[Public—No. 4.]
An Act to incorporate the American National Red Cross.
Whereas, on the twenty-second of August, eighteen hundred and
sixty-four, at Geneva, Switzerland, plenipotentiaries respectively
representing Italy, Baden, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, France,
Prussia, Saxony, and Wurttemberg and the Federal Council of Switzerland,
agreed upon ten articles of a treaty or convention for the purpose of
mitigating the evils inseparable from war; of ameliorating the condition
of soldiers wounded on the field of battle, and particularly providing,
among other things, in effect, that persons employed in hospitals and in
according relief to the sick and wounded and supplies for this purpose
shall be deemed neutral and entitled to protection; and that a
distinctive and uniform flag shall be adopted for hospitals and
ambulances and convoys of sick and wounded and an arm badge for
individuals neutralized; and
Whereas, said treaty has been ratified by all of said nations, and by
others subsequently, to the number of forty-three or more, including the
United States of America; and
Whereas, the International Conference of Geneva of eighteen hundred and
sixty-three recommended “that there exist in every country a committee
whose mission consists in co-operating in times of war with the hospital
service of the armies by all means in its power”; and
Whereas, a permanent organization is an agency needed in every nation to
carry out the purposes of said treaty, and especially to secure supplies
and to execute the humane objects contemplated by said treaty, with the
power to adopt and use the distinctive flag and arm badge specified by
said treaty in article seven, on which shall be the sign of the Red
Cross, for the purpose of co-operating with the “Comité International de
Secours aux Militaires Blessés” (International Committee of Relief for
the Wounded in War); and
Whereas, in accordance with the requirements and customs of said
international body such an association adopting and using said insignia
was formed in the city of Washington, District of Columbia, in July,
eighteen hundred and eighty-one, known as “The American National
Association of the Red Cross,” re-incorporated April seventeenth,
eighteen hundred and ninety-three, under the laws of the District of
Columbia, and re-incorporated by Act of Congress in June, nineteen
hundred; and
Whereas, it is believed that the importance of the work demands a repeal
of the present charter and a re-incorporation of the society under the
Government supervision: Now, therefore,
_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_, That Clara Barton, Hilary A.
Herbert, Thomas F. Walsh, Charles C. Glover, Charles J. Bell, Mabel T.
Boardman, George Dewey, William R. Day, Nelson A. Miles, James Tanner,
William K. Van Reypen, John M. Wilson, Simon Wolf, James R. Garfield,
Gifford Pinchot, S. W. Woodward, Mary A. Logan, Walter Wyman, of
Washington, District of Columbia; George H. Shields, of Missouri;
William H. Taft, F. B. Loomis, Samuel Mather, of Ohio; Spencer Trask,
Robert C. Ogden, Cleveland H. Dodge, George C. Boldt, William T.
Wardwell, John G. Carlisle, George B. McClellan, Elizabeth Mills Reid,
Margaret Carnegie, of New York; John H. Converse, Alexander
Mackay-Smith, J. Wilkes O’Neill, H. Kirke Porter, of Pennsylvania;
Richard Olney, W. Murray Crane, Henry L. Higginson, William Draper,
Frederick H. Gillett, of Massachusetts; Marshall Field, Robert T.
Lincoln, Lambert Tree, of Illinois; A. C. Kaufman, of South Carolina;
Alexander W. Terrell, of Texas; George Gray, of Delaware; Redfield
Proctor, of Vermont; John W. Foster, Noble C. Butler, Robert W. Miers,
of Indiana; John Sharp Williams, of Mississippi; William Alden Smith, of
Michigan; Horace Davis, W. W. Morrow, of California; Daniel C. Gilman,
Eugene Levering, of Maryland; J. Taylor Ellyson, of Virginia; Daniel R.
Noyes, of Minnesota; Emanuel Fiske, Marshall Fiske, of Connecticut,
together with five other persons to be named by the President of the
United States, one to be chosen from each of the Departments of State,
War, Navy, Treasury, and Justice, their associates and successors, are
hereby created a body corporate and politic in the District of Columbia.
Sec. 2. That the name of this corporation shall be “The American
National Red Cross,” and by that name shall have perpetual succession,
with the power to sue and be sued in courts of law and equity within the
jurisdiction of the United States; to have and to hold such real and
personal estate as shall be deemed advisable and to accept bequests for
the purposes of this corporation hereinafter set forth; to adopt a seal
and the same to alter and destroy at pleasure; and to have the right to
have and to use, in carrying out its purposes hereinafter designated, as
an emblem and badge, a Greek red cross on a white ground, as the same
has been described in the Treaty of Geneva, August twenty-second,
eighteen hundred and sixty-four, and adopted by the several nations
acceding thereto; to ordain and establish bylaws and regulations not
inconsistent with the laws of the United States of America or any State
thereof, and generally to do all such acts and things (including the
establishment of regulations for the election of associates and
successors) as may be necessary to carry into effect the provisions of
this Act and promote the purposes of said organization; and the
corporation hereby created is designated as the organization which is
authorized to act in matters of relief under said treaty. In accordance
with Article seven of the treaty, the delivery of the brassard allowed
for individuals neutralized in time of war shall be left to military
authority.