Bailey, Banks & Biddle, of Philadelphia, who have provided the insignia
badge for Red Cross officers, have been asked to prepare a design for
special medals to be awarded to those persons who have rendered special
volunteer and unremunerated services to the Red Cross at times of war or
disaster.
The Executive Committee are much indebted to the help that the American
Hospital Association has rendered to the American Red Cross in its
efforts to suppress the misuse of the Red Cross insignia by the passing
of resolutions against the use of this emblem by civil hospitals at the
annual convention held at Toronto, during last September. Dr. Babcock,
the Secretary, writes that the proceedings leading up to the adoption
of the resolutions will be published in the _Transactions_ and also in
_The National Hospital Record_. So many hospitals have been using the Red
Cross on tags for sale on “Tag Day” that it is a satisfaction to report
that in San Francisco the officers of The Children’s Hospital, at the
request of the California Red Cross, consented not to use the Red Cross,
but to substitute in its place the Hospital or Green Cross on the tags
and thereby earned a rich and well-deserved harvest. The resolutions
passed by the American Hospital Association reads as follows:
WHEREAS, by the terms of the Treaty of Geneva, 1864, and the revised
Treaty of Geneva, 1906, the emblem of the Greek Red Cross on a white
ground, and the words Red Cross or Geneva Cross, were adopted to
designate the personnel and material of the medical departments of the
military and naval forces and of the recognized volunteer aid societies
in time of war, for the humane purpose of rendering them immune from
attack or capture; and,
WHEREAS, the United States, as well as all other civilized powers, is a
signatory to said treaties; and,
WHEREAS, the use of the Red Cross insignia by hospitals, ambulances,
municipal health departments and commercial houses, as trade marks and
otherwise, has become so general in this country as to materially and
seriously impair the usefulness of the emblem for the purposes for which
it was created and adopted;
_Be it therefore Resolved_, That it is the sense of the American Hospital
Association that the use of the Geneva Red Cross in connection with
the hospitals and ambulances of the country, other than those of the
Army, Navy and Red Cross Society, should be discontinued and some other
insignia, to be known as the “Hospital Cross” adopted and substituted;
and,
_Be it further Resolved_, That the adoption of this resolution be given
as wide publicity as practicable in the medical journals of the country.