CLARA BARTON’S LAST YEARS
Clara Barton lived for eight years after her retirement from the Red
Cross. After her first disappointment and the giving-up of her dream
of exile in Mexico, her heart turned to a form of work which already
had been much upon her mind. In establishing the American Red Cross,
she had determined from the outset that it should be of use in peace
as well as in war. The conviction grew upon her that it should be
broadened still further so that its activities should not be confined
to periods of calamity, but that there should be established under its
direction various forms of community service. Particularly did she
desire that in every community there should be organizations for home
nursing and first aid to the injured.
Before her retirement from the Red Cross, she had proposed to her
associates the addition of a First Aid Department as a part of its
activities. This did not seem to her board of control an advisable
field for the Red Cross to enter at that time. After her resignation
from the presidency of the American Red Cross, she organized the
“National First Aid Association of America,” which was incorporated
under the laws of the District of Columbia and had its general office
in Boston. The plan included a large sustaining membership with a
nominal fee of a dollar a year, and an active membership composed of
those in every community who attended a course of lectures and passed a
physical examination.
The plan of this new organization, as originally planned by her for the
Red Cross, was fully set forth in a brief manuscript which she prepared:
During the entire period of the present differences among sections of
the members of the American National Red Cross, I have never once felt
that it was the desire of the American people that I should personally
enter within the circle of disturbance, and I have consequently
remained a silent and sorrowful spectator of a controversy that
appeared to me to be leading where no true, loyal friend of the Red
Cross would care to follow.
Every effort I have ever made on behalf of the people of the United
States, during the long years of my work, has been met with friendly
approval or thoughtful response. These efforts have always been made
on behalf of suffering humanity, in times of dire distress and peril,
and I have administered with a free but careful hand the benefactions
of whatever nature that have been entrusted to me; and as freely I
have given of all I possessed of strength, health, and private means.
Never once have I made a suggestion on behalf of myself or my
difficulties, and I have therefore had the confidence to feel that
nothing was expected of me but a straightforward advance along the
natural path of my life-work. So certain have I been of this, and so
confident in the firm loyalty, safe counsel, and moral support of
the eminent help surrounding me, that I have felt free to devote my
energies during the past months to perfecting a plan for so broadening
and strengthening the organization of the Red Cross that it may enter
on a new field of useful activity--on a work that will appeal directly
to the people everywhere, and prepare them, in these times of peaceful
well-being, to meet intelligently and successfully any emergency or
disaster that may occur, either nationally or individually. It is
my desire that this new work shall be the means of creating ample
funds to meet any great national calamity, and that the Red Cross may
hereafter enter the field fully equipped at the instant the call may
come.
In times past urgent calls have come to us and precious time has
been lost through lack of funds and suitable equipment. It is most
desirable that this condition should be remedied, and it is to this
end that I am making an appeal to the American people--_not for
their money nor their substance_, but that they _coöperate_ with me
earnestly in this new work: this effort to benefit themselves, that
I am endeavoring to inaugurate. It will be borne in mind that, in
the twenty years of its existence, the American National Red Cross
has never appealed, never asked for, or sought the control of, a
dollar even for relief; but has, as it seeks to do in this, left the
people free in the exercise of their own choice and intelligence. The
only apparent suspension of this method took place during the active
service of the Spanish-American War, when the great committees, formed
at the instance of President McKinley, raised money for relief, in
the name of the Red Cross, and applied it; the society itself holding
its normal position under the attorneyship of the noble Cuban Relief
Committee, which did honor to itself and the Nation.
Can it be too much to expect that this one appeal will meet a ready
response at the hands of the people?
We are actively organizing a new branch of the Red Cross, to be known
as “The First Aid Department” of the American National Red Cross,
which department will be largely educational and will concern itself
in instructing the people everywhere throughout the United States
in the best modern methods of first aid treatment, in all cases of
accident and emergency.
There will be two distinct branches of this work. For the first an
emergency case, similar to that in use in England, Germany, and other
Red Cross Treaty Nations, and this has been adapted to Red Cross needs
and methods under the direct supervision of the Medical Board of the
Red Cross Hospital. It contains material and surgical dressings of
the best class known to modern surgery. A most valuable part of the
permanent equipment of this emergency case is a series of emergency
charts, arranged for instantaneous reference, giving simple brief
instructions for dealing with every conceivable case of accident,
pending the arrival of the doctor. This chart is the combined work of
a committee of eminent physicians and surgeons; and, apart from the
admirable manner of its arrangement, may be regarded as the highest
standard of authority upon first aid methods of treatment known to the
world.
The other branch of the department will undertake the formation of
first aid emergency classes in every city in the country. Ambulance
corps will be formed among the employees of mills and factories,
industrial corporations, railroad employees, the police, and employees
of public departments. These employees will be drilled and instructed
in first aid methods, and, apart from the value of the knowledge they
will obtain for local use and service, they will form an efficient
force to draw from as helpers in great national calamities.
These methods are in no way experimental. In many European countries,
as Germany, Russia, and even Asiatic Japan, they form one of the
strongest features of the Red Cross. They are also in perfect accord
with its first principles, viz., the voluntary help of the people for
the Government, if in need, and the organized help of the people for
each other in misfortune.
This practical work in the united hands of the whole American people
should raise the organization far above the need of charitable gifts
for its support. The Red Cross belongs to the people; they should be
their own almoners and administer their own charities.
The intelligent thought of the philanthropists of the world is behind
these methods; tried, well assured, and successful. Do we need to know
more?
I make a strong appeal for the formation of local committees
everywhere; to coöperate with the headquarters staff of the First
Aid Department in the formation of classes. I appeal earnestly
to physicians in every town in the United States to render their
aid. Next to the stricken victim and immediate friends will the
kind-hearted doctor appreciate this timely and intelligent help.
I appeal to every employer of labor throughout the country on behalf
of this movement. I need not remind him that it is a duty, for his
own kind heart will call him with a tender care to the welfare and
safety of those whom circumstances and conditions have, for the time
being, made his own. Their well-being is his, and protection from the
inevitable dangers surrounding them will be his first care. My own
convictions assure me that this appeal will be heard and responded to.
I have known my country people--their good judgment, good hearts, and
generous natures--too well to permit a moment’s doubt.
We have established headquarters for this department at 31 East 17th
Street (Union Square), New York City, where all inquiries relative to
the Red Cross Emergency Corps and the formation of classes should be
addressed to the General Superintendent.
The plan of organization includes the formation of a finance
committee, consisting of men of national reputation, who shall have
entire charge of the funds of the Red Cross. This course is made
necessary by the increased scope of the work contemplated, and also
because it is desirable, when one returns, worn and weary, from
a field of work, that no question shall arise as to the proper
distribution of funds.
I offer no excuse for making this appeal, beyond the vast importance
of the work and the strong, ever-present desire to see that work which
has been a part of my life grow into a great beneficent institution
that shall be worthy of this country and its people; to see the Red
Cross a badge of honor and distinction, and to know that the time will
come when the active members of the American Red Cross will form the
Légion d’Honneur of the United States.
This peace-time and year-round activity of the Red Cross was a part of
Clara Barton’s programme from the first. It was a distinctive feature
of the American Red Cross, as she planned it, that its operation
should not be limited to the battle-field. Her work in time of great
calamity was taken over by European organizations, which in time went
beyond the development of the Red Cross in America, and exhibited the
full practicability of what she from the outset had believed. When
she retired from the Red Cross, she took up this work as a separate
activity; and she lived long enough to see the Red Cross, no longer
under her direction, taking up a plan which she had long advocated.
She made a little smiling comment upon it in her diary, and wished it
success.
It would have gratified Clara Barton exceedingly could she have known
that during and after the Great World War there would be organized
throughout America, under the direction of the American Red Cross,
classes for the training of people, especially women, in these and
kindred lines of service. It is one more illustration of the wisdom and
prevision of Clara Barton.
The years following her retirement found her active in the work of
the Woman’s Relief Corps, of which she had long served as national
chaplain. She was also a guest of honor at two or more National Grand
Army encampments, and was everywhere hailed as the friend of the
soldier. During these years she seemed to grow younger rather than
older. When she was past eighty-four, a newspaper reporter described
her as “a middle-aged woman.”
She made two visits to Chicago in her last years, and the visits did
not greatly weary her. The last of these visits was in May, 1910. She
was guest at a continuous round of engagements. At the May Festival of
the Social Economics Club, she shook hands with nearly two thousand
people. She attended a breakfast with eleven hundred guests and shook
hands with nearly all of them.
The author of this volume holds this visit in happy memory. It occupied
three weeks, one of which Miss Barton spent in the home of her cousin,
the author. He accompanied her to a reception given in her honor at
Abraham Lincoln Center, and saw her safely on her way to a number of
other engagements which she had promised to attend. She met innumerable
friends, many of whom called at the house to see her, and she answered
scores of letters. She rose very early in the morning and sat at her
desk until late at night, and was always calm, strong, and resolute.
She had promised to speak to the young people at their meeting on
Sunday evening; but when this arrangement became known there was a
demand for a wider hearing. She cheerfully consented to speak in the
large auditorium of the church on Sunday evening. Her voice was clear,
and filled the great room; every person present heard distinctly,
although she was almost ninety years of age. Nor did she forget to
tease her cousin a little over the fact that she spoke to more people
in the evening than he in the morning; though his morning congregation
was not a small one.
Between her engagements were frequent opportunities during that week
for visits with her. She talked calmly about all her experiences. She
reviewed her work on the battle-field during the Civil War, and spoke
with deep interest of her experiences in Constantinople where she had
been near to the scene of the earlier work of Florence Nightingale.
She talked of her religious convictions, and of the faith with which
she was facing the future. She spoke in detail about the American
Red Cross. It is only just to her memory to record that in all her
conversation there was no word of bitterness or resentment, or any
approach to jealousy as she saw that organization moving forward under
the direction of others.
She was happy, full of fun, gracious, considerate, and interested in
all that was going on in the world. When she sat in her chair at the
end of a strenuous day’s work, she rarely leaned back to touch the back
of the seat; she had a back of her own, she said.
If the author could give to his readers a truthful impression of that
visit, it would be the best possible insight into the character of
Clara Barton. She combined in the rarest possible degree self-reliance
and modesty. She knew that the work which she had done was a great
work, but it confused her when any one told her so. She responded to
every suggestion of appreciation, but she grew shy whenever she heard
herself praised. Throughout the whole visit she manifested the finest
quality of the cultured gentlewoman.
One thing she deeply regretted, and that was that her retirement had
not yet brought her sufficient leisure to sort her papers and prepare
for the writing of her biography. That such a book would be written she
fully realized, and she cared much who wrote it. She was perfectly well
in body and clear in mind, and what she hoped to do was to go through a
vast accumulation of manuscripts and make the task of writing an easier
one.
The author urged her to write the book herself, and she hoped to
continue the work which she had begun and to write the story of her
life in short sections. One such section she wrote and it is quoted in
the first volume of this present work. But she found too much to do in
helping the lives of others to pay very much attention to the record of
her own life.
So the years went by and her life-work was completed and her biography
remained unwritten. She was always thinking of another thing that
needed to be accomplished, and saying concerning it, “Until that work
is done, I cannot go to heaven.”