.

PAUPER SCHOOLS; FROM SIX TO SIX HUNDRED

New Jersey had no public schools. The people said they were not paupers and would not have their children taught at public expense—would not send them to “pauper schools.” In New Jersey Clara Barton opened, for the first time, what was called a “free school for paupers.” Since those puritan days, what a change in public sentiment! Then it was “Pauper school” education; now

Free education is the poor man’s marble staircase that leads upward, and into, the palaces of wealth, health and happiness.

Clara Barton was told that a public school was impossible; every time it had been tried, it had failed. At Bordentown she found herself with six bright boys, and the public school^[2] commenced. At the end of twelve months her six pupils had grown to six hundred pupils—among whom no corporal punishment had been administered.

“Pauper schools” became thence in fact the free public school; now the free public school is the one institution from whose flagstaff freedom’s flag is never hauled down.

Clara Barton taught the rich to be unselfish and the strong to be gentle. Charles E. Townsend, U. S. Senate.

Miss Barton was a soft-voiced, retiring little woman, yet she had a way of approaching her work in a most telling manner.

Miss Barton followed her own light with steadfast steps.

Clara Barton—a model of the beautiful simplicity of a life given to others. Bridgeport (Conn.) Standard.

The severest test of discipline is its absence. Clara Barton.

Social, friendly and human, Clara Barton joined with the children in the playgrounds;—instead of being locked out as the previous teachers had been she “locked” herself “in” the hearts of every boy and girl. The Life of Clara Barton, by Epler.

Show me a child well disciplined, perfectly governed at home, and I will show you a child that never breaks a rule at school.

Whenever corporal punishment is inflicted on a pupil it is a sign of negligence and indolence on the part of the teacher, says Seneca.

In refinement of taste and beauty of action, or purity of thought and delicacy of expression, nature’s own best teacher is woman.

To the child nothing is small; nor does the child forget. Whatever kindness comes to the child is stored in one of the cells of the brain for future years. As an heirloom, the longer it is possessed the more it is cherished.

Referring to her teacher of long ago, Dr. Eleanor Burnside recently related this incident in her school life: “I recall when a little girl in her school Clara Barton’s friendly interest in the progress of her pupils; unvarying patience, no matter what the circumstances might be. I do not think she knew how to scold, nor were scoldings and other manifestations of ill temper necessary. Her quiet, firm word, pleasantly expressed, seemed sufficient always.”

Not easily disturbed, Miss Barton did not notice little misdemeanors by the children at all. She seemed not to observe one day when some fun was started by a boy sitting back of Joe Davis. The mischievous boy was putting his finger in Joe’s red hair and pretending his finger was burnt. Of course it amused the children, but only for a moment. To govern too much is worse than to govern too little. This was an incident merely of a child’s humor, requiring no reprimand. “But no 47matter what happened, Clara Barton did not scold. Her pupils loved her and that made what she did, and what she said too, right.”

The old desk used by Clara Barton recently has been found in possession of one of the old families at Bordentown, New Jersey. By tracing back the ownership it has been proved conclusively to be the original desk used by Miss Barton. The desk refuted the libel that she was a disciplinarian, and not a humanitarian. The libel referred to was that she had a particularly unruly boy; that she seized him by the nape of the neck, lifted the lid of the desk and dropped him inside. Now that the desk has been discovered, her admirers point to the interesting fact that it doesn’t have a top lid; it has a small drawer.

Childhood is ever of the living present. Up the stream of time the eye keeps fixed on memory’s treasures of youth. In one of the battles of the Civil War, Clara Barton stooped down to place the empty sleeve, then useless to the bullet-shattered right arm, over the shoulder of a soldier boy. Recognizing the face of his former teacher the fair-haired lad dropped his face into the folds of her dress, then threw his left arm around her neck, in deepest grief, crying: “Why, Miss Barton, don’t you know me? I am Charlie Hamilton who used to carry your satchel to school.”

Like a patriotic soldier Clara Barton responded in the youth of her womanhood to the call of service to others.

Clara Barton is one of the greatest heroic figures of her time.

Clara Barton—our greatest national heroine. Literary Digest.

We reckon heroism today, not so much on account of the thing done as the motive behind the act. Chauncey M. Depew.

Yes, it is over. The calls are answered, the marches have ended, the nation saved. Clara Barton.

The best blood of America has flowed like water.

The soldier is lost in the citizen. Clara Barton.

The proudest of America’s sons have struggled for the honors of a soldier’s name. Clara Barton.

Their glory, bright as it shone in war, is out-lustered by the nobleness of their lives in peace. Clara Barton.

I shall never take to myself more honesty of purpose, faithfulness of zeal, nor patriotism, than I award to another. Clara Barton.

What can be added to the glory of a nation whose citizens are its soldiers? Whose warriors, armed and mighty,—spring from its bosom in the hour of need, and peacefully retire when the need is over. Clara Barton.

49I have taught myself to look upon the government as the band which the people bind around a bundle of sticks to hold it firm, where every patriot must grapple the knot tighter.

If our government be too weak to act vigorously and energetically, strengthen it till it can act; then comes the peace we all wait for, as kings and prophets waited—and without which like them we seek and never find. Clara Barton.

Henry Wilson worked on a farm at six dollars per month. Then he tied up his scanty wardrobe in a pocket handkerchief, and walked to Natick, Massachusetts, more than one hundred miles, to become a cobbler. The trip cost him but $1.88.

I am the son of a hireling manual laborer who, with the frosts of seventy winters on his head, lives by daily labor. I too lived by daily labor. Henry Wilson.

Henry Wilson, born in New Hampshire, February 16, 1812; elected to U. S. Senate, 1855; elected Vice-President, 1872; died November 22, 1875. The Author.

We should yield nothing to our principles of right.

The sorrows of drunkenness glare on us from the cradle to the grave. Henry Wilson.

I would not have upon my soul the consciousness that I had by precept or example lured any young man to drunkenness for all the honors of the universe. Henry Wilson.

Clara Barton’s never-failing friend, Senator Henry Wilson.

Way back in 1857 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Clara Barton showed her humanitarian spirit and organization ability. Under the Reverend Horace James, she assisted in the organization of the Band of Hope,^[3] a society originating in Scotland whose object was: “To Promote the Cause of Temperance and Good Morals of the Children and Youth.”

On the breaking out of the Civil War, the Reverend James became Chaplain of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment, and two of the boys that Clara Barton induced to join the society became officers of the Fifty-seventh Massachusetts Regiment. One was Colonel J. Brainard Hall and the other Captain George E. Barton. At the Battle of the Wilderness the Colonel Hall referred to was seriously, then thought to be fatally, wounded. Clara Barton was the first at his side to nurse, and to care for, him. As soon as he was able to be moved, she sent him to Washington to be cared for there by one whom she told him was her very dear friend. Stranger than fiction, on reaching Washington, Colonel Hall discovered this friend to be the “Hired Man,” previous to 1839, who worked in his grandmother’s shoe-shop,—the late Henry Wilson, Vice-President of the United States.

Every woman who loves her country and who realizes what true patriotism means will always revere the name of Clara Barton, and connect it with the highest ideal of service to one’s country. Dr. Anna H. Shaw President American Woman Suffrage Association.

Clara Barton has won the hearts of the women of the world. Carrie Chapman Catt, President American Woman Suffrage Association.

John Marshall, for thirty-five years Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, held the female sex the equals of men.

I had not learned to equip myself—for I was no Pallas ready armed but grew into my work by hard thinking and sad experience.

I am a woman and know what barriers oppose all womanly efforts. Harriet G. Hosmer.

Clara Barton is the best clerk, either man or woman, I ever had in my office. Mr. Mason, Commissioner of Patents.

It is less difficult for a woman to obtain celebrity by her genius than to be forgiven for it. Brissot.

Only the machinery and plans of Heaven move unerringly and we short-sighted mortals are, half our time, fain to complain of these. Clara Barton.

It is possible for the wisest even to build better than he knows.

52Who furnished the Armies; who but the Mothers? Who reared the sons and taught them that liberty and their country was worth their blood? Who gave them up and wept their fall, nursed them in their suffering and mourned them, dead? Clara Barton.

There is none to give woman the right to govern herself, as men govern themselves by self-made and self-approved laws of the land.

Only the Great Jehovah can crown and anoint man for his work, and he reaches out and takes the crown and places it upon his head with his own hand. Clara Barton.

Whenever I have been urged as a petitioner to ask equal suffrage for women a kind of dazed, bewildered feeling comes over me.

In making an appeal to her soldiers for “votes for women” Clara Barton said: “When you were weak and I was strong, I toiled for you; now you are strong, and I am weak. Because of my work for you, I ask your aid; I ask the ballot for myself and my sex. As I stood by you, I pray you stand by me and mine.” The Author.

Clara Barton advocated “Votes for Women” on the platform of the First National Suffrage Convention in this country.

LOOKING FOR A JOB—EQUAL SUFFRAGE

Among the ancients, controlling the certain affairs worthy of man, were many goddesses; of these, Venus, Ceres, Juno, Diana, Pomona, Minerva. Such man’s inherent respect for femininity that feminine names in classic days were given to temples of worship; to the continents, Europe, Asia, Africa, and later to America.^[4] Feminine names with few exceptions, also, have been given to all countries,—“she” and not “he,” likewise the word used to identify great things mechanical and useful. Long and hard has been the contest for woman to achieve in fact what in spirit seemingly comports with womanhood. In this contest through the last half of the nineteenth, and the first half of the twentieth, century Clara Barton was conspicuous.

THE SCHOOL HOUSE

Built of brick, in 1839, where Clara Barton taught school in 1853. See page 47.

THE DESK USED BY CLARA BARTON

See page 47.

THE CLARA BARTON MUSEUM

The old school house reconstructed. See page 47.

53Alone in the world, dependent upon her own efforts for a living and looking for a “job,” the following is what in letters Miss Barton says of herself in 1854 and 1860 respectively:

In a letter to her friend Miss Lydia F. Haskell, Washington, D. C., January 20, 1854, Clara Barton said:

“Well, I am a clerk in the United States Patent Office, writing my fingers stiff every day of my life.... The truth is, I have written nights until one or two o’clock for the last two weeks. I shall not be so very busy long. I am just now fitting the mechanical report for the press; that off my hands and I shall be quite at ease, I suppose.”

In a letter to Frank Clinton, Bordentown, New Jersey, dated January 2, 1860, Clara Barton said:

“I can teach English, French, drawing and painting.... I am a rapid writer or copyist, and have the reputation of being a very good accountant ... and if, in your travels through the South, you see an opening for me, tell me.”

As the pioneer woman in Government service Clara Barton was the object of commiseration. And only because she was a woman, she suffered through jeers and hoots and cat-calls, and tobacco smoke in her face, and slanderous whisperings in the hallways and boisterous talks about “crinoline”—all sorts of offensiveness, on the part of Government employees. Clara Barton in the public school, in the patent office, in the Civil War, in the Franco-Prussian War, in the Cuban War, in national disasters, in the presidency of the Red 54Cross, now filled by the President of the United States, is a series of object lessons of the greatest significance in the progress of womankind in the public service. Clara Barton the intruder among men in the patent office in 1855, and Jeannette Rankin, the honorable among men in Congress in 1918, are the exponents respectively of two conditions of American sentiment as to the public function of women in the United States.

Possibly because of her sad experience as a woman in the public service, she became one of those who, with Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other suffragettes, blazed the way to equal rights for women—equal rights now approved by the President, the United States Congress and the American people. At a meeting of the American Suffrage Association held in Washington, D. C., in language most caustic and argumentative, in part in a public address Clara Barton said:

A woman shan’t say there shall be no war—and she shan’t take any part in it when there is one; and because she doesn’t take part in the war, she must not vote; and because she can’t vote she has no voice in her Government. And because she has no voice in her Government she is not a citizen; and because she isn’t a citizen she has no rights, and because she has no rights she must submit to wrong; and because she submits to wrong she isn’t anybody. Becoming optimistic, she said, the number of thoughtful and right minded men who will approve equal suffrage are much smaller than we think and, when equal suffrage^[5] is an accomplished fact, all will wonder as I have done, what the objection ever was.

Clara Barton’s simple life was long, and so full of stirring incidents that all the books will not record the whole of it.

Be not like dumb-driven cattle.

The Ox has therefore stretched his yoke in vain.

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Much Ado About Nothing.

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.

The sign of true, not casual, progress, ... is the progress of vegetarianism ... more and more people have given up animal food. Tolstoi.

I had not then learned the mystery of nerves. Clara Barton.

CREDULOUS OX—INNOCENT CHILD—CLARA BARTON, A VEGETARIAN

Among the Puritans the horse was a luxury; the beast of burden was the ox. In the first half of the nineteenth century the ox made possible in Massachusetts even the existence of man. In the snows of 56winter, at seed time and at harvest, the toiling ox was loyal—faithful to the best interests of the family. The ox himself was unsuspecting, and untutored in the art of deceiving others. He couldn’t think his kindly attentive Master, Man, unappreciative, disloyal—wholly obsessed with greed. He didn’t know that money was above life,—he hadn’t read war-history. He didn’t know that through the love of money, by man, come life’s woes. The ox knew only that he was the friend to man; and he thought man must be his friend. Poor credulous ox! And yet in the child the friendship of the ox is not misplaced. Innocent child! to man and beast Heaven’s best gift, a loyal friend.

Captain Stephen Barton kept a dairy. When a small girl Clara used to drive the cows and oxen to, and from, the pasture. Clara also assisted morning and evening in milking the cows. One evening she observed three men, one holding in his hand an axe, driving a big, red, fat ox into the barn. She saw the man with the axe strike the ox in the head, then saw the ox drop to the floor. At the same moment she fell unconscious to the ground. She was carried to the house, placed on a bed, and a camphor bottle freely used. When she regained consciousness, in reply as to why she fell, she said: “Someone struck me.” “Oh, no, no one struck you,” they said. “Then what makes my head sore,” she asked. At that time her desire for meat left her; and in later years she used to say, “all through life to the present, I have eaten meat only when I must for the sake of appearances. The bountiful ground always yields enough for all of my needs and wants.”

ANNIE WITTENMEYER

Clara Barton is second to none of womankind.—Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer, First President W. C. T. U.

JOHN B. GOUGH

Clara Barton’s lecture—I never heard anything more thrilling in my life.—John B. Gough, America’s Greatest Temperance Lecturer.

MARY STEWART POWERS

Clara Barton was prominent among women as an advocate of the cause of temperance. Through her leadership in practical humanitarianism she endeared herself to the whole world. Her good name will live forever.—Mrs. Mary Stewart Powers, Public Lecturer and State Superintendent of Scientific Temperance of Ohio.

FRANCES WILLARD
President W. C. T. U.

In the name of your God and my God, ask your people and my people not to be discouraged in the good work (Red Cross) they have undertaken.—Clara Barton. From Armenia, in 1896, to Miss Willard.

See page 347.

The Mother, patriot though she were, uttered her sentiments through choking voice and tender trembling words, and the young man caring nothing, fearing nothing, rushed gallantly on to doom and to death. Clara Barton.

The soldier’s fear is the fear of being thought to fear. Bovee.

Self trust is the essence of heroism. Emerson.

I have no fear of the battle field; I want to go to the suffering men. Clara Barton.

I was always afraid of everything except when someone was to be rescued from danger or pain. Clara Barton.

Like the true Anglo-Saxon, loyal and loving, tender and true, the Mother held back her tears with one hand while with the other she wrung her fond farewell and passed her son on to the State.

FELL DEAD ON THE GROUND BESIDE HER

The first time Clara Barton visited in New Haven, she wore a gray dress that had bullet holes in it—received in caring for the wounded at Fredericksburg. In describing the battle scene Clara Barton said: “Over into that City of Death; its roofs riddled by shells, its very Church a crowded hospital, every street a battle line, every hill a rampart, every rock a fortress, and every stone wall a blazing line of forts!”

As Miss Barton was being assisted off the bridge by an officer, an exploding shell hissed between them, passing below their arms as they were upraised, carrying away both the skirts of his coat and her dress. A moment later, on his horse, the gallant officer was struck by a solid shot from the enemy; the horse bounded in the air and the officer fell to the ground dead, not thirty feet in the rear.

In her usual modest manner, in relating war incidents, she described the experience to a lady friend and said: “I never mended that dress. I wonder whether or not a soldier ever mends a bullet hole in his clothes.”

Military glory—that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood, that serpent’s eye that charms to destroy.

The friends of humanity will deprecate war, whenever it may appear. George Washington.

There is no need of bloodshed and war. Abraham Lincoln.

Wars are largely the result of unbridled passions.

War is only splendid murder. James Thomson.

War is the mad game that the world so loves to play. Swift.

Every battleship is a menace to the peace of the world. With each new battleship every nation carries a chip on its shoulder.

The Red Cross took its rise in, and derived its existence from, war. Without war it had no existence. Clara Barton.

Deplore it as we may, war is the great act of all history.

War has been the rule, if not largely the occupation, of the peoples of the earth from their earliest history. Clara Barton.

Scarcely a quarter of the earth is yet civilized, and that quarter not beyond the probabilities of war. Clara Barton.

General Sherman was right when, addressing an assemblage of cadets, he told them “war was hell!” Take it as you will, it is this;—whoever has looked active war full in the face has caught some glimpse of regions as infernal as he may ever fear to see.

60Only time, prolonged effort, national economics, universal progress and the pressure of public opinion could ever hope to grapple with the existence of war, the monster evil of the ages.

I have studied the massing of forces and scanned from point to point the old battle-grounds of Marengo and Jena and Waterloo and the Magenta and Solferino and it has seemed to me that these armies had a fairer field and a better chance than ours, in the Civil War. Clara Barton.

War may be a great harmonizer, but it is not a humanizer.

That which is won by the sword must be held by the sword, whether it is worth the cost or not. Clara Barton.

If there be any power on earth which can right the wrongs for which a nation goes to war, I pray it may be made manifest.

If there be any good wars, I will attend them.

That noble and numerous class of patriots who are brave with other men’s lives and lavish of other men’s money. Gladstone.

There never was a good war, nor a bad peace.

Don’t talk about war; we have done with war. The Peace of the world is the question now. Clara Barton.

WICKEDNESS OF WAR—SETTLES NO DISPUTES

Clara Barton was a patriot, but “not a war woman.” She had no sympathy with the religion such as was Odin’s, of the ninth century, which religion assured for him who had killed in battle the greatest number the highest seat reserved in the Paradise of the Valhalla; 61nor with the sentiment of the King of Denmark of that day, “What is more beautiful than to see the heroes pushing on through battle, though fainting with their wounds;” nor with the sentiment of that same king’s boast, “War was my delight from my youth, and from my childhood I was pleased with a bloody spear.”

Wolves in “packs” seek prey; so do men—in sheep’s clothing. Wolves truthful, in howls, send forth their propaganda—hunger; men untruthful, in words, send forth their propaganda—hate. If the “survival of the fittest” be nature’s law only brutes conform to nature—by using no weapons. Men kill their own “kith and kin”; brutes combine to protect their own species. The more one sees of men on war’s slaughter-fields killing their friends or strangers, for prospective profit, the more he must admire the ethics of the brute. In brute history there have been no wars. Facing human record, the record of 3,400 years, there have been 3,166 years of war, and only 234 years of peace; facing the picture of which history makes no mention and which in the wake of armies she had seen, Clara Barton says: “Faces bathed in tears and hands in blood, lees in the wind and dregs in the cup of military glory, war has cost a million times more than the world is worth, poured out the best blood and crushed the fairest forms the good God has ever created.”

Through war and its consequences, one third of “civilized man” since the world began has come to an untimely end, by violence, as did Abel at the hands of Cain.

“Mankind is the greatest mystery of all mysteries,” says Clara Barton, and insists that she can never understand the history of human conduct in this world, and wonders whether or not she will in the next. In the light of war’s history and, trying to solve the “mystery of all mysteries,” she asks: “Heavenly Father! what is the matter with this beautiful earth that thou hast made? And what is man that thou art mindful of him?”

Further philosophizing on the “Wickedness of War,” in a masterful public address, she says: “There is not 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 this same dread power. War actually settles no disputes, it brings no real peace; it but closes an open strife;—the peace is simply buried embers. The war side of the war could never have called me to the field—through and through, thought and act, body and soul, I hate it. We can only wait and trust for the day to come when the wickedness of war shall be a thing unknown in this beautiful world.”

Again philosophizing she says: “As I reflect upon the mighty and endless changes which must grow out of war’s issues, the subject rises up before me like some far-away mountain summit, towering peak upon peak, rock upon rock, that human foot has not trod and enveloped in a hazy mist the eye has never penetrated.”

In the same year, and about the same time in the year, that Clara Barton first started for the battlefield her warm personal friend, Julia Ward Howe, wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

You remember the time was Sunday, September 14th, 1862.

Society forbade women at the front. Clara Barton.

Tradition absolutely forbade a good woman to go unprotected among rough soldiers. Clara Barton.

And what does woman know about war, and because she doesn’t know anything about it she mustn’t say, or do, anything about it.

It has long been said, as to amount to an adage, that women don’t know anything about war. I wish men didn’t either. They have always known a great deal too much about it for the good of their kind. Clara Barton.

I struggled long and hard with my sense of propriety—with the appalling fact that “I was only a woman” whispering in one ear; and thundering in the other the groans of suffering men dying like dogs—unfed and unclothed, for the life of every institution which had protected and educated me. Clara Barton.

When war broke over us, with an empty treasury and its distressed Secretary, Salmon P. Chase, personally trying in New York to borrow money to pay our first seventy-five thousand soldiers, I offered to do the work of any two disloyal clerks whom the office would discharge and allow the double salary to fall back into the treasury. When no legal way could be found to have my salary revert to the national treasury, I resigned and went to the field.

64I could not carry a musket nor lead the men to battle; I could only serve my country by caring for, comforting, and sustaining the soldiers. Clara Barton.

I broke the shackles and went to the field. Clara Barton.

Sir: The undersigned, Senators and Representatives of Massachusetts, desire you to extend to Miss Clara Barton of Worcester, Massachusetts, every facility in your power to visit the army at any time or place that she may desire, for the purpose of administering to the comfort of our sick and wounded soldiers. Also that such supplies and assistants, as she may require, may be furnished with transportation.

HER WARDROBE IN A HANDKERCHIEF—THE BATTLE SCENE

On September 14, 1862, Clara Barton started from the City of Washington to the firing line, then at Harper’s Ferry. She took with her no Saratoga, no grip, no “go-to-meeting clothes.” The articles in her 65wardrobe on that eventful trip will never be known but it is known to a “dead certainty” that whatever “worldly goods” she did take with her were all tied up in a pocket handkerchief.

Her only escort was a “mule skinner.” He, wearing the blue, held the one jerk line to the team of six mules, animals known in the west as “Desert Canaries.” The vehicle in which Clara Barton took that eventful ride was an army freight wagon covered with canvas, such wagon sometimes called the “prairie schooner.” “In the Days of Old, the Days of Gold,” as “Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way,” the “prairie schooner” was almost the exclusive vehicle of conveyance over the deserts for freight and passengers. It was in the “prairie schooner” that the Mormons went to Utah in 1848, and the Argonauts to California, in “’49 and ’50.” It was from a “prairie schooner” that, rising from a sick bunk and looking out over that beautiful valley of Salt Lake, Brigham Young exclaimed: “This is the Place!”

After an eighty-mile ride bumping over stones and dykes and ditches, up and down the hills of Maryland, Clara Barton arrived at the battlefield. There, side by side, cold in death with upturned faces, were the brave boys of the Northern blue and the Southern gray. In closing a description of this battle scene Clara Barton says: “There in the darkness God’s angel of Wrath and Death had swept and, foe facing foe, the souls of men went out. The giant rocks, hanging above our heads, seemed to frown upon the scene, and the sighing trees which hung lovingly upon their rugged edge dropped low and wept their pitying dews upon the livid brows and ghastly wounds beneath.”

Clara Barton carried on her work in the face of the enemy, to the sound of a cannon, and close to the firing line.

So long as the Republic lives the name of Clara Barton will be honored. Roswell Record.

Clara Barton—Glorious Daughter of the Republic!

Clara Barton performed work for wounded soldiers often at the risk of her life. Phebe A. Hanaford, Author.

Clara Barton—right into the jaws of death she went, ministering to the wounded, soothing the dying.

Follow the cannon. Clara Barton.

The soldier has been supposed to die painlessly, gloriously, with an immediate passport to realms of bliss eternal. Clara Barton.

The soldier who has fallen in battle “with his face to the foe” has been regarded as a subject of envy, rather than pity.

If wounded and surviving, the honor of a soldier’s scars has been cheaply purchased, it has been supposed, though he strolled a limping beggar. Clara Barton.

Only a small portion of the thought of the generations of the past has been devoted to the subject of devising, or affording, any means of relief for the wretched condition resulting from the methods of national and international strife. Clara Barton.

The pitiable neglect of men in war appears to have constituted one of the large class of misfortunes for which no one is to blame, or even accountable, assuming that wars must be. Clara Barton.

I am a U. S. soldier and therefore not supposed, you know, to be susceptible to fear. Clara Barton.

THE BRAVERY OF WOMEN—CLARA BARTON’S BRAVEST ACT

When asked where occurred her bravest act, Clara Barton replied: “At Fredericksburg.” She made headquarters at the Lacy House, just north of the Rappahannock River. While there, the surgeon in charge of the wounded on the south bank of the river sent a special messenger to Miss Barton to come across with her assistants and supplies at once. As a soldier and as an American patriot, she obeyed orders and followed the flag over the bridge and on to the battle field. In later years describing the women who went to the war Clara Barton sings:

In referring to the incident, in her experience at Fredericksburg, she said: “As I walked across this bridge with the marching troops, the bullets and shells were hissing and exploding in the river on either side of me, the long autumn march down the mountain passes—Falmouth and old Fredericksburg with its pontoon bridge,—sharp-shooters—deserted camps—its rocky brow of frowning forts—the one day bombardment, 68and the charge!” There, unperturbed, among the men was Clara Barton, there in the broad glacis, the one vast Aceldama, where—

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

My dear Clara Barton, you have done some wonderful things in the world.—Susan B. Anthony, Pioneer Suffrage Leader.

Susan B. Anthony was the first woman to lay her hand beside mine in the promotion of the Red Cross Society.—Clara Barton.

CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT

One of the great women of the world. Broad of vision, exalted of soul and absolutely free from selfishness that binds, Miss Barton was a rare human being.—Carrie Chapman Catt, President National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1900–1904; 1913——; Ex-President International Woman Suffrage Alliance.

© Harris & Ewing


DR. ANNA HOWARD SHAW

Every woman who loves her country will revere the name of Clara Barton.—Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, President National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1904–Dec., 1915.

Clara Barton—soldiers of every battlefield since the Civil War have almost deified her. Mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts of the conflict have ever since held her name in the highest reverence.

The ears of the sick are strangely acute. Clara Barton.

A light heart lives long. Shakespeare.

The burden becomes light that is cheerfully made. Ovid.

A cheerful spirit is one of the most valuable gifts ever bestowed upon humanity by a kind Creator. Aughey.

Whatever comes, keep up cheerful and happy and hope for the best. Clara Barton.

YES, AND GOT EUCHRED

During the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, while the Federals lay again in Fredericksburg, Clara Barton one evening went to the hotel which from ground to garret was filled with wounded men. Five hundred of these were lying upon the bare floors. They had no food to eat, nor was there any food to give them. Clara Barton was struck with their fine soldierly figures and features, remarkable even in their terrible extremity, and stopping near one she asked: “Where are you from?” “Michigan,” he said. On to another—“Michigan,” and so on “Michigan”—“Michigan”—“Michigan.” 70Up one flight of stairs, then another, still “Michigan.” At length in her surprise, she said somewhat humorously and without reflection, “Did Michigan take up this hand and play it alone?” “Yes,” answered a poor fellow lying on the floor nearby, seriously wounded but one who evidently understood the game better than she did, “Yes, and got euchred.”

With a strong, brilliant, cultivated mind was united a gentle, tender, loving heart, and nothing was too great, nothing too small to enlist Miss Barton’s earnest thought and tender sympathy.

Men are what their mothers make them.

All I have, and am, I owe to my mother. A. Lincoln.

All that I am my mother made me. John Quincy Adams.

Work and words are for the individual soldier—what he does, sees, feels or thinks in the dread hours of leaden rain and iron hail.

I remember my mother’s prayers, and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. A. Lincoln.

As the years sped on and the hands were stilled, there shone the gleam of the far sighted mother’s watchfulness that neither toil could obscure nor time relax. Clara Barton.

His sweetest dreams were still of that dear voice that soothed his infancy. Southey.

At Decatur, Alabama, in a well-remembered scene of the Civil War many were the songs by southern chivalry started, but none finished. All efforts to sing one evening having been boisterously tabooed, there arose in the air a voice carrying the sentiment that thrills the camp, the field, the hospital. In gloom for today with foreshadowing for tomorrow, around a score of camp fires thousands of voices following the leader there broke forth pathetic, in full chorus, “Who will care for Mother now?”

While General Butler was digging Dutch Gap in 1863, a hospital boat was plying daily between Fortress Monroe and Point of Rocks. In the Civil War, among the wounded brought in from the battlefield to Point of Rocks was a lad about sixteen or seventeen years of age. One of his arms, and a leg, had been amputated.

Away from home! Crippled for life! Homesick, and no “tear for pity.” Hope gone! No, not all hope. He still has his Mother—“She floats upon the river of his thoughts.”

“Mother, come to me—thine own son slowly dying far away.” “No, you can’t come. May I come to you, my dearest Mother?”

© Harris & Ewing


WARREN G. HARDING

The President, also President American Red Cross Society, March 4, 1921–.

From a letter by the Secretary to President Harding: “The President entertains the highest sentiment regarding the splendid service of Miss Barton and her contribution to the development of practical modern humanitarianism.”

73His soldier chum heard his pleadings and interceded: “Miss Barton, can’t we possibly find room for this boy on the boat going down to Fortress Monroe tonight? I think he has grit enough to live.” Miss Barton, turning to the boy said: “My dear boy, you shall go, though they have sent word they can take no more.” The boy was taken down a long steep hill on a stretcher, tenderly placed in a nice comfortable cot way up on the hurricane deck, to dream of home and Mother.

The test of civilization is the estimate of woman.

A woman who is resolved to be respected can make herself so, even amidst an army of soldiers. Cervantes.

Clara: Go, if it is your duty to go. I know soldiers, and they will respect you and your errand. Stephen Barton (Her Father, an old soldier).

To a gentleman every woman is a lady, in right of her sex.

Man pays deference to woman instinctively, involuntarily.

I gaze upon the men through blinding tears of admiration and respect, and sing in my heart “It is well to be a soldier.”

TRIBUTE OF LOVE AND DEVOTION

“I was young and strong and loved to walk,” says Clara Barton. “I had four great wagons loaded with supplies for sick and wounded soldiers coming in the rear, so I decided I would not get my feet wet, but wait for my wagons and cross in one of them. The soldiers splashed right through in solid ranks, the water being only about a foot deep. Suddenly the captain of a company in the middle of the stream called out to his men ‘Company, Fours, Left, March! Halt! Right, Dress! Front! Now, Boys, There stands Clara Barton. 75I want you to kneel down in the water on your right knees, and let Miss Barton walk across on your left knees.’ This order the soldiers instantly obeyed, and I stepped from knee to knee, the soldiers reaching up and holding my hands, and passed dry shod to the other shore.” As Miss Barton related this incident the tears streamed down her cheeks, and she said, “This was the most beautiful tribute of love and devotion ever offered me in my life.”

All the elements of desolation have traced such lines upon that face as no mortal artist ever drew, and filled it with emotions that no music could incite. Oh, the power of the expression of the face of Clara Barton! Congressman Porter H. Dale.

Her smile which cheered—like the breaking day.

A smile is a thankful hymn. Gerald Massey.

A smile—the effusion of fine intellect, of true courage.

A tender smile, our sorrow’s only balm. Young.

Smile and the world smiles with you. Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Duke of Marlborough—his fascinating smile and winning tongue, equally with his word, swayed the destinies of Empires.

Smiles are the language of love. Hare.

Smiles more sweet than flowers. Shakespeare.

Smiles are better teachers than mightiest words.

Smiles are smiles only when the heart pulls the wire.

77Smiles, not allowed to beasts, from reason move. Dryden.

Sweet intercourse of looks and smiles, for smiles from reason flow.

There is no society where smiles are not welcomed.

A beautiful smile is to the female countenance what the sunbeam is to the landscape. Lavater.

Her smiles were like the glowing sunshine. Bullard.

If He has a place and work for me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. A. Lincoln.

Clara Barton’s energy and humanity, with a “God bless you.”

A noble and attractive everyday bearing comes of goodness, of sincerity, of refinement. William Matthews.

I have no higher ambition than to work obscurely, and singly, where I can see the greatest necessity. Clara Barton.

CHEERING WORDS—ALWAYS READY—WEARS A SMILE

No being other than the human knows how to wear a smile. A smile is as significant as are words—the smile oft proclaims the mind. Wearing apparel is the gift of man; the smile, the gift of nature. Wearing apparel wears out; the smile that is genuine never wears off. Of a woman it is said her face is her fortune. It also may be said, to rob the world of woman’s smile would leave the human race poor indeed. Of Clara Barton an author has said, “her heart made music and her face radiated sunshine.” Of Clara Barton a soldier said, “No discordant word ever escaped her lips; 78in camp or on the field she always wore a smile.” Her smile and her cheering words won the heart of the private soldier, the heart of royalty—won the heart of the world.

A woman without effort may receive a “windfall,” in wealth; but success is achieved through personal qualities, by effort. Said a writer: “The life of Clara Barton should be familiarized to every child. Her history and work should be as well known to the young of the nation as those of the great Presidents. Her history should be taught in the public schools for the enlightenment of all pupils, boys and girls, that they may realize how great a task for humanity was undertaken and accomplished, by a weak woman.”

It was at Fredericksburg. The rising sun was casting its rays aslant the eastern sky. The boys had just come off picket-duty. Their fingers were stiff with cold; their clothes, wet and frozen. Five or six of the comrades went to the rear; there they discharged their rifles. Then they went to a brick house one quarter mile distant—where they found Clara Barton. In anticipation of their proposed call, Clara Barton was ready. She had not forgotten, when a little girl, how she suffered from the cold, fell unconscious in a pew at Church and was taken home with frozen feet. She had for them a “blazing-hot” fire, and also had prepared for them plenty of hot ginger tea. In the gloom of war’s woes all must wear “sorrow’s crown of sorrows;” but, seeing them approaching the house, she met them at the door with a smile—with greetings as kindly as if they had been her long-ago friends, of happier days.

At a recent annual reunion of her regiment Comrade Vincent, in tears while relating the incident, said 79“THAT’S CLARA BARTON. I will never forget that smile and that welcome.” In speeding her parting guests, at the door she said: “God bless you, my boys! If I can do anything for you at any time, call on me—it is never too late nor too early. I want you to know you will always find me ready.”

From the days of earliest cravings for “fairy stories” there have been recounted to young people the wonders wrought by that noble woman of New England. Oakland (Cal.) Tribune.

Clara Barton’s work in Cuba, in 1898, added still greater luster to her glory. Holyoke (Mass.) Telegram.

We have heard soldiers, who faced death green-eyed, tell with quivering voice of Clara Barton’s services before the Battle of Santiago when, perched on a gun-carriage, she gave directions to the doctors and nurses. Lexington (Ky.) Herald.

Miss Barton, when your country was in trouble (1776) Spain was the friend of America; now Spain is in trouble, America is her enemy. General Blanco (In a Salon, Santiago de Cuba, 1898.)

Miss Barton, you will need no directions from me, but if any one troubles you let me know. Admiral Sampson.

God will not call me home until my work is done.

There was an Overruling Providence when the “State of Texas” was loaded for Cuba. Clara Barton.

I have with me a cargo of 1400 tons, under the flag of the Red Cross, the one international emblem of humanity known to civilization. Clara Barton.

A man said to me “The Red Cross has been a fairy godmother to us.” Clara Barton.

Wherever men fight and tear each other to pieces, wherever the glare and sound of war are heard, there the Red Cross aims to plant the white banner that bears the blessed sign of relief.

81The Red Cross has come to quicken into fresh new growth the best things in life. Clara Barton.

Our Red Cross century tree blossomed in the smoke, and valor, and wails of the Spanish-American War. Clara Barton.

The highest and best in the land stood under the cooling shade of the Red Cross, and breathed its atmosphere of peace, love and help. Clara Barton.

The Red Cross recognizes no features other than the relief of the victims and the mitigation of the horrors of war. Clara Barton.

The Red Cross is founded in the soundest and noblest principles, in the deep needs of human nature and in the enduring instincts of mankind. Clara Barton.

Men do not go to war to save life; they might save life by keeping the peace, and staying at home. Clara Barton.

Men go to war solely with the intent to inflict so much pain, loss and disaster on the enemy that he will yield to their terms.

It is a wise statesmanship which suggests that in time of peace we must prepare for war. It is no less a wise benevolence that makes preparation in the hour of peace for assuaging the ills that are sure to accompany war. Clara Barton..

In no other country, as in ours, have the people so often risen from a state of unreadiness and accomplished such wonderful results—at such a sacrifice. Clara Barton.

As friends of humanity, while there is still a possibility of war or a calamity, it behooves us to prepare. Clara Barton.

The memories of pitiful Cuba would not leave us.

To those who could not understand, Heaven came; to those who could, “Cuba Libre.” Clara Barton.

82Not with the booming of cannon; not with the shouts of victory, but with the singing of Christian hymns and the outstretched hand of help,—never before in the history of warfare was there triumphant entry such as this. Wm. E. Barton, D.D.

Oh, the horrible, useless, tragic waste which no Peace Congress has yet been able to avert! O treacherous fate! That made the great woman of peace wait to see men of blood go before her to kill, to wound, to devastate. Alice Hubbard.

Could it be possible that the commander would hold back his flagship and himself, and send forward, and first, a cargo of food on a plain ship, under direction of a woman? Did our commands, military or naval, hold men great enough of soul for such action? It must be true, for the spires of Santiago rise before us. How sadly the recollection of that pleasant memorable day has since recurred to me! Clara Barton.

HORRIBLE DEED—LEADS AMERICAN NAVY—ANGEL OF MERCY

“Go to the starving Cubans!” She went. She had been entertained by Captain Sigsbee and his officers on the Maine the evening before the explosion. “Remember the Maine!” became the war cry.

War was declared. The Government wired: “Take no chances; get out of Cuba.” She returned to Florida to await events. The blockade of Cuban ports followed; the war was on. Let Clara Barton draw a picture of the war scene:

“War has occurred four times in the United States in 120 years. Four times men have armed and marched; and its women waited and wept. But we cannot always hold our great Ship of State out of the storms and breakers. She must meet and battle with them. Her timbers must creak in the gale. The waves must dash over her decks; she must lie in the trough of the sea. But the Stars and Stripes are above her. She is freighted with the hopes of the world. God holds the helm; and she is coming into port.”

WILLIAM T. SAMPSON

Miss Barton, you need no advice, only the opportunity. If any trouble happens you, let me know. Rear-Admiral William T. Sampson, of New York. Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Atlantic Naval Forces, Spanish-American War.

© Harris & Ewing


ISAAC B. SHERWOOD

Clara Barton is the greatest woman of either the nineteenth or twentieth century.—Isaac B. Sherwood, of Ohio, Brigadier-General, Civil War; U. S. Congress, 1869–1875; 1907–1921.

JOSEPH TAGGART

Clara Barton gave expression to the sympathy and tenderness of all the hearts of all the women in the world.—Joseph Taggart, of Kansas. U. S. Congress, 1912–1918; Captain, World War.

83Bullets had done their ghastly work; disease had run riot amidst filth and squalor. Starvation had stalked ruthlessly over the island. “May I return to the starving,” asked Clara Barton, “with my relief ship of supplies now in waiting?”

“Not so,” replied Admiral Sampson, “I go first; I am here to keep supplies out of Cuba.”

“I know, Admiral, my place is not to precede you. When you make an opening I will go in. You will go in to do the horrible deed. I will follow you and, out of the human wreckage, restore what I can.”

Cervera’s fleet was at the bottom of the sea, or wrecked on the shores. Spanish Cuba doomed, the enemy had raised the white flag, capitulated; soldiers, sailors, civilians, women and children, the human wreckage. Fateful days! Enough crime and misery rampant to satisfy the God of War and the imps of regions infernal.

The American navy, with flags flying, in triumph was ready to enter the Bay of Santiago. The Red Cross Flag floats from the flagstaff of the State of 84Texas. The Admiral gives the order that the “Red Cross Ship” is to lead; that now “flag-ship” moving majestically, is commanded by a woman—that woman “The Angel of the Battlefield.” Moving over the smooth waters of the Bay that Angel with her cospirits thrilled the ear with the patriot’s song “My Country ’Tis of Thee;” and there too the little band of crusaders, while nearing the holy wreckage they would rescue, touched the human heart with the grandest of all hymns of gratitude, “Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow.”

As on the Island of Corsica nearly three decades before, again there goes in spirit to Heaven the prayer of Clara Barton: “And I pray, Oh! how earnestly, once more to battle with error; to help sever the shackles of the oppressed of every name and kind; to hold firm the right and to set right the wrong; to raise up the weak against the power of the mighty; to make our country what it should, and must, be—true and just as well as great and strong. Once more to comfort the afflicted; to give rest and shelter to the weary, water to the thirsty, bread to the hungry; to stay the tide and bind the wounds that bleed, or to take the farewell message and point the glazing eye to hope and heaven.”

“Majestic in simplicity” and of more heraldic splendor than that of the army and navy, with their thousands of heroes, stands the little woman overlooking the scene of woe’s misery. There on the peaceful waters are the destroyers that had done the “horrible 85deed;” there on the bridge of the Peace-Ship, leading all others, stands the “Angel of Peace,” who will restore what she can; and before the eyes of all lay the “Gem of the Ocean,” strewn with life’s woes—a scene of pathetic grandeur unequaled in the annals of history.

Miss Barton: Admiral Sampson, I wish to express to you my sincere appreciation of your exceeding courtesy in permitting my ship to precede the battleships into Santiago.

Admiral Schley (in a side remark): Don’t give the Admiral too much credit, Miss Barton; he was not quite sure how clear of torpedoes the channel might be. Remember that was a trial trip.

Clara Barton dressed the wounded of both armies indiscriminately—a practice which first annoyed and sometimes angered the Union officers—from whose headquarters she worked. Ida Tarbell.

Be generous and noble. Clara Barton.

War is in its very nature cruel—the very embodiment of cruelty in its effects—not necessarily in the hearts of the combatants.

As the daughter of a Mason my Father bade me to seek and comfort the afflicted everywhere, and as a Christian he charged me to honor God and love mankind. Clara Barton.

Baron Thomas B. Macaulay thought it not a mitigation but an aggravation of the evil that men of tender culture and humane feelings, with no ill will, should stand up and kill each other.

It is comforting, in our reflections upon the past, to know that the idea of humanity to an enemy in distress is not entirely modern; for Xenophon in Cyropaedia, about 400 B.C. represents Cyrus the Great as ordering his surgeons to attend the wounded prisoners.

A wounded Confederate that Clara Barton had been serving whispered to her, “Lady, you have been kind to me—every street and lane in the city is covered with cannon. When your entire army has reached the other side of the Rappahannock, they’ll find Fredericksburg only a slaughter pen. Not a regiment will escape. Do not go over or you will go to certain death.”

Major McDowell, ex-Union soldier, wounded—assistant to Clara Barton: Comrade, here is some clothing for you.

Ex-Confederate: But, Major (hesitating), I am an ex-Confederate soldier....

Major McDowell: God bless you, poor suffering soul; what difference does that make—here, will this fit you?

CONFEDERATES AND FEDERALS ALIKE TREATED

Quite a number of wounded Confederate officers were brought to us. They shared alike with our own men. They were amazed, said C. M. Welles, at the kindness of northerners, particularly at a Massachusetts lady (Clara Barton) devoting herself to them as freely as to her own neighbors. One of them, a captain from Georgia, needed shirt, coat, stockings and something to eat. After being supplied, he said to me, while tears were streaming down his face, “Sir, I find that I have mistaken you; and, if I live to return, I will never fight against such a people any more.”

At Fredericksburg a shell shattered the door of the room in which Miss Barton was attending to wounded men. True to her mission, she did not flinch but continued her duties as usual. She found a group of Confederates with their garments frozen fast in the mud. 88As the wounded were helpless, Miss Barton got an axe and chopped them loose. She then built a fire in a negro cabin and, while the wounded were warming themselves she dressed their wounds, fed them gruel and otherwise cared for them as if they were her “Brothers in Arms.”

A KNOT OF BLUE AND GRAY

Clara Barton deserves first place in the living memory of the world today, and of generations to come.

She bore herself with a poise that lost for her no friends.

She had a faculty for seeing what needed to be done, and how to do it. New York Examiner.

She accomplished what crowned heads failed in.

Things came to me as if ordered by a world-controlling power.

Goodness does not consist in greatness, but greatness in goodness.

O God! that bread should be so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap.

Tact is born with some people.

Tact is not a single faculty, but a combination of faculties.

90What men call “shrewdness” and “Common Sense” usually signify no more than tact. W. M. Thayer.

THE ENEMY, STARVING—TACT—THE WHITE OX

To know is power, but the power may be latent. Tact is skill, ever alert. Tact knows what to do, when and how to do it. Queen Elizabeth had tact, unerring. Her long reign was a series of tactful events. Tact was the basis of the supremacy of the Elizabethan Age.

Clara Barton had tact, unerring. Tact gave her position among rulers of nations, and likewise won for her the esteem of the lowly. Tact attracted to her unpaid Red Cross assistants, who cheerfully shared her privations. Through tact she retained her friends, made new friends, and to an extent unprecedented.

Clara Barton was with the Army of the Blue, but nearby was a hospital in which were the wounded Gray, starving. The surgeons from within were begging for food. The Federal Quartermaster had refused supplies, giving as a valid excuse that he was a bonded officer and responsible for the property under his charge.

A “bunch” of cattle were seen passing. Clara Barton said to the officer: “I know you are bonded, but I am neither bonded nor responsible.” The officer taking the “cue” was soon out of sight. Clara Barton then gave orders to her men, at the same time pointing to the large unsuspecting white ox that had strayed from the “bunch.” The men appreciated the delicate situation; the ox somehow strayed over to the enemy, and later received a hearty reception among the starving wounded inside the hospital.

MATHEW C. BUTLER

My dear Miss Barton:—

I do not see how those poor people in South Carolina will ever be able to thank you enough for your noble work of relief. Certainly you have been to them a “ministering angel.” I shall never cease to be grateful for your self-sacrificing, heroic work.—Mathew C. Butler, of South Carolina, Major-General Civil War, Major-General Spanish-American War, U. S. Senator 1877–1895.

General Butler, that busy, hard-worked Senator, prompt and kind. Clara Barton.

JOSEPH WHEELER

I think it due Miss Barton that the government should give to her the highest possible recognition, and thanks.—Joseph Wheeler, of Alabama, Major-General Civil War; Major-General Spanish-American War; U. S. Congress, 1881, 1882; 1885–1893; 1895–1900.

HARRISON GRAY OTIS

Clara Barton is one of the blessed ones of the earth, and her name will remain green in the heart of America.—Harrison Gray Otis, of California; Brigadier-General, Civil War; Major-General (Brevet), Spanish-American War; America’s Great Journalist.

One’s blood runs cold and then mounts high in reading of the amazing feats of strength and courage of heart shown by this little lone woman. The Outlook.

Clara Barton—her personal service and self-sacrifice are beyond praise. Philadelphia Public Record.

The sum of all human agony finds its equivalent on the battlefield. Clara Barton.

We cannot desert our poor charge of humanity, but must stay and suffer with them if need be. Clara Barton.

And if you chance to feel that the positions I occupied were rough and unseemly for a woman—I can only reply that they were rough and unseemly for men. Clara Barton.

The sooner the world learns the better that the halo of glory which surrounds a field of battle and its tortured, thirsting, starving, pain-racked victims exists only in the imagination.

When dying President Garfield murmured: “The great heart of the nation will not let a soldier die,” I prayed God to hasten the time when every wounded soldier would be sustained by that sweet assurance. Clara Barton.

My business is staunching blood, and feeding fainting men.

I am so sorry for the necessity, so glad for the opportunity, of ministering with my own hand and strength to the dying wants of the patriot martyrs who fell for their country and mine.

I sometimes discuss the application of a compress, or a wisp of 92hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing of a political movement. Clara Barton.

I make gruel, not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses. Clara Barton.

You must never so much as think whether you like it or not, whether it is bearable or not; you must never think of anything except the need, and how to meet it. Clara Barton.

If it has been granted to me to be ever so little service to those about me, in need of my help, He alone who granted me the privilege knows how grateful I am for it. Clara Barton.

BULLETHOLE—AMPUTATED LIMBS LIKE CORDWOOD—GOD GIVES STRENGTH

The valley of Antietam lies in Maryland. In September, 1862, on the night of the 16th, the Federals were on one ridge of the valley; the Confederates, on the opposite ridge. Somber night was hushed to stillness. Within the fog that arose from the valley and the smoke of the campfires there gleamed the stacked bayonets and the properly placed cannon which portend the fateful tomorrow. On the tomorrow Antietam was to be the harvest field, death and suffering the harvest.

In the early morning were heard the bugle notes which call to battle. The fight to death was on—possibly the fight that would unmake a nation, or make a new nation. A little lone woman had flanked the cannon at midnight and, in the early sunlight, stood beside the artillery. Terrifying the sharp crack of the musketry, deafening the boom of the cannon. The earth quaked; the sun, obscured. Over her head were shells bursting or, passing, buried themselves in the 93hills beyond. Her tongue was dried by the sulphurous powder smoke; her lips parched to bleeding. Such the scene of the conflict in which Clara Barton said she had the most terrible experiences of her life.

The men were falling, bleeding to death. Within that organized system for death there was no system to save life,—no surgical instrument, no bandage, no lint, no rag, no string. Clara Barton hastens to her supply wagon, and with all things needful rushes into the line of fire. There on the battlefield, with a pocket knife, she extracted a ball from the face of a wounded soldier. There, while lifting a canteen of water to quench the thirst of a soldier-lad, a minnie ball from the gun of the enemy passed harmlessly through her clothing and fatally into the body of the soldier she was trying to save.

There through the day, in that awful carnage of blood, fearless Clara Barton worked to save human lives. Did she shrink from danger? She said “I am an American Soldier and am not supposed to be susceptible to fear.”

But the most gruesome of her experiences was after 94nightfall. Through the night in a barn near by, she assisted the surgeons. The surgeons had no bandages, she supplied them; they had no light, she supplied the lanterns and candles until the operating tables were in a blaze of light. They had no food; she supplied the gruel made from Indian corn meal, cooked in great brass kettles. The surgeons were without adequate assistance; she assisted at the amputating tables. “Through the long starlit night,” she said, “we wrought and hoped and prayed.” When the morning came the amputated limbs made a pile so high that you had to look up to see the top, a pile of human limbs like a cord of wood.

Not only gruesome was that “cord of wood” but pathetic. In that pile the limbs were from mere boys,—innocent victims of the greed of men;—not a leg, not an arm in that pile was from “War’s Profiteers.” And with the morning came complete exhaustion. When she returned from her uncanny labors her arms were crimson with blood; her skirts, blood-soaked; her shoes, blood-sopping. In all human history did woman have such experience as had Clara Barton through that two days of human carnage—carnage on one of America’s most famous battlefields in the most infamous fratricidal war in history? Frail Clara Barton! “The most timid person on earth!” The same Clara Barton who fainted at the killing of an ox? Can it be? Let hers be the explanation: “I was always afraid of everything except when someone was to be rescued from danger or pain. Human endurance has its limits;—God gives strength and the thing that seems impossible is done.”

An Overruling Providence seemed to interpose its hand between Clara Barton and the perils of war and epidemic alike, for a high and splendid purpose. Pawtucket (R. I.) Times.

If Almighty God gives a man a cowardly pair of legs, how can help their running away with him? A. Lincoln.

For others Clara Barton will be perfectly fearless.

I have no fear of the battlefield; I have large stores but no way to reach the troops. Clara Barton.

FEARLESS OF BULLETS AND KICKING MULES

General Shafter used to say that he did not think Clara Barton knew the meaning of the word fear. Sharp words passed between the General and Miss Barton because she would not obey his orders to keep away from the “firing line,” out of the way of the fighting men and of the bullets. On one occasion he even threatened to order her out of Cuba, if she continually disobeyed his orders in this respect.

Sergeant Henry White, of the 21st Massachusetts Regiment, said that he had seen Clara Barton in positions 96of danger where an old veteran would hardly dare venture. He had seen her passing among the wounded lying around on the ground, the battle raging in front of them. As she did so, she supplied the boys in turn with coffee, milk, and other food. Just to please the “boys” she accepted the Sergeant’s pistol which she carried several weeks.

Not only was she oblivious to the danger of the bullets on the battlefield but even more reckless as to her personal safety in the camp. She would go around among the army wagons, close to the heels of kicking mules, where any moment there might be a “stampede,” endangering her life. In a “stampede” of mules, she would be as helpless as in a shower of grape and cannister from the guns of the enemy.

And when at morning and evening repast, with folded hands and grateful heart, you bless God for the bounties He has placed before you, let your thoughts wander a little to find if there is not another than yourself. Clara Barton.

Paradise is open to all kind hearts. Beranger.

Kind words are the music of the world. F. W. Faber.

Happiness must be unselfish; only in the happiness of all can one find happiness. Tolstoi.

I have always refused a tent unless the army had tents also, and I have never eaten a mouthful of my own soft bread or fresh meat, until the sick of the army were abundantly supplied with both.

Clara Barton is the noblest, bravest, and most unselfish woman God Almighty ever made. Judge Joseph Sheldon.

HIS COMFORT, NOT HERS; HIS LIFE, NOT HERS

In the winter of 1863–64 Clara Barton lived for a time in an old plantation house on Chapin’s farm, in Virginia. Chapin’s farm was not far from the field hospital. In the hospital were the sick and wounded; her services there were greatly needed. An ambulance was sent as a detail to bring her to the hospital. The 98soldier-messenger arrived at the house, and called for her. It was in the midst of a snow storm, the thermometer indicator hovering around zero. “Wait a minute,” she said; “tie your horses and come in. Have you had any dinner?” “No marm,” he replied. The soldier sat down to a dinner of cold meat, hot biscuit, cake and cocoa,—a refreshing change from “hardtack” and “salt hash,” the daily rations of the soldier.

While the soldier-messenger was eating his meal she had been thinking. “The soldier has generally no part nor voice in creating the war in which he fights. He simply obeys, as he must, his superiors and the laws of his country.” The soldier is under orders, but he is under my orders now. It’s bitter cold and, while I can ride comfortably on the inside of the ambulance, he must ride outside on the seat in the snow. She considered his comfort, not her own; his life, not hers. She ordered him to put his horses in the barn and care for them. She made him her guest, standing sponsor for him at military headquarters—awaiting a pleasant day for the trip. In soliloquizing on her conduct she said: “God forbid that I should ask the useless exposure of one man, the desolation of one home.”

Advice is seldom welcome. Lord Chesterfield.

Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.

I do not like giving advice; it is incurring an unnecessary responsibility. Beaconsfield.

Those who give bad advice to the prudent both lose their pains and are laughed to scorn. Phaedrus.

I pray thee cease thy counsel, which falls into my ears as profitless as water in a sieve. Much Ado About Nothing.

Clara Barton—in her 77th year—followed to the fever ridden tropics, to lead in the relief work on Spanish battle grounds.

Mr. Cottrell, private secretary of Clara Barton, says: “Miss Barton was the means of saving thousands of lives in Cuba. She was a small, unostentatious woman, very quiet in her demeanor and spoke in a soft, sweet tone. Her habits were simple, but she had a great capacity for organization work.”

100My post is the open field between the bullet and the hospital.

DOES NOT NEED ANY ADVICE

At Santiago Miss Barton approached Admiral Sampson and said, “There is some doubt about our being able to unload.”

“Miss Barton,” replied Sampson, “Tell the world that the Red Cross Society does not need any advice. We only need an opportunity. If any trouble happens you, let me know.”

On one of the boats in the harbor of Santiago, the following conversation took place between a Major-Surgeon and Clara Barton:

Major: “You have been at the front?”

Clara Barton: “Yes, Major.”

Major: “I should think you would find it very unpleasant there.”

Clara Barton: “Such things are not supposed to be pleasant.”

Major: “What do you go for? There is no need of your going there; it is no place for women. I consider women very much out of place in a field hospital.”

Clara Barton: “Then I must have been out of place a good deal in my lifetime, Major, for I have been there a great deal.”

Major: “That does not change my opinion; if I had my way I would send you home.”

Miss Barton: “Fortunately for me, if for no one else, Major, you have not your way.” 101Major: “I know it, but again that does not change my opinion. I would send you home....”

Miss Barton: “Good morning, Major.”

Clara Barton—humanity is richer for her having lived.

Life is a shuttle. Merry Wives of Windsor.

Life is a bubble. Wm. Browne.

Life is a miracle. King Lear.

Life is a walking shadow. Meredith.

Life is like a stroll on the beach. Thoreau.

Life is scarcely the twinkle of a star. Bayard Taylor.

Life lives only in success. Swift.

That life is long that answers life’s great end.

For the multitude of failures I have encountered I am sorry.

Life is so short at best. Clara Barton.

It’s now three minutes past twelve and I am thirty-three. Alas, my friend, the years pass swiftly by, but I do not regret them so much for what I have done, as what I might have done. Byron.

HAD BUT A FEW MOMENTS TO LIVE

Clara Barton supplied the place of mother and sister to the sick soldiers, and this she did for many months, while in the deadly miasma of the South Carolina marshes. Much of this time she was with the soldiers and facing the guns of Fort Wagner. There with the 103shot and shell whistling about her, the heroic woman could be seen at all hours of the day and night stooping over the wounded soldiers, and tenderly administering to their wants. An officer who had been with the Army of the Potomac said that he had seen this woman upon the field of battle, sitting with the head of a dying soldier in her lap, apparently unconcerned and then only for the comfort of the poor fellow who had but a few moments to live.

Clara Barton—representing the mercy and magnanimity of the nation. Columbus (Ohio) Despatch.

Clara Barton—her works of mercy in war and peace made her an international figure. New York Tribune.

Everybody’s business was nobody’s business, and the stricken victims perished. Clara Barton.

The door that never creaked a hinge for the feeble child of want may swing wide open at the thundering knock of the Marshal’s Staff. Clara Barton.

The incentive to help and heal another in distress is spontaneous, generally the result of sympathetic impulse and kindness—a thing of the feelings and consequently of sudden growth.

“The other ladies could not endure the climate at Morris Island,” and, as I knew somebody must take care of the soldiers, I went.

Homer and Plato were so struck with Egyptian Science and skill that they declared the Egyptians were all doctors.

It is probable that the first practitioners in common life were women. Clara Barton.

105A sister and family followed me to Washington that I should not be quite alone in that slave city, for up to 1860 they bought and sold slaves at the Capital. Clara Barton.

When I think, I fear how supreme an International Court must have been to be able to induce the Southerners to liberate the slaves, or to convince them that “mudsills” and “greasy mechanics” and “horned yankees” are a people entitled to sufficient respect to be treated on fair international grounds. Clara Barton.

ENLISTED MEN FIRST—THE COLONEL’S LIFE SAVED

In ancient Greece, in the Roman Empire, in Europe through the middle ages, in the more modern chivalry of “Dixie,” among soldiers no slave, no servant—none but a gentleman carried a gun to kill. Killing in war time was the occupation of “gentlemen” only. For the first time in the history of the Centuries—in 1863—the ex-slave alongside the “gentlemen” on the battlefield, fought for human rights. It was at the battle of Fort Wagner on Morris Island; Colonel Shaw had led his “colored regiment” to that field of slaughter.

The first woman nurse on any battlefield, a veteran nurse at the front, was there,—the only woman present among the thousands of boys in blue. The chivalric southern soldiers hated the “mudsills,” the “greasy mechanics” and the “horned yankees,” but with a still more deadly hatred the “nigger in blue”—the ex-slave now marshalled in battle array against his former master. The onslaught there amidst the whizzing of bullets and bursting of shells is pictured as the “orgy of hell.”

The Colonel while leading that colored regiment was among the wounded. “Miss Barton, Colonel Shaw is 106lying on a dissecting table. His leg has been taken off. His life is ebbing away; won’t you go to him?”

Miss Barton replied: “Officers generally have friends enough to see that their wants are attended to, while the poor enlisted men are neglected. I will go to see the Colonel as soon as I have attended to my charges here.” When she was through with the wounded enlisted men, Clara Barton gave her attention to the Colonel, and through her services his life was saved.

If any number of Americans were asked off-hand to name the woman who stands highest in the esteem of the American people, the reply would be unanimously, “Clara Barton.”

The patience, the nobility of soul, the resignation and bravery of our gallant troops! Clara Barton.

Love chivalry. Armand.

Chivalry is the essence of virtue. Lord John Russell.

Chivalry was the parent of honor. A. Delevan.

The true spirit of chivalry is a generous impatience of wrong.

Chivalry has not entirely died out in this prosaic age.

“People say that I must have been born brave,” said Clara Barton. “Why, I seem to remember nothing but terrors in my early days, I was a shrinking little bundle of fears, fears of thunder, fears of strange faces, fears of my strange self.”

Fear loves the idea of danger. S. Croxall.

The moment my fear begins, I cease to fear. Schiller.

The weak most fear, the timid tremble, but the brave and stout of heart will work and hope and trust. Clara Barton.

Immediately following the Battle of Fredericksburg, every house in the city became a hospital. Among the thousands of wounded Clara Barton, in her usual unobtrusive manner, passed in and out of the houses, first on one side of the street then on the other, on her mission of mercy. Provost Marshal General Patrick seeing her alone among the soldiers mistook her for a resident driven from her home.

The general did not seem to know that any good woman is safe among men, brave and true, and nowhere else more so than among soldiers. He did not fully appreciate that when a woman is true to herself

and he did not know Clara Barton.

So, with admirable southern chivalry, he dashed to her side, bowing with hat in hand, and said: “Madam, you are alone and in great danger here!”

“No, I think not, Marshal.”

“Yes, you are, Madam. May I offer you my protection?”

“No, Marshal, I think it is not necessary.” Then turning to the ranks of the soldiers she further commented: “No, Marshal, I am the best protected woman in the United States.”

The soldiers appreciating the compliment sent up cheer after cheer, accompanied with “That’s so! that’s so!”

The Marshal, taking in the situation and waving his hand towards Miss Barton with a broad smile, said: “I think you are right, Madam, Good day!”

Clara Barton dared the bullets on the battlefield with the abandon of a dashing cavalry leader. Pawtucket (R. I.) Times.

In Clara Barton, the world has lost a guardian angel.

Death grinned a horrible ghastly smile. John Milton.

Says Clara Barton, in one of the battles of the Civil War, “A little sibley tent had been hastily pitched for me in a slight hollow upon a hillside. How many times I fell from sheer exhaustion in the darkness and mud of that slippery hillside I have no knowledge; but at last I grasped the welcome canvas, and a well established brook which washed in on the upper side, at the opening which served as the door, met me on my entrance to the tent.”

Clara Barton slept on the ground, wrapped in a blanket like a soldier, but her zeal was in no way diminished by hardship.

Clara Barton gave a lifetime of glorious service to humanity—a ministering angel like a benediction of her God amid the desolate, the stricken, the hungry and despairing. Los Angeles Examiner.

Sickness, confusion and death—these are inseparable from every conflict. Clara Barton.

I can never see a poor mutilated wreck, blown to pieces with powder and lead, without wondering if visions of such an end ever floated before his mother’s mind when she washed and dressed her fair-skinned boy. Clara Barton.

110When giant misery stalks to the very threshold, and raps with bloody hands on one’s door, it is almost a libel upon the good Christian term to call it charity that answers. Clara Barton.

Women should certainly have some voice in the matter of war, either affirmative or negative, and the fact that she has not this should not be made the ground to deprive her of other privileges.

“They say”:

BLEEDING TO DEATH—HIS HEADLESS BODY—WOMEN IN THE WAR

One day Miss Barton was asked to tell what was the most terrible experience she had ever gone through on a field of disaster or war, and she replied: “It was at the battle of Antietam. The poor boys were falling so fast that I rushed up into the line of fire to save them from bleeding to death by temporarily binding up their wounds. Bullets went through my clothing, but I did not think of danger. I loaded myself with canteens and went to a nearby spring and filled them with water, until I staggered under the load. The wounded were crying for water and I went to one poor boy who was wild with thirst and, stooping, I lifted his head on 111my arm and knee and was giving him water from the canteen when a cannon ball took his head off, covering me with blood and brains. I dropped the headless body and went to the next wounded soldier, and so all day I worked through this awful battle and refused to retire, though officers and men tried to drive me back.”

In the Civil War there was widespread opposition to the presence of women on the battlefield—both on the part of civilians and the military officers. Lincoln was not the exception. He protested that a woman on the battlefield would be a “fifth wheel to a wagon.” After the close of the war Clara Barton penned the following, a part of the poem entitled “The Women who went to the Field”:

In spite of her retiring nature and shrinking from publicity, Clara Barton remained probably the best known woman in America, surely one of the best-beloved.

Miss Barton took the lecture platform, under an agreement to lecture 300 nights at $100 a night.

Fear is the mother of foresight. Henry Taylor.

Fear is the mother of safety. Edmund Burke.

Fear makes us feel for humanity. Earl of Beaconsfield.

In the earlier years of my life, I remember nothing but fear.

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person: “Always do what you are afraid to do.”

Timid as a sheep. Ouida.

Timid as a doe. Robert Noel.

Timid as a fawn. Thackeray.

I am the most timid person on earth. Clara Barton.

Some critic has said that I was visibly agitated when I arose to address my audience;—the critic was right, and why should I not be? Clara Barton.

All speech-making terrifies me. First I have no taste for it, and lastly I hate it. Clara Barton.

Nothing could gratify me more than to know that I had been one of these self-reliant American girls like our sweet poetess Lucy Larcrom. Clara Barton.

113If I could have gotten over my timid sensitiveness it would have given far less annoyance to my friends, and trouble to myself, all through life. Clara Barton.

TIMID CHILD—TIMID WOMAN

Fear is relative. The fear of death by flames is greater than by water. The fear not to do is ofttimes greater than the fear to do. The fear of failure is supplanted by courage. To the sensitive nature the fear that others may suffer impels to the greatest courage. Despite innate fear, courage is uppermost in the minds of those who would achieve results. The most renowned in the fine arts, in oratory, in patriotism, in the humanities, are those by nature timid.

John B. Gough and Clara Barton at one time lived in the same town; were personal friends; in the lecture season, successively talked from the same platform. These two Americans were each as timid, probably, as ever appeared before a public audience. But each achieved an enviable reputation as a platform lecturer.

The morning following one of his inimitable temperance lectures, I remarked: “Mr. Gough, I wish I had your assurance before an audience.” “Young man,” he replied, “you don’t know me. I have given thousands of lectures, but I never rise to address an audience that my knees don’t knock together, from stage fright. Last night, as I arose to address that splendid body of college boys, I was scared stiff; for some moments I was so frightened I couldn’t utter a word.”

114In his autobiography he wrote: “For thirty-seven years I have been a public speaker, but have never known the time when I did not dread an audience. Often that fear amounts to positive suffering. In my suffering, trembling seizes every nerve.”

Clara Barton was a timid child; so much so as to annoy her parents, and other friends. When about eight years of age she was sent away to school in the hope that, among strangers, she would become at ease in the presence of others. At school she grew tired; became thin and pale; said she was hungry, but refused to eat. It was suspected that it was all on account of her timidity, and that she might die of starvation. Because she dared not eat, the teacher returned her to her home. In referring to this experience, and her later experiences in the presence of strangers, a few years before she died, she said: “To this day I would rather stand behind the lines of artillery at Antietam, or cross the pontoon bridge under fire at Fredericksburg, than to preside at a public meeting.”

The negro has no linguistic laws—his pathetically musical speech is fast dying away—only will linger the salient printed form to convey to the future some idea of the olden dialect.

I know of the intelligence of the negro, for I have heard of his unquestioned loyalty between every war of our land from Bunker Hill to the Argonne. Secretary of the Navy Daniels.

The only flag the negro ever carried was when his spirit was stirred crimson by the sacrificial blood he gave for America. Cite me a negro traitor! Justice Stafford.

In the World War, in France up in the zone where death was spread about I found the black man and the white man fallen side by side. Secretary of War Baker.

The courage that faces death on the battlefield, or calmly awaits it in the hospital, is not the courage of race or color.

Two of the bravest men I ever saw lay wounded, almost side by side, one white and the other black. Clara Barton.

The patient suffering of the black soldier is fully equal to that of the Anglo-Saxon. Clara Barton.

EZ EF WE WUZ WHITE FOLKS

At Galveston one day, when Miss Barton was busy dictating letters her companion, Mrs. Fannie B. Ward, came in and told her that there were two negro soldiers of the Civil War waiting to see her. Miss Barton said, 116“Let them come in.” The two old negroes came in with their hats in their hands and bowing at every step.

One of them asked, “Miss Barton, do you know us?” She replied, “No, I don’t remember you.”

“We knows you, Miss Barton,” was the reply, “We wuz in de battle er Fo’t Wagner an’ got wounded dyar, an’ you foun’ us an’ tied up our wounds an’ tuk cyar er us same ez ef we wuz white folks.”

Proud of their wounds, one of the negroes rolled up his sleeve and showed a great scar on his arm, saying, “I wuz in de cha’ge, Miss Barton, an’ a officer slashed me wid a swo’d.” The other pulled up his trousers and displayed a very deep scar on the calf of his leg and said, “En’ I got wounded in de leg wid a bullet.”

Miss Barton’s smile of appreciation and her cordial handshake sent them away with happy memories.

© Harris & Ewing


LEONARD WOOD

There is a call for women who will carry forward the work begun by Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton.—Leonard Wood, Major-General Spanish-American War; Major-General World War; Governor-General Philippine Islands.

General Wood, alert, wise and untiring, with an eye single to the good of all, toiled day and night.

Clara Barton.

Clara Barton’s name will take its place among the world’s heroines. Denver (Colorado) Times.

Life is like a dream. Dr. S. Johnson.

Our Life is a dream. Charles Wesley.

I have a presentiment that I shall not outlast the rebellion.

Dreams are the bright evidence of poem and legend, who sport on the earth in the night season. Charles Dickens.

Dreams in their development have breath and tears, and torture and a touch of joy. Lord Byron.

It seems to me I have been dreaming a horrid dream for four years; now the nightmare is gone. A. Lincoln.

To dream of battle—danger of persecution.

For a woman to dream that she is in battle is a very lucky omen.

“What’s that big barn of a house?”

“It’s the Red Cross house.”

“Who lives there?” “Clara Barton, don’t you know Clara Barton?” “And what does she want to live in a house like that for?”

“It is her headquarters—her home. There is where she does her work; there is where she keeps her supplies. Whenever there is a cry of distress anywhere in the United States she is off at a moment’s notice.”

No paint on the outside of the house, none on the inside—a regular barn—why wouldn’t the stranger ask questions?

The inside of the house is also strangely mysterious, with its great central part open to the ceiling; the balconies protected by railings, reminding one of a steamship, the atmosphere giving the stranger a sort of weird, uncanny feeling.

The visitor when within is still curious, and would ask other questions. “What are all these things on the wall?”

“They are diplomas, resolutions of cities, states and nations—medals won for services rendered in distress—all kinds of souvenirs complimentary to Clara Barton.”

“Interesting, very interesting!”

“Yes, no other place like it in all the world.”

“But what are these small doors for? They look like doors to sleeping berths.”

“No, they are doors to closets. There are thirty-eight rooms in this house and seventy-six closets.”

“What are the closets for?”

“Well, these closets in the walls, on either side of 119the big hall, are where she keeps bandages, linen, clothes, food in large quantities, to be shipped wherever wanted. It is surely no vine-clad cottage; it is a veritable store-house of food for the needy, a ware-house of clothes for the suffering,—anywhere in the world. Clara Barton called it her ‘House of Rough Hemlock Boards’—the boards were from the wreckage of the Johnstown flood.”

Hourly in the presence of such environments as to suggest war and flood and famine, and at times delirious, it is not strange that two nights before her death, on April 10, 1912, in her dreams there flitted before her the tragic past; that she dreamt that she was again in battle; that she saw “her boys” with legs and arms gone; that she gave crackers and gruel to the sick and bound up the wounds of the soldiers; that again she felt the twitching at her dress and heard “You saved my life;” that again she caught the last words of the dying to be sent to the mothers and sisters and sweethearts, and heard from the lips of her dying soldier-brother, “Oh! God, save my country!”

Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, was the greatest feminine mind of the ancient deities concerned in human welfare. The Author.

Bring the feminine mind to bear upon all that concerns the welfare of mankind. Julia Ward Howe.

Judge—You voted as a woman, did you not?

Miss Anthony—No, sir, I voted as a citizen of the United States.

Let us “push things” so that every state in the union shall speedily surrender to the advocates of women’s equality and elevation.

American women and students of American history have long deplored the meagre credit which has been given to women for the part they have taken in the progress and achievement of America, as a nation. Mrs. John A. Logan.

In “Part Taken by Women in American History.”

I know nothing remarkable I have done. The hum-drum of my every day life seems to me quite without incident. Clara Barton.

Speaking of myself, and my own doings, is a thing very distasteful to me. Clara Barton.

THE RED CROSS HOME OF CLARA BARTON, GLEN ECHO, MARYLAND

“Clara Barton to the end kept open house at her Glen Echo home, for the soldier boys.”

“The Red Cross House at Glen Echo was a flag museum of historical achievements.”

Historical ground carries its own sentiment: Mount Vernon, American Liberty; Monticello, American Democracy; Glen Echo, World Humanity.

A famous artist called at Miss Barton’s home and explained to her that he had been sent out to secure the portraits of the four most famous women in America. She asked him, “Whom have you been to see?” And he replied, “I have come to you first.” “And whom will you go to next?” Miss Barton inquired. “To Julia Ward Howe, of Boston,” he replied. “And whom for the third?” Miss Barton asked. “I do not know,” he answered. “You tell me, Miss Barton.” “Well,” replied Miss Barton, “why not go to Mrs. General John A. Logan?” “I will, Miss Barton,” he said. “And whom will I go to next?” asked the artist. Miss Barton replied, “I cannot tell you, but if Susan B. Anthony were living, or Mary Livermore, I could tell you.”

Susan B. Anthony wrote to Clara Barton: “I know, in a general way, my dear Clara, that you have done some wonderful things in the world, but I would like to have a list of just what you have done, to present to my audiences. So please prepare a brief story of your achievements for my use.” In due time came the reply, enclosing a very brief chronological list of Miss Barton’s achievements. Miss Anthony wrote back at once and said: “Dear Clara: I cannot present this skeleton to the public. Please put some clothes on it.”

Clara Barton—a wonderful majesty in the simplicity of her character. Sacramento (Cal.) Record-Union.

Like the stories from fairy lore are the accounts, modestly written and simply given, of the tremendous, almost super-human, work done by this little woman. Oakland (Cal.) Tribune.

Clara Barton loved everything that lived. Roanoke (Va.) News.

Bugs and other insects, as well as squirrels and other animals, gave her hourly enjoyment. Clara used to say, “these are my friends, they have as good a right to live as I have.”

Her love for the farmyard and its animals never left her.

It was her heroic soul and deep woman sympathy that made Clara Barton strong and brave. William E. Barton.

Nothing endures but personal qualities. Walt Whitman.

Sir John Franklin,—who never turned his back upon a danger, yet of that tenderness that he would not brush away a mosquito.

I too have a kitty and he is pretty much master of the house. He doesn’t speak German, although I have no doubt he understands it. Clara Barton.

A harmless necessary cat. Merchant of Venice.

A cat may look on a king. Haywood’s Proverbs.

In the night all cats are grey. Cervantes.

When the cat’s away the mice will play. Old Proverbs.

123As vigilant as a cat to steal cream. Shakespeare.

It has been the providence of nature to give this creature nine lives, instead of one. Pilpay.

Even poverty has its compensation. Clara Barton.

There is neither teacher nor preacher like necessity.

No work can retain its vitality without constant action.

Though to bed at daylight, or at best midnight, Clara Barton never slept late in the morning. J. B. Hubbell.

Let us each make haste to do the work set before us, in the Providence of God, unostentatiously, thoroughly and well.

She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Proverbs.

In October, 1911 (at the age of 90), while she was propped up in bed and seriously ill, I asked “why, Miss Barton, you haven’t a gray hair in your head, have you?” Quick was the response, “I don’t know, I haven’t had time to look.” The Author.

Oftener than I could wish my heart sinks heavily, oppressed with fear that I am falling short of the fulfillment of life’s duties.

The simplicity of childhood continued with Clara Barton through to her latest years. Because requested by children in letters to do so, at eighty-six years she commenced to write “The Story of My Childhood.” She did not reach second childhood; she was in her first childhood at ninety. On a certain occasion, having declined to address an audience, she reconsidered and said: “Oh, yes, I will talk to the children.”

Pets, as in childhood, continued; she had them wherever she happened to be,—pets of the chickens, pets of the birds, pets of the squirrels, pets of the domestic animals. She saw Divinity in nature; loved as does the believer in pantheism, as does the believer in the “transmigration of souls.” To the science of entomology she was not a stranger. Among her swarms of bees she continued the student of those who work for man and do not “bruise their Master’s flower;” loved even that household “pest,” the wasp.

But in the existence of a wasp Miss Barton did not think there was wholly of “mischief to do.” Genius philosophizes. To serve its uses, the wasp is perfect in its organs, and in its symmetry. The male wasp does not sting at all; and, while the “female of the species is deadlier than the male,” the female does not sting except in defence, in obeying the first law of nature,—the law which is the saving principle in the universe.

125The wasp renders service, service to the fruit-grower by destroying the caterpillar, especially of the green fly and black fly, and of other harmful insects. The wasp is not too aristocratic to act as scavenger, stripping the bones of small dead animals of skin and flesh—for its grubs—thus precluding carrion from becoming offensive and, through pollution of the atmosphere, unhealthful. The social wasp is strategic, is accredited with amazing cleverness, with courage never-failing, with intelligence higher than instinct,—having a system of living that should shame its human enemy. He who, in his ignorance, comes to the wasp to scoff goes away to admire. If only the wasp would toil for man, appeasing man’s appetite for sweets, that winged “pest” would be loved as is the honey bee.

At the Glen Echo Red Cross house, on the window-ledges, in the slats for window-catches, where the walls and ceilings join, in every nook and corner, the welcomed wasps had their little mud cells. While at the dining table, or at her writing desk, Miss Barton would cut an apple and sometimes around it would gather a swarm of these “pests.” Of the wasps, that nobody likes, she was wont to say “these are my little friends; they keep me company;”—as they hovered over and around her she seemed to get inspiration from them in her literary work.

In her early years Clara Barton’s special pets were the dog and the horse; in later years, the cat. She accredited her black and white cat at Dansville with human personality. Her Maltese cat at Glen Echo she accredited with reasoning powers, with a logical mind. Of Maltese Tommie she tells this story. Tommie saw another cat in the mirror. He stared at it; moved his 126head in rapid succession to one side of the mirror, then to the other side. The other cat did likewise. He dashed like mad to the back of the mirror, but found no cat. Returning to the front of the mirror, he put his left paw on the glass; the right paw of the other cat responded. He put his right paw on the glass; the left paw of the other cat met his. He again put his left paw on the glass, this time being close to the edge of the mirror and, continuing to hold it there he reached around to the back of the mirror with his right paw to grab the insolent intruder. Not seeing the other cat, as he quickly glanced around the edge of the mirror, and not having found it with his right paw, “he wiser grew” and walked away philosophizing;—in this vain world—

The picture of Maltese Tommie, painted by Antoinette Margot, is still one of the historic art-treasures on the walls of the Clara Barton Glen Echo home.

Those who think of Clara Barton only as the “war woman” within the battle smoke, or on the rostrum addressing literary audiences, or on state occasions as the cynosure of all eyes, or as the guest of honor among the crowned heads of Europe—as masculine and not feminine—have not seen the daily life-picture of Clara Barton. Clara Barton was most womanly when most childlike, queenliest when lowliest and, like the Roman Matron, most aristocratic when most domestic.

As Divinity lives in all life, as God the first garden made and work was the best religion Clara Barton had, 127her applied religion was in the yard as she cared for the domestic animals; in the garden as she cared for the shrubs, the flowers, the vegetables, her special pride being in raising fine strawberries. Frequently was Miss Barton called from the yard or garden, to meet guests in her “House of Rough Hemlock Boards,”—there where was welcome ever royal and farewell went out loyal; there where—

Of the women writers that lived at the time of the Civil War the mind of Harriet Beecher Stowe was the most imaginative; “the vehicle of thought” used by Clara Barton, the best equipped, the most powerful. In war-literature Mrs. Stowe will live through the genius of her great novel; Clara Barton, through her descriptive powers, forceful diction, and patriotic sayings. The Author.

Learn to be good readers. Carlyle.

God be thanked for books. Channing.

Mankind are creatures of books, as well of other circumstances.

The true university of these days is a collection of books.

Reading to the mind is what exercise is to the body. Addison.

Books that are books are all that you want, and there are but half-a-dozen in a thousand. Thoreau.

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Fuller.

Read much, but not many books. Sir William Hamilton.

When a new book appears, read an old one.

Miss Barton would not rewrite a public address; on looking it over, not a sentence, not a word, could be improved by changing.

She who desires information can sit down, read, and obtain it.

129Persons who use their brains, tongues and pens for the improvement of their kind, are those of whom biographies may profitably be written. Clara Barton.

Miss Barton is in the front rank of American lecturers—excelled by none. Aurora Beacon.

The Secretary to President McKinley used to say that in his correspondence at the White House the letters of Clara Barton excelled all others in literary merit. The Author.

Clara Barton’s lecture is beautifully written. John B. Gough.

CLARA BARTON IN THE LITERARY FIELD

The treasure-house of the world is of books. Books are one’s chosen friends, and friends are of souls with like aspirations. From the contents of books character is made. The legacy in books is what youth bequeaths to maturity. In youth Clara Barton entered the “true university,” that of books. She read not only books from the shelf but found “books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” Her favorite authors were Shakespeare, Longfellow, Milton, Keats, Schiller, Bunyan, Tennyson, Scott and Browning.

Had she followed the promptings of her head, and not her heart, Clara Barton might have been a Mrs. Sigourney. One of her admirers says that, had she been an author, “her gracefulness of expression, her buoyancy of thought, and brilliancy of imagery” would have placed her in a class with Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Brontë. But Clara Barton is now in a class—in a class by herself—and throughout 130the future the student of humanity will study Clara Barton.

Clara Barton’s descriptions of battle, and other, scenes are surpassing in vividness—unequalled. In her diaries, which she kept for more than half-a-century, are nuggets of human wisdom. Her wise sayings, as those of Benjamin Franklin, would fill a volume. Such Clara Barton Red Cross maxims, and other wise sayings as appear in these pages, are but the flotsam and jetsam of a cargo of writings, the cargo partly wrecked and no part of it available by the author.

Clara Barton was a nurse, but only as Lincoln was a rail-splitter. As an executive, Clara Barton is accredited as the greatest man in America, by one of America’s greatest statesmen; as the greatest woman in the world, by one of America’s greatest generals; as having done more for humanity than any other woman since the time of Mary of Galilee, by a great State Executive. By a great writer, it is said that through reading everything is within one’s reach. Clara Barton’s mental reach into national and world problems at least widens and heightens the possibilities of womankind.

Her Red Cross lectures are not “Caudle Lectures to Ladies”; they, including official reports, are high-class state papers which would do credit to the White House—literary, argumentative, statesmanlike. For twenty-three years in America Clara Barton was the Red Cross encyclopedia, the Red Cross dictionary. She was also the Red Cross legislature, the Red Cross Supreme Court, the Commander-in-Chief of our Red Cross battalions, at home and abroad. Although one of the “remonstrants,” in the press, referred to the Red Cross as “Clara Barton’s Bread and Butter Brigade” the 131Achilles in that brigade had won for humanity the greatest battle on American soil.

Her address, “History of the Red Cross; Its Origin and Progress,” is all comprehensive, showing research, scholarship, logic. Her “Address to the President, Congress and People of the United States” on “The Red Cross—A History of This Remarkable Movement in the Interest of Humanity” is as overwhelmingly convincing, as to the necessity of adhesion by this Government to the Treaty of Geneva, as was Webster’s historic reply to Hayne, in advocacy of the perpetuity of the Union. Her address on “What is the Significance of the Red Cross in its Relation to Philanthropy” is hardly less meritorious. Her address at Saratoga on “International and National Relief in War” is more than a literary gem; it is a compendium of humanitarian history—of Red Cross philosophy. No similar humanitarian address even approximates it, in wisdom and argument.

Through seven years, in the field of letters and politics, there raged a war against woe, a war led by a Master Spirit. Humanity won—won through that Master Spirit. That Master Literary Spirit, says another great woman, has “won the hearts of the women of the world.” She not only “walked like a benediction of her God amid the desolate, the stricken, the hungry and despairing,” but she walked and talked and lived “in pulses stirred to generosity.” Her pathos of sentiment and elegance of diction won the hearts of the American people, won Congress, won the President, won the Red Cross for America. And “the Red Cross in its great and human principles, its far-reaching philanthropy, its innovations upon long established and 132accepted customs and rules of barbaric cruelty, its wise practical charity, stands forever next to the immortal proclamation of freedom to the slaves that crowns the name of Abraham Lincoln.”

IDA M. TARBELL

Clara Barton got the preliminary experience which led to the foundation of the Red Cross work, on the battlefields of the Civil War. I have a high regard for her devotion, her organization ability.—Ida M. Tarbell.

LUCY LARCROM

Even a casual observer can not fail to see in Clara Barton’s work a unity peculiar to itself—a work which has grown out of a character, and which no one but herself could have done.—Lucy Larcrom.

ELBERT HUBBARD

Clara Barton has given us a constant lesson in thrift; a worker from infancy, taking neither vacation nor recreation.

ALICE HUBBARD

The greatest woman of all times. The people of the United States admire, revere and devotedly love Clara Barton.

Clara Barton’s dress was so simple that no one tried to follow her fashion. Alice Hubbard.

For personal adornment Clara Barton cared little, choosing green dresses in her youth; and ornaments of bright red, for cheer, in her older years. Corra Bacon-Foster, Author.

Dress changes manners. Voltaire.

Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others. Franklin.

Ridiculous modes, invented by ignorance, and adopted by folly.

To live to dress well indicates a fool. Dr. A. E. Winship.

The plainer the dress with greater luster does beauty appear.

Beauty, like truth, never is so glorious as when it goes plainest.

Those who think that, in order to dress well, it is necessary to dress extravagantly, make a great mistake. Nothing so well becomes feminine beauty as simplicity. George D. Prentice.

A plain, genteel dress is more admired and obtains more credit than lace and embroidery, in the eyes of the judicious and sensible.

Elizabeth, who died the happy owner of 3,000 dresses, issued a solemn proclamation against extravagance in dress.

We sacrifice to dress till household joys and comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry and keeps our larder lean. Cowper.

134The dress that shows taste and sentiment is elevating to the home, and is one of the most feminine means of beautifying the world.

A lady of genius will give a genteel air to her whole dress by a well fancied suit of knots, as a judicious writer gives to a whole sentence by a single expression. Gay.

A rich dress is not worth a straw to one who has a poor mind.

’Tis the mind that makes the body rich. Shakespeare.

I wear what I want to. Clara Barton.

THE ART OF DRESSING—CLARA BARTON’S INDIVIDUALITY

Dress is a sentiment, sentiment of an occasion. Dress is an expression of the attitude of the mind as to propriety, necessary to accomplish results. Like smiles, dress is an expression of the intelligence of the wearer. Dress is an art, one of the highest of the arts. Dress has to do with the form divine and, whether dress be for good or ill, depends on the mind that fashions it. Court dress, then the want of dress, Clara Barton disliked and on one occasion would not conform. She thereby missed the honor of being a guest on a state occasion—proffered her by the world’s greatest queen.

There is an individuality of dress, as of conduct. Clara Barton had individuality. There has been no one else like her, and a famous American woman says we shall never again produce her like. In religion she adhered to no creed; in social life, to no rules; in wearing apparel, to no fashion. In service to the world she wished for something to do that no one else would do—something that no one else thought of doing. “Clara 135Barton was Clara Barton,” individual even in her wearing apparel. The first straw bonnet she ever had she made herself. She cut the green rye; she scalded it; she bleached it in the sun; she cut it into lengths; with her teeth she split the straws into strands, flattening them. She braided the bonnet by the use of eleven strands; she fashioned it to suit herself; she wore it; it was Clara’s individual bonnet, and at 86 years of age she regarded it the great achievement of her life.

When advised by a clerk in a store that a woman of her age should wear lavenders and violets, Clara Barton turned to her shopping companion and said, “I guess she doesn’t know I wear what I want to.” While on the lecture platform, to a limited extent, she conformed to custom and wore trains. On a certain occasion, looking her over from head to feet, an obtrusive flatterer said to her “How stunning!” Floating on a breeze several degrees below zero came from Miss Barton’s lips “What did you say!” Nor would she gossip about the dress of others. Says Goethe: The “highest fortune of earth’s children is personality.” Characteristic of her observations on personality rather than of dress, on an occasion when she was a special guest of honor, she thus writes of her hostess: “I want you to know what a beautiful, bright lady I think Mrs. President Hayes to be. She is brilliant and beautiful, brunette with abundant jet black hair, put back over her ears;—she is entirely different from the Grand Duchess of Baden, and still bright and full of life, like her.”

Every human being dresses for effect, as does the actress before the footlights—the greater the intelligence the greater the discrimination. Clara Barton was the designer of her own fashions, the mistress of 136her own stitches. In the use of one of her stitches, she taught the women of Corsica to do more work in one hour than previously they had done in five hours. She found forty thousand people in despair, ill clothed. In her “dress-making shop,” she taught large classes of girls to sew. Daily, with these poor girls,

she left those people the best clothed people in Europe.

Clara Barton was as proud of her skill with the needle as was Lucretia with the spinning wheel, or Florence Nightingale in the art of nursing. In a western town a lady was discredited, and shunned, because she had been a sewing girl. Appreciating the situation, and ambitious socially, she made her home the center of fashionable sewing circles. She taught fancy crochet, and embroidery stitches; in a very short time she had the aristocratic women at her feet, and became the social leader.

Clara Barton’s apparel was her personal care, and not the care of a modiste. While in charge of relief work on a field of disaster, she said I have no clothing, and couldn’t attend to it if I had.” She fully appreciated also that “rags are royal raiment when worn for virtue’s sake.” She would sew on her own buttons, mend, clean, stitch and hemstitch, make and remake, her own clothes,—not only as a matter of economy but as a matter of personal pride.

W. R. SHAFTER

No governmental red tape system could possibly be as effective as were Clara Barton’s sensible business methods in Cuba.
W. R. Shafter.
Brigadier-General Civil War; Major-General
Commanding the American Army in the Spanish-American War.

General Shafter, the kind and courteous officer and gentleman.
Clara Barton.

137Clara Barton received no one until she had donned the, to her, becoming apparel,—the proper bow at the neck, the proper bow in her hair. Everything about her dress must be, to her, au fait. Propriety of dress had been a part of her education. She recognized that a tramp seldom gets by the barking dog at the gate, while the door of the palace opens wide to the person well-dressed. And possibly also she entertained the sentiment of Emerson, “The sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow.” She agreed with Walt Whitman that only personal qualities endure, and dress bespeaks personal qualities.

That she succeeded in the art of dress—that her personal qualities were at all times in the ascendancy, is attested by the fact that the press reporter overlooked her dress, in describing the “ladies’ costumes.” He would describe her very dark, bright eyes, her face as the ideal one which conforms to her character, her raven black hair worn in the fashion of our mothers and grandmothers; or “her hair, black as the raven’s wing, does not follow fashion’s ways but is dressed like Longfellow’s Evangeline, low down on either side of her forehead,” and then possibly dismiss her with the simple statement: “Miss Barton was attired in black silk.”

Clara Barton—her brilliancy and bravery won her a European reputation; she was decorated with several honorary orders in recognition of her exploits. Raleigh (N. C.) Times.

The whole of Europe is marshaled under the banner of the Red Cross. Clara Barton.

In the Grand Duchy of Baden, woman leads in Red Cross work.

Scarcely had man made his first move in organizing the Red Cross, when the jeweled hand of royal woman glistened behind him, and right royally she has done her part. Clara Barton.

Sovereigns deeply interested in the work of the Red Cross will be less and less disposed to precipitate their peoples into war for light and trivial causes, for small, or personal, or unworthy ends.

The patrons of the Red Cross in Europe are always of the Crown, or royal families, as Empress Augusta of Germany, Victoria of England, Dagmar of Russia, Marguerite of Italy, and the Royal Grand Duchess of Baden. Clara Barton.

THE JEWELLED HAND AND THE HARD HAND MEET

In the Franco-Prussian War the jeweled hand of the princess and the hard hand of the peasant met, and labored side by side unquestioned and unquestioning in their God-given mission. Side by side they wrought, 139says Clara Barton, as side by side their dead lay on the battlefield.

Empress Augusta became the active head of the Red Cross Society of Germany. Luise, Grand Duchess of Baden, only daughter of the Emperor and Empress of Germany, was untiring in the conduct of the Society she had already formed and patronized. Her many beautiful castles, with their magnificent grounds throughout all Baden were at once transformed into military hospitals. The whole court with herself at its head formed into a committee of superintendents an organization for the relief of the wounded soldiers. Clara Barton was the leading spirit in all such relief work. She says: “I have seen a wounded Arab from the French Armies, who knew no word of any language but his own, stretch out his arms to my friend, the Grand Duchess, in adoration and blessing as she passed by.”

Clara Barton—The object of decorations by many sovereigns.

Clara Barton—The rulers of many nations have done her honor.

The title of Emperor never loses itself. Napoleon.

A throne is but of wood, covered with velvet. Napoleon.

Royalty is no longer the feeling of the age. Napoleon.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Shakespeare.

Every monarch is subject to a mightier one. Seneca.

The name of Emperor is a word, like another; but he who bears it must have a better title to render him worthy of posterity.

Clara Barton was the welcome guest in the soldiers’ camp, the woodman’s hut, and the palace of the king.

Clara Barton’s services in the Franco-Prussian War brought her recognition from the German Emperor in the shape of an iron cross, Germany’s most prized decoration.

The “little woman” accomplished what crowned heads failed in.

Germany, which was in the vanguard of treaty nations was thoroughly organized and equipped. She was the first to demonstrate the true idea of the Red Cross—people’s aid for national, for military, necessity. Clara Barton.

His Majesty, in the name of humanity, was glad to meet and welcome those who labored for it. Clara Barton.

The royalty of Germany had assembled to speed the parting guest, to pay tribute of respect to the “little lady” who had sacrificed herself for the sick and wounded in the Franco-Prussian war. William the First was there. The Emperor observed, among her many decorations, two decorations worn on that occasion by the “little lady.” One of these had been presented to her by His Majesty on his 75th birthday; the other, the “Warrior Brothers in Arms” of Milwaukee, he had not seen. It was the “Iron Cross of Germany,” on an American shield. The “American Eagle” surmounted the arms for defence; and the colors of Germany—the Red, White, and Black, of the Empire,—united the two.

The Emperor, with much curiosity, turned to his daughter, the Grand Duchess, as if to ask “does my daughter understand this?” His daughter’s explanation was satisfactory, whereupon the Emperor expressed the wish to know whether or not the Germans make good American citizens. “The best that could be desired,” responded the “little lady,”—“industrious, honest, and prosperous.”

The Emperor then commented on the high compliment thus paid the German-Americans; “I am glad to hear this; they were good soldiers and, thank God, they are true men everywhere.”

In a personal sense the Emperor said: “Of myself, I am nothing. God be praised; it is all from Him. I am only His. He made us what we are. God is over all.”

142Miss Barton, “this is probably the last time; we may not meet again in this world, but we will be sure to meet in the world beyond. Good-bye.”

This was the last time. When she again visited Europe he had passed to the Beyond. But Prince Henry later visited the United States. Clara Barton was then temporarily at Hotel Willard, Washington, D. C. At the request of Kaiser William, Lieutenant Commodore Von Egidy, of the Royal Suite, made a personal call upon Clara Barton at her hotel. She had been apprised of his coming and was tastefully attired, wearing her historic souvenirs, including those presented to her by the Royal Family of Prussia. Among the souvenirs were the Iron Cross of Prussia, by Emperor William the First and Empress Augusta; Gold Cross of Remembrance, by the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Baden; Silver Medal, by Empress Augusta of Germany; Jewels, including the Ruby Pin, by the Queen of Prussia; Jewels, including the famed Pansy Pin, by the Grand Duchess of Baden; Medal of the International Committee of the Red Cross of Geneva, Switzerland. The Lieutenant Commodore, in full uniform, bore the greetings of Prince Henry to Miss Barton; and also friendly messages from the Emperor and other members of the Royal Family. Among the other pleasant messages from the Emperor was the statement that he still cherished the “little lady,” as a member of his own family.

Were all the crowns and laurels of earth won by the kings of earth within my reach on one hand, and on the other there rested the One Never Dying Jewel—made brilliant and lustrous by Clara Barton’s good deeds—I would count myself most blessed of men to—in reverence—touch the latter rather than become the owner of all the others. T. V. Powderly.

Clara Barton’s name was mingled with the orations of statesmen, the elegance of the pulpit, the command of royalty, the commands of generals—engraved in the halls of fame, in books of story for children and adults, and engraved on jewels of costly make and rare art. Bangor (Me.) Commercial.

The crowned heads of Europe were quick to perceive the benign uses of Red Cross Associations, and bestowed upon the Central Committees of their countries money, credit and personal approbation.

Secretary of State Frelinghuysen, insisting that illness was not a good excuse, and that Clara Barton must represent the United States at the International Conference at Geneva, in 1884, said: “All the country knows what you have done and is more than satisfied. Regarding your illness—you have had too much fresh water, Miss Barton—I recommend salt and shall appoint you.”

144I saw Paris when the Commune fell; the Army of Versailles shot down its victims on the streets by the ghastly glare of blazing palaces. Clara Barton.

In 1872, at the time of the Reign of Terror there, Clara Barton walked into the city of Paris. When the people saw her entering the stricken city on her errand of mercy, they cried out: “God, it is an angel!” Percy H. Epler, Author.

As Clara Barton and her faithful attendant, Antoinette Margot, a fair haired Swiss maiden, were on their way in Europe to the front they heard “Turn back, turn back; turn back; the Prussians are coming.” “Yes,” said Miss Barton, “that is why we are going, we are on our way to care for the wounded of the battle.” And the people cried out: “Dieu vous benisse!” Percy H. Epler.

For services among the Armenians, Turks and Kurds, Sultan Abdul-Hamid of Turkey decorated Clara Barton with the order of Shefacat and diploma for charity, and referred to her as “A Missionary of Humanity.” W. H. Sears.

Miss Barton was President of the Red Cross at the time of the Russian famine. The total contribution from America was estimated at $800,000.

In 1902 Clara Barton, and party, was invited to Moscow, Russia, where she had a royal reception lasting three days.

Referring to her relief work in Russia, to Clara Barton the mayor of St. Petersburg said: “The Russian people know how to be appreciative.” The Author.

The Czar of Russia personally decorated me (1902) with the highest honor conferred on anyone not of royal blood. I was entertained in the royal palaces and the imperial railway trains were placed at my disposal. Clara Barton.

In 1902 the delegates were received by the Czar, and as such they passed in review. Everyone bent over and kissed his hand. When it was Miss Barton’s turn, she attempted to bend over to kiss his hand, but he pulled his hand away and said: “Oh! no, 145Miss Barton, not you,” and shook her hand, instead. B. F. Tillinghast, Delegate to Quinquennial Conference of the International Red Cross Society, in 1902.

To honor me, the likes o’ me, not so! Poor little me who has not seen the present ruler (1909) of her own country.

AMERICA—SCARLET AND GOLD—EUROPE

In the autumn of her life honors, like the rich and beautifully colored leaves from the trees of New England, fell upon Clara Barton in showers. Twenty-seven testimonials officially were conferred upon America’s greatest woman philanthropist. The nations thus recognizing her valuable services to their respective countries are: Germany, Prussia, Austria, Russia, Switzerland, Servia, Turkey, Armenia, Spain, Portugal and Cuba. Through official sources it is learned that several of these nations have under consideration a perpetual Clara Barton memorial, and it is not improbable that the first great monument to our American World-Character will be on foreign soil.

Before the organization of the National Red Cross Society, in 1870–71, Clara Barton was an active participant in relief work on the following battlefields: Hagenau, Metz, Strasburg, Sedan; in relief work at Belfort, Woerth, Montbelard; in hospitals at Baden; in relief work in Paris at the Fall of the Commune; and for some time thereafter personally assisted in organizing relief work for the sick and wounded in France.

Clara Barton officially represented the United States Government at the Red Cross International Conferences. 146She was appointed by President Arthur in 1884, as our country’s representative at Geneva, Switzerland; by President Cleveland in 1887 to the Conference at Carlsruhe, Germany; by President Harrison in 1890 to the Conference at Rome, Italy; by President McKinley at Vienna in 1897; by President McKinley in 1902 to the Conference at St. Petersburg, Russia. In person she attended the Conference at Geneva, at Carlsruhe, at Vienna and at St. Petersburg.

At Geneva, “Mlle. Barton bien merite de l’human’te,” prepared by an Italian delegate, was adopted by acclamation by the representatives of all the governments of Europe—an honor to a woman never before or since equaled in the world’s history.

At St. Petersburg Clara Barton and party were received by all the royalty of Russia; entertained by them at dinners, luncheons, on excursions, given free transportation with an escort, everywhere. At Carlsruhe she received signal honors at the hands of the Emperor and Empress of Germany, Grand Duke and Duchess of Baden, Grand Duchess Luise, Bismarck, Von Moltke, and other statesmen and military officers. At the palace of the Grand Duchess Louise, she had attendants liveried in “scarlet and gold”; received all the honors accorded to royalty; and on leaving for America all Royalty stood hat in hand wishing her Bon Voyage and Dieu Vous Benisse!

Clara Barton is the greatest woman in the world.

Greatness is the courage to exercise common sense in high places.

General Shafter, while in Santiago as he had been at all other times, was the kind and courteous officer and gentleman.

In Cuba General Leonard Wood—alert, wise and untiring, with an eye single to the good of all—toiled day and night.

Take whatever three or four years of my existence you will, but leave the old army life untouched. Clara Barton.

THREE CHEERS—WILD SCENES IN BOSTON—TIGER!! NO, SWEETHEART

It was on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Grand Army of the Republic, held at Atlanta, Georgia. Mrs. W. M. Scott, of O. M. Mitchell No. 2, W. R. C., was the President. At that meeting the President described the scene occurring at one of the sessions in Boston the previous year.

Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer was the President of the W. R. C. at the session in Boston. As President she said: “I have the pleasure and the honor to introduce 148to you”—and hundreds of lips ejaculated “Clara Barton!” Then there occurred an ovation seldom witnessed. Handkerchiefs waved from every part of the hall, and loving little tears of tenderness streamed down the faces in that vast throng of admirers of the beloved woman. And Clara Barton talked. She, describing a former meeting, said (her voice tremulous): “They showed me the wounds they said I had helped to heal, and the stubs of the limbs they said I had tried to save, and they clustered around me like loving boys, and I—I cried, and they cried too; and we talked of those terrible times, and then we talked of those glorious times. They were grateful to me for what I had done for them, and I was grateful that I had the privilege of doing it.” “And,” says Mrs. Scott, “as Clara Barton told the simple story of her experiences with her soldier boys every one of us women, gazing at her, thought that if we did not have a sweetheart, or husband, at that time to nurse, well,—we wish we had.”

The old soldier boys brave and true in numbers were there. The G. A. R. too was having its session in Boston, and their heroine also was there. He, too, whom history will record as one of the greatest of American generals, was there. As since has the soldier’s idol, the great General also had “suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”—at the hands of schemers and politicians. Under the General she had served in Cuba—the same fearless woman that at the battle of Santiago, perched on a gun-carriage, gave orders to the doctors and nurses. Clara Barton again received an ovation, and General Shafter shared in the honors.

EMPRESS AUGUSTA

The Empress—her precious gift, the beautiful cross, is the chiefest among my treasures. Clara Barton.

See pages between 326–7, decorations Nos. 9, 18.

EMPEROR WILLIAM I
(1861–1888)

Tell the “little lady” I still cherish her as a member of my own family.—The Emperor.

See pages between 326–7, decoration No. 3.

LUISE, THE GRAND DUCHESS OF BADEN
née Princess of Prussia

FRIEDERICH, THE GRAND DUKE OF BADEN
Duke of Zährengen

For more than forty years, I have known dear, beloved Miss Clara Barton. Great affection and great admiration and great gratitude united me with her. Her memory I will keep sacred in faithful and thankful remembrance of her whose friendship was in our never altering affection so very precious to me.—Luise, the Grand Duchess of Baden (in 1912).

The Grand Duke, one of the kindest and noblest types of manhood. Clara Barton.

See pages between 326–7, decorations Nos. 2, 4, 5, 16, 17.

149The literary exercises were over. The General had stepped down from the platform. There at the foot of the steps the General waited. The audience had remained sitting. In a few moments Clara Barton and her chivalric old Commander were in private conversation. As that great audience, composed principally of old soldiers, saw together the greatest hero and the greatest heroine of the Spanish-American War, reminiscing of common hardships and common dangers, as one man they rose to their feet, tumultuously cheering.

An old soldier at the top of his voice shouted:

“Three cheers for Clara Barton!”

The cheers given were uproarious, cheers continuing again and again. At a still higher pitch of voice another shouted: “Tiger!!”

Hardly had the echo of that voice died away when still another voice cried out: “No, Sweetheart!!”

Then shouts and tears were intermingled and little Clara, with a love as true to her “soldier boys” as that of her “soldier boys” to her, much embarrassed and speechless, could only smile back her love in return, and in tears smile and smile and smile.

I have been shaking hands since nine o’clock this morning, and my right hand is almost paralyzed.

My “duties?” Receiving and shaking hands with two thousand persons, sitting down to the May breakfast at one o’clock with eleven hundred—leaving the table at four P. M.

All speaking terrifies me. Clara Barton.

Formality and parade I hate. Clara Barton.

Who was it that said that life is three-fourths conduct? Matthew Arnold, I think. Bishop William F. Mcdowell.

While Clara Barton’s religion was real, it was a thing expressed not in words nor creeds, but almost wholly in deeds.

Such lives as Clara Barton’s teach the world a lesson which it must never be permitted to forget—namely, that the wealth of human life is not what it gets, but what it gives.

THE LAST RECEPTION—HER AUTOGRAPH—THE BOYS IN GRAY

The last great public reception to Clara Barton was in Chicago, May 3, 1910. Miss Barton made the trip alone from Washington to Chicago, she then being 151nearly ninety years of age. The reception was given by the Social Economics Club, in Mandel’s Tea Room, to twelve hundred delegates, representing the club women of the State of Illinois, Clara Barton being the special guest of honor. Just back of Miss Barton on the stage was a snow-white flag bearing in its center a blazing red cross.

The question to be discussed was “Are We Elevated by Knocks or Boosts?” Under the spell of Miss Barton’s presence, “Knocks” was omitted from the program and “Boosts” resulted in a symposium of tributes,—in an ovation given to Miss Barton “such as few mortals receive.”

Since her death her autograph has become very valuable. Even then it was highly prized, and she was not permitted to leave the hall until every delegate present had her autograph. At the close of the meeting a delegation of Southern women waited on Clara Barton to thank her for what she did for the “boys in Gray” during the Civil War.

The following Sunday evening she was asked to fill the pulpit of a famous Chicago divine. She declined. “But you must, Miss Barton; it is announced, and the audience expects you.”

Commenting on the occasion she remarked to a friend: “I got even with the pastor, for he had to sit in the pulpit to listen to my talk; but possibly more annoying to him is the fact that he sat there, facing the largest audience he had ever seen in his church—wondering all the while what had been the trouble with his sermons.”

I am sure I express the sentiment of our great commonwealth when I say “All honor to the memory of the great founder of the Red Cross.”

Clara Barton’s fame will live as long as the race honors self-sacrificing devotion in ministering to the suffering.

Clara Barton—her fame will live throughout the ages.

Thou art Freedom’s now and Fame’s. Fitz-Greene Halleck.

Fame outlives marble. W. G. Clark.

Fame is but a phantom. J. Brooks.

Fame is the echo of action. Fulton.

Fame is a magnifying glass. Pavillon.

Fame is the thin shadow of eternity. Martin Luther.

Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds. Socrates.

Fame comes only when deserved. H. W. Longfellow.

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil. Milton.

The temple of fame stands upon the grave. Hazlitt.

With fame—in just proportion, envy grows. Young.

He lives in fame that died in virtue’s cause.

What is fame? A fancied life in other’s breath.

NICHOLAS II
The Czar of Russia

Oh, no, Miss Barton, not you.

The Czar.

The Czar is young and handsome, an educated, refined, kind-hearted gentleman. I know him. Clara Barton.

ALEXANDRA FEODOROWNA
The Czarina of Russia

The Czarina was the active head of the Red Cross, in the Russian famine of 1892. She and the Czar gave a special audience to Clara Barton, on the occasion of her visit to St. Petersburg, in 1902.

MARIA FEODOROWNA
The Empress Dowager
née Princess Dagmar of Denmark

The personal friend of Clara Barton and who, with the Czar, presented her with a decoration. See page 327, decoration No. 23.

153There is nothing vainer than the love of fame. Theophrastus.

Earth hath bubbles as the water has. Macbeth.

What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing and for whom you care as little.

So long as we love, we serve. Robert Louis Stevenson.

Happiness can be attained only by considering the good of others as our own. Tolstoi.

Love gives itself to others, and inclines to extremest sacrifice.

To give up seeking one’s own happiness, as animals, is the true law of the life of humanity. Tolstoi.

When we help someone else, we add to our own resources and power. Dr. Eugene Underhill.

If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve happiness. Fichte.

He serves most who serves his country best. Alexander Pope.

They never fail who die in a good cause. Byron.

Coarseness and roughness lock doors and close hearts; courtesy, refinement and gentleness are “open sesame” at which bolts fly back and doors swing open. William Matthews.

The years of unsheltered days and nights, the sun and storm, the dews and damps have done their work and now with bitter tears I turn my face away from the land I have loved so well and 154seek in a foreign clime, perchance, a little of the good strength once lent me here. Clara Barton.

Reserve your energies, doing those little things that be in your way, each as well as you can, so that when God shall call you to do something good and great you will be ready to do the work quickly and well. Clara Barton.

We question whether there has been any man or woman in the whole world’s history who has been a greater blessing to mankind than Clara Barton. Topeka Daily Journal.

Clara Barton stands as the complete refutation of the spirit of the age that either great wealth, social position or political power is necessary to the achievement of success.

Life is giving one’s self to save others. Clara Barton.

OPEN HOUSE—COST OF FAME, SELF-SACRIFICE—BEST IN WOMAN

Clara Barton kept “open house.” She was “in” to everybody. One had but to knock and enter. Expressive of her welcome, on one occasion she says: “You will begin to feel the strings of welcome tugging at your footsteps when you leave the cars, and will know that it is fastened firmly to the knob of the door, pulling only the harder as the door swings wide open.” At one time her Glen Echo home was filled with indigent, homeless soldiers. About this time “Bessie Beech” was heard to say: “Clara Barton really needs a guardian; she gives away everything she has and almost starves 155herself. Recently she gave to her soldier friends in distress, $800.00—all the money she had and is “strapped.” A well known millionaire gave, fearing he might die rich; Clara Barton gave, knowing that she must die poor. Giving,—that was Clara Barton’s whole existence.” “All the world,” she says, “expects me to give something every time it can get through the door or get a letter to me.”

“To pay respects” is a convenient excuse for imposing on good nature. To pay respects to America’s humanitarian became a fad. She not only personally answered 3,700 letters annually, besides her foreign correspondence, but thousands of people every year called, on her “to pay their respects.” On one occasion it would be for her to entertain the First Lady of the Land, representatives of the Army, the Navy, the Military, the Members of the Cabinet, the Members of Congress, the Officers of the Bureau of Education—“Official Washington.” On another occasion it was for her to entertain 600 members of the American Woman Suffrage Association, headed by the President Susan B. Anthony. It was for her almost daily to receive delegation after delegation, titled men from Europe, “globe trotters,” “sight-seers,” “prominent officials”—and to receive the “people who want something” all the time. If “the greatest of all sacrifices is the sacrifice of time,” for others, Clara Barton made a sacrifice theretofore without precedent,—“the sacrifice of half a century.”

Fame is one’s misfortune. Clara Barton did not seek fame, she sought work; fame was thrust upon her. It may be enjoyable to achieve fame, but it is misery to be a slave to fame. Only when the possessor of fame is 156dead can there come compensation—that’s a monument. A famous English Cardinal moaned, “Would that I had served my God with half the zeal I served my king!” A world-famed French philosopher soliloquized, “What a heavy burden is a name that has become famous!” An immortal American President said: “I wish I had never been born—my position is anything but a bed of roses.” Again, in the nation’s darkest night, despairingly this same President said: “Oh, if there is a man out of hell that suffers more than I do I pity him.” Another, America’s most beloved President, advised a small boy: “Grow up to be a good man, a useful man, but don’t try to be President; it won’t pay you.” Responsive to an admirer, who said “I helped to nominate you,” a world-famed President in the afternoon of his release, with nerves shattered, from an invalid chair commented: “Yes, you helped me into a lot of trouble.”

Even more than a famous man does a famous woman “belong to history and self-sacrifice.” In the evening following an “afternoon at home” to a thousand people, in full dress, and while sitting on the floor entertaining her little children with their toys, America’s most famous society entertainer and wife of a multimillionaire U. S. Senator, was heard to say, “This is the only pleasure I get out of Washington society.” To reach the heights of mere social fame is an achievement of folly. To live in an atmosphere of social aristocracy is to live on a desert-waste; the only attraction, the mirage that deceives.

On the steamer, while in ill health on her way to Europe, in her diary, Clara Barton philosophizes: Is my life really worth while? I give all of my time and 157strength to the public that seems unappreciative. In obscurity I might have had health, at least personal comfort. I might have married and had a home, a family of children; I might have taken up painting or literature, in each of which my friends say I have ability. In either of such life’s work I might have achieved success. As it is, even while serving the public, I am alone in the world, buffeted about and nobody seems to care for me unless to use me for some purpose. I wonder whether or not any woman thinks her life a success? Oh, well, I guess it was intended that I should do the work I am doing, forget myself and live for others, so I might as well make the best of it and try to be happy.

All organization is difficult; Clara Barton organized. She brought into existence the machinery of the organization and her master mind, unerring, directed the movements of every part of the machinery, “in a way that the people knew what she had done and are more than satisfied.” Without a title she occupied such a position as now must be filled by the male executive of a great nation. In qualities feminine, in sympathy tender, shrinking from publicity as no other woman in history, she filled a public-service position as no man could fill it. To an audience of women in Boston, another self-sacrificing woman who would serve the human race, said: “Clara Barton is an epitome in her life and character of all that is best in woman; she is what we would all like to be.”

She had all the royal makings of a queen. Shakespeare.

She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen. Homer—Iliad.

Clara Barton, America’s uncrowned queen.

We crown you in our minds and hearts as a “Queen Among Women.” B. H. Warner, Chairman, Public Reception, Washington, August 8, 1896, to Clara Barton on her return from Turkey and Armenia.

Clara Barton’s “queenliness as a woman and womanliness as a queen” endear her to our hearts beyond all words.

Clara Barton should be exalted above queens.

KNEELED BEFORE HER AND KISSED HER HAND

In 1902 the International Red Cross Conference was held at St. Petersburg. At this conference the civilized nations of the world were either indirectly or directly represented. The Czar and Czarina gave Clara Barton a special audience. The Dowager Empress also gave her the honor of a state dinner. Of all the delegates present Clara Barton was the most sought after personage. Not only at St. Petersburg but wherever she went throughout Europe, similar queenly honors 159were accorded Clara Barton by rulers and world-famed military officers.

When they came into her presence and were introduced, as to a queen, the greatest generals kneeled before her, and kissed her hand. They were invariably profuse in compliments and in undisguised praise of her services to humanity. Whenever the little, modest, timid woman attended the sessions of the Conference as she entered the hall the whole audience would rise to their feet and would remain standing while she was walking down the aisle to take her seat, and this was not infrequently accompanied by cheers and the waving of handkerchiefs, as if in the presence of royalty.

Referring to Clara Barton, at a public reception, one of America’s great women said: “No one loves a self-sacrificing woman as well as—as all other good women.” In America, as in Europe, Clara Barton was honored as has been no other American woman,—by the “First Lady of the Land,” by the Julia Ward Howes, by the Frances Willards, by the Susan B. Anthonys, by all great and good women—all recognizing her “queenliness as a woman and womanliness as a queen,” and graciously willing to crown her “Queen Among Women.” Writers also have referred to her as “The Angel of the Battlefield,” “The Angel of the World’s Battlefields,” “The Beautiful Lady of the Potomac,” “The American Lady with the Lamp,” “The Angel of Peace,” “The Angel of Mercy,” “The Angel of Humanity,” “Our Lady of the Red Cross.”

Life at best is so exhaustive. Frank W. Gunsaulis, D. D.

Clara Barton was a soft-voiced little woman, yet she had a way of approaching her work in the most telling manner.

The Stars make no noise. Irish Proverb.

The secret of my long life, “Hard work and low fare.”

This was the afternoon of Monday. Since Saturday noon I had not thought of tasting food.

You have the full record of my sleep—from Friday night till Monday morning—two hours.

At Cedar Mountain, among the wounded, Clara Barton had five days and nights with only three hours’ sleep, and a narrow escape from capture. Percy H. Epler.

I never think of weariness. Clara Barton.

Clara had some source of strength that we knew nothing about.

161Clara Barton’s endurance is unprecedented, and I have never known her equal. Surgeon-in-Chief A. Monae-Lesser.

Gentleness, sweetness, quiet unobtrusiveness were her armor; from dawn to midnight usually her working day; the frugal meal at Red Cross headquarters was frequently prepared solely by her hand. Charles A. Baker, Treasurer, Red Cross.

Clara Barton: My working hours are fourteen out of the twenty-four.

Port Royal Nurse: You mean eighteen out of the twenty-four, Miss Barton, don’t you?

I NEVER GET TIRED—EATING, THE LEAST OF MY TROUBLES

“Miss Barton, these workers say they are starving,” said “Sister Harriette”; “it’s four o’clock, and they have had nothing to eat since early morning.”

“Why, bless their dear hearts; I had forgotten all about them. Take them to the restaurant across the street, and get them something to eat.”

“But, Miss Barton, you need a rest and something to eat as much as we do.” “Oh, no, I never get tired, you know, and eating is the least of my troubles.” Miss Barton kept at her work in the warehouse, unpacking and repacking, preparatory to leaving.

In the dusk of the evening, her assistants returned and Miss Barton was still there, alone, and at work. Turning to the workers Sister Harriette said: “Did you ever see such a tireless worker? Miss Barton must have some source of strength we know nothing about.”

The relief workers had cared for, provisioned and resettled in their homes 30,000 negro refugees, victims of 162the cyclone and hurricane disaster on the Carolina Islands. The party arrived at Beaufort late that night; the “workers,” worn out; Clara Barton, as vigorous as when the relief-work-campaign opened ten months before.

Clara Barton, “Our Lady of the Red Cross”—her real life is measured by deeds, not days—rich in the joy of service.

The ladies of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, presented Clara Barton with a gold pin having a large diamond in the center. From it hung two small gold chains to which was attached a superb gold locket with a beautiful sapphire on the face of it. The Author.

Clara Barton learned how to care for her many pets which lived in the farm yard and was especially fond of horses. Her turkeys, dogs, geese, and cats were added to Clara’s stock of pets. She also learned to milk the cows. English Author.

I was a very poor boy, hired on a flat-boat at $8.00 a month—if you call this aristocracy, I plead guilty to the charge.

I have neither clerk nor typewriter; I still aristocratically eat by myself and do my own work. Clara Barton.

ROYALTY UNDER A QUAKER BONNET

Clara Barton had at Glen Echo a beautiful pet Jersey cow. This she personally cared for, feeding and milking her morning and evening. While milking the cow she would wear usually a plain black gown, white and blue checked apron, a white shawl over her shoulders, and on her head a brown, old-fashioned Quaker bonnet. 164As pendants on her breast there would be the elegant Pansy pin, presented to her by the Grand Duchess of Baden, and the Iron Cross of Prussia, presented to her by the Emperor of Germany. These royal jewels she had promised the donors to wear as long as she lived, and the promise she faithfully kept, whether she was in the parlor entertaining guests or in the yard among the animals doing the “chores.”

Miss Barton: What beautiful medals you are wearing.

Diplomat: Oh, yes, Miss Barton, but mine are from my own country, while yours are from the whole world.

Clara Barton, a Christian-like spirit.

Clara Barton—no other woman has come so near the Christ Spirit. Worcester (Mass.) Gazette.

This was the most unkindest cut of all. Julius Caesar.

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile. Shakespeare.

The wicked plotteth against the just. Psalms.

Women always find their bitterest foes among their own sex.

The traitor to humanity is the traitor most accursed. Lowell.

A woman’s shape doth shield thee. Shakespeare.

166Aunt Clara has only Christian forgiveness for others. Stephen E. Barton (Executor of the Clara Barton estate, 1911).

Clara Barton had no time to hate; only time to serve, to live, to give,—one of the greatest souls that ever came to earth.

STILL STAMPING ON ME—PERSONALLY UNHARMED

In a letter under date of November 20, 1905, Clara Barton said: “I thank you for the clipping concerning Miss ——’s lecture. I have received others not at all complimentary to me personally. I am learning some very bad things of myself.

“I wonder whether it ever occurs to her that taking a reputation and appropriating the work of another might be quite honest. I have, however, nothing to say. I have done with it all and so long as I am left personally unharmed I expect nothing more. They have long ago done everything else, and I have lived through it thus far. If they think their work will progress faster, or show better, by still stamping on me I shall not complain. I never have.”

Clara Barton—Let all flags fly at half-mast, and all the world stand reverently with uncovered head.

The world stands with uncovered head.

A grateful world pays tribute to her. Boston (Mass.) Pilot.

Her soul goes marching on. Boston (Mass.) Journal.

The pomp that is attendant on funerals feeds rather the vanity of the living than does honor to the dead. Rochefoucauld.

Let me not be made to appear proud and fond of vain show, when I am dead. John Burroughs.

When her mother died Clara Barton wore no evidence of mourning. The Author.

Clara Barton said that death was only one of the things of life, a part of life. She is not dead; I cannot even say she is away.

Clara Barton still lives. Father Tyler.

Great sorrows speak not. C. Marat.

The deeper the sorrow the less the tongue has it. Talmud.

Suspect that sorrow which is anxious to show itself. Ruzzik.

168Excess of grief for the deceased is madness; for it is an injury to the living and the dead knows it not. Xenophon.

Christ never preached any funeral sermons.

I cannot go to Heaven until my work is done. Clara Barton.

How often I have wondered whether or not the souls will know us in the Great Beyond. Clara Barton.

The Red Cross is a peculiar institution, without nationality, race, creed or sect, embracing the entire world in its humanizing bond of brotherhood; without arbitrary laws or rules, and yet stronger than armies and higher than thrones. Clara Barton.

The world is my country; to do good is my religion.

I know no section. In the labors that have come to me the nations of the world, and their strange tongues, have become my own. Clara Barton.

Just to have seen the collection of flags from all over the world, brought together through the mercy and loving kindness of one woman, made us feel that a Peace Proclamation is not an improbable thing. Alice Hubbard.

There flowed in upon Clara Barton blessings uttered in all tongues known among men. Portland (Ore.) Telegram.

All nations shall call you blessed. Malachai.

AT THE MEMORIAL—“THE FLAGS OF ALL NATIONS”—A GOOD TIME

Charon, the ancient guide over the River Styx, was peculiarly equipped to serve departing souls. Following 169the souls’ escape from earth, mourning customs are as numerous as are tribes and nations, as varied as are nationalities. At funerals, lives have been sacrificed, human forms disfigured, mourners employed, bells rung, lighted candles used—to serve their respective purposes, as have food, jewels, implements and weapons at the “last resting place.”

Funerals and memorials sometimes are to honor the dead; sometimes to cater to the vanity of the living; sometimes seemingly to strengthen an organization, social, religious, political, but in every instance following custom’s ways. Were not the public funeral display the custom, it would be sacrilege—custom sanctifies barbarity. Averse to personal display Clara Barton was also averse to the use of any custom of public mourning.

At the memorial held in honor of America’s greatest humanitarian, soon after her passing, the stage and the boxes of the theatre were decorated with flags that had been given to Clara Barton by grateful nations. Some were of silk, rich and magnificent; some, battle-stained and bullet-scarred. Some she had carried on the battlefield along with the Red Cross flag, the emblem to the sick, wounded and dying, that an Angel of Mercy was winging her way to their presence. There were the flags of England, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Norway, France, Russia, Cuba, Prussia, Holland, Greece, Switzerland, Turkey—and the flag of the United States.

Anticipating that there might be a memorial for her by the Philadelphia School of Nurses, Clara Barton thus advised the President: “Do not make it a serious occasion; let the people laugh if they want to, and tell stories and have a good time. There is no reason why it should be serious.”

Clara Barton—a biography of absorbing interest.

Clara Barton wrote several golden pages in the history of the brotherhood of man. Houghton (Mich.) Gazette.

“Amici! diem perdidimus” (Friends! we have lost a day), said Titus when at the end of a day he had nothing memorable for his diary. The Author.

Nothing is of greater value than a single day. Goethe.

A great library contains the diary of the human race.

The diary is greatly relied on by the writers of history, but—

Tolstoi keeps a diary in which he notes down what he has been thinking. Translator for Tolstoi.

Diaries tell their little tales with a directness, a candor conscious or unconscious, a closeness of outlook which gratifies our sense of security. Reading them is like gazing through a small pane of clear glass. Varia—By Agnes Repplier.

A man’s diary is a record in youth of his sentiments, in middle age of his actions, in old age of his reflections.

A well kept diary is one of the most interesting productions of human industry—not the least benefit of a diary is that it produces a taste for writing. Reverend William Sutton, S. J.

We converse with the absent by letters, and with ourselves by 172diaries—many of our greatest characters in public life have left such monuments of their diurnal labors. Isaac Disraeli.

Her unpublished diaries and letters are my chief original sources of information that the book should come forth with the force of an autobiography. The Life of Clara Barton, by Epler.

Only two classes of people can keep diaries of unimportant things—those who never have time to do anything else and those who have stopped doing things. I have done neither. Clara Barton.

Clara Barton’s war diaries, and diaries of her travels, if published, would be eagerly read by the people and be of great historic interest. The Author.

Clara Barton could say with Seneca: “I keep an account of my expenses; I cannot affirm that I lose nothing, but I can tell you what I lose, and why, and in what manner.” The Author.

CLARA BARTON KEPT A DIARY

The diary is an important factor in literary culture, and likewise in history. Diaries in some form are probably co-existent with the history of man. Keeping diaries, however, was revived in the seventeenth century. The best known diaries are those by Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, of England. In this country, among the many well known diarists are John Quincy Adams and Henry David Thoreau. From youth continuous through her long and eventful life, Clara Barton kept a diary. The subject matter therein consists of routine daily work, travels, public functions, personal opinions of people she met, and philosophizing, which would fill volumes with interesting reading.

173In her diary also she discussed questions of the day, public men, the problem of life, spiritualism, religion, politics,—everything that passes through the human mind, besides keeping account of every cent expended and for what purpose. By reading her diaries, almost any friend could find Miss Barton’s opinion of himself. Before retiring for the night her custom, amounting almost to a religious one, was to write in her diary the day’s events.

Illustrating this remarkable characteristic in her life are appended two excerpts of a domestic nature from her diary in 1907, she then being eighty-seven years of age.

“DOING MY WORK,” AT 87

This is my first day (since my illness) of doing my work and having a guest, but it has gone superbly. The breakfast table was neatly elegant—all silver and glass except the plates and cups and saucers. We had soft boiled eggs, cooked on the table, corn flakes, and a delightful platter of cream toast, with grapes, apple sauce, Dutch cheese and thick cream, and two kinds of coffee. Mr. Brown went to town returning at 5 P. M., when we had supper (or dinner)—a nicely cooked steak and sausage, fine potatoes, rice pudding, bananas, cake and tea—fruit.

I arranged the milk and cream, put the house in 174order, took care of lamps and room, and drafted a long letter to the Grand Duchess (from the medium), and Empress.

Doctor got Uncle Silas to come at evening and I engaged one hundred bundles of fodder at .04 cents a bundle, to be bought and put in the stable next week.

Have talked with Mr. Brown concerning Lucy.

“A RATHER HARD DAY”

Another fine day. But an experience this morning was anything but that. As Mrs. Barker did not come I was “doing up” the breakfast dishes at the sink and had put a kettle of beans on the stove to parboil for baking, as Doctor had expressed a desire for them. A rather heavy coal fire was going for this purpose. Suddenly I was startled by a great rush at the stove. Supposing that my kettle of beans had boiled over, I turned to see a flame three feet high from a vehicle larger than my kettle, pouring a liquid out over the hot stove that blazed the moment it touched. The Doctor had wanted to use some tar about the roof, and brought in a two-gallon tin bucket partly full and set it on the stove to warm up, and left it without speaking or in any way calling my attention to it. It had gotten boiling hot, and my first notice of its presence was the burst of blaze. The bucket of boiling black tar running over all on fire, the flame streaming up some two feet high. I called the Doctor at the cellar steps, at the windows—no response. The blaze went higher and wider. The carpenters must be on the roof and to the top I rushed, to find no one there—down again. I saw I was the only 175person on the premises. The room was dark with smoke. I could see little but the blaze. Four feet to the left stood a five-gallon can of kerosene oil for the lamps. I could not remove it and, if I could, I must carry it directly past the flame—if a spark reached, we would be blown to atoms, house and all. The floor was bare, with one or two small cotton mats. I dared not use even them. There was but one way; I must grapple the boiling, blazing mass, take it across the room and throw it from the window. I had no inflammable material on me, being dressed in entire black silk, waist and skirt. There was no time to lose. I tore away the curtain, raised the window to its fullest height, seized the bucket firmly with both hands and landed it on the ground. I knew the smoke must raise outside help as I did it. The Doctor had been to the post office. He rushed in to find me in the midst of darkness. I had closed the doors at first, still the smoke poured out of the chamber windows we kept closed. My right hand, which had taken the tip of the bucket, was nearly covered in a coat of tar, put on boiling hot, and to stay. I did not try to remove it but put it in hot water and went to work with it. I need not say that the rest of the day was needed, and given to the house, but we were only too thankful that we had a house to clean up. The tar coating and hot water saved the hand, so that a few heavy blisters tell the story of their hardship. It is all over now. I write this the next day; last night I could not have done it.

Doctor went to Mrs. Warneke’s; I remained home. Mrs. Hinton came but I made no mention of the morning adventure. She has commenced her new home. I gave her butter, fruit, jellies, to help her table. A rather hard day.

All the world pays homage to the nurse—poets, warriors, statesmen, kings, and the numberless multitudes of human sufferers.... Eugene Underhill, M.D., author of “Nursing—The Heart of the Art.”

Efficient nurses are the most difficult to obtain of all aid in Red Cross work. Clara Barton.

I never claimed to be a nurse. There are hundreds of women who could nurse as well as I, if not better, than I could.

Time is the great physician. Disraeli.

Physicians mend or end us. Lord Byron.

Send for a physician;—but the sick man answered, “It is no matter for, if I die, I’ll die at leisure.” Lord Bacon.

NURSING A FINE ART—OVER THE WASHTUB

Was Clara Barton a nurse? Yes, and Florence Nightingale said that nursing is a fine art; and to succeed requires greater devotion than that in the art of painting or sculpture, for nursing has to do with “the living body, the temple of God’s spirit.” It’s probably the finest of the fine arts. Clara Barton did not assume 177the rôle of an art-nurse; she said others could surpass her in this art.

Miss Barton in her passion for service claimed to be only a “working-woman.” Work did not undignify her; instead, she seemed to dignify work—she surely made nursing popular. Work was a part of the best religion she ever had. With her

The day preceding the delivery of her public address she spent washing the clothes of the family and the linen of the household. Such exercise, more useful than golf and serving like purpose, strengthened the muscles, increased the blood circulation, made the brain active.

Commenting on the “wash-tub custom” her old physician said as she became so very tired after a hard day’s washing at first he used to protest, then facetiously remarked,

and therefore he concluded that Miss Barton knew better than he did what was good for her.

Clara Barton—The millions she has blest.

With the gleam of the scarlet she walks with the immortals now.

One of the few immortal names. Fitz-Greene Halleck.

Oh! the love of woman, the love of woman! no coldness, no neglect, no harshness, no cruelty can extinguish thee! Like the fabled lamp in the sepulchre, thou sheddest thy pure light in the human heart, where everything around thee is dead forever.

Will Carleton—author of “The New Church Organ,” “Betsy and I are Out,” “Over the Hill to the Poor-house,” and many others. The Author.

IMMORTAL WORDS—A MILLION THANKS

The following correspondence occurred between two beloved Americans:

On the occasion of Memorial Day, May 30, 1895, at Arlington, Will Carleton delivered the poem. It 179was so fine that at its close I felt a great desire to reach him with some word of appreciation and, tearing a scrap from an envelope which I had, I wrote this upon it:

Folding and addressing the scrap to Mr. Will Carleton, Miss Barton passed it to the next person, who graciously passed it to the next, and so on, through possibly a hundred hands, until finally it was lodged with Mr. Carleton. In due course of time, another little scrap with the following words came back to Miss Barton, through the same hands:

Wherever flowers cannot be reared, there man cannot live.

A rose to the living is sweet. Clara Barton.

The roses are sweet, and blessed be they who bring them into one’s life. Clara Barton.

The red rose has been blazoned with a boar’s head on the Barton crest ever since the War of the Roses.

All the world brings its roses to the bier of Clara Barton.

There’s the rosemary, that’s for remembrance;—and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts. Shakespeare.

THE PANSY PIN—FOR THOUGHTS

The “Pansy Pin,” of which so much has been written, and which Miss Barton continually wore, was given to 181her by the Grand Duchess of Baden. The pin is about as large as the case of a lady’s watch and in the shape of a pansy. The five petals are splendid amethysts and a single large beautiful pearl rests in the center, like a dew drop. The gift was accompanied with the words: “This is a simple gift, but it is a pansy which means ‘for thoughts.’”

Jeweler—“Miss Barton, do you know the value of that pin?”

Miss Barton—“No, sir, it was a present to me.”

Jeweler—“Each of these jewels is almost priceless. They represent a king’s ransom.”

Miss Barton—“The pin is priceless to me. I always wear it ‘for thoughts’ of a very dear friend.”

Lord Stratford—Will the guests kindly write on a slip of paper the name of the one, including the famous generals, who served in the Crimean War they think will be the longest remembered?

Guests—Florence Nightingale (written on every slip).

Clara Barton is to America what Florence Nightingale is to us.

No general that led hosts to victory on the battlefield is nearly so secure of lasting fame as is the name of Clara Barton.

Miss Nightingale found herself misunderstood and lost her Governmental position—suffering much from Governmental heartlessness and neglect. England, in later Governmental acts, was more appreciative of her war heroine.... Percy H. Epler.

English women are solid and sensible, learned and self-possessed, and all the world respects them. Clara Barton.

Surely woman should bring the best she has, whatever that is, to the work of God’s world. Florence Nightingale.

A white marble cross, 20 feet high, overlooking Balaclava and seen from ships crossing the Black Sea, is known as the “Nightingale Cross,”—erected at the personal expense of Florence Nightingale in memory of the soldiers and nurses who died in the War. The Author.

© American Red Cross


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

Clara Barton is to America what Florence Nightingale is to us.
London Times.

I will not speak of reward when permitted to do our Country’s work—it is what we live for.
Florence Nightingale.

Florence Nightingale, covered with the praises and honors of the world.
Clara Barton.

See pages 183; 197.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE MEMORIAL ON THE MALL, LONDON

(Left to right.) The monument erected at Waterloo Place, corner of Pall Mall, London, England, to the memory of Florence Nightingale. Funds, by public subscription. Unveiled, February 24, 1915.

“To the memory of 2162 officers, non-com. officers and privates of Brigade of Guards who fell during the war with Russia in 1854–1856. Erected by their comrades.”

(In front) Statue of Sidney Herbert, associated with the life work of Florence Nightingale.

In the year 1854 occurred the Crimean War. At the Scutari and Barrack Hospitals, Florence Nightingale rendered service that gave her immortal fame. “Her services there,” said Clara Barton in 1882, “marked an era never before reached in the progress of the world. When Miss Nightingale, with her thirty-eight faithful attendants, sailed from the shores of England, it meant more for the advancement of the world, more for its future history, than all the fleets of armies and navies, cannon and commissary, munitions of war, and regiments of men, than had sailed before her in that vast campaign.

“This unarmed pilgrim band of women that day not only struck a blow at the barbarities of war, but they laid the axe deep at the root of war itself. When Florence Nightingale, covered with the praises and honors of the world, bending under the weight of England’s gratitude, again sought her green island home, it was to seek also a bed of painful invalidism, from which she has never risen and probably never will.”

How age is a matter of individual commendation I have never been able to see. Clara Barton.

We have no control over the beginning of life and, unless criminally, none over its ending. Clara Barton.

It is not my fault, if my gray hairs are not honorable.

One is as old as his strength. Clara Barton.

We can neither hasten, nor arrest, age. Clara Barton.

Let work be thy measure of life. W. E. H. Lecky.

We live in deeds, not years—we should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

Although she had lived more than ninety years Clara Barton never gave the impression to anyone that she was an old woman. ‘Her age knows no time.’ She gave to the world nearly a century of work. Alice Hubbard.

A life spent worthily should be measured by a noble line—by deeds, not years. Pizarro.

Age is opportunity no less than youth itself, but in a different dress. H. W. Longfellow.

THE PASSING OF YEARS—RIGHT HABITS OF LIFE

At the age of 11 years Clara Barton was a nurse; at 15 years, a teacher; at 34 years, a clerk in the Patent 185Office; at 40 years, a nurse in the Civil War; at 59 years, an organizer of nurses in the Franco-Prussian war; at 60 years, President of the American Red Cross; at 78 years as President of the Red Cross in the Spanish-American war; at 83 years, retired from the Presidency of the Red Cross; at 84 years, organizer and the President of the National First Aid Association, which Presidency she held up to the time of her death in 1912, when she was 91 years of age.

Commenting on the passing of years, Clara Barton philosophizes: “Age is no business of ours. We have no control over its beginning and, unless criminally, none over its ending. I have never, since a child, kept a ‘birthday’ nor thought of it only as a reminder by others.

“I have been able to see that persistent marking of dates, and adding one mile-stone every year, encourages the feeling of helplessness, and release from activities which might still be a pleasure to the possessor. Somehow it has come to me to consider strength and activity, aided so far as possible by right habits of life, as forming a more correct line of limitation than the mere ‘passing of years.’”

Clara Barton, the good angel of comfort, will live enshrined in the hearts of America and of the world.

Great evils die hard. Clara Barton.

Don’t drink. A. Lincoln.

Cold water,—the only beverage I have used, or allowed, in my family. A. Lincoln.

The saloon, the most blighting curse;—liquor traffic, the tragedy of civilization—I am a practical prohibitionist. A. Lincoln.

Intemperance is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all the evils among mankind. A. Lincoln.

The one victory we can ever call complete will be that one which proclaims there is not one slave nor drunkard on the face of God’s green earth.

Although the temperance cause has been in progress for nearly twenty years, it is apparent to all that it is just now being crowned with a degree of success hitherto unparalleled.—Hail, full of fury! Reign of reason, all hail! A. Lincoln, February 22, 1842.

Humanity is the peculiar characteristic of great minds.

Lincoln’s tenderness was as gentle as a woman’s.

Lincoln was human and thus touched the chord that makes the world akin. H. W. Bolton, D.D.

187God has placed the genius of women in their hearts, because the works of their genius are always the works of love. Lamartine.

SHE WON HIS HEART

The son had broken a mother’s heart, and crushed out her life. The relatives and other mourners were at the open grave, made ready to receive her. Among them stood the son, then maudlin with drink. In that pathetic scene was Clara Barton. She stepped to the side of the boy, and grasped his arm. The ceremony halted. In a low voice she made her appeal; she won his heart; he promised—The casket was lowered; the group separated and she led the boy away. A few more words, then humanity’s friend and the boy parted, she to other deeds of mercy and he to a new life.

The philosophy of the old-time African servitor was of the most consoling character—he preached the gospel of contentment, perhaps as divine as any other principle of the moral law.

America had freed a race. Clara Barton.

A gift must be outright. Clara Barton.

Our gifts fall short of the best. Clara Barton.

Charity and beneficence are degraded by being reduced to a dependence upon a system of beggary. Clara Barton.

Charity bears an open palm; to give is her mission.

How good it is to make two blades of grass grow where was one.

I know I am right because I know liberty is right. A. Lincoln.

The colored people would probably help, in some trying time, to keep the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom. A. Lincoln.

My early history is perfectly characterized by a single line of Grey’s elegy:

The history of philanthropy has few brighter pages to record than at the Sea Island Hurricane, and its pleasant memories will gladden the hearts long after its weary hours are forgotten.

The policy of the Red Cross was to help people to true independence by enabling them to support themselves by their own work. In Galveston after the flood had produced widespread ruin, Clara Barton authorized her field agent to visit the coast towns, ascertain the needs of the people, and send in requisitions by telegraph. As the agent was leaving on this mission she said:

At the Sea Islands one day a negro came to see me. He said that we had built a little house for him, fenced in his field and garden and given him seed and plow and tools to work with. Now if he had a horse or a mule or a little bull to pull the plow he could put in his crops. I gave instructions that his need should be supplied and, as the horse or mule could not be found, a two-year-old steer was bought for him.

Now you are going to the coast country, but wherever you go in all the world if you find anybody who needs a horse or a mule or a little bull, you buy it for him.

Clara Barton—perhaps the most perfect incarnation of mercy the modern world has known. Detroit Free Press.

Peace and good will to all the world. Clara Barton.

Animals are such agreeable friends; they ask no questions, pass no criticism. George Eliot.

Humanity is much more shown in our conduct towards animals than towards our fellow creatures. Chesterfield.

Some animals are so faithful that I hate to call them brutes.

There is in every animal’s eye a dim image and gleam of humanity.

Clara Barton’s affection for dumb animals showed itself in almost every letter. Rev. Percy H. Epler.

Nature teaches beasts to know their friends. Coriolanus.

Asoka, Ruler of India, about 300 years before Christ, organized hospitals for the treatment of animals. Lajpat Rai.

Clara Barton had some reward in the fact that every human living thing that knew her loved her. Roanoke (Va.) News.

OR GOD WOULDN’T HAVE MADE THEM

Just back of the old Red Cross house at Glen Echo, the hills slope somewhat abruptly about 100 feet down 191to the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. The canal is still in use, with its locks intact, the boats plying day and night up and down between its banks. The canal is historic—one of the oldest in the United States. It is of unusual interest because the first construction work was under the supervision of George Washington, he being the President of the canal company. The canal was operated long before railroads came into use in this country. From the Red Cross house forest trees and thick underbrush cover the slope of the hills down to the canal.

One day Miss Barton had a distinguished guest, who wanted to stroll down to the edge of the canal and have her tell him about it. Miss Barton accompanying him, they made their way slowly through the growth of ferns, tall brakes, thick underbrush and dead timbers. On their way a “cotton tail” jumped out from the brush. The visitor suddenly pulled out of his pocket a pistol to kill the rabbit but Miss Barton protested, saying: “I do not permit wild animals to be killed around my place. These animals are my friends; I am very fond of them.” The visitor, disappointed in not enjoying the “sport” of killing, tried to convince his hostess that the squirrels, rabbits, muskrats and other such animals would injure her fruit trees, destroy her flowers and ruin her garden. Miss Barton mildly responded: “I suppose they do, but they also must do some good in the world too, or God wouldn’t have made them.”

All creeds in need of help enlisted Clara Barton’s sympathies and received her cordial assistance. Harriette L. Reed, Past National Secretary, Woman’s Relief Corps.

Neither “Mental” nor “Christian” Science, nor Theosophy claims to be new, but only the distinct enunciation of great world-wide truths. Tolstoi.

I read “Science and Health” very conscientiously at all times.

I accepted Christian Science as something better than I had known, without seeing its text books, without ever having heard an argument. Clara Barton.

Isn’t it blessed that the way is opening for the relief of the ills of the human race—poor, suffering race, how many of our ills we make ourselves. Clara Barton.

CLARA BARTON—MARY BAKER EDDY

Clara Barton and Mary Baker Eddy^[6] were warm personal friends.

For three years Clara Barton attended the Christian Science Church, but did not become a member. On numerous occasions Miss Barton expressed high estimation of the work done under the leadership of that most wonderful woman, Mary Baker Eddy, in the religious life of the people. Spiritually these two great women were in harmony.

193“Miss Clara Barton,” says Mrs. Eddy, “dipped her pen in my heart, and traced its emotions, motives and objects. Then lifting the curtain of mortal mind, she depicted its rooms, guests, standing and seating capacity, and thereafter gave her discovery to the press.

“Now, if Miss Barton were not a venerable soldier, patriot, philanthropist, moralist and stateswoman, I should shrink from much salient praise, but in consideration of all that Miss Barton really is, and knowing that she can bear the blame which may follow said description of her soul visit, I will say ‘Amen,’ so be it.”

On December 5, 1910, in her diary, Clara Barton writes: “This morning brings the sad news of the death of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy.” In the diary the following day Miss Barton writes: “More particulars concerning the passing of Mrs. Eddy. All so quiet, correct—no form, no excitement, no mourning; all peaceful, thoughtful, proper. What a lesson she has taught the world, and what faithful, apt scholars she has taught and trained! The greatest woman of all; her life a signal triumph and her death the greatest of all.

“No criticisms now, no light comments. Her followers bow in meek submission and her foes stand rebuked. There is no such person left, no such mind, no such ability. Long ago I said she was our greatest living woman; I now say she is our greatest dead.”

Clara Barton has given us a constant lesson in thrift. She lived so simply that at her desk, at work, a piece of bread and cheese and one apple was her dinner; a frugal supper and a most abstemious breakfast. Alice Hubbard.

Count Tolstoi gave up his whole time to mitigating the suffering caused by the Russian famine. Clara Barton.

The simple needs being the only true needs, their satisfaction alone is guaranteed. Tolstoi.

The satisfaction of all simple, normal wants is guaranteed to men as it is to the bird and the flower. Tolstoi.

The brave soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its table and draperies. Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Economy, prudence, and the simple life are the sure masters of need. Clara Barton.

LIKE TOLSTOI SHE LIVED THE SIMPLE LIFE

Clara Barton’s food was of the simplest. Costly food, even at another’s expense, she could not enjoy; eating costly food, to her, seemed a sin. For breakfast, her first choice of menu was a dish of graham mush, with milk and fruit; her second choice, meal grains and vegetables, with simple accompaniments.

COUNT LYOF NIKOLAYEVITCH TOLSTOI

I would like to visit the United States, but I would want to spend the time among the farmers. Give Clara Barton my love; I feel that we are related.—Count Lyof Nikolayevitch Tolstoi.

DR. HENRY W. BELLOWS

Miss Barton, I trust you will press this (Red Cross) matter upon our present administration with all the might of your well-earned influence.—Dr. Henry W. Bellows (November 21, 1881). Ex-Chairman, U. S. Sanitary Commission.

DR. JULIAN B. HUBBELL

Clara Barton was scrupulously honest, severely economical in her personal needs, always sacrificing self for others, and her simple life in her home was as beautiful as her public life.—Dr. Julian B. Hubbell, Clara Barton’s physician and co-worker in the field for thirty years.

195A favorite meal was bread, cheese and a Rhode Island Greening Apple. Two meals a day satisfied, and nothing eaten between meals. No tea, no coffee, no substitutes, and no wine. A bottle of wine presented by a friend would last from one year to five years. There is now a bottle of Bordeaux, in her old home at Glen Echo, that has been there for twenty-five years. Like Tolstoi, she was a vegetarian, and an advocate of “low fare”; but, like Tolstoi, she did not so much as advise the household of which she was a member what to eat, or how much to eat. Like Tolstoi, Clara Barton lived the simple life, but did not impose her philosophy upon others; like Tolstoi, she lived to a ripe old age, endured persecution, and served the human race. So much in common were their habits of living, and their philosophy of human life, that Tolstoi, in sending his love to Clara Barton, said: “I feel that we are related.”

Two Angels—God’s sweet gifts, one of the Old World, one of the New.—E. May Glenn Toon.

Just as Florence Nightingale was “The Angel of Crimea,” so Clara Barton was “The Angel of the World’s Battlefields.”

Florence Nightingale, who introduced into the world a system of women hospital nurses, was ousted from her Governmental position, she then being an invalid. Later the treatment accorded to her by England was made a national issue, and on that issue her admirers and friends overwhelmingly won. The Author.

At the unveiling of the Florence Nightingale Memorial in the Crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, as she pulled the cord revealing the beautiful sculpture, Queen Victoria said: “I have great pleasure in unveiling this memorial.” The Author.

Although unknown to each other save in name, the “Lady of the Lamp” and the “Angel of the Battlefield” were indeed sisters.

When Florence Nightingale labored among the sick and wounded at Scutari, Clara Barton was still writing beautiful “copper-plate style” in the office at Washington. English Author.

When Florence Nightingale had safely returned to her lovely home in England, the great call came to Clara Barton away on the other side of the Atlantic. English Author.

For half a century we have thanked God for what Florence Nightingale has wrought and taught. Constance Wakeford.

197Clara Barton’s personal devotion had already planted the idea of the Red Cross in the heart of the American people better than any official bureau could do. Heroines of Modern Progress.

I will not speak of reward when permitted to do our country’s work—it is what we live for. Florence Nightingale.

What is money without a country! Clara Barton.

CLARA BARTON—FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

Clara Barton was born in 1821 and lived to be ninety-one years of age.

Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 and lived to be ninety years of age.

Clara Barton lived her long life without marrying; Florence Nightingale likewise lived her long life without marrying.

Clara Barton is known as the “Angel of the Battlefield”; Florence Nightingale, as the “Lady of the Lamp.”

Although they were strangers to each other, they are known as, indeed, sisters.

Clara Barton had the distinction of being born on Christmas and passing away on Easter; Florence Nightingale had the distinction of having for a name the name of a stately city and a sweet-voiced bird.

Clara Barton as a nurse had her first experience nursing a brother by the name of David; Florence Nightingale as a nurse had her first experience caring for a pet shepherd dog by the name of “Cap.”

Clara Barton on an army wagon seated with a mule driver left Washington to go to the battlefields of the 198Civil War; Florence Nightingale on board of a vessel with 38 other nurses, sailed from England to go to the hospitals at Scutari, Turkey, in the Crimean War.

Clara Barton continually “followed the cannon” from the camps of the soldiers on to the “firing line”; Florence Nightingale lived at Scutari, but on one occasion inspected the camps of the soldiers at Balaclava within hearing of the cannon.

Clara Barton had for a pet, presented to her, a white Arabian horse and known as “Baba”; Florence Nightingale had for a pet, presented to her, a Russian hound, and known as “Miss Nightingale’s Crimean Dog.”

Clara Barton wore the Iron Cross of Prussia, representing Germany, and presented to her by Emperor William I; Florence Nightingale wore a brooch bearing a St. George’s Cross, in red enamel on a white field representing England, and presented to her by Queen Victoria.

Clara Barton received from the Sultan of Turkey a “Diploma,” and “Decorations”; Florence Nightingale received from the Sultan of Turkey a costly diamond necklace.

The United States Government refused to appropriate one thousand dollars for a memorial tablet to Clara Barton in the Red Cross Building; England conferred on Florence Nightingale the dignity of a “Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem,” and later the still higher “Order of Merit,” founded by King Edward VII himself, in 1902.

The people of the United States contributed to a fund for Clara Barton—well, perhaps, this is a secret and should not be told here; the people of England contributed to a fund for Florence Nightingale, through 199the Jenny Lind concerts and in other ways, a fund amounting to $250,000, the fund since used to establish the “Nightingale Home at St. Thomas’ Hospital”—a Training School for Nurses.

By her request, Clara Barton was buried near her home at Oxford, Massachusetts; by her request, Florence Nightingale was buried near her home at Lea Hurst, Derbyshire, England.

Clara Barton built for herself, at her own expense, a very unpretentious memorial in her family burying ground at Oxford; Her Majesty the Queen unveiled the memorial to Florence Nightingale in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, where are the tombs of Nelson, Wellington, Wolsey and Lord Roberts.

The plain granite monument to Clara Barton in the country cemetery bears the inscription:

The memorial to Florence Nightingale is a beautiful sculpture in white marble, representing Florence Nightingale bending over a wounded soldier, to whose lips she is holding a cup. A rich alabaster frame surrounds the marble, inscribed above with a legend, “Blessed are the merciful” and below: Florence Nightingale, 200O. M.; born May 12, 1820—died August 13th, 1910.

Of two famous women be it written:

Their bodies are buried in peace; but their names live for evermore.

American Red Cross Founder, a life of sacrifice.

We realize the economies which Clara Barton lived and practiced, that she might give life and aid to those who were in dire need. The Fra.

Economy is not parsimony. Burke.

Economy is no disgrace. Berz.

It would be well if we had more misers. Goldsmith.

Economy is the poor man’s mint. Tupper.

Economy is half the battle of life. Spurgeon.

Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty, and of ease.

A habit of economy is prolific of a numerous offspring of virtues.

Sound economy is a sound understanding, brought into action.

It is not what we earn, but what we save, that makes us rich.

Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a ship.

The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying that every man who looks before him must resolve to avoid it.

I was brought up New England, and I have the New England thrift. Clara Barton.

My expenses have been so heavy and my receipts so “nothing” that I cannot take on more “help.” Clara Barton.

202There must be no more big hotel bills; the money must be saved for the sufferers. Clara Barton.

Clara Barton has often been known by those near her to rob herself of all her personal income—to carry on the work of an abiding and all-absorbing charity. Dr. J. Gardner.

At first I used to be shocked over her penuriousness but when I discovered the motive, that it was to save for others in need, no words could describe my conscience-stricken feeling and my admiration of that self-sacrificing woman.

General W. H. Sears, “Secretary.”

THE GENERAL HAS MONEY—I AM HIS RECONCENTRADO

When traveling on the cars, Clara Barton would take her lunches with her. At night she would sit up in the day coach, and not take a sleeper—because of the expense. She made a trip from Washington to Boston. Her secretary was with her. He wanted a sleeper. How could he enjoy the luxury and Miss Barton not know it? Miss Barton had taken her shawl—in a bundle tied together with straps—and laid her head on it for a pillow. “Now is my opportunity,” thought the secretary, but she didn’t close her eyes. Four or five hours any night was enough sleep for Miss Barton, and the secretary knew it. The secretary was becoming ill at ease. He said, “Now, if you will excuse me, Miss Barton, I will go to the smoking car and have a smoke.” He was not there long;—he quietly slipped into the Pullman and went to sleep.

© Jaro Studio


WOODROW WILSON
The President, also President of the American Red Cross Society, March 4, 1913–March 4, 1921.

I have learned, from all I have heard of Clara Barton, to admire her very much.
Woodrow Wilson (in 1918).

203Early the next morning he passed unseen into the smoker of the day coach, then to where Miss Barton, bright and cheerful, was sitting. As nothing was said about “a good night’s rest,” he assumed that she thought he too had practiced self-denial. Nevertheless, he was ashamed over his “make-believe,” and also that a lady of seventy years the possessor of wealth had beaten him, her able-bodied young secretary, on a small salary, at the “game of economy.”

On arriving at Boston “Sister Harriette,” owner of one of the ancestral homes of Massachusetts, was at the station to meet her. The secretary unsuspecting—still “blooded” and a “real sport”—as they entered the station restaurant said “Now, ladies, you are going to have breakfast with me this morning.”

“Sister Harriette,” having served with the Red Cross in the Spanish-American War and knowing the secretary, fully understood when Miss Barton slyly remarked “oh, yes, the General has money, you know; he travels in a Pullman and I am his reconcentrado.”

The greatest generals were proud to know her; eminent statesmen felt honored by her friendship.

Abraham Lincoln—the simplest, serenest, sublimest character of the age. U. S. Senator John M. Thurston.

The beauty of Lincoln’s immortal character has thrown in the shade the splendor of his intellect. Bishop J. P. Newman.

Presidents Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison and McKinley, with their cabinets, have been actively interested in, and committed to its (Red Cross) work. Walter P. Phillips, Chairman, Red Cross Committee (in 1903).

Character is higher than intellect. Emerson.

Character is the dearest earthly possession. T. Sharp.

If our character is lovely we are loved. Preston.

Character lives in a man; reputation lives outside of him.

Character, like everything else, is affected by all the forces that work upon it, and produce it. Bishop W. F. McDowell.

Character is made up of small duties faithfully performed.

The true character of a man displays itself in great events.

Brains and character rule the world. The most distinguished Frenchman of the last century said: “Men succeed less by their talents than by their character.” Wendell Phillips.

205Great trials test great characteristics. Clara Barton.

Great trials seem to be a necessary preparation for great duties.

Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of greatest minds. Colton-Lacon.

It is only by the active development of events that character and ability can be tested. A. Lincoln.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S SON

Robert T. Lincoln was Secretary of War.

When Clara Barton handed her card to the porter, he asked, “What do you want to see him about?”

“Just because he is Abraham Lincoln’s son. I knew his father and merely want to pay my respects to him.”

Clara Barton was admitted. The War Secretary rose as she entered the office, and Miss Barton opened the conversation by saying: “I knew President Lincoln well. He was good and kind to me in whatever I tried to do for the soldiers. He seemed to appreciate the little things I had succeeded in doing; and when there came a great undertaking (referring to making a record of the missing soldiers), so great as to appal with its seeming impossibility, he encouraged me. Survivors of the missing entreated me to undertake the work and, when other officials said it could not be done, your father, with his big heart, said ‘I will help you.’ He smoothed the way and made it possible, assisting me until the work was done. When I came back to Washington, he was not here to receive my grateful thanks. He had gone beyond all that. It was a sad little burden to carry around with me unshared, but I 206have carried it. At home and beyond the sea, wherever I have been, it has gone with me, and I have come today to ask you, as his representative, to accept my burden of thanks for him.”

The tears were filling Miss Barton’s eyes before she had finished. She was abashed at her failure to control her emotions but, glancing up at the Secretary, she saw that he too was weeping. Looking at each other a moment in silence, the Secretary reached out his hand to Miss Barton and said “I do accept your tribute of thanks—for my father.”

Clara Barton—intelligent and reclaiming, her leading attributes.

Pity it is to slay the meanest thing. Hood.

Man is an aristocrat among animals. Heine.

The merciful man doeth good to his own soul. Proverbs.

How deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to kill animals. Tolstoi.

Animals in their generation are wiser than the sons of men.

Could we understand the language of animals, how instructive a dialogue of dogs would be. Eudoxes.

Animals, in our degenerate age, are every day perishing under the hands of barbarity, without notice, without mercy. A. Dean.

Surely the sensibility of brutes entitles them to a milder treatment than they usually meet with from hard and unthinking wretches. A. Dean.

THE BUTCHER DIDN’T GET IT

“Miss Barton, the butcher has been here today. He wants to buy the little Jersey calf; offered me $5.00 for it,” said the manager of the Red Cross home, “and I told him he could have it.” “But he can’t,—why didn’t you ask me about it?” “Well, I knew we couldn’t keep it; we need the milk—” “But the calf needs the milk too, and I tell you that the calf is not 208going to be killed.” “But I have sold it.” “That doesn’t make any difference; I haven’t—and it’s my calf.”

“You just ask your neighbors, and they’ll tell you that nobody thinks of raising a calf—in town here.” “But I’m not asking my neighbors.”

“Now, Miss Barton, don’t you know we have no pasturage and we have to buy all our feed, and feed is high now, too.”

“Never mind, we’ll get the feed.”

“But, Miss Barton, the calf is a nuisance around the house, and it will cost more——”

“Now, you’ve said enough; the calf is not a nuisance and I am paying the expenses. If you don’t want to take care of the calf, I’ll take care of it myself. Now go along and don’t talk to me any more about that calf. The butcher will not get it.”

And the butcher didn’t get it.

Clara Barton, an example of charity to a younger generation.

Woman! there is a place for thee; go forth and fill it, that in thee mankind may be doubly blessed. Clara Barton.

Let all things be done in charity. I. Corinthians.

Go and sin no more. St. John.

The Lord alone can direct me. Clara Barton.

Go straight to God’s work, in simplicity and singleness of heart.

I never in my life performed a day’s work at the field that was not grounded in that little sentence “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.”

With malice towards none; with charity for all. A. Lincoln.

Alas, for the rarity of Christian charity under the sun. Hood.

O charity, thou friend to him who knows no other friend besides.

Charity and personal force are the only investment worth anything. Walt Whitman.

Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven and hell a fable. Colton.

Clara Barton—the candles of her charity lighted the gloom of death. Grand Rapids Herald.

210Clara Barton—her beautiful deeds of charity.

How white are the fair robes of charity, as she walketh amid the lowly habitations of the poor. Hosea Ballou.

THE KIND OF GIRLS THAT NEEDED HELP

In Miss Barton’s relief work in the overflow of the Ohio River at one of the stops, at Shawneetown, among the people who came on board the boat for relief were two girls. They had evidently told Clara Barton their needs in a private conversation and were leaving, when somebody living in the town came to Miss Barton and quietly told her that she had better not have anything to do with these girls; they were not the kind she should be helping.

Without ostentation, or without making any display about it, she called the girls back, had a long private talk with them and furnished them with all of the supplies they needed, in quiet defiance of the advice which had been volunteered about the character of the girls. Of course her advice would be of a kind that they would never forget through their whole lifetime and would be their guide in the future. And as they left she calmly remarked that they were the kind of girls that probably needed her help more than any others in the place.

Clara Barton—loved and honored as perhaps no other woman of her day. Tacoma (Wash.) Ledger.

Switzerland is an armed neutrality in which one has faith.

The Red Cross was chosen out of compliment to the Swiss Republic; the Swiss colors being a white cross on a red ground. The badge chosen were those colors reversed. Clara Barton.

Romance is the poetry of literature. Madame Necker.

Romance is always young. Whittier.

Romance—the parent of golden dreams. Byron.

The Red Cross seems to have become the milder romance of war.

Love took up the glass of time. Tennyson.

Love will find out the way. Alfred Noyes.

Love took up the harp of life. Locksley Hall.

Love conquers all things. Virgil.

All mankind loves a lover. Emerson.

True love is better than glory. Thackeray.

Love is the beginning of everything. F. W. Boreham.

None but the brave and beautiful can love. Bailey.

Love rules the camp, the court, the grove.

A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable.

Love’s history, as Life’s, is ended not by marriage.

Love is greater than war, truer than steel, stronger than fear or danger of death. Clara Barton.

A ROMANCE OF TWO CONTINENTS

The battle had been fought, and on the bloody field lay the wounded. Among these was a Swiss boy who had left his native country, coming to America to fight in the cause of the Union. In her ministerings on the field, Clara Barton had heard of this lad, by name Jules Golay, but had not seen him. He was undergoing a surgical operation. As the knife was doing its work, in great pain he cried out, “Mon Dieu!” Clara Barton heard the cry and went to him. He could not speak in English, but in French Clara Barton while dressing his wound gave him words of sympathy. Daily, as tender as a mother, she cared for him until he recovered.

Only the brave know how to be grateful. The soldier’s gratitude knew no bounds. He did not forget, and awaited his opportunity. Years later Miss Barton was taken ill, and went to Switzerland. Jules begged her to come to his home. There, in her shattered physical condition, she was cared for in greater than a royal palace—a cottage where love reigns. Clara Barton returned to America. The elder Golay died; his family then scattered. The eldest son, Mons A. Golay, came to New York. There his wife, of a

THE CLARA BARTON BABY CRADLE

I remember my first baby experience, when I was two and one-half years of age. Clara Barton.

THE PET JERSEY CALF

The butcher will not get it.
Clara Barton.

See page 208.

COLONY OF CONSTANTINOPLE DOGS

“Dogs in Constantinople are held sacred.”

See page 345.

213year, died also. He, ill and penniless, came to Dansville to see Miss Barton, then convalescing.

Mons A. Golay, recovering his health, went to Chicago and became established there in business with his brother Jules. Jules’ old wounds broke out afresh and in consequence he died, leaving a broken hearted wife and several children. “One woe doth tread upon another’s heel so fast they follow.” The widow soon followed him to the Beyond. The orphan children became the care of Mons. A. Golay, who struggled nobly to provide for them. In his distress over the problem of life, he remembered.

But the romance does not end here; the romance follows:

A Miss Kupfer while traveling had been stricken with a fever, and was seriously ill at a hotel in Switzerland. There the ever humane Clara Barton took care of her, nursing her back to life. When Miss Kupfer, in her far-away home, heard of Miss Barton’s serious illness she crossed the ocean to be at the bedside of her benefactor, then living at Dansville.

Mons A. Golay revisits Dansville and there, as on former visit, meets the beautiful Miss Kupfer, herself still exemplifying that “the religion of humanity is love.”

“Love is life’s end, an end but never ending.”

The two of foreign birth thus strangely brought together were each of gentle manners, of rare culture,—of 214like tastes and alike spiritually. As love is the spiritual friendship of two souls, unwittingly through Miss Barton there became inter-clasped two human loves, the crowning event of all human bliss.

It was one of the happiest of occasions in her home at Dansville when Miss Barton gave away the bride,—Miss Kupfer becoming Mrs. Mons A. Golay, and the guardian spirit of the little children needing a mother’s care. The romance of two continents, which reads like a fiction resulted in a happy family, in an ideal American home.

Clara Barton’s monument is the gratitude of humanity.

Deeds, not stones, are the true monuments of the great.

The grave, dread thing! Men shiver when thou’rt named; nature, appalled, shakes off her wonted firmness. Robert Blair.

An immortal hope was in her gaze and in her soul—in her life she did everything thoroughly. What more natural than that she should want to know her last resting place would be in order when the Master called? Rev. Percy H. Epler.

The monument means a world of memories, a world of deeds, a world of tears and a world of glories. James A. Garfield.

By desire and nomination of President Garfield, I was made President of the American Red Cross. Clara Barton.

THE LITTLE MONUMENT—FOR ALL ETERNITY

She suddenly stopped talking; she faltered; she choked; then trembling, the veteran of many struggles, 216propped up in bed and suspecting the end near, on Oct. 3, 1911, there occurred the following conversation:

“Now Mr. Young, I want to ask something of you. Would you do me a favor?”

“Why certainly, Miss Barton, what is it?”

“I know it is uncanny. You may not want to do it. I must not ask it, and yet I must.”

“My dear Miss Barton, tell me what it is.”

“You know, I have no one to leave my little property to,—well, I have from time to time been spending some money out in the cemetery.” Then she hesitated for fully two minutes, sobbing but trying to control her emotions, when she continued—“where I’ll remain for all eternity. Maybe you would like to see the little monument I have had constructed; to keep it in memory, and to associate me with the place I am to be always. I would so much like to have you see it, and it might be some satisfaction to you. Will you do me this favor? You can get off the electric car on your way to Worcester; it won’t take you long, and I would feel better to have you do so.”

“My dear,” I said, “it is so kind of you to have mentioned this. I appreciate it more than I can tell you. I won’t get off the car, but if Doctor Hubbell will go with me, I’ll get an auto to drive out there. I also want to see where you were born. How far is that?”

“Only two or three miles. If you will do this you will make me very happy.”

BABA, CLARA BARTON’S PET HORSE

Baba was presented to Clara Barton at Santiago, Cuba, by a war correspondent of the New York World, 1899.

We both loved him. I am glad my last act was for his welfare.

Clara Barton.

See page 219.

THE BABA TREE—WILLIAM H. LEWIS

(Tree registered in Hall of Fame for Trees, Washington, D. C.)

The Baba Tree (Quercus Alba), grown on Cedar Green Farm, Battlefield of Chancellorsville, Virginia. Planted April, 1912, on Woodland Farm, two and one half miles from Bloody Angle, of said battlefield. White oak trees nearby, eleven feet in circumference, whose age (estimated) is between two hundred and three hundred years.—William H. Lewis, Chancellor Virginia.

217“Do you know, I can get no help here; I thought when I came here I could get all the help I wanted, but it seems to be something that neither love nor money will buy. Haven’t been able to get a nurse to wait on me. But my tenants on the lower floor are very kind, and bring me my meals. I feel very much alone. I am the lonesomest lone woman in the world. You do not know how much I appreciate your coming such a long distance to see me; it has done me so much good—”

Moved by a sudden impulse I took her right hand in mine, kissed it and said “God bless you!” Faster than the mind thinks, she raised up in bed with a “No, no”—caught my left hand in both of her hands so excitedly that I could not divine her movements, other than to suspect that I had performed a breech of decorum. Holding tight my hand in both of hers she kissed it, and with tears in her eyes said: “I’ll never see you again, this is the last—”

“Oh! yes you will,” I said.

“No, not again. Good-bye!”

“No, Miss Barton, I’ll not say good-bye to you; you cannot die. You will live always. I will only say—God bless you!”

And then, backing out of the room, facing her all the while and watching her changing expressions as the shadows played over her features,—waved a kiss, and said “God bless you!”

The trees are monuments with a meaning, for they live gloriously just as did those for whom they are planted. Charles Lathrop Pack, President of the American Forestry Association.

The soil is right and the husbandman will not fail. Clara Barton, President The National First Aid.

There never was any heart truly great and generous that was not also tender and compassionate. South.

Life is war; eternal war with woes.

Before any great national event I have always had the same dream.

I had it the other night; it is a ship sailing rapidly.

Whichever way it ends, I have the impression that I shall not last long after it is over. A. Lincoln.

Always there have been believers in dreams. From Genesis to Revelation we read of dreams and visions and their influence for 219good or evil upon the acts and lives of numerous characters in Biblical history. In Genesis, Jacob dreams of a ladder to Heaven; Joseph’s rise to eminence is based on dreams and his solution of them. The Revelation of St. John the Divine in its entirety is given to us as a vision seen while on the Isle of Patmos.

STORY OF BABA—DREAM OF A WHITE HORSE—LIFE’S WOES

While in Santiago Clara Barton was presented with a beautiful white Arabian horse, named Baba. Baba was a pacer and an ideal saddle animal. Miss Barton was fond of Baba, and Baba just as fond of Miss Barton. Having been bred and reared on the Island of Jamaica, Baba was very fond of bananas and, when Miss Barton brought from the store any of this fruit, her first thought on returning home was to share it with Baba. On one occasion, when her little nephew was out riding Baba, Baba spied a banana on the side of the road; he refused to go further, and insisted on turning around and going back. Not knowing why Baba acted in this way, the little boy kicked him, struck him with his stick, but Baba won out, went back and got the banana. After eating it, he went on as if nothing had happened. When Miss Barton found it out she scolded the little boy for mistreating the horse. And when it was explained to the boy he cried piteously because he had been so cruel, for he too was fond of Baba.

Baba was a great traveler. He visited New York, Massachusetts, and Virginia, always living on the best in the land. Baba made friends wherever he went for 220he was not only kind and beautiful but he was fond of children. Baba was never happier than when the children were on his back, having a good time. Baba passed his last days in a pasture in Virginia and as the favored guest of a good friend of Miss Barton.

In the absence of Baba from Glen Echo, Miss Barton would frequently dream of a white horse. To dream of a white horse, she interpreted, was a bad omen. When she heard of Baba’s death Miss Barton became very despondent, and said to the members of her household “this means that I am not going to stay here a great while.”

Clara Barton, who was at that time preparing for herself a monument, wished also a monument for Baba. She philosophizes and thinks it should be a tree—the longest-lived of all living things. Of a tree’s longevity there is of record in England an oak 800 years, an elm 2,600 years, one yew 3,000 years, and another yew, with a diameter of 27 feet, 3,200 years; in Africa, baobabs 4,000 years; near the Castle of Chapultepec, Mexico, a cypress 26 feet in diameter, and said to be 6,000 years old.

Of the first class at Bowdoin was George Thorndike. He planted the Bowdoin Oak, and is the only one of that class remembered by the students of that American college. The boy died in 1802, at the age of twenty-one years, but the tree is still the pride of that great institution of learning, and sacred to the memory of him who planted it.

In this instance, Miss Barton thought “Woodman, spare that tree” might be a sentiment to be respected for hundreds of years. She, therefore, selected for a monument to Baba a tree,

Characteristic of the heart that quickened to sympathy for life’s woes the peoples of the world is the sentimental philosophizing of Clara Barton on the death of Baba in the following remarkable letter:

Your letter telling me of the last of our dear Baba came yesterday; and I hasten to reply, for I know you need sympathy as well as myself. We both loved him, and are alike grieved; and yet there is much to be thankful for. He went quickly and was not left to suffer, nor to give pain or trouble to others.

His future care and keeping are no longer questions. He no more needs me. He lived without harm and died well. I do not think he ever knowingly nor intentionally did a wrong thing in his life. Could a human being blest with intelligence and language do better? He had a language of his own which we both understood, and I always felt that he largely understood ours. Kindly as a brother and obedient as a child,—I am glad my last act was for his welfare. He lived with you, and loved you, to the last. He has gone from our hands and our care, leaving with us a loving memory tinctured with respect for the virtues he possessed, and knew not of.

Let me thank you, dear Mr. Lewis, for the tender care given his remains, and for the grave you have given him on your own farm. Some time when the spring days come, if you see a thrifty oak sapling and have time, will you kindly transplant it beside the grave? His body will nourish it, and let it be his monument. The children will love and protect it as Baba’s tree. His saddle and bridle you ask; you keep them and his little belongings as no one else could hold them so tenderly as you.

222I will take back the check for his winter feed as useless now; but wish to enclose in this ten dollars for the last tender care and burial, with the assurance that you will always hold a high place in my esteem and affection for the kind and manly part you have taken in this little episode of life’s woes.

Let me repeat from your letter this sentiment, the hope that we may be friends while life shall last.

Resolved, in behalf of the State of Texas especially does the legislature thank Clara Barton, President of the Red Cross Society.

A tribute of honor, of which sovereigns might be proud, clothed in language the eloquence of which our English tongue does not surpass. Clara Barton.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. St. John.

Clara Barton is the embodiment of the saving principle of laying down one’s life for one’s friends. Her achievements are greater than the conquest of nations or the inventions of genius, and who is justly crowned in the even-tide of her life with the love and admiration of all humanity.

The name of Clara Barton has ever been a cherished one in our Southland, and the Red Cross the symbol of the most noble charity. Mrs. Rosene Ryan, Chairman, the Governor’s Relief Committee for Clothing, March 5, 1901.

It proves to us more strongly than ever, after the experience we have had since the arrival of Miss Barton, that “woman rules the world, as she has always done.” Mrs. Jens Moller, of the Central Relief Committee, November 13, 1900.

No name in Texas is today dearer to its people than that of Clara Barton. Red Cross Committee, 1903.

How much of the heroic there is in our people when it is needed.

224The Red Cross has come to be the first thought of any community suddenly overtaken by disaster. Clara Barton.

The Red Cross creates an organized neutral volunteer force, from the people, supplied by the people. Clara Barton.

The Red Cross is the outward and practical expression of that universal sympathy that goes out from millions of homes and firesides; from the heart of the nation to humanity in distress.

Not one dollar, for twenty years or more, on twenty fields of national disaster, has there been drawn from the Treasury of the United States,—the beneficence of the people through their awakened characters were equal to all needs. Clara Barton.

High or low, rich or poor, we are the people of this God-given nation; we are also the arbiters of its fate.

I am here at Galveston, my fingers are in the wound, and I assure you that the side was pierced and the nails did go through.

Despite all its woes and terrors, the memory of Galveston comes ever back to me with a gleam of pleasure for the hope in humanity, which it has kindled, and the noble characteristics of our country which it disclosed. Clara Barton.

In every instance the gratitude of the people has been the glad heritage of the Red Cross and its willing servers.

PEOPLE, LIKE JACK RABBITS—NO “SHOW-WOMAN”

In 1900 a devastating flood visited Galveston. Thousands of human lives were destroyed. For two 225miles back from the shore not a house remained standing. Only here and there on the barren sands were seen the wreckage of the storm-swept city. Suffering and death held sway in that city of once happy homes. Clara Barton, with a corps of able assistants, was there having come from Washington at the urgent solicitation of the authorities of the City of Galveston.

From overwork and nervous strain she had been taken ill. She was in bed at the Tremont Hotel. For three weeks her life hung in the balance. The writer, with a party of California tourists, happened to be in the city on his way east. He incidentally “dropped in” the hotel, only to learn of the serious condition of his friend. Fanny Ward was standing guard at the door of the sick room. Undaunted, the writer ventured to suggest: “I’d like to see Miss Barton.” “Well, sir, you can’t see Miss Barton.” “Why not?” “She is ill, and nobody is permitted to see her.” “But she is a friend of mine.” “That makes no difference. I have orders from her physician not to let anybody go to her room. No one but the nurse has been permitted to enter this room for three weeks.” “Well, if that’s so, I don’t expect to see her, but kindly take in my card.” “No, I’ll not do that either.” “Well, it seems strange to me that I cannot at least send a card of sympathy to my friend.” “Oh, well, if you insist, I’ll take in your card, but it won’t do you any good.” “All right, I insist.”

The messenger returned, and reported that Miss Barton wanted to see me and would be ready in about fifteen minutes, but she could see no one else in the party. As I entered the room, she was half sitting and half reclining in her bed, having two large pillows at 226her back. She had her hair neatly arranged, a pink bow adjusted tastefully at the neck, a little white shawl hanging loosely over her shoulders and otherwise attired as for a state occasion, as similarly was her custom when receiving any friend.

Miss Barton: “Mr. —— I am glad to see you. The Doctor said two weeks ago that I had but one chance to live. I told him that I would take that chance. I did; and I know I am going to get well.”

Mr. ——: “Miss Barton, do you know that on the barren sands between here and the shore they already have two or three ‘shacks’ going up?”

Miss Barton: “That does not surprise me. People are like jack-rabbits. Scared out of their nice warm nests, they soon forget and return from where they started. That whole sand waste will soon be built on again, and the people will forget that there has been a flood.”

M. ——: “Miss Barton, there is a very wealthy young lady in our party who wants to see you.”

Miss Barton: “But I cannot see her.”

Mr. ——: “I know, Miss Barton, but she told me to tell you that, if your assistant would open the door wide enough so that she could just see your face, she would give a hundred dollars to charity, and you could use it among the sufferers.”

Miss Barton: “I have worked very hard here, and am a very sick woman, but I have not yet become a ‘show-woman,’ and I don’t think I will. I do not understand such curiosity, nor why your young lady friend would care to see me,” and she unconcernedly passed on to another subject apparently more agreeable to her modest nature.

Clara Barton was loved by the people of the whole world.

Love is the life of the soul. William Ellery Channing.

The law of Heaven is love. Hosea Ballou.

The soul of woman lives in love. Mrs. Sigourney.

Love—’tis woman’s whole existence. Byron.

The religion of humanity is love. Mazzini.

Love is the Amen of the universe. Novalis.

There is in the heart of woman such a deep well of love that no age can freeze it. Bulwer-Lytton.

Love is the beginning, the middle, and the end of everything.

Love lives on, and hath a power to bless when they who loved are hidden in their grave. Lowell.

CLARA BARTON’S HEART SECRET—$10,000 IN “GOLD DUST”

Clara Barton was very non-communicative as to her personal affairs, confiding in no one her heart’s secrets. 228But a woman’s curiosity got the best of the closest friend Clara ever had, and on a certain occasion “Sister Harriette” ventured to draw out of her heart what she had long wanted to know:

“Clara, have you never had a sweetheart?”

“Oh yes!” she replied, “just the same as all other girls.”

“But tell me about yours,” Harriette ventured further.

“I will, sometime,” Clara said.

“Oh, no, tell me now,” Harriette continued.

“No, not now—some other time I’ll tell you all about it,” persisted Clara. Then she said: “Oh, well, I’ll tell you I had a dear friend in my younger days, but he went to California in the rush to the gold fields with my brother David, and never came back.”

“Did you really love him?” asked Harriette again, trying to draw her out.

“Now, don’t ask me anything more, for I am not going to tell you,” replied Clara.

“But you said you would and I am really curious,” continued Harriette.

Clara hesitated, then said: “I don’t feel like it now, but sometime I’ll tell you the story.”

On a certain other occasion it became necessary for her attorneys to know in detail of her finances, and their origin, so they plied her with questions:—

THE CLARA BARTON MONUMENT

Built at her expense in the cemetery at North Oxford, Massachusetts. In her will Clara Barton left sixteen hundred dollars for the permanent maintenance of the Barton cemetery lot. William E. Barton.

No more fitting tribute could be paid by the American people than the raising of a monument that will perpetuate the life work of Clara Barton.
Lieutenant-General Nelson A. Miles.

Monuments and endowments are the physical testimonials, but they do not express the entire obligation. The life of Clara Barton should be familiarized to every child. Woonsocket (R. I.) Call.

Congress should pass a Special Act setting aside a plot and defraying the expenses of a suitable monument over the last resting place of the noble woman who has served the nation in peace and in war.
Manchester (N. H.) Mirror.

As we passed one particular monument in the cemetery at Buffalo Clara Barton said: “There is a design which I wish to have copied, and sometime to have a monument put up in my family yard in Oxford for my Father and Mother, my brothers and sister and to be ready for me when I join them.” The design was copied and the monument placed as Miss Barton desired. Francis Atwater.

229Attorney—Now, Miss Barton, tell us where you got all your wealth.

Miss Barton—I haven’t much wealth—what do you mean?—Everything?

Attorney—You inherited some money did you not? Tell us about that.

Miss Barton—I inherited, no—Oh! yes, I got some money once, but why should I tell you?

Attorney—It may be brought up in “the investigation” by the attorney on the other side and we don’t want any surprise sprung on us.

Miss Barton—Well, that seems reasonable—I’ll tell you. My brother and another went to the California gold fields; my brother returned,—the other never did return. But he left me all his savings, $10,000 in gold.

Attorney—What did you do with the $10,000?

Miss Barton—I always regarded this too sacred to use, so I placed it in a New York bank. This was in 1851. I kept it there on interest until President Lincoln commissioned me to look up the names of the missing soldiers. I did not consider it too sacred for this purpose, and so in 1865 I drew it out of the bank, then with the interest about $15,000, and used it to pay the expenses....

The romance includes the trip in a sailing vessel around the “Horn,” the “49ers outfit” in San Francisco, and on the way to the “placer diggins,” the death scene in the pueblo of Los Angeles, the story of the sack of “gold dust” that reached the sweetheart, and its use later in giving cheer to thousands of unhappy homes.

Only on the two occasions were these disclosures of that heart secret, and yet visions of her sweetheart are 230said to have appeared to Clara in her dying hours. The most sacred of the heart secrets of womankind Clara Barton carried with her to the other world—a secret of her love affair which her closest friends think may have been the inspiration of her self-sacrifice for humanity.

Clara Barton represented the spirit that knows not race nor color.

Charity and beneficence are degraded by being reduced to a dependence on a system of beggary. Clara Barton.

A grateful mind is a great mind. T. Secker.

There is not a more pleasing attitude of mind than gratitude.

A grateful mind is not only the greatest of virtues but the greatest of all virtues. Cicero.

Don’t kneel to me—that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will now enjoy. I am but God’s humble instrument. A. Lincoln.

Grateful to me! It is I who should be grateful, and I am.

We of South Carolina can never forget her contributions to the storm-wrecked people on our desolated sea-coast, after the fearful tempest of 1893. She came as an angel of mercy. With uncovered heads, and with profound deference, we bow to the blessed name of Clara Barton. The Southern Reporter.

FELL ON THEIR KNEES BEFORE “MIS’ RED CROSS”

A terrific hurricane and tidal wave had struck the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. 232It was estimated that at least thirty thousand people were rendered homeless,—the larger number of these being of the colored population. Governor Tillman and Senator M. C. Butler sent an urgent request to Clara Barton to come to their assistance.

Clothing was so scarce among the poor colored people that only the men could appear on the streets. About four o’clock in the morning, a crowd gathered about the warehouse. Only men were present and these were attired in such garments as could be found, mostly ragged at the best. In some cases only rags were tied about them, just enough to enable them to come for their rations of food, for their starving families. A motley crowd it was, but there was never any jostling or crowding, nor confusion of any sort.

“Many pathetic scenes come to my mind as I remember this work,” says “Sister Harriette.” “When Miss Barton was engaged and could not be seen, it was my place to receive the visitors, ascertain their wishes, and dispose of them as seemed best. They called Miss Barton ‘Mis’ Red Cross,’ came to see her, sometimes in crowds and, when she was not otherwise engaged, they were taken to her office. Many of them were old women, and upon entering the room one and all fell upon their knees and bowed their heads, as if in the presence of a superior being. She approached them graciously; some seized her hands and kissed them; others reached a fold of her skirts and carried it to their lips, never saying a word, asking for nothing, satisfied with just being permitted to look at her. They left as quietly as they had come in and went out to their homes satisfied that they had been permitted to see ‘Mis’ Red Cross.’”

MARIO G. MENOCAL

In commendation of the Founder of the American Red Cross—Clara Barton, it gives me great pleasure to state that her services rendered to the cause of humanity in general and the poor starving people of Cuba in particular, during our last struggle for independence, were inestimable and her memory is linked to the history of Cuba by ties of gratitude, love and respect.
Mario G. Menocal,
The President of Cuba, 1912–1920.

See pages 82; 100; 234; 241; 354.

While the American Navy (in 1899) was sinking the ships of Spain, the Spanish Cortes, by unanimous vote, granted Clara Barton a “Diploma,” a “Decoration,” and a “Vote of Thanks”; and following the war, a “Diploma of Gratitude.” The Author.

I am with the wounded. Clara Barton.

Cuba was a hard field, full of heart-breaking memories.

Send food, medicine—anything. Clara Barton.

It is to the Rough Riders we go, and the relief may be rough but it will be ready. Clara Barton.

At the time of the Spanish-American War, in Cuba, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt personally accepted favors at the hands of Clara Barton, as President of the Red Cross. Percy H. Epler.

Keep the pot boiling; let us know what you want.

The first American War (Spanish-American), since the adoption of the Treaty of Geneva, has brought the Red Cross home to the people; they have come to understand its meaning and desire to become a part of it. Clara Barton.

Without the Red Cross, as one of our treaties, we could not in the Spanish-American War have floated a relief boat without danger of capture. Clara Barton.

The Red Cross of Spain has officially recognized in a most graceful and welcome manner its high appreciation and gratitude for the good offices we were able to render in line of our duty to its sick and wounded countrymen, during the late Spanish-American War.

After the Spanish-American war nearly 500 of the leading men and women of Cuba joined in inscribing their names together with the most touching tribute, and sentiments of appreciation, in a beautiful album to Clara Barton. In order to get their signatures it required five and one half years of time for the collection of the same throughout the Republic.

Miss Barton’s reply to the testimonial in part follows:

“I have watched the beautiful island since independence came to it as a proud, careful mother watches her child; have seen the steps, at first uncertain, grow to the sturdy strides of manhood, and the gem of the sea become a nation among nations and its destinies held by the same strong patient hands that so struggled for its life.

“It had learned endurance from suffering, drawn strength from adversity, courage from the proud ancestral nations whose blood is its own, and the memory of its untold woes has enveloped it in a veil of tender thoughtful justice to others that will form its brightest gem.

“God bless the new nation the world is glad to welcome. She is still the ‘Gem of the Ocean.’ My soul craves once more to look upon her beautiful face, and its grateful prayer forever goes up to Him who ruleth and guideth all—that He watch over her, keep her pure and true, and safe-guard forever her motto and watchword, ‘Cuba Libre’!”

Note.—If Cuba gets free, she must come to the United States, as she is too small to stand alone against the greed of great nations which will try to gobble her up for her riches, in soil and products. (Prophecy in 1874) Clara Barton.

Upon every line of Clara Barton’s life may be hung a thrilling story of perilous adventure and pathetic moving incidents.

Like everything in Corsica, my education was pitiful.

Greatness is nothing, if it is not lasting. Napoleon.

Impossible! That word is not in the French dictionary.

Drama is the tragedy of women. Napoleon.

I have fought like a lion for the Republic and, by way of recompense, it grants me permission to die of hunger. Napoleon.

Fortune is a woman. The more she does for us the more we expect. Napoleon.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all. Shakespeare.

The wicked flee when no man pursueth. Psalms.

The thief doth fear each bush an officer. Shakespeare.

Little sea-girt Corsica is weird, wild, soft and bewitching, strange, unique, but she had so much that one wearied of.

AT THE BIRTHPLACE OF NAPOLEON—THE CORSICAN BANDIT

At Ajaccio, on the Island of Corsica, there is still carefully preserved the house where was born 236Napoleon, in 1769. The island (a French Colony) is 114 miles long and 52 miles wide, and contains about 300,000 inhabitants; Ajaccio, the capital, about 19,000 inhabitants. Many of the street names, and statues of the city likewise, perpetuate the memory of the great military chieftain, as do other spots of similar historic interest in connection with his boyhood.

At Ajaccio, Clara Barton lived for some time. There she not only visited every place of interest but she also studied the character, and military strategy, of that masterful leader of men, as later she studied him in the city made by him “Paris Beautiful.”

For a time, until she regained her health, she lived incognito; later, she produced a letter from our U. S. Minister Washburn, then at the Court of Paris. When her identity became known she was overwhelmed with attentions from the natives, as well as from Americans, and attended many receptions given in her honor by that most hospitable people. Her experiences there were so numerous and sensational as worthy to become the basis for a great novel.

From the back door of her hotel a path led out into a forest of wildness and rare beauty. Describing the wood, by way of comparison, Clara Barton said: “The wood of Cuba is beautiful in quality, but hard to burn; in Corsica, one may take the green, wet wood and make a blazing fire.” By the side of the house were terraces on which were orange trees, loaded with the golden fruit. A little strategy secured what oranges Miss Barton wanted. She would take her blue bandana, put a franc in it, tie the ends of the bandana with a stone mason’s cord, then let it down from her room on the fourth story of the hotel to a little girl living 237in a rude hut. The back of the hut was against a precipitous stone cliff, the living quarters of the girl’s family being partly in the hut and partly in a chamber blasted out of the rock, as frequently occurs on the island. The girl would fill the bandana with fruit then, the signal given, Miss Barton would pull the fruit through the side window to her sick room.

All Americans in Europe are supposed to have money. Clara Barton there alone, unsuspecting and unguarded, was not protected against theft. A native bandit one evening sneaked into her room and demanded her money, or her life. With her usual presence of mind, and fearlessness in imminent danger, Clara Barton at the top of her voice cried out: “Now, boys, come on; I’ve got him!” Quicker than it takes to tell it, the bandit jumped through an open window in one corner of the room, and escaped into the forest.

Clara Barton, beloved by every one who knew her. Hon. Peter Voorhees DeGraw, U. S. Fourth Postmaster General.

The chiefest of human virtues,—loyalty to friends.

The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.

Friendship is necessary to life. Bishop Wm. F. McDowell.

Friendship’s the wine of life. Young’s Night Thoughts.

Friendship is a sheltering tree. S. T. Coleridge.

No man is useless while he has a friend.

Our wisest friends are life’s best book. Calderon.

Poor is he, and beggar, that hath no friends at all. Gracian.

The face of an old friend is like a ray of sunshine through dark and gloomy clouds. A. Lincoln.

And can true friendship be tested, if not in the hour of misfortune? The Mayor of St. Petersburg to Clara Barton.

It became incumbent upon Clara Barton to write tens of thousands of autographs, and inscriptions in books. As a philosopher, many such inscriptions are interesting and instructive. Characteristic of her is the following inscription which she wrote in a book presented to a personal friend:

When life’s track has grown long, and the road bed flinty and hard; when the cares grow heavy and the pleasures light; and the tired soul reaches out for help, may you find those who will be as loyal and faithful to you as you have ever been to me.

The Red Cross Organization has been built up largely by the heroic work of Clara Barton. Frederick H. Gillett, Chairman (1900) House Committee on Foreign Relations; now Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Honor to whom honor is due. St. Paul.

Never did an organization select so wisely and elect so judiciously as did the National Red Cross Association when it chose Clara Barton to preside over its beneficent work.

In Cuba, the Red Cross Society snatched thousands from the grave and made the sufferings of other thousands much lighter. But for Clara Barton America would today have been a stranger to the Red Cross and its beneficent work. Doctor Henry M. Lathrop. Author of “Under the Red Cross; or the Spanish-American War.”

Miss Barton’s well-known ability, her long devotion to the noble work of extending relief to suffering in different lands, as well as her highest character as a woman, commend her to the highest consideration and good will of all people.

Officers and men unite in saying that too much praise cannot be given those noble Christian women, Clara Barton and her assistants, for their gentle care, their tender solicitude and untiring efforts in aiding and comforting our sick and wounded soldiers. They came as ministering angels to the suffering army at Santiago.

WILLIAM McKINLEY

The President, March 4, 1897–September 14, 1901.

Whatever Clara Barton says, and does, is always honest and right.
William McKinley.

Miss Barton, I have long wanted to thank you for what you did for my boys in Cuba.
William McKinley.

Mr. President, I could not have done what I did in Cuba, if you had not stood by me so nobly.
Clara Barton.

For thirteen years Clara Barton had tried to secure from Congress and the President a National Charter for the Red Cross. The bill had been before the 56th Congress, and passed. It was then before the President for his signature. He sent for Miss Barton. She went, accompanied by a few personal friends. They were at the White House, at the appointed hour. After a few moments of waiting, the President came into the room, receiving Miss Barton in a beautiful manner. He put his left arm around her, and holding her right hand in his said:

“Miss Barton, I have long wanted an opportunity to thank you for what you did for my boys in Cuba.”

She replied: “Mr. President I deeply appreciate your thanks, but I could not have done what I did in Cuba if you had not stood by me so nobly.” Then the President said:—

“Miss Barton, I am proud of this opportunity to sign this bill.” Miss Barton then introduced one by one her friends to the President. With his usual graciousness, he chatted for a few moments with his guests, then sat down at his desk where Secretary Cortelyou had placed the bill. With a plain steel pen he signed his name: “William McKinley, June    ,” and then stopped, looked over his desk and asked, “Captain where is my calendar?” An old soldier looked high and low but couldn’t find the missing calendar. The calendar was standing on one corner of the broad, flat-topped desk, in another part of the room. Seizing it, one of the party tore off “June 5th,” and placed it before the President. He said “thank you, sir,” then signed “6th, 1900.” Rising from his seat, and extending his hand, he said: “Miss Barton, I will make you a present of this pen.” Graciously appreciative Miss Barton replied: “I thank you, Mr. President. I will preserve it in the archives of the Red Cross as a treasured memento of this occasion.”

As a nurse in the Civil War Clara Barton performed invaluable service. Pueblo (Colo.) Star Journal.

Clara Barton in the theme of her address here, “The Ministering Angel,” urged the organization of Nurses’ Associations and Training Schools for Nurses. Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution.

The great war-nurse, friend of the world. The loftiest eloquence could give her none that more clearly expressed the keynote of her life. Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press.

Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. Ezekiel.

Nothing is impossible to Organized Womanhood,—united in aims and effort. Caroline M. Severance—“Mother of Clubs.”

American nurses are covering their profession with a glory that will live forever is the report that comes from France.

The nurse is proud to be chosen from millions of women anxious to care for the sick, as the representative of American womanhood.

Thirty-two thousand graduate nurses have said to the American Red Cross, “We are ready, use us.” American Red Cross.

Profane histories are three-fourths filled with the details of battles and sieges, and almost silent as to any provision for the sick and wounded. Clara Barton.

There were probably surgeons and nurses long before there were military chieftains. Clara Barton.

Agrippina, wife of the General, distributed clothing and dressings to the wounded. Clara Barton.

243Courage of the soldier awakes the courage of woman. Emerson.

Scarcely had man made his first move in organizing the Red Cross when the jeweled hand of royal woman glistened beside him, and right royally has she done her part. Clara Barton.

Women are, by nature, much better fitted for nurses than men can be. Clara Barton.

Had there been need for them, the Red Cross could easily have recruited an army of twenty-five thousand nurses from the flower of American womanhood. Clara Barton.

Large organizations of women, the best in the country and I believe the best in the world, have faithfully labored with me to merge the Red Cross into their societies, as a part of woman’s work.

I have wrought day after day and night after night, so sorry for the necessity, so glad for the opportunity,—ministering with my own hands and strength to the dying wants of the patriot-martyrs, who fell for their country and mine. Clara Barton.

To the army of nurses, brave, generous and true who, either as auxiliaries at home or as nurses in the field, made up that magnificent array of womanhood ready for sacrifice on the altar of humanity and their country—no words of mine can do justice.

Three great conflicts were seen by Miss Barton, and her career is an example to thousands of women who today are trying to heal human suffering. Buffalo (N. Y.) Express.

PATRIOTIC WOMEN OF AMERICA SELF-SACRIFICING

Nursing in war is of comparatively recent origin. While it is recorded that Fabiola, a patrician Roman lady, founded a hospital in A.D. 380, and 600 nurses in the early part of the fifth century were in the hospitals in Alexandria, nursing in war hospitals dates from 244the Crimean War; and on the battlefields, from our Civil War. The Crimean War gave the first real impulse to this humanitarian work, and the Civil War gave added luster to the glory of this work of humanity, as did the Franco-Prussian War and the Spanish-American War. But the late war broke all records; now, war-nursing will continue until “Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn to war any more.”

The true disciples of humanity in war are the nurses, wearing the sign of the Red Cross and whose sacred mission it is to bind up the soldier’s wounds and “To heal all manner of sickness and all manner of diseases.” In the World War, reports show that there were approximately 11,600 American Red Cross nurses in service over-seas.

245The Red Cross has furnished equipment to approximately 12,000 nurses and lay women personnel engaged in foreign war service, and to nurses in cantonments and naval hospitals in this country, at an approximate cost of $2,000,000.

Personnel equipped by the Red Cross for overseas duty, from the beginning of the war to December 31st, 1918, at the following cost:

As to the work of the American Red Cross Clara Barton says: “History records the wonderful achievements of the Red Cross, the greatest of relief organizations, though it cannot record the untold suffering which has been averted by it.” As to the Red Cross war-nursing, she says: “There can be no estimate of the misery assuaged and the deaths prevented by the unselfish zeal and devotion of the nurses of the Red Cross.” In prophecy she says:

Clara Barton started the Red Cross alone.

Miss Clara Barton, the American Red Cross is your society alone, and none other we will patronize. G. Moynier, President, International Red Cross Committee, Geneva, Switzerland.

The total expense connected with the acceptance of the Treaty by this Government, in addition to the personal service of more than five years, was defrayed individually by Clara Barton. Red Cross Committee (in 1903). House Document No. 552, Vol. 49, 58th Cong.

If we heed the teachings of history we shall not forget that in the life of every nation circumstances may arise when a resort to arms can alone save it from dishonor.—We must be prepared to enforce any policy which we think it wise to adopt. Chester A. Arthur, The President. (In advocacy before Congress of Clara Barton’s Red Cross Measure).

Legislation by Congress is needful to accomplish the humane end that your society has in view. It gives me, however, great pleasure, Miss Barton, to state that I shall be happy to give any (Red Cross) measure which you may propose careful attention and consideration. James G. Blaine, Secretary of State (in 1881).

The first official advocate of the Red Cross measure, and fearless friend from its presentation in 1877, was Omar D. Conger, now Senator from Michigan, then a member of the House.

JAMES A. GARFIELD
The President, March 4, 1881–September 19, 1881.

Executive Mansion.
Will the Secretary of State please hear Miss Barton on the subject herein referred to? J. A. Garfield.

The first tribute to Clara Barton in her Red Cross measure, March 30, 1881.


Clara Barton, friend and counselor of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, of Garfield, of Hayes, Harrison, Cleveland and McKinley. Organized the American Red Cross and was appointed for life by Garfield. While the republic lives and womanhood is honored, her place is sure among the millions she has blest and whose name and fame they will cherish and revere.
Kate Brownlee Sherwood,
in a letter to the Toledo (Ohio) Times.

CHESTER A. ARTHUR
The President, September 19, 1881–March 4, 1885.

The President in whose administration the American Red Cross was approved by the U. S. Government, also the first President of the Board of Consultation, American Red Cross Society.

Washington, March 3, 1882.

Whereas (certain facts of Red Cross history here detailed)....

Now, therefore, the President of the United States of America, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, do hereby declare that the United States accede to the said Convention of October 20, 1868.

Done at Washington this first day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and sixth.

By the President, Chester A. Arthur.

Frederick T. Frelinghuysen,
Secretary of State.

247In 1877 Monsieur Moynier, President of the International Red Cross Committee, decided to make a further effort to obtain the adherence to the Treaty by our Government. For this purpose a special letter was sent to Miss Barton to deliver to President Hayes. Mabel T. Boardman—In “Under the Red Cross at Home and Abroad.”

In 1869 Clara Barton went to Geneva, Switzerland. She was visited there by the President and members of the International Committee for Relief and of the Wounded in War, who came to learn why the United States had refused to sign the Treaty of Geneva.—Years of devoted missionary work by Miss Barton with preoccupied officials and a heedless, short-sighted public at length bore fruit. Mary R. Parkman—Author of “Heroines of Service.”

Miss Barton, I trust you will press this matter upon our present administration with all the weight of your well-earned influence. Having myself somewhat ignominiously failed to get any encouragement for this (Red Cross) measure from two administrations, I leave it in your more fortunate hands, hoping that the time is ripe for a less jealous policy than American isolation in international movements for extending and universalizing mercy towards the victims in war. Dr. H. W. Bellows (Nov. 21, 1881).

Later—Miss Barton, I advise you to give it up as hopeless.

Miss Clara Barton, I thank you in the name of all of us (myself and colleagues of the International Committee).—Thanks to a perseverance and zeal which has surmounted every obstacle. Wishing to testify to you its gratitude for the services you have already rendered to the Red Cross (in securing the adherence of the United States to the Treaty), the Committee decided to offer to you one of the medals which a German engraver caused to be struck off in honor of the Red Cross. Please to regard it only as a simple memorial, and as a proof of the esteem and gratitude we feel for you. G. Moynier, President Red Cross International Committee.

Note.—The silver medal referred to is beautifully engraved with the coat of arms of the nations within the Treaty compact,—the medal being a model both of skillful design and exquisite workmanship.

It affords me great pleasure to transmit a parcel containing a book presented to you by Her Majesty, the Empress of Germany, as a token of her high appreciation of the success of your efforts for the formation of an Association of the Red Cross in America.—Congratulating you upon the compliment which the Empress has paid to you by her action in sending you this gift I am, my dear Madam,

On the night that came to Europe the news of the accession of the U. S. Government to the Treaty of Geneva (news sent by cable) there were lit bonfires in the streets of Switzerland, France, Germany and Spain. The Author.

If I live to return to my country (from Switzerland) I will try to make my people understand the Red Cross and that Treaty.

Weak and weary from the war-soaked fields of Europe, I brought the germs of the thrice-rejected Red Cross of Geneva, and with personal solicitations from the international Committee sought its adoption. Clara Barton.

I stood with this unknown (Red Cross) immigrant from the little Republic of Switzerland, outside the doors of the Government, for five years before I could secure for him citizenship papers and recognition as a desirable resident of the United States.

Perhaps no act of this age or country has reflected more merit abroad upon those especially active in it than this simple and beneficent Red Cross measure. Clara Barton.

Transitions are neither rapid nor easy. Dark days, if not dark ages, have shadowed them all. Clara Barton.

249The Red Cross is one of the thresholds to the Temple of Peace.

Respect for the rights of others is peace.

The history of a country is mainly the history of wars.

Men have worshipped at Valkyria’s shrine and followed her siren lead until war has cost a million times more than the whole world is worth; poured out the best blood and crushed the finest forms that God has ever created. Clara Barton.

There is in the Red Cross no entangling alliances that any but a barbarian at war can feel any restraint. Clara Barton.

There is not a peace society on the face of the earth today, nor can there be one, so potent, so effectual against war as the Red Cross of Geneva. Clara Barton.

There can be no estimate of the misery assuaged, and the deaths prevented, by the unselfish zeal and devotion of the Red Cross.

Your children and your children’s children will need the Red Cross, when your hands are powerless to do that which is within your grasp. Clara Barton.

OPPOSITION—THE AMERICAN RED CROSS “COMPLETE VICTORY”

She had served in Europe with a brassard on her arm; she had served in the camp, on the march, in the hospital, in the smoke of battle; she had bound up the wounds, soothed in a foreign tongue the dying; and there had learned her first Red Cross lessons. She had visited the Solferino battle ground where Dunant 250caught the humane inspiration for relieving distress of victims in war. She had breathed the spirit of great minds in the Red Cross world movement. She was armed cap-a-pie for a humane warfare. She made a vow, “If I live——;”—the vow of woman is a decree, unrecorded.

Since 1864 the Red Cross measure had been before the American people. Dr. Henry W. Bellows, of more than national fame as a diplomat and humanitarian, through a period of ten years had failed of a respectful consideration. For nearly two decades man had failed—signally failed; what could woman do?

The vow of woman! that’s all between failure and success. The woman with the vow lived to return to America. She “pestered” her friends with her visionary scheme; she haunted the offices of Senators and Representatives; she pled her cause before the Secretary of State and the President. With her logic and eloquence she combated “it’s an entangling alliance with foreign powers;” “it would encourage war;” “it’s a war policy in the interest of war-makers;” “it’s un-American;” “it would demoralize army discipline;” “the military doesn’t want it, Congress doesn’t want it, the people don’t want it;” “Secretary of State Seward years ago gave the ultimatum: ‘The Government wishes to act as a free agent with option in the premises and in its own good time;’” “Dr. Bellows has given it up;” “it’s no use, Miss Barton, to discuss this question, it has been before the American people for many years and it’s a dead issue, forever settled.”

251She took the rostrum, travelling from place to place throughout the country; she appealed to the people in the name of God and humanity. She was denounced as “that war woman;” “that woman who is trying to put something over on the people;” “something behind it, or she wouldn’t be spending her own money;” “wonder what she’s going to get out of it, anyway?”

Senator John Sherman was then a tower of strength in this country. She approached him on the subject. He was against it; said that he did not see any use of going to this trouble; that making such preparation for war would have a tendency to agitate the public, and bring on war. Oh, no, Miss Barton, I can’t support such foreign organization as is your proposed Red Cross. Besides, we will never have another war in this country. Having given his final answer and subsided, the ever-ready-with-answer Miss Barton remarked that it seemed to her years ago, back in 1858, a certain Senator Sherman had made such a statement in the Senate. Caught in a trap set by himself, yet graciously smiling, the Senator replied, “Yes, I believe we did have a little brush after that.” A second “brush” occurred, in 1898. Senator Sherman, then Secretary of State, had occasion in connection with Red Cross work to issue to the head of the Navy the following order: “I have the honor to commend Miss Barton to the kind attention of your department.”

One of the ablest arguments ever presented on any national issue was presented in an address in November, 1881, by Clara Barton on the Red Cross issue “To the President, Congress and the People of the United States.” In that masterful address among other things she said: “Yes, war is a great wrong and sin and, 252because it is, I would provide not only for but against it. But here comes the speculative theorist! Isn’t it encouraging a bad principle? Wouldn’t it be better to do away with all war? Wouldn’t peace societies be better? Oh, yes, my friend, as much better as the millennium would be better than this, but the millennium is not here. Hard facts are here; war is here; war is the outgrowth, indicator and relic of barbarism. Civilization alone will do away with it, and scarcely a quarter of the earth is yet civilized, and that quarter not beyond the possibilities of war. It is a long step yet to permanent peace.... Friends, was it accident, or was it Providence, which made it one of the last acts of James A. Garfield, while in health, to pledge himself to urge upon the representatives of his in Congress assembled this great national step for the relief and care of wounded men? Living or dying, it was his act and wish, and no member of that honored, considerate, and humane body but will feel himself in some manner holden to see it carried out.”

Among the first who became champions in her cause for the Red Cross were Senators Conger of Michigan, William Windom of Minnesota, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and who was the first to investigate, and take the matter up, as a member of President Garfield’s Cabinet. Senator E. G. Lapham, of New York, “who spared neither time nor thought, patience nor labor, in his legal investigations of the whole matter;” Senators Morgan of Alabama, Edmonds of Vermont, Hawley of Connecticut, Anthony of Rhode Island, Hoar of Massachusetts, “all accorded to it their willing interest and aid.” And also she had the support of the eminent Secretary of State James G. Blaine, Presidents Garfield and Arthur, as well as many other statesmen of whose services on this measure there has been left no official record.

THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (in 1898)

Resolved: That this conference declares that in obtaining the accession
the United States of America to the Convention of Geneva, Miss Clara
Barton has well merited the gratitude of the world.—International Conference
of the Red Cross, Geneva, Switzerland, 1884.

253Early Red Cross history reads like a tale of romance from some long ago past century, the leading woman character inspirited by a power superhuman. Was Clara Barton the Founder of the American Red Cross? Of the millions of Americans who would esteem such honor, no one else so much as lays claim to it. In appreciation, Monsieur Moynier, President of the International Red Cross Committee, in an address delivered in Europe on September 2, 1882, on “The Foundation of the American Society of the Red Cross” in part said: “Its whole history is associated with a name already known to you—that of Miss Barton. Without the energy and perseverance of this remarkable woman we should probably not for a long time have had the pleasure of seeing the Red Cross revived in the United States. We will not repeat here what we have said elsewhere of the claims of Miss Barton to your gratitude;—we know that on the first of March she gained a complete victory.”

Commenting on her struggles, and expressing her natural desire for the Red Cross, Clara Barton says: “A time will come when I shall lay down my work. Out of the many years I have given to it has grown one great, natural desire, a desire to leave my little immigrant of twenty-seven years ago a great National Institution, in the hands of the people, supported by the people, for their mutual help and strength in the face of disaster; and I would have those who take it up and 254follow in our footsteps freed from the severity of toil, the anguish of perplexity, uncertainty, misunderstanding, and often privations, which have been ours in the past.”

War, although more tragic, is not the only evil that assails humanity. Clara Barton.

Do you know that more than 1,500,000 persons were killed or injured in automobile accidents in 1921? Boston American, May 16, 1922.

Not nearly all the sick and crippled are on the battlefield, nor is all the danger there. Clara Barton.

Peace has her battlefields, no less than war. Clara Barton.

Day by day men and women are being maimed and killed in our great industrial struggle, and in the rush and hurry of our strenuous life. It is in the mitigation of the horrors of this strife, and of this struggle, that the First Aid Department of the Red Cross is to find its mission and its work. E. Howe, Superintendent of the First Aid Department, American National Red Cross (December 8, 1903).

The mission of the First Aid (National First Aid Association of America) is to preserve the name of Clara Barton all over the country. The work she accomplished during the Civil War placed her at the head of the women of the country at that time, and her name should stand forever before the American people. We all know how England is reverencing the name of Florence Nightingale, and it is for America to preserve the name of her Florence Nightingale in Clara Barton whose efforts have been so world-wide as to place her at the head of woman’s work for humanity throughout the world. Mrs. J. Sewall Reed, first Acting President, National First Aid Association of America (in address to 9th annual meeting of the association held May 7, 1914).

The work of the National First Aid Association of America, which was founded by the noble Clara Barton, continues to “Carry On” in the philanthropic spirit which it has inherited from her. 256The association is practically a college for National First Aid work, offering one course of lectures, one textbook, one examination in kind, for all to follow. The handsome diploma which is only granted to students attaining 80 per cent., or over, upon a thorough examination is the prized possession of thousands of graduates all over the United States, Alaska, Panama, Canada and England. Thus do we honor our president, Clara Barton, in death—world honored as she was in life for her achievements for suffering humanity; for upon each diploma the association has placed these words—“Clara Barton, Founder and President.” Roscoe Green Wells, present Acting President, National First Aid Association of America. October 15, 1921.

Clara Barton was a world worker for suffering humanity, and our first president. As a perpetual tribute to her memory the National First Aid Association of America has established her name as “President—In Memoriam.” Clara Barton has passed on, but the noble spirit which lived within her continues to live in her last great national endeavor. Mary Kensel Wells, Secretary of the National First Aid Association of America. October 16, 1921.

The First Aid will become time-honored in America, for it has come to stay. Its character is broad and firm, its title clear; and although young its organization is complete. It has its own characteristics, in keeping with its motives,—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 (Christmas, 1905), President, the National First Aid Association of America.

GREETINGS

“Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Ay! Many New Years, each happier than the last.

257“The unerring records affirm that on Christmas day of 1821, 84 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 (First Aid). * * * Work has always been a part of the best religion I had.”

NATIONAL FIRST AID ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

On February 9, 1903, there was established in the American National Red Cross a department known as “First Aid to the Injured.” Mr. Edward Howe, a member of the St. John Ambulance Association of London, England, was made the Superintendent of the department.

On December 8, 1903, Section 7 of the By-Laws to the Constitution was adopted and provided for its permanent operation—the formation of classes of instruction in first aid, methods of treatment of the injured and other necessary provisions. On December 8, 1903, Superintendent Howe made his first annual report, including the approval of thirty-five States of the Union, through the Governors respectively; also his report of its successful inception in Massachusetts. “The American Amendment” to the Red Cross Treaty of Geneva, 258and relating to national disasters, was thus followed by the First Aid Department to the Red Cross.

After Clara Barton’s retirement from the Presidency of the Red Cross in 1904, the First Aid Department was discontinued, but was reëstablished January 2, 1910. Independent of the American National Red Cross Clara Barton organized the National First Aid Association of America. She was the President of the Association while she lived and, since her death, to perpetuate the Clara Barton spirit and to be a permanent Memorial to the Founder, Clara Barton is officially recognized as

The National First Aid Association of America was the development of a little New England organization named The New England First Aid Association, and Clara Barton was the Chairman of its Advisory Board. When the work grew and calls came for classes from western and southern states, it was Clara Barton who suggested the value of national incorporation. Therefore, on April 18, 1905, The National First Aid Association of America was incorporated, under the laws of the District of Columbia, and Clara Barton accepted the Presidency.

“To Clara Barton’s First Aid,” thus addressed, are many letters which arrive at the headquarters of The National First Aid Association of America in Arlington, 259Massachusetts. Although not the corporate name of the last great work of Clara Barton, it serves the purpose of demonstrating that First Aid and Clara Barton are inseparable.

The real tribute of Clara Barton to the organization, which is today paying tribute to her, lies in the following words of welcome which she delivered at the second annual meeting of The National First Aid Association of America in 1907, as its President. Opening her address by reading a letter from former field workers, she continued:—

“They are not with us, and I have given this soulful letter in their place.

“I have read it because it speaks the silent sentiment of a body of people, few of whom are here, and few of whom you know. From far off scattered homes they watch the flickering blaze of this new bonfire, with an anxious tender interest you little dream of. Below its sparkling flame they see the embers from which it springs. They live over again the terrible fields of woe where the sufferers suffered, and the dying died; where, in the moment of consternation paralyzing the whole land, they stood, the sudden vanguard of order and relief, till other help could reach—never asking for help—never shouting for aid nor money, but trusting to the great hearts of the people to render what they had to render, when they should understand the need. This, friends, was First Aid, and the people were the doctors. We held life in the injured till they could be reached.

“Did our method fail? Let the old friends answer. Was a more satisfactory relief record ever made? Let the swollen Ohio and Mississippi, Johnstown, the Sea 260Islands, Armenia, and Galveston make reply. It was the foundation of knowledge through experience gained there and then that makes this work and this day possible. These are the smouldering embers watched from afar.

“But this, friends, is the giving, and the teaching of mere material aid for human suffering; all to be done over and over again to the end of time, and no one the wiser, no one knowing any better what to do than before. This was charity. Blessed be it for ‘the greatest of these is charity.’ Leave it to do its work in its own way.

“But out of this has come to us another feature of human beneficence, having its foundation in knowledge; when one shall know, not only how to give, but how to do, and possibly prevent; when every man may understand his wounded brother’s need and how to meet it; when the mother shall know how to save her child in accident; when even the child shall be taught how to lessen the pain or to save the life of its playmate—then comes the real help.

“Think, friends, what it would be—yes, what it will be, when all the rough, sturdy men of danger, living every hour in the face of accident and death, shall know what to do in the moment for his writhing companion in toil; when the homes—the children in the streets and in the schools—shall all possess the knowledge which this method of human beneficence teaches—this is First Aid—this is what it stands for—the lessons which it inculcates and its faithful apostles teach.

“So young, so tiny, this beginning seems to you, scarcely meriting the attention or the aid of busy people.

261“But, watch it, busy men and women, it will bear watching.

“We are here today to learn something of what it has accomplished in a year.... I am dumb with amazement. The very thought of the diligence—the tirelessness—the cheerful alacrity—the bravery with which obstacles have been attacked—the courage with which they have been overcome—the single handedness—the small means and the great results astonish, and gratify me. So much for so little. Let me step aside and give place to the report which will tell us all.”

The association is today what its name implies—The National Association of First Aid in America. It is to the American people what the St. John Ambulance Association is to England, and the St. Andrews Ambulance Association is to Scotland. It is a college of National First Aid instruction—offering one textbook, one course of lectures, one examination, one diploma in kind for all.

For the past nine years, since the death of the Founder, it has given service the Clara Barton way—promptly, efficiently, thoroughly—and its classes send forth each year hundreds of National First Aid graduates who are capable men and women, and who wear the little medallion of National First Aid service (which only a graduate may purchase and wear), out into a world of suffering humanity. Word of their activities comes back to national headquarters from many fields—even from far off India, South America, and the Hawaiian Islands. One graduate sent back word from the Soudan, Africa, “What would we have done without National First Aid when there is only one medical doctor to every 500,000 natives?”

262Clara Barton said of The National First Aid Association of America: “Another work reaches out its hands to me and I have taken them. The humane and far sighted are pressing to its standard—the standard of organized First Aid to the Injured.”

The true history of Clara Barton should not leave out the work of The National First Aid Association of America, Clara Barton’s last work. If so, the history of the great philanthropist becomes an unfinished record. The association stands today as a working memorial to Clara Barton. It continues to serve the American people under her name. Without ostentation it continues its humane service, making friends, sending forth efficient graduates, and carrying systematic and organized First Aid instruction to every part of the country.

By a leading cosmopolitan newspaper: “It is said that every year more than 11,000,000 persons, about one-tenth of the total population of the United States, fall downstairs, get run over, drown, lean too far out of the window or peer into a gun they ‘didn’t think was loaded,’ meeting death or injury in these and kindred ways. Statisticians say that, when war claims a victim, accident takes four victims.”

It is estimated that 100,000 fatal accidents occur annually in the United States, and 500,000 accidents occur that render the victims incapable of earning their own living. Hundreds of thousands are being trained in first aid classes; and likewise many hundreds of thousands of victims of accidents on the railways, in the factories, and on the farms, are receiving the benefits of first aid assistance. The First Aid Division of the American Red Cross is affiliated with the Young Men’s 263Christian Association, the Young Women’s Christian Association, the Boy Scouts of America, the Girl Scouts of America, and also allied with many other humanitarian and patriotic associations.

“First Aid,” therefore, is becoming hardly less important in war and peace than Red Cross Aid in war. Clara Barton’s constructive humanitarian work in First Aid may yet be recognized by her country as even of greater humanitarian service than her Red Cross achievement, or that of the “American Amendment” to the International Red Cross. For seven years—from the inception of the “First Aid” in 1905 to 1912—Clara Barton was the unanimous choice of its members for President. To her co-workers in her latest national humanitarian association are the prophetic words of the “Mother of First Aid:”

“I believe the ‘First Aid’ to be the beginning of an organized movement that shall permeate more homes, carry useful knowledge to more men and women who would get it in no other way, assuage more suffering that nothing else could reach, awaken an interest in the welfare of his brother man in more rough toil-worn hearts unknown to it before, than lies in our power to estimate or our hopes to conceive.”

Clara Barton worked for humanity, for whom she had a love unparalleled in history. Alice Hubbard—In The Fra.

My first endeavor has been to wipe from the scroll of my country’s fame the stain of imputed lack of common humanity—to take her out of the rôle of barbarism. Clara Barton.

Alas! what a stony soil the Red Cross has sometimes found, and the seeds scattered by the wayside many a day. Clara Barton.

With what fidelity, wisdom and unanimity it has fulfilled its important and peaceful mission, its vast work of almost twenty years (1901) has conclusively shown. Clara Barton.

The whole civilized world acclaims the noble character and good work of Clara Barton. Portland (Oregon) Union.

The Clara Barton movement spanned the globe.

Clara Barton is one of the greatest women that ever lived.

I personally inspected the vouchers—In tracing the missing men Clara Barton expended $2,000 more than the government gave her for the expenses. U. S. Senator Grimes, in a speech in the Senate.

Clara Barton expended from her own savings during the Civil War $1,000 each year ($4,000), receiving no pay nor salary, except her bare living expenses and these expenses she paid, herself, largely.

265Miss Barton has devoted her life and strength to Red Cross work in America and during which time she has not received, nor desired to receive, a penny for her services. It will be readily seen that she has made an investment in principal and interest for the benefit of her countrymen to the amount of another quarter of a million of dollars—half a million of dollars in all.

The life of Clara Barton ought to be taught in the public schools for the enlightenment of all pupils, boys and girls, that they may understand the work of the Red Cross and realize how great a task for humanity was undertaken, and accomplished by a weak woman.

Largely through Clara Barton’s endeavors, the Red Cross became international, with the national power represented by the Stars and Stripes as one of its staunchest supporters. Hon. John M. Ross, President of District of Columbia Board of Commissioners.

We question whether there has been any man or woman in the world’s history who has been a greater blessing to mankind than the sweet-faced Clara Barton. Topeka Daily Capital.

HUMANITARIANISM, UNPARALLELED IN ALL HISTORY

Greater than the organization of the American Red Cross, and of far more reaching importance to the human race, was the securing of the so-called American Amendment to the original International Red Cross treaty. To secure this amendment, Clara Barton personally addressed the Governments through the “International Committee of Geneva,” advocating the measure. This measure was seriously considered by the “Congress of Berne,” and adopted by the powers. The 266amendment is in force by every civilized nation in the world—wherever there is a Red Cross Society. Through their representatives, hundreds of millions of people are reaping continuing benefits of this humanitarian Clara Barton measure.

The amendment permits the Red Cross to do the work of alleviating distress in all national calamities, such as fire, flood, famine, cyclone and earthquake. Under this amendment, Clara Barton administered relief at Johnstown, Charleston, Carolina Islands—in all, in about twenty disasters—relief of untold benefits to hundreds of thousands of American people. No other woman in this country, nor in the history of civilization, has to her credit an achievement of such world-humanitarian influence.

Clara Barton, as President of the Red Cross, served for over twenty years and on every field of national disaster then occurring in the United States; and also served in Cuba through the Spanish-American War within that period of time. Through that period of over twenty years, not one dollar was drawn by her from the national treasury; with confidence in her, the people contributed what was necessary. And, further, unprecedented in all history was her self-sacrificing humanitarian spirit in this, and in all similar work. Clara Barton, in a personal letter, confides to her friend as follows: “In all my life, in its various humanitarian activities, I have never received, nor have I desired, remuneration for my services; and with the exception of the $15,000 (expended out of my private funds and returned to me by the 39th Congress), I have never received in all my life anything in return for my personal expenditures.”

267“During the first nineteen years, to maintain the Red Cross Headquarters, to build up the Organization and carry on its work,” according to an official report made to the House of Representatives by the Red Cross Committee, “Clara Barton expended from her individual funds an average of $4,000 a year, or a total of $76,000. This does not include her expenses for the four years that followed while she was President of the Red Cross, nor for the five years spent in securing for this country the American Red Cross. Nor does this include the amount expended by Miss Barton, after retiring from the Red Cross—from 1905 to 1912—in organizing and carrying on the work of the National First Aid Association—this amount from her personal funds being about $5,000.”

As through her fifty years of public services she continuously expended moneys from her personal funds, accepting no remuneration for her services, it has been estimated by an ex-secretary of the Red Cross that Clara Barton put the equivalent of a half million dollars in the Red Cross Society.

The great good Christian woman—one of God’s noblest creatures.

Clara Barton lives in deeds, and will be an inspiration to millions who shall come after her.

Clara Barton bequeathed to the world a glorious heritage.

Whatever the Red Cross accomplishes in the future; whatever it has accomplished in the past, to this one woman (Clara Barton) belongs the credit. It was her child, with which she blessed the race. 90,000 years will not blot out the mercies which Clara Barton set in motion. Springfield (Ill.) News.

Clara Barton,—founder of the most philanthropic movement of the age—an intrinsic part of world civilization. Detroit Free Press.

World-wide, Clara Barton will be remembered.

At the mention of the name of Clara Barton the world stands with uncovered head. Chicago Inter-Ocean.

Clara Barton, worthy immortality. Jane Addams.

Clara Barton did a world’s work, and her name will be immortalized. William Sulzer, Governor of New York.

At all of our early fields the Red Cross went, and worked, alone.

For twenty years (1901) the Red Cross work so small at first—a mere speck—has grown up under our hands until its welcome 269blaze has lightened the footsteps of relief for the entire and direful contest of nations. Clara Barton.

CLARA BARTON’S PRAYER ANSWERED

In loud acclaim by the man whose arm had been cut off by order of the Queen, with the other arm upraised there came forth from the throat of the guiltless victim, “God Save Elizabeth.” Although her strong arm, serving humanity for half a century, had been paralyzed by the tyrannous “Powers that Be,” Clara Barton’s daily prayer, from 1904 to the closing scene at Glen Echo in 1912, was “God Save the American Red Cross.”

The Mother’s prayer for the Red Cross has been gloriously answered; the Red Cross is safe and the spirit of Clara Barton still lives. Practically for 23 years Clara Barton was the Red Cross and the Red Cross was Clara Barton. The American people knew none other than Clara Barton. Through the confidence of the people in her, she received and distributed to the suffering, $2,557,000.00, in money and supplies. Through her Red Cross literature, her Red Cross talks from the rostrum and as the official representative of this nation at the International Red Cross Conferences in Europe, Clara Barton became widely known, and the Clara Barton spirit became the spirit of every humanity-loving household in America.

Tens of thousands of women who as girls learned to love her were proud in the World War to wear, as nurses, the Red Cross badge of distinction. Men of national fame were honored in accepting a position in the Red Cross Service. Men of wealth were glad of 270the opportunity to finance such a worthy organization, and of such deservedly good name, in humanity’s cause.

Through the reputation of Clara Barton, the adhesion of the Government to the “Treaty of Geneva” had been secured; by Congressional action and the signature of the President, a national charter had been granted; the American Government had given official recognition to the American Red Cross. The American people recognize that, when the Mother of the Red Cross retired from the Presidency, what she then said was true: “When I retired from the Red Cross, my little nursling (Red Cross) had grown to manhood. It was taken over with the highest reputation of any organization in the country—its methods settled, its organization unexceptional, its prestige assured at home and abroad, and a balance of funds subject to its call, and sufficient for all its needs.”

A greater need arose; the call came and, Clara Barton’s home people in Massachusetts leading all others in the Red Cross spirit, the American people responded. They responded, up to January 1, 1918, to the number of 21,000,000 in memberships, with 9,000,000 members additional of the Junior Red Cross. Besides, there were more than 8,000,000 volunteer Red Cross workers. The memberships, and volunteer enrollment workers, were made possible on the lines laid down by Clara Barton; “I would recommend the enrolling of the whole country under the banner of the Red Cross.” In the first drive for funds, the Red Cross realized $110,000,000; in the second drive, $135,819,911.56; a total in the two drives of $245,818,911.56.

In less than eleven months the American people contributed 271more than $300,000,000 to the Red Cross; through the World War up to February 18, 1919 $400,000,000. This enormous amount of money was used for the benefit of the millions of soldiers and others, of this country and of the allies. The foregoing memberships and financial strength have verified Clara Barton’s conception of the Red Cross possibilities:

“The Red Cross is capable of becoming the largest organization in the United States and one of the most useful.”

Of what she had done in her life-time, Governor W. R. Stubbs of Kansas said: “Looking over history as far back as Mary of Galilee, I cannot recall where God has chosen a maid servant—who has done more for humanity than Clara Barton.” In prophecy of the future results of her life’s work, Honorable George F. Hoar in the United States Senate said: “Known not only throughout our land, but throughout the whole civilized world, countless millions and uncounted generations will profit by the humanity of which Clara Barton has been largely the embodiment.”

Clara Barton—America’s foremost philanthropist.

Clara Barton—the usefulness of this extraordinary woman.

Clara Barton—the most useful woman of her day.

Clara Barton’s slogan: “People’s Help for National Needs.”

The American Red Cross (1896) never appeals for, nor solicits, aid for any purpose. Clara Barton.

The Red Cross has received nothing from the Government. No fund has been created for it. Clara Barton.

Not a penny of tax, nor dues, has ever been asked for the expenses of the National Red Cross. Clara Barton.

Every dollar and every pound that has been received by the Red Cross has been the free-will offering of the people, given for humanity without solicitation and disbursed without reward.

The greatest work performed by the Red Cross has consisted in the education of the peoples along the lines of humanity.

The Red Cross was “her child,” and Clara Barton naturally and willingly provided for it. Heroines of Modern Progress.

When the Government accepted the Red Cross, perhaps a bit arrogantly, I felt that my end was accomplished and I was ready to give it up. Clara Barton.

273The Red Cross “opposes the arms of humanity to the arms of violence.” Clara Barton.

Antagonistic to nothing the Red Cross can know neither jealousies nor rivalry. Clara Barton.

The future of the Red Cross will be worthy of the labors and sacrifices in which it originated. Clara Barton.

But for the never-ending kindly words that bade me strive on, I fear I should have been inclined to give up the fight.

For me I had few words of prayerful gratitude and many memories of the long years of patient watching that had brought the American Red Cross even up to the point it had attained.

NOT THE VALUE OF A POSTAGE STAMP

In 1902 a party of friends visited Clara Barton in her Glen Echo Red Cross home. In our party were two gentlemen from Mexico. One of the latter, an Englishman, had lived in the “Land of the Montezumas” for many years. He described to Miss Barton the people, their peculiar customs, their love of music and the other arts, their beautiful Moorish architecture, their lofty mountains and fertile valleys. Then he portrayed the characteristics of Porfirio Diaz, the then popular ruler of the Mexican Republic.

Miss Barton was much interested. She said that for some time she had been doing what she could to get the Mexican Government to organize, under the Geneva Convention, a Red Cross Society. With the tact of a diplomat and the strategy of a general she laid out her plan of campaign. She asserted that in no other 274country could so much good be done by the Red Cross as in Mexico.

She wanted the influence of President Diaz. How could she get it? Through whom? And of what assistance could her Mexican guests be to her? That her guests might become interested in the Red Cross she described in detail her work, how she got the necessary funds, the supplies, and how they were distributed. She explained that whenever there was suffering from flood, fire, famine—suffering anywhere in the world from any cause—she would issue a call, setting forth the fact and needs. Immediately thereafter, the good people would respond with money, food, clothing. In some cases money and material were sent to her personally, and sometimes to her as President of the Red Cross.

Also she would send out an appeal for assistants who would serve without pay on any certain field of disaster. At that time the Government did nothing whatever for the Red Cross; had not contributed towards it so much even as the value of a postage stamp. Then the people were being educated along the lines of humanity, and which Clara Barton said was the most important work of the Red Cross Society. As the result of such education and of its then growing importance, she predicted that sometime it would be the largest organization in the United States. In fulfillment of this prediction, in the World War, the people on one occasion, in a few days, responded to a Red Cross call for $100,000,000.

CLARA BARTON

The President (now In Memoriam) of the National First Aid Association of America.

HARRIETTE L. REED

With statesmanlike ability Clara Barton directed the affairs of panic-stricken citizens paralyzed by the fearful calamities which had overtaken them and rendered them powerless.—Harriette L. Reed (Sister Harriette). Also known as Mrs. J. Sewall Reed, First Acting President of the National First Aid Association of America, June 6, 1912–April 2, 1920.

The historic pictures on this page were taken each on the occasion of the organization of the National First Aid Association of America, in Boston, in 1905.

See page 257.

In re a bill before Congress (1902) proposing an annuity of $5,000 for Clara Barton during life, in an official letter to Congress, she protested as follows: “Any grant of Government moneys, either in aid of this body (Red Cross) direct, or of myself as its President, would be subversive of its principles and methods, and not to be desired.” The Author.

If those now (1904) at variance with me on Red Cross matters will meet me in the same spirit by which I am animated, we cannot fail to adjust all difficulties to our mutual satisfaction, and to the advantage of the cause all should have at heart. Clara Barton.

Unless one is actually going down hill with a load, it is easier to stop than to go on. Clara Barton.

I have nothing to gain from the Red Cross, and never have had.

In Red Cross work I have no ambitions to serve, and certainly no purposes. Clara Barton.

I am glad that after thirty years our country has been awakened to the thought that it could confer an honor on the Red Cross; and I wish you could know how entirely indifferent I am to the personal “honors” conferred. Clara Barton.

No private individual in the world’s history has ever before been able to command through a long term of years, and a continuous succession of almost a score of great public disasters, the unlimited 276confidence of the whole people, so that the response to each successive call has been instant and in generous amount.

Contributions in money and supplies have been received for the relief of the sufferers by these national calamities of more than $1,900,000.

The Officers and Members of the American National Red Cross (in 1903)—in a Memorial to Congress—From House Document No. 552, Volume 49, 58th Congress.

HONORARY PRESIDENCY FOR LIFE—PROPOSED ANNUITY

Miss Mabel T. Boardman, after the retirement of Clara Barton, became Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Red Cross Society. In the following excerpts from letters in 1903, she certifies to the integrity, good name and fame, of Clara Barton, this being at the time the “MOTHER OF THE RED CROSS” was offered the Honorary Presidency for life, with an annuity of $2,500:

“The character of Miss Barton nobody has assailed.

“No such assault was made, nor intended, upon Miss Barton’s character.

“No loss of confidence in Miss Barton’s personal integrity is meant.

“A proposition of —— which I should not for a moment have thought of assenting to, if I had believed Miss Barton wanting in integrity.

“Believe me, there is no desire for one moment to humiliate Miss Barton nor to withdraw her from any honor due her for past services in the interest of humanity. The very fact of our trying to get up a fund for Miss Barton to place her in an honorable position—is 277sufficient evidence that there was no purpose to attack Miss Barton personally.

“I feel that by accepting the position of Honorary President for life (with an annuity given as a token of appreciation of her past services) Miss Barton will be placed in a most dignified and honorable position.

“Mr. Foster, Mr. Glover, Mr. Chas. Bell, Mr. Walsh and my Father will act as guarantors of the annuity for the first year.

“As to the annuity;—five or six responsible gentlemen, such as Messrs. Bell, Glover, and others, would sign a letter guaranteeing to Miss Barton, for the first year, an annuity of $2,500, and pledging themselves to have set on foot a movement to raise a Red Cross fund, within a year, out of which should be paid to Miss Barton a similar annuity during life.

“People are continually urging that a complete investigation be made of Red Cross expenditures and methods, beginning with the Johnstown disaster, the Armenia disaster, Russian famine, Sea Islands, etc.; but we do not want to have to do this, and will not, if Miss Barton in the true interest of the Red Cross, and in the true interest of her own name and fame, will consent to take the distinguished position of Honorary President.” (The foregoing are excerpts from a letter by Miss Mabel T. Boardman under date of February 20th, 1903, and found in Document 552, House Documents, Volume 49,—58th Congress.)

Under date of February 18, 1903, Honorable John W. Foster, of the Red Cross Society, the ex-Secretary of State, in a letter says: “We have canvassed the matter of a proper person to succeed Miss Barton as President (she accepting the place of Honorary President,) 278and the best fitted person for the position seems to be Admiral Van Reypen.... It is presumed he would be acceptable to Miss Barton. As to the annuity: five or six responsible gentlemen—will sign a letter guaranteeing to Miss Barton for the first year an annuity of $2,500 and pledging themselves to have set on foot a movement to raise a Red Cross fund, within a year, out of which should be paid to Miss Barton a similar annuity during life.” (From House Document No. 552, Volume 49, 58th Congress.)

The official records show that the highest representative of a former Administration, the minority and majority in the so called “controversy” unanimously commended the name of Clara Barton; and in writing the minority, through Miss Mabel T. Boardman, unanimously solicited Clara Barton to become, and to remain for life, Honorary President of the Red Cross.

Note.—For reasons which seemed good to Clara Barton and her friends the foregoing named annuity and honor were declined. The Author.

Clara Barton’s services in the Franco-German war, as a member of the Red Cross, were memorable throughout both continents. Holyoke (Mass.) Telegram.

There are old soldiers, veterans of the German battlefield, who still live and tell with tear-dimmed eyes of Clara Barton’s work among the wounded and the dying. Sioux Falls (S. D.) Press.

O, reputation! dearer far than life. Sir Walter Raleigh.

A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.

Good name, in man or woman, is the immediate jewel of their souls. Othello.

Why persecutest thou me? Acts.

Miss Barton witnessed the work of the Red Cross during 1870. Mabel T. Boardman—In “Under the Red Cross Flag at Home and Abroad.”

In 1870–71 Clara Barton attached herself by invitation to the foreign Red Cross, and in that relation was actually in the Red Cross work during the entire Franco-Prussian war.

My physical strength had long ceased to exist, but on the borrowed force of love and memory I strove with might and main—I walked its hospitals day and night; I served in its camps, and I marched with its men; and I know whereof I speak.

280During the eighteen months of European experience I worked with the Red Cross on my arm. The horrors and sufferings of Weissenburg, Woerth, and Hagenau, Strasbourg, Metz, Sedan and Paris—poor twice shattered Paris—and every besieged and desolated city of France fell under my observation and shared the labor of my hands through eighteen hard and dreadful months.

Truth, like the sun, submits to be obscured; but, like the sun, only for a time. Bovee.

Our dearly beloved and most honored Clara Barton! She understood fully the meaning of the Red Cross, and knew well how to put into action the great and beautiful, though difficult, duties of the Red Cross. How shall I forget what she was to us here in the year 1870, helping us during the time of war we had to go through with then! God grant her peace eternal! There where her beautiful soul will live in the glory of Christ.

OMISSION OF, OR ACQUIESCENCE IN, THE TRAGEDY OF 1904

“PASSES THE BUCK”

It may be we shall let most of the period of the differences with the Red Cross remain in solution till the larger life and letters (by William E. Barton).

If there was any lack of consideration for Clara Barton, it would do no good now to remember it.

Years were to Clara Barton merely opportunities of service, not measures of life. This attitude prolonged her life and kept her young in spirit.

At ninety (1911) there was no mark of physical infirmity upon her nor was there any slightest slacking in the interest of the object for which she long had cared.

Senility was farther removed from her at ninety (1911) than from most women at sixty.

At the age of ninety-one (1912) there was not a physical lesion nor a diseased organ in the body.

She lived to enter her tenth decade, and when she died (1912) was still so normal in the soundness of her bodily organs and in the clarity of her mind and memory that it seemed she might easily have lived to see her hundredth birthday.

At no time in her life has Miss Barton been in sounder bodily or mental health or better able to continue the work to which her years of experience and natural endowments have preeminently fitted her. Moreover, the nation’s confidence is Miss Barton’s, and no hand can better guide its Red Cross work than hers.

282Year after year your President has framed and offered her resignation to the preceding Board and Committees. These have been resolutely met by appointment for life. Clara Barton.

Miss Barton has resigned three times before this time (May 14, 1904) but every time we have elected her again unanimously; and twice we have elected her for life and every member, 315 in number, voted for her. W. H. Sears, Secretary for Clara Barton.

I certify that at the meeting of the American National Red Cross, held in Washington, D. C, December 9, 1902, on motion to elect Clara Barton President of the organization for life, a standing vote was taken, resulting as follows: Ayes 28, noes 3, the three negative votes being....

It is the Red Cross, without the glamor of war or disaster, to attract your interest, that I bring to you to nourish and protect.

When the Government accepted the Red Cross, perhaps a bit arrogantly, I felt that my end was accomplished and that I was ready to give it up. Clara Barton.

It is a pride as well as a pleasure to hand to you an organization perfectly formed, thoroughly officered, with no debts and a sum of from $12,000 to $14,000 available to our treasury as a working fund. (Amount realized $15,541.89. The Author.) Clara Barton (on May 14, 1904, in offering her resignation as President).

It would be strange, if after so many years of earnest effort for the relief of human suffering, during which time I have always lived and moved in the full glare of the public gaze, I could not now safely trust my character and good name to the care of the American people. Clara Barton.

MRS. JOHN A. LOGAN

Clara Barton is the greatest woman of this, or any other, age.—Mrs. John A. Logan, the Vice-President under Clara Barton; the President of the American Red Cross Society, May 14, 1904–June 16, 1904.

It is an unspeakable joy to me that the toil-worn, weary mantle, that drops from mine, falls upon the shoulders of my vice-president, the woman so cherished in our own country and honored and trusted in other countries.

Clara Barton.

At a meeting of the American National Red Cross, held December 10, 1901, President Clara Barton said: “at that meeting (July 10, 1900) I brought my armor, worn and rusted, and reverently laid it at your feet with the request that I be released. You declined to permit me to retire. I again lay my armor before you, recommending the filling of this most eminent position in your gift by someone better fitted than I ever have been to assume its duties, and wear its honors.” The Red Cross again refused to accept the resignation.

The so called “charges” against Miss Barton were made December 10, 1903. The case was heard before the Proctor Red Cross Committee on May 3, 1904. Only one witness testified and, as elsewhere stated, he refused to be cross examined whereupon his statements were discredited, the case summarily dismissed for want of evidence, and on motion of the committee itself. Miss Barton previously had been re-elected, almost unanimously, to succeed herself.

The “remonstrants” discredited, their “charges” found baseless, Miss Barton vindicated, on May 14, 1904, she again offered her resignation^[7] of the Presidency, this time in favor of Mrs. General John A. Logan, and insisted on its acceptance. Her friends protested her resignation; insisted she should not resign but should hold the position for life. Miss Barton persisted in sacrificing herself for what she then thought would be in the interest of harmony, and the cause nearest her heart. The following is the personal explanation of her then attitude of mind.

“In initiating measures for the conciliation of opposing interests and views, it may seem to some of my 284friends that I have overlooked just grounds of personal offence in imputations wantonly made upon my honor and integrity. I do so knowingly and willingly, and because the cause that the American Red Cross is meant to promote stands first in my affections and my desires. It would be strange if it did not—if the cause for which I have devoted myself for half a century were not deemed by me worthy of any possible sacrifice of personal pride or personal interest.”

Had she entered the spider’s web of the society “remonstrant”; had she accepted the proposed annuity—and proposed honor of Honorary President, and thrown her child to the sharks, Clara Barton’s frail bark would have been towed into port, in peace. Instead, with her never failing courage she took to the life boat, on a stormy sea, and survived the storm to hand over her Red Cross child not to an unworthy, but to her Country and humanity.

No cynic will find a flaw in what Miss Barton did.

The spiteful factionist, to be found in every cause—even the cause of Christ himself—formed an opposition to Miss Barton.

Truth hath a quiet breast. Shakespeare.

Great souls suffer in silence. Schiller.

Silence is the Mother of Truth. Earl of Beaconsfield.

Come, let us have peace. U. S. Grant.

Peace to the land forevermore. Clara Barton.

I never spoke a discordant word in my life, meaningly.

Like her Master, whom she followed, Clara Barton opened not her mouth. Kate Brownlee Sherwood.

And when He was accused by the chief priests and elders He answered nothing. St. Matthew.

NO RED CROSS CONTROVERSY

“There has been no Red Cross controversy,” says Clara Barton, “as the sensational press has termed it, inasmuch as the Red Cross has taken no controversial part. It has only spoken when it must, and as little as possible, and its President not at all, nor ever will.

“When it is necessary for me to defend myself before the American people, let me fall. I should not value 286the defense thus gained, and I trust I shall never feel it needful.”

In her later years the following was oft quoted by Clara Barton:

A Greek Red Cross on a field of white should tell any soldier of any country within the treaty that the wearer was his friend and could be trusted; and to any officer of any army that he was legitimately there, and not subject to capture. Clara Barton.

This is what the Red Cross means, not an order of knighthood, not a commandery of it, not a secret society, not a society at all by itself, but the powerful, peaceful sign and the reducing to practical usefulness of one of the broadest and most needed humanities the world has ever known. Clara Barton.

I hope that all the patriotic and humane men, women and children of the United States who are able to do so, will give it (the Red Cross) their support by becoming members of our national organization. Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt.

I hereby commend the plan of the Red Cross to secure a large membership in this country. I hope the American people will prove as patriotic in this respect as are the people of other nations, so that we may be as well prepared as they to render relief in the misfortune of war or to mitigate the suffering caused by pestilence, famine, fire, floods, mine explosions and other great disasters.

A large, well-organized and efficient Red Cross is essential. It is both a patriotic and humane service that is rendered by every citizen who becomes a member of the American Red Cross.

I perceive that in creating an institution that shall be National and of the people the foundations must be as broad and as solid as the whole nation. Clara Barton.

288The Red Cross has become well known and well beloved. Of all the great humanitarian institutions of this country the Red Cross is surely among the greatest. Clara Barton.

Though we may leave our task unaccomplished, the task may be glorious in design if not in completion, and speak of us sincerely and with more fitting substance than words could ever compass or suggest. Clara Barton.

The Red Cross is the Big Brother of the Fighting Man.

The Red Cross is the most generally recognized humanitarian movement in the known world. Clara Barton.

The Red Cross has awakened the senses, and attuned the public ear to the cry of distress wherever emanating. Clara Barton.

The Treaty of Geneva takes its powers from the common consent of the United Governments of the civilized world.

Human intelligence has devised the provisions of the Red Cross, and it is peculiarly adapted to popular favor. Clara Barton.

It is probable that no sign nor figure in the secular world is sacred to so many people as is the Red Cross of Geneva. Clara Barton.

The insignia, which has given its name to the Treaty of Geneva, has become universally known and respected. Clara Barton.

The Red Cross never leads, but follows, in all military matters.

The Red Cross has given rise to most valuable inventions and, under its humane impulses, sanitary science has made rapid progress.

Inspired by the love of humanity and the world-wide motto of the Red Cross: “In time of peace and prosperity, prepare for war and calamity.” Clara Barton.

© Clinedinst, Washington, D. C.


AMBASSADOR BAKHMETEFF

The veneration in which Russians of every class hold the name of Clara Barton.—Russian Ambassador Boris Bakhmeteff (in Boston in 1917).

The Ambassador requested me to transmit to you the expression of every loyal Russian appreciation for the splendid work done by the American Red Cross during the last war, and especially for its assistance to the needy in Russia.—G. Gagarine, First Secretary to the Embassy (in Washington in 1920).

289Some forty nations are in the Red Cross treaty, and from every military hospital in every one of these nations floats the same flag.