CLARA BARTON’S RETIREMENT FROM THE RED CROSS
It would have been well if Clara Barton had retired from the active
work of the presidency of the American Red Cross at the close of
the war with Spain. She had accomplished in her lifetime an almost
incredible total of heroic work. She had completed seventy-eight
years of service; she had created the American Red Cross and led it
successfully in peace and war. On twenty different fields on both
sides of the ocean she had raised its banner over areas devastated by
fire, flood, famine, and pestilence. She had won the support of her
Government to an enterprise till then unknown and but little regarded.
She had made the Red Cross in America so useful in times of peace that
the Red Cross societies of the world had widened their spheres of
operation to incorporate her plans of service. She had crowned her long
and arduous career with an achievement that won for her the heart of
the American army and navy in Cuba, and brought to her the thanks of
the Congress and of the President of the United States. She could have
retired with honors such as no woman in America ever had won. If her
judgment told her that this was the time for her to transfer her burden
of active supervision to some younger person, her heart triumphed over
her judgment.
She was eighty years of age when, on September 8, 1900, a tornado and
tidal wave submerged Galveston, Texas. Five days later Clara Barton
was on the ground. Difficulties of transportation held her back for
twenty-four hours or she would have been there a day sooner.
Her plea for lumber, hardware, and other materials for providing
temporary shelter met with a nation-wide response, and supplies of food
and clothing, as well as considerable sums of money, were placed at her
disposal.
After six weeks spent in Texas, Clara Barton returned, worn out by
her exertions, but bringing the grateful thanks of the people of
Galveston, and, in addition, an official letter of thanks from the
governor of the State of Texas and also of its legislature. The Central
Relief Committee of Galveston also tendered her a series of engrossed
resolutions, declaring that she deserved to be “exalted above queens,”
and that her achievements were “greater than the conquests of nations
or the inventions of genius.”
In the following year occurred the seventh International Conference of
the Red Cross, already referred to, held at St. Petersburg in Russia
and extending from the middle of May until near the end of June of
1902. Clara Barton headed the delegation from the United States. The
conference was held under the high patronage of Her Majesty the Empress
Dowager Marie Feodorovna. Miss Barton was the guest of the Emperor
and Empress. No delegate to the conference was treated with greater
consideration than Clara Barton. At the close of the conference she was
decorated by the Emperor, who conferred upon Clara Barton the Russian
decoration of the Order of the Red Cross.
Two of her letters concerning this journey have been quoted in a
previous chapter. Clara Barton returned to her own land crowned
with additional honors, but confronting new and wholly unexpected
difficulties.
The American Red Cross had been reincorporated by Act of Congress
June 6, 1900. Under the new form of organization the board and its
executive committee possessed large powers. There was a feeling on
the part of some members of the board that the American Red Cross was
too exclusively under the direction of Clara Barton. Her work for
the relief of Galveston had been undertaken almost the moment that
she first learned of its great need. She had not waited to call an
executive committee meeting. While her work in that field was most
heartily commended, there was a feeling on the part of members of the
board that the Red Cross, being now virtually a representative organ
of the United States Government, its fields of service should be
determined, not by the judgment of an individual, but of the governing
body of the organization itself. There was further criticism growing
out of the fact that, when emergencies arose by reason of any great
national disaster, a considerable part of the money was sent direct to
Clara Barton on the field, and expended by her without passing through
the hands of the treasurer.
Miss Barton admitted that she had made these decisions at times without
the formal authority of her executive committee, and that she had
received and expended money according to her best judgment when the
emergency was at hand. She did not desire to be bound by burdensome
restrictions; she wished to be at liberty to meet the need whenever it
should arrive, and in the way that seemed to be necessary.
If everything had gone well with the Red Cross during the absence of
Clara Barton at St. Petersburg in 1902, it may be that she would have
consented to retire on her return from that notable experience. It was
hardly likely that any further honor could have come to her higher than
that which she had already received. Theoretically she ought to have
been training up assistants who would act effectively in her absence,
and in time succeed her. It was in some respects a limitation on her
part that she had not found assistants to whom she could delegate
authority with confidence that it would be properly used. On the other
hand, she had made some experiments in training up associates, and
found reason to regret it.
While Clara Barton was on her way to St. Petersburg the disastrous
Mont Pelée earthquake occurred. She had left the American Red Cross
organized with a board of control which gave it authority to act
in such an emergency. She returned from St. Petersburg bitterly
disappointed because the American Red Cross played in that disaster,
as she felt, a wholly insignificant part. It seemed to her to have
displayed a complete lack of that initiative which had always
characterized her action under such conditions.
Rightly or wrongly Miss Barton felt that this inability to act promptly
and decisively was in some measure the result of a divided authority.
She thereupon set in motion an effort to amend the by-laws so as to
increase the power of the president. These changed by-laws were adopted
at the annual meeting of the American Red Cross in Washington, December
9, 1902. Clara Barton was elected president for life and given the
authority which she deemed requisite for effective action.
An earnest protest was made against Miss Barton’s increase of power,
and the disaffection increased throughout the year 1903. On January 2,
1904, President Roosevelt notified Miss Barton that he could no longer
serve as an officer of the Red Cross in the condition of unrest which
had developed.
Three weeks later, on January 29th, the minority of the American Red
Cross presented a memorial to Congress charging that under the new form
of organization practically all power was centered in the president
of the society, who was elected for life and permitted to choose her
own executive committee. A committee of investigation was appointed to
inquire into the affairs of the Red Cross. Of this committee Senator
Redfield Proctor was chairman.
It would be difficult to describe the emotions of Clara Barton when
she knew of the appointment of this committee. She was shocked and
horrified. She felt as if it had been a personal disgrace; and what
was worse, as she viewed it, she feared that it would result in a
dissension that would ruin the American Red Cross. On the other hand,
she had no mind to retire while the investigation was on. Whatever
happened, she would not resign until the investigation ended.
The committee of investigation appears to have been a very sensible
body. It set about gathering such material as it needed, and the
examination of such witnesses as were produced by the remonstrants.
The remonstrance did not contain any charges of any dishonesty on the
part of Miss Barton in the administration of the affairs of the Red
Cross; or, any charge of misappropriation of any property or money by
Miss Barton; or any improper act or conduct of any kind which involved
any element of moral turpitude.
The charges were, in brief:
(_a_) That proper books of accounts were not kept at all times; and
(_b_) that the property and funds of the Red Cross were not at all
times distributed upon the order of the treasurer of the society, as
alleged to be required by the by-laws of the society; and
(_c_) that a certain tract of land in Lawrence County, Indiana, had
been donated to the society by one Joseph Gardner; that the society
was reincorporated after such donation, and such donation was never
reported to the new corporation.
The reply to these charges, in brief, was that, in the main, proper
books of account had been kept, but, in so far as accurate books of
account had not been kept, it was due to the impossibility of keeping
them while active work was in progress on the field of disaster, and,
in so far as the by-laws of the society had not been complied with in
the making of disbursements through the treasurer, it was impossible
to do so during the stress of active relief work in the field; that so
far as the Gardner donation of Indiana land was concerned, no Red Cross
money had ever been invested in it; that the title to the real estate
was always in the Red Cross and in the then existing corporate entity
of the Red Cross, but that the land had not been found to be suited to
the work of the Red Cross and the title thereto had been allowed to
lapse because of the accumulation of taxes and charges for maintenance
which were found to be in excess of the utility of the land to the Red
Cross.[4]
The committee of investigation held three meetings, on April 12, April
26, and May 2, 1904. Clara Barton did not attend in person, but was
represented by counsel. It never became necessary for her to present
her defense. At the close of the third meeting the chairman of the
committee adjourned the hearing without day and the investigation
came to an end. The committee never presented a report; there was no
occasion to do so. The proceedings of the committee are obtainable
by any one who cares to read them, and they indicate with sufficient
clearness the reasons which presumably influenced the committee in
terminating the hearing after one side had been presented. There was no
reason why the committee needed to hear anything in defense of Clara
Barton.
The investigation having ended, Clara Barton presented her resignation
June 16, 1904. The resignation was accepted. The American Red Cross
came under its new form of organization with the President of the
United States as nominal President of the Red Cross. The committee
of the opposition had proposed that Clara Barton be made honorary
president for life with a salary to continue as long as she lived. She
did not accept either the office or the money. She retired from the Red
Cross, leaving it to the management of those who with her resignation
came into its control. Her own relation with the organization ceased
entirely.
Clara Barton was normally responsive to praise and abnormally
sensitive to criticism. In all the years of her public life she never
recovered from that supersensitiveness which had characterized her
childhood. Fulsome and excessive praise disgusted her, but she enjoyed
discriminating appreciation. Straightforward opposition she could meet
and bear, but she shrank from criticism at the hands of those who had
been her friends, and such criticism hurt her far more than any one
could imagine who beheld her self-possession and outward calm. She
seemed to the world to take opposition somewhat lightly, but she bled
within her armor from wounds which the world never suspected.
She retired from the Red Cross broken-hearted. Her common sense ought
to have saved her from nine tenths of the suffering which she endured
in that unhappy experience. She felt that she had been denationalized,
repudiated by her own country, expatriated. She thought for a time
that she could not continue to live in the United States. She turned
her eyes toward Mexico, and thought of going there partly to escape
from the sorrows which confronted her, and which she painfully
exaggerated, and partly with the thought that she might there establish
something corresponding to the American Red Cross. She had a friend
in California, Mr. Charles S. Young, who knew much about Mexico. On
January 13, 1904, after the appointment of the congressional committee
and before any of its hearings, she wrote the following letter which
came as near to being hysterical as anything that Clara Barton ever
wrote:
You will never know how many times I have thought of you, in this last
hard and dreadful year to me. I cannot tell you, I _must_ not, and
yet I _must_. So much of the time, under all the persecution, it has
seemed to me I _could not_ remain in _this_ country, and have sought
the range of the world for some place among strangers, and out of the
way of people and mails, and longed for some one to point out a quiet
place in some other land; my thoughts have fled to you, who could, at
least, tell me a road to take outside of America, and who would ask
the authorities of Mexico if a woman who could not live in her own
country might find a home or a resting-place in theirs.
This will all sound very strange to you--you will wonder if I am “out
of my mind.” Let me answer--no. And if you had only a glimpse of what
is put upon me to endure, you would not wonder, and in the goodness of
your heart would hold open the gate to show me a mile track to some
little mountain nook, where I might escape and wait in peace. Don’t
think this is _common_ talk with me. I have never said it to others;
and yet I think they who know me best _mistrust_ that I cannot bear
_everything_, and will try in some way to relieve myself.
To think of sitting here through an “investigation” by the country
I have tried to serve--“in the interest of harmony” they say, when
I have never spoken a discordant word in my life, meaningly, but
have worked on in _silence_ under the fire of the entire press
of the United States for twelve months,--forgiven all, offered
friendship,--and still am to be “investigated” for “inharmony,”
“unbusinesslike methods,” and “too many years”--all of these I cannot
help. I am still unanimously bidden to work on for “life,” bear
the burden of an organization--meet its costs myself--and am now
threatened with the expense of the “investigation.”
Can you wonder that I ask a bridle track? And that some other country
might look inviting to me?
Mr. Young, this unhappy letter is a poor return to make for your
friendly courtesy, but _so long_ my dark thoughts have turned to you
that I cannot find myself with the privilege of communicating with
you, without expressing them. I cannot think where I have found the
courage to do it, but I _have_.
I know how unwise a thing it seems, but if the pressure is too
great the bands may break; that may be my case, and fearing that my
better judgment might bid me put these sheets in the fire--I send
them without once glancing over. You need not forget, but kindly
_remember_, rather, that they are the wail of an aching heart and
that is all. Nature has provided a sure and final rest for all the
heartaches that mortals are called to endure.
If you are in the East again, and I am here, I pray you to come to me.
Receive again my thanks and permit me to remain,
Your friend
CLARA BARTON
In conversation she said: “The Government which I thought I loved, and
loyally tried to serve, has shut every door in my face and stared at me
insultingly through its windows. What wonder I want to leave?”
In another conversation, referring to the abandonment of her dream of
going to Mexico, she said: “There were but two countries where the Red
Cross did not exist, China and Mexico. I did not want to go to China,
but did want to go to Mexico, and fully intended to go. My friends
finally dissuaded me and perhaps it was for the best, for if I had gone
I probably would not have been alive now.”
From this distance it is possible to view the whole situation in
perspective. The present author has no hesitation in saying that the
time had come for Clara Barton to retire from the active work of the
administration of the American Red Cross. The organization had grown
well beyond the ability of any one person to manage it in the way that
Clara Barton had managed it so successfully in its earlier years.
On her return either from Cuba or St. Petersburg, she ought to have
retired, accepting the honorary presidency, and giving over the control
and active management to younger people. The author has witnessed in
not a few instances the pathetic struggle which goes on in the minds
of elderly people on their prospective retirement from positions which
have outgrown them. It is a situation nothing less than tragic. A
person long identified with an organization comes easily to believe,
either that he cannot get on without it, or that it cannot get on
without him. Clara Barton had come to believe the latter concerning the
American Red Cross. She was mistaken.
There comes a time in the life of almost any organization when, if it
is to prosper and enlarge, it must accept new leadership and adapt
itself to changed conditions. A woman as sensible as Clara Barton
was in most things should have realized this situation and not have
permitted herself to be heart-broken by a change as necessary for her
as it was for the Red Cross.
Nor is it necessary at this time to refer to the fact that the
change might perhaps have been brought about in a kindlier spirit
and with less of distress to a noble woman. If there was any lack of
consideration for her, it will do no good now to remember it, nor to
ascribe unworthy motives to any who had a share in it.
One thing, however, ought to be said concerning this tragic experience.
If Clara Barton did not bear this sorrow like a philosopher, she bore
it like a Christian. The author has searched her diaries and most
intimate papers of this period without finding in any of them any
spirit of personal resentment or desire for revenge. She felt that she
had been deeply wronged, but she felt it not so much as a wrong done
to her as an injury to the cause she loved. Her constant question was
not, What will become of me? but, What will become of the Red Cross?
Her books had been kept honestly and she knew it; but she also knew
that, when money came to her on the field, she had been accustomed to
spend it for the necessities of life for those she had come to help,
and that not all of it had passed through the hands of the treasurer.
She knew that no committee of Congress could find any of this money in
her possession, but she also knew that her system of book-keeping had
not been established with a view to a possibility of that kind of an
audit. How would it affect the Red Cross if any scandal arose out of
her unbusinesslike book-keeping?
She came in time to realize that she had taken this matter too
seriously. She came to know the relief of lessened responsibility and
to be glad that the Red Cross, with its cares and responsibilities and
widening sphere of influence, had been safely transferred to other
hands.
The author may be permitted to add a personal word. In his personal
conversation with Clara Barton concerning these unhappy events he
never heard her speak uncharitably of any of her opponents. He was not
with her during the time of the actual difficulty, and has sometimes
regretted that he was not there. Had he known all that he now knows
from months of labor spent in the examination of her most intimate
papers, he would have advised her to retire in 1898 or 1902, and to
turn over all her records to her successors, and enjoy for herself
a few years of unofficial honor before her long life closed. He did
not at that time possess the intimate knowledge which now is in his
possession, of the whole life and method of work of the American Red
Cross under her administration. He is of the opinion that she ought to
have accepted her retirement, not only willingly but gladly, and that
she was far more troubled than she had need to be concerning the events
which led to her retirement from office.
But this fact he records with sincere admiration for this noble
woman, the author’s friend and kinswoman, that in her conversation
with him in the years that followed, and in her diaries and intimate
self-revelations of her private papers, he has found no word that
seems inspired by selfish ambition, by personal resentment, or by any
unworthy motive.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] As this second volume goes to press, there is placed in my hands a
typewritten brief by General W. H. Sears, who accompanied Miss Barton
on many of her fields of service, and who, from his personal knowledge
and many compiled documents, answers in detail these charges. I have
examined this document of 162 pages with interest, but have not found
it necessary to quote from it.