THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN RED CROSS
It is important that this book shall make plain, by means of all
necessary emphasis, and if need be by reiteration, that the United
States did not come automatically or promptly into the sisterhood of
nations associated under the banner of the Red Cross. From 1864 until
1881 was a period of seventeen years. The United States was the last
of the great civilized nations of the world to ratify the treaty. It
is also important to make plain that the work of securing this tardy
recognition of the Red Cross on the part of the United States did not
devolve upon an organization in this country, or upon a group of people
laboring together. If ever a great enterprise came into being as the
result of the persistent, indefatigable effort of one person, that
result was achieved by Clara Barton in securing the adhesion of her own
country to the international agreement which included the Red Cross.
Clara Barton undertook to secure national recognition for this
organization during the administration of President Rutherford B.
Hayes. She had already begun work in this direction as early as 1876,
and it seemed that she had every requisite for success when, in 1877,
President Moynier addressed an official letter to President Hayes
informing him of Miss Barton’s appointment, and asking that the United
States come into the agreement. But the promised success was delayed.
President Hayes received Miss Barton at the White House, and listened
courteously but not enthusiastically to her story. So did the
Attorney-General of the United States, the Honorable Charles Devens,
to whom the President referred her, and who found no serious legal
obstacle in the way of her desire. Each sent her with a note of
introduction to the Secretary of State. President Hayes wrote the
following little note:
EXECUTIVE MANSION
WASHINGTON, 4 Jany, 1878
MY DEAR SIR:
Miss Clara Barton of New York State has some plans regarding the
mitigation of the cruelties of war which she wishes to present to you.
Please give her a hearing and such aid and encouragement as may be
deemed by you fit.
Sincerely
R. B. HAYES
HON. W. M. EVARTS
_etc., etc._
But the movement encountered apathy and quiet but determined
opposition, and resulted in no executive action.
In a little scratch-book I find Clara Barton’s own account of this
disappointment. Her narrative goes back to Civil War days and then
proceeds with her experience overseas, and her service in the
Franco-Prussian War:
As I journeyed on and saw the work of the Red Cross Society, more
accomplished in four months under their systematic organization than
in our four years without it, no mistakes, no needless suffering, no
starving, no lack of care, no waste, no confusion,--all busy and at
work, a whole continent marshaled under the banner of the Red Cross,
working instead of weeping, nursing instead of waiting,--as I saw all
this and journeyed and worked with it, I said to myself, “If I live to
return to my country I will try to let her people understand the Red
Cross.” I did more than resolve; I promised other nations I would do
it. In 1873 I returned, more broken than I went. There had been years
of helplessness in which I forgot how to walk; still I remembered
my resolution and my promise. I came to Dansville and I brought that
resolution and that promise with me. After about two years I was able
to go to Washington with a letter from the International Committee of
Geneva to the President of the United States asking once more that
America sign the Treaty of Geneva.
Being made the official bearer of this letter, I presented it in 1877
in person to President Hayes. He received it kindly and referred it
and me to his Secretary of State, Mr. Evarts, who in his turn referred
it to his Assistant Secretary, Mr. Frederick Seward, as the person
who would know all about it, examine it, and report for decision. Mr.
Seward had been the Assistant Secretary of his father and of Secretary
Fish when it had been previously presented. He remembered this refusal
and referred me to the record. He regarded it as a settled thing. I
saw that it was all made to depend on one man, and that man regarded
it as settled. I had nothing to hope for then, but did not press the
matter to a third refusal. It waited and so did I.
Nor had she any better success in her approach to members of Congress.
They were either apathetic or positively hostile. They knew nothing
about the Red Cross and they cared less. The United States was not
going to have any more wars. If it ever should have any wars, this
country would manage them in its own way. It did not care that any
one in Europe should tell it how to provide for the care of sick and
wounded men. As for relief to be sent from America to any countries
in Europe that might be in war, the American people were fully
competent to create their own agencies on this side of the water, and
to distribute relief through such agencies as they might select or
constitute upon the other side.
Even Miss Barton’s staunch friends in the Senate and in the House could
give her very little aid or comfort. If she could enlist the interest
of the President or of the Secretary of State, something might
possibly be done. Otherwise, it was useless to try.
So far as is known, Clara Barton’s little eight-page pamphlet, issued
in 1878, had no more effect than Dr. Bellows’s sixteen-page pamphlet
in 1866. If a single newspaper had taken it up and commented favorably
upon it, Clara Barton would have been practically certain to have
clipped and treasured the article or editorial. There is not in her
papers a single letter or newspaper clipping which indicates that any
man, woman, or child in the United States responded favorably to her
published letter which was quoted in the last chapter. She used her pen
and her voice and her power of personal persuasion without avail. The
seed of that sowing appeared to fall upon the rocks, and it took no
root.
In November, 1880, James A. Garfield was elected President of the
United States. Miss Barton knew him somewhat. She wrote him a letter
of congratulation, to which he returned a brief but gracious reply.
Soon after his inauguration she called on him at the White House and
presented the following letter which nearly four years before she had
brought to the attention of President Hayes:
INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR THE
RELIEF OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS
GENEVA, August 19, 1877
_To the President of the United States, at Washington_:
Mr. PRESIDENT: The International Committee of the Red Cross desires
most earnestly that the United States should be associated with them
in their work, and they take the liberty of addressing themselves to
you, with the hope that you will second their efforts. In order that
the functions of the National Society of the Red Cross be faithfully
performed, it is indispensable that it should have the sympathy and
protection of the Government.
It would be irrational to establish an association upon the principles
of the Convention of Geneva, without the association having the
assurance that the army of its own country, of which it should be
an auxiliary, would be guided, should the case occur, by the same
principles. It would consequently be useless for us to appeal to the
people of the country, inasmuch as the United States, as a Government,
has made no declaration of adhering officially to the principles laid
down by the Convention of the 22d August, 1864.
Such is, then, Mr. President, the principal object of the present
request. We do not doubt but this will meet with a favorable reception
from you, for the United States is in advance of Europe upon the
subject of war, and the celebrated “Instructions of the American Army”
are a monument which does honor to the United States.
You are aware, Mr. President, that the Government of the United States
was officially represented at the Conference of Geneva, in 1864, by
two delegates, and this mark of approbation given to the work which
was being accomplished was then considered by every one as a precursor
of a legal ratification. Until the present time, however, this
confirmation has not taken place, and we think that this formality,
which would have no other bearing than to express publicly the
acquiescence of the United States in those humanitarian principles now
admitted by all civilized people, has only been retarded because the
occasion has not offered itself. We flatter ourselves with the hope
that appealing directly to your generous sentiments will determine you
to take the necessary measures to put an end to a situation so much to
be regretted. We only wait such good news, Mr. President, in order to
urge the founding of an American Society of the Red Cross.
We have already an able and devoted assistant in Miss Clara Barton, to
whom we confide the care of handing to you this present request.
It would be very desirable that the projected asseveration should be
under your distinguished patronage, and we hope that you will not
refuse us this favor.
Receive, Mr. President, the assurance of our highest consideration.
For the International Committee:
G. MOYNIER, President
President Garfield heard her story with genuine cordiality. He knew her
and the work she had done both in this country and abroad. He assured
her of his warm personal interest and referred her to the Secretary of
State for a further discussion of the matter. His note was brief and to
the point:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON
Will the Sec’y of State please hear Miss Barton on the subject herein
referred to?
J. A. GARFIELD
March 30, 1881
It was several days before Clara Barton succeeded in securing an
appointment with Secretary Blaine; she did not want merely to present
the President’s note, but to have time to tell the story of the Red
Cross. Mr. Blaine agreed to see her on Monday, April 11, 1881. Her
nephew, Stephen, who had come to Washington for a few days, accompanied
her on this visit; and it is fully recorded in his diary. The beginning
of the interview was not encouraging; for Mr. Blaine, after appointing
the time, apparently forgot about it, and was occupied when they called.
The appointment had been made for 11.30 at the Department of State.
Clara and Stephen waited for an hour in the Diplomatic Chamber. At the
end of that time Mr. Blaine came in accompanied by Mrs. Dr. Loring, of
Massachusetts. Introductions ensued, Mrs. Loring said she would “esteem
it an honor to make the acquaintance of Miss Barton,” and arranged for
an interchange of calls. Mr. Blaine referred to Miss Barton’s call
at his residence, and “hoped it would not be the last.” Mrs. Loring
then withdrew, and Mr. Blaine apologized for having kept Miss Barton
waiting. She told him the nature of her visit and presented the letter
of President Garfield. Mr. Blaine told her that he knew practically
nothing about the Red Cross, and asked her to state briefly its object.
He thought it would come more clearly under the supervision of the
Secretary of War, but she explained the necessity for the treaty. The
international aspect of the organization had not previously occurred
to Mr. Blaine; he had supposed it would be purely an American Society
operating under the War Department; and that any encouragement given by
the Secretary of State would be incidental and personal; Miss Barton
replied that if he could give her time she would like to tell him in
detail what was involved in the relation of the United States to the
Red Cross. He replied, “Miss Barton, I can give you all the time you
need.”
Clara then told him the whole story from beginning to end, and Mr.
Blaine listened with intent interest.
He inquired why President Hayes had not pushed the matter to a
successful conclusion, and she told him of Mr. Seward’s objections
which went back to his father’s secretaryship in Civil War days, and
based upon the Monroe Doctrine.
Mr. Blaine replied that “the Monroe Doctrine was not made to ward off
humanity.” He told her that “the grounds for Mr. Seward’s objection
would not stand in the way of the present Administration.” He assured
her that he was “in full sympathy with her proposal,” and promised
her that he “would coöperate fully with her in carrying the matter
successfully through.” As for the official letter from M. Moynier,
he assured her that he would be prepared to reply to that letter
approvingly now on the sole basis of her statement of the case; but he
said that he wanted to do more than this.
She replied that she knew it would be necessary for the Senate to
approve. He told her, “if it needed the action of the Senate, that
could be had.” The confidence with which he spoke was most reassuring.
He asked her to leave her little pamphlet with him for a few days
that he might become a little more familiar with the history of the
movement. It was all new to him; but it was obviously a thing in which
the United States should have its part with other nations; he could
promise her that it would be done, and done promptly.
Mr. Blaine suggested that it would be well for Miss Barton to talk over
the matter of the Red Cross with the Secretary of War. On the following
day she went by appointment to see Secretary Robert T. Lincoln. Again
Stephen accompanied her and made a record of it.
Miss Barton first expressed to Mr. Lincoln her appreciation of the
kindness of his father. Stephen wrote, “He was much affected and very
grateful.”
The adhesion of the United States to the treaty was a matter for the
State Department; but Robert Lincoln was greatly interested, and
assured Miss Barton of his support in the operation of the Red Cross in
case the Administration agreed to it.
In the next few days she made calls on other members of the Cabinet.
Nowhere did she encounter opposition or apathy. The interest of
President Garfield and Secretary Blaine appeared to be contagious. All
official Washington seemed suddenly to have wakened to the importance
of the Red Cross. She called upon several Senators and was introduced
by Senator Conger, who told them of Clara Barton’s work in Michigan.
With this introduction and a knowledge of the President’s approval,
they met her with prompt and unreserved approval of her plans. Most of
them had never heard of the Red Cross, but, when she told them how many
other nations had approved it, and that the President and Secretary of
State were ready to approve the treaty, they gave her on the spot their
heartiest endorsement. She thought she understood Secretary Blaine’s
complete confidence that the Senate would ratify the treaty as a matter
of course.
More than a month elapsed before anything else occurred. Nothing
unfavorable developed. On the other hand, neither the President nor Mr.
Blaine took any immediate steps. The Conkling difficulty had arisen and
both Garfield and Blaine had many other things to think about. Clara
Barton began to wonder whether she could induce the Senate to remind
the Secretary of State of his interest in the matter.
On May 17, 1881, the Honorable Omar D. Conger, of Michigan, submitted
to the United States Senate the following resolution:
RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be requested to furnish to the
Senate copies (translations) of the Articles of Convention signed at
Geneva, Switzerland, August 22, 1864, touching the treatment of those
wounded in war, together with the forms of ratification employed by
the several Governments, parties thereto.
It took a little time for the Department of State to gather the
documents necessary to answer the request of the Senate. But Secretary
Blaine did not wait for this formality. He remembered that there was
an earnest little woman awaiting some definite answer from him, and he
sent her the following letter:
DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
WASHINGTON, May 20, 1881
MISS CLARA BARTON
American Representative of the Red Cross, etc.
Washington.
DEAR MADAM:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the letter addressed
by Mr. Moynier, President of the Red Cross International Convention,
to the President of the United States, bearing the date of the 19th
August, 1877, and referred by president Garfield on the 30th March,
1881, to this Department.
It appears from a careful perusal of the letter that Mr. Moynier is
anxious that the Government of the United States should join with
other Governments of the world in this International Convention.
Will you be pleased to say to Mr. Moynier, in reply to his letter,
that the President of the United States and the officers of this
Government are in full sympathy with anywise measures tending
toward the amelioration of the suffering incident to warfare? The
Constitution of the United States has, however, lodged the entire
war-making power in the Congress of the United States; and as the
participation of the United States in an International Convention of
this character is consequent upon and auxiliary to the war-making
power of the Nation, legislation by Congress is needful to accomplish
the humane end that your society has in view. It gives me, however,
great pleasure to state that I shall be happy to give any measures
which you may propose careful attention and consideration, and
should the President, as I doubt not he will, approve of the matter,
the Administration will recommend to Congress the adoption of the
international treaty which you desire.
I am, madam, with very great respect, your obedient servant,
JAMES G. BLAINE
It would be interesting to know just how Clara Barton received the
news. Unfortunately, her diary affords us no information. She must have
gone forth from the office of the Secretary of State with wings upon
her feet. There still would be months before Congress could act, but
she sent the glad news at once to President Moynier and received from
him an official reply which she transmitted to the Secretary of State.
GENEVA, June 13, 1881
_To the Honorable the Secretary of State_
JAMES G. BLAINE, _Washington_
SIR: Miss Clara Barton has just communicated to me the letter which
she has had the honor to receive from you, bearing date of May 23,
1881, and I hasten to express to you how much satisfaction I have
experienced from it. I do not doubt now, thanks to your favorable
consideration and that of President Garfield, that the United States
may soon be counted among the number of signers of the Geneva
Convention, since you have been kind enough to allow me to hope that
the proposition for it will be made to Congress by the Administration.
I thank you, as well as President Garfield, for having been willing
to take into serious consideration the wish contained in my letter of
August 19, 1877, assuredly a very natural wish, since it tended to
unite your country with a work of charity and civilization for which
it is one of the best qualified.
Since my letter of 1877 was written, several new governmental
adhesions have been given to the Geneva Convention, and I think that
these precedents will be much more encouraging to the United States
from the fact that they have been given by America. It was under the
influence of events of the recent war of the Pacific that Bolivia
signed the treaty the 16th of October, 1879, Chili on the 15th of
November, 1879, Argentine Republic on the 25th of November, 1879, and
Peru on the 22d of April, 1881. This argument in favor of the adhesion
of your country is the only one I can add to my request, and to the
printed documents that Miss Barton has placed in your hands, to aid
your judgment and that of Congress.
I now await with full confidence the final result of your sympathetic
efforts, and I beg you to accept, sir, the assurance of my high
consideration.
G. MOYNIER, President
There lies before me as I write a little pad of paper, about three
by five inches in size, of which more than half the sheets have been
used and torn off, and of the remainder all but the top six leaves
are blank. Those six pages are filled with writing in pencil, and
the writing is that of Clara Barton. It is just such a pad as she
habitually kept by her hard and narrow cot, with a candle and a pencil
at hand, so that when she woke in the night she might sit up and
write the thoughts that came to her. She seldom retired before eleven
o’clock, and was habitually up as early as five, but if she had waking
hours between, and she often had them, she wrote down what was in her
mind, put out the candle, and finished what was for her a good night’s
rest by sunrise or before.
“In almost any part of the world except the United States,” the tablet
begins, “the words Red Cross, and the emblem for which they stand,
would be as familiar as are to us the words Internal Revenue or
National Board of Health.”
Was there ever such a time? Most of us have forgotten whether there is
a National Board of Health, but “the words Red Cross, and the emblem
for which they stand,” have become as familiar as the Stars and Stripes.
Yet there was a time when all other countries knew of it, but in the
United States we knew of Internal Revenue and of the National Board of
Health, but not of the Red Cross!
The little tablet is not dated, but I have no difficulty in supplying
the date. These six pages were penciled on a night between June 9 and
July 1, 1881. They appear to have been intended as the basis of an
article for the Associated Press, endeavoring to call a little more
attention to the fact that on May 21 of that year the American Red
Cross had actually been organized and that on June 9 it had elected
officers. The Associated Press had sent out a paragraph announcing the
organization, May 21, and this was to tell that “A subsequent meeting
has been held, and the following officers elected: President, Miss
Clara Barton; secretary, George Kennan,” and so on. She might have
told, but did not, that her own name as president was presented by
President Garfield himself.
She had to explain what the Red Cross was for, although “During the
last three or four years the public eye has been growing familiar with
the term,” through constant efforts to secure for it such recognition
in America as it long had had abroad.
“Nation after nation has recognized its benign mission,” the narrative
runs on, “until twenty-seven countries have welcomed, received, and
incorporated its humane principle into laws which govern their rules of
warfare. In twenty-seven lands, wherever the national emblem is thrown
to the breeze in token of war, there floats beside it this beautiful
emblem of mercy, pity, justice, charity, and neutral care for the
wounded, comfort for the dying, and burial for the dead. To us alone it
is a stranger. For seventeen years it has knocked at our door, but our
great, noisy family failed to hear.”
That was her first great triumph!
So she obtained her official recognition, and then on the very next
day held her meeting for organization, and that fall secured her
incorporation, and the next year the treaty, and so on, and so on, one
step leading to another; and when she had gotten the consent of the
White House, she undertook to educate the great American Republic, and
let them know what the Red Cross stood for. She hoped the time would
come when the name and symbol would be as well known in America as the
words Internal Revenue or National Board of Health.
She had no publicity organization, nor press committee; but one night
she sat up in bed, lighted her candle, took her little pad and pencil,
and began to write:
“In almost any part of the world except the United States of America
the words Red Cross, and the emblem for which it stands, would be as
familiar--” and so on.
She did not finish the article in this form, though I find what use
she made of it later in that year, in a pamphlet entitled “A Sketch of
the History of the Red Cross.” That document was reissued with added
material in 1883, after the adoption of the international treaty. The
two lie before me, the completed pamphlet, with the endorsement of
Secretary Blaine, and the nomination, by President Garfield himself,
of Clara Barton to be president of the American Red Cross Association,
and the three-cent pencil tablet on which Clara Barton began, on one
night very soon after June 9, 1881, to teach the great American people
what the words Red Cross and its emblem were intended to represent. She
was not much given to weeping, but her tears would have wet through
the little pad of paper many times before she accomplished what she
undertook. But she succeeded. She lived to see the name and emblem
of the Red Cross as familiar in her own country as in any of the
twenty-seven that had previously adopted it. And that was what she
hoped and prayed to do.
It will be noted that all these documents from the President and the
Secretary of State, on the one hand, and from President Moynier and
Dr. Appia on the other, are addressed to Clara Barton. So far as is
now known there was no other person in America to whom they might have
been properly addressed. From the time when she returned from the
Franco-Prussian War until the President and the Congress of the United
States had officially approved the Red Cross, and the Senate had agreed
to the Treaty of Geneva, there was, so far as is known, precisely one
Red Cross in the United States, and that was the one which Clara Barton
had brought back from the red fields of France.
Not only so, but so far as is now known, in all those years no other
voice than hers, after Dr. Bellows gave up hope, was raised on behalf
of it. No one else had a vision of its possible relation to the future
life of the United States. One little woman, barely recovered from her
nervous prostration, trudged wearily from desk to desk in Washington,
and with voice and pen pleaded in season and out of season until the
American Red Cross became a fact.
Yes, the American Red Cross was now a fact. The President had
consented; the Secretary of State had become an enthusiastic
protagonist of the treaty; the Secretary of War heartily favored it;
and the entire Senate appeared a unit in its favor. The preliminary
resolution had passed the Senate without a single dissenting voice.
There were certain formalities which needed to be completed before the
treaty could actually be signed and ratified, but that was not worth
worrying about. President Garfield and Secretary Blaine encouraged Miss
Barton to go straight ahead and complete her organization.
She asked President Garfield to become the president of the American
Red Cross, but he declined. She told him that in other countries kings
and chief magistrates were its presidents; but President Garfield
thought he knew a person to whom that honor belonged in America. When
the American Red Cross was actually organized, Clara Barton was made
its president on nomination of James A. Garfield, President of the
United States.
On the very next day after receipt of Secretary Blaine’s letter, Clara
Barton held a meeting and organized a National Society of the Red
Cross. The society was duly and promptly incorporated under the laws of
the District of Columbia.
At a subsequent meeting, held on the 9th of June, 1881, the following
officers were elected:
Miss Clara Barton, _President_.
Judge William Lawrence, _First Vice-President_.
Dr. Alexander Y. P. Garnett, _Vice-President of the District of
Columbia_.
A. S. Solomons, _Treasurer_.
George Kennan, _Secretary_.
EXECUTIVE BOARD
Judge William Lawrence, _Chairman_.
Dr. George B. Loring.
Gen. S. D. Sturgis.
Mrs. S. A. Martha Canfield.
Mr. Walter P. Phillips.
Miss Clara Barton.
Mr. Walker Blaine.
Col. Richard J. Hinton.
Mrs. F. B. Taylor.
Mr. Wm. F. Sliney.
Mr. John R. Van Wormer.
Gen. R. D. Mussey, _Consulting Counsel of the Association_.
Miss Clara Barton, _Corresponding Secretary_.
Nothing could have seemed more auspicious than the outlook of the
American Red Cross on the day of its organization. It had the support
of the President, his Cabinet, and the Senate, and its birth was hailed
with satisfaction by all civilized nations. The signing and approval
of the treaty appeared a trivial formality.
Just when everything was proceeding finely, President Garfield was shot
by a fanatic on July 2, 1881. He lingered through the summer, and on
September 19th he died.
The Red Cross Treaty had not been signed.