their convention or meeting, have still contained some well chosen word
which might imply a question, if indeed the Red Cross really were the
humane and philanthropic institution it claimed to be; naturally the
address usually dealt with the question as it was put.
I name these facts as mere relics of the past, amusing now, but
instructive to you of the present day (when no child even questions the
motives of the Red Cross), as showing what it had to meet and live
through in order to live at all.
In order to show the enthusiastic devotees of the present year how
questionable the beneficence of the Red Cross appeared to the best
people only a few years ago, I introduce the following address, read, by
request, before a congress of women, 1895 or 1896, hoping that the
charitably disposed reader will understand and appreciate the state of
mind engendered by the title of the request made, and forgive any
seeming acerbity:
ADDRESS.
WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RED CROSS IN ITS RELATION
TO PHILANTHROPY?
I am asked to say something upon the "Significance of the Red Cross in
its Relation to Philanthropy." I am not sure that I understand precisely
what is desired.
If a morning paper should announce that three or four of the greatest
political bosses or greatest railroad kings in the country had quietly
met somewhere, and sat with closed doors till long after midnight, and
then silently departed, people would ask, "What is the significance of
that? What mischief have they been devising in secret?" In that sense of
the word, _significance_--which is a very common one--the Red Cross has
none that I ever heard of. It has no rich offices to bestow, no
favorites to reward, no enemies to punish. It has no secrets to keep, no
mystic word or sign. Its proceedings would, and do, make a valuable
library, accessible to all men and all women from Norway to New Zealand.
I will not say that it is so simple and common in character that he who
runs may read, but surely she who desires information can sit down, read
and obtain it. The Red Cross has been quietly doing its work for thirty
years and is now established in forty independent nations. No other
institution on earth, not even Christianity, has a public recognition so
nearly universal. None has ever adhered more closely to its one single
purpose of alleviating human suffering. Has that any significance or any
connection with philanthropy? Let us see.
An institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in
the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human
suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness. I suppose it is a
philanthropic movement to try to reverse the process. Christianity,
temperance and sanitary regulations in general are examples. Great evils
die hard; and all that has yet been done is to keep them within as
narrow limits as possible. Of these great evils, war is one. War is in
its very nature cruel--the very embodiment of cruelty in its
effects--not necessarily in the hearts of the combatants. Baron Macaulay
thought it not a mitigation but an aggravation of the evil, that men of
tender culture and humane feelings, with no ill will, should stand up
and kill each other. But men do not go to war to save life. They might
save life by keeping the peace and staying at home. They go solely with
intent to inflict so much pain, loss and disaster on the enemy that he
will yield to their terms. All their powers to hurt are focused upon
him.
In a moving army the elements of destruction, armed men and munitions of
war, have the right of way; and the means of preserving and sustaining
even their own lives are left to bring up the rear as they best can.
Hence, when the shock and crash of battle is over, and troops are
advancing or retreating and all roads are blocked, and the medical staff
trying to force its way through with supplies, prompt and adequate
relief can scarcely ever reach the wounded. The darkness of night comes
down upon them like a funeral pall, as they lie in their blood, tortured
with thirst and traumatic fever. The memory of such scenes set a kindly
Swiss gentleman to thinking of ways and means for alleviating their
horrors. In time, and by efforts whose history must be familiar to many
of you, there resulted the Geneva Convention for the relief of the sick
and wounded of armies. I shall not trace its history, as it seems to be
more to the present purpose to explain briefly what it proposed to do,
and how it proceeded to do it.
The convention found two prime evils to consider. First, the existence
of war itself; second, the vast amount of needless cruelty it inflicted
upon its victims. For the first of these, with the world full of
standing armies, every boundary line of nations fixed and held by the
sword, and the traditions of four thousand years behind its customs, the
framers of the convention, however earnest and devoted, could scarcely
hope to find an immediate, if indeed, a perceptible mitigation. Only
time, prolonged effort, national economics, universal progress and the
pressure of public opinion could ever hope to grapple with this monster
evil of the ages.
But the second--if it were not possible to dispense with the needless
cruelties heretofore inflicted upon the victims of war, thus relieving
human misery to that extent, seemed to the framers of the convention a
reasonable question to be considered. This is what it proposed to do. A
few sentences will explain how it proceeded to do it.
A convention was called at Geneva, Switzerland, for the fourth of
August, 1864, to be composed of delegates accredited by the heads of the
governments of the world, who should discuss the practices of war and
ascertain to what extent the restraints of the established military code
in its dealing with the sick and wounded of armies were needful for the
benefit of the service; and to what extent they were needless, of
benefit to no one, causing only suffering, of no strength to the
service, and might be done away with; and to what extent war-making
powers could agree to enter into a legal compact to that end. The
consideration, discussion and concessions of two weeks produced a
proposed agreement which took the form of a compound treaty, viz: A
treaty of one government with many governments--the first ever made--a
compact known as the Treaty of Geneva, for the relief of the sick and
wounded in war.
Its basis was neutrality. It made neutral all sick, wounded, or disabled
soldiers at a field; all persons, as surgeons, nurses and attendants,
who cared for them; all supplies of medicine or food for their use; all
field and military hospitals with their equipments; all gifts from
neutral nations for the use of the sick and wounded of any army; all
houses near a battlefield that would receive and nurse wounded men: none
of these should be subject to capture. It provided for the sending of
wounded men to their homes, rather than to prison; that friend and foe
should be nursed together and alike in all military hospitals; and, most
of all, that the people who had always been forcibly restrained from
approaching any field of action for purposes of relief, however needed
(with the single exception of our Sanitary Commission, and that under
great difficulties and often under protest) should not only be allowed
this privilege, but should arm and equip themselves with relief of all
kinds, with the right to enter the lines for the helpless; thus
relieving not alone the wounded and dying, but the armies of their care.
It provided a universal sign by which all this relief, both of persons
and material, should be designated and known. A Greek red cross on a
field of white should tell any soldier of any country within the treaty
that the wearer was his friend and could be trusted; and to any officer
of any army that he was legitimately there and not subject to capture.
Some forty nations are in that treaty, and from every military hospital
in every one of these nations floats the same flag; and every active
soldier in all their armies knows that he can neither capture nor harm
the shelter beneath it, though it be but a little "A" tent in the
enemy's lines, and every disabled man knows it is his rescue and his
home.
It may be interesting to know the formula of this compact. It recognizes
one head, the International Committee of Geneva, Switzerland, through
which all communications are made. One national head in each country
which receives such communications, transmitting them to its government.
The ratifying power of the treaty is the Congress of Berne. The
organization in each nation receives from its government its high moral
sanction and recognition, but is in no way supported or materially aided
by it. _The Red Cross means not national aid for the needs of the
people, but the people's aid for the needs of the nation._ The awakening
patriotism of the last few years should, I think, make this feature more
readily apprehended.
As the foreign nations furnish the only illustrations of the value and
material aid of the Red Cross in war, let us glance at what it has
accomplished.
The first important war after the birth of the Treaty of Geneva, was
between Germany, Italy and Austria. Austria had not, at that time,
entered the treaty, and yet its objects were understood and its spirit
found a responsive chord in the hearts of the people. Over $400,000,
beside a great amount of material, were collected by that country, and
made use of for the relief of the combatants. Italy was fairly well
organized and rendered excellent service, furnishing much substantial
assistance. Germany, which was in the vanguard of the treaty nations,
was thoroughly organized and equipped. She was the first to demonstrate
the true idea of the Red Cross--people's aid for national, for military,
necessity. Great storehouses had been provided at central points, where
vast supplies were collected. In an incredibly short time, between
$3,000,000 and $4,000,000 were raised for relief purposes, and large
numbers of volunteers came to help the already organized corps of
workers. Great trains of supplies were sent to the front. The wounded
enemy was tenderly cared for, and everything was accomplished so well
and so systematically, that it proved the incalculable value of
organized, authorized, civil aid. French and Swiss Red Cross workers
also rendered great assistance, this being the first instance of
neutrals taking an active part.
In the Franco-Prussian War the German Red Cross performed even better
service, it having learned many valuable lessons in the German-Austrian
conflict, and through their efforts an infinite amount of good was
accomplished and great suffering averted. Not only were the wounded and
sick soldiers tenderly cared for, but the unprovided families of
soldiers were also supplied. The French Red Cross at the breaking out of
the war was poorly organized and penniless. Within one month, however,
hospitals had been established, ambulances and a large amount of field
supplies were at the front, with a considerable relief force to care for
the sick and wounded. The French Association, not including the branches
in the provinces, spent over $2,000,000 and assisted 110,000 wounded.
Many neutral Red Cross nations assisted in rendering aid and relief in
this great war. England alone sent a million and a half dollars, besides
twelve hundred cases of stores. Eighty-five thousand sick, wounded and
famishing French soldiers entered Switzerland, and were cared for by the
Central Committee at Berne. The International Committee at Geneva, in
one instance, asked for and obtained 2500 seriously wounded French
soldiers, supplied their wants, and sent them to their own country.
In the great Russo-Turkish War, the Red Cross of Russia, splendidly
equipped, with ample means and royal patronage, was, at the beginning of
hostilities, greatly hampered by the jealousy of the military. The
relief organizations were assigned places well in the rear; but ere many
months had passed the military surgeons gladly accepted the Red Cross
aid, and colossal work did it perform. Over $13,000,000 were raised, and
all that was necessary spent in supplying relief. The neutral Red Cross
countries furnished valuable assistance in this war also.
In the recent war between Japan and China, you undoubtedly read of the
wonderful work performed by the Japanese Red Cross. This society
followed the precedent of Germany, in tenderly caring for the wounded
enemy, even though fighting against a nation not in the treaty. Japan
had a cruel, merciless enemy to fight, and yet her soldiers were
instructed to have respect even for a dead enemy.
It is needless to give further illustrations; history records the
wonderful achievements of this greatest of relief organizations, though
it cannot record the untold suffering which has been averted by it.
Is the Red Cross a humanitarian organization? What is the significance
of the Red Cross? I leave these two questions for you to answer.
But war, although the most tragic, is not the only evil that assails
humanity. War has occurred in the United States four times in one
hundred and twenty years. Four times its men have armed and marched, and
its women waited and wept. That is on an average of one war every thirty
years. It is now a little over thirty years since the last hostile gun
was fired; we fondly hope it may be many years before there is another.
A machine, even a human machine, called into active service only once in
thirty years is liable to get out of working order; hence to keep it in
condition for use, no less than for the possible good it might do, the
American Society of the Red Cross asked to have included in its charter
the privilege of rendering such aid as it could in great public
calamities, as fires, floods, cyclones, famines and pestilence.
In a time of profound peace that has been the only possible field of
activity. It is not for me to say whether that field has been
successfully cultivated, but a few of the facts will determine whether
the innovation upon the treaty will commend itself to your judgment, as
it has to those of the older societies of Europe.
Naturally it required not only diplomacy but arguments to obtain a
privilege never before officially considered in the unbroken customs of
an international treaty. They must be submitted to a foreign congress.
The same argument pertained fifteen years ago that pertains to-day,
namely, that in all our vast territory, subject to incalculable
disasters, with all our charitable, humane and benevolent associations,
there was not one which had for its object and duty to hold itself in
preparation and training to meet and relieve the woes of these
overmastering disasters. All would gladly aid, but there were none to
lead. Everybody's business was nobody's business, and the stricken
victims perished.
We asked that under the Red Cross Constitution of the United States its
national organization should be permitted to act in the capacity of Red
Cross relief agents, treating a national disaster like a field of
battle, proceed to it at once with experienced help, equipped with all
the needful supplies and means to commence relief, overlook and learn
the needs of the field, make immediate statements of the true condition
and wants to the people of the country, who, knowing the presence of the
Red Cross there, could, if desirable, make it the medium of their
contributions for relief either in money or material. To relieve the
necessities in every way possible, keep the people at large in
possession of reliable information, hold the field until relief has been
given, and retire when all needed aid has been rendered. This privilege
was graciously granted by the ratifying Congress at Berne, and is known
as the "American amendment" of the Red Cross. Nations since that date,
on becoming signatory to the treaty, have included that amendment in
their charters.
This is the principle upon which we have acted. The affording of relief
to the victims of great disasters anywhere in the United States, is what
the National Red Cross has proceeded to do, and it has confined itself
strictly to its privileges, acting only in disasters so great as to be
national. It never asks aid; never makes an appeal; it simply makes
statements of the real condition of the sufferers, leaving the people
free to exercise their own humanity through any medium they may prefer.
In the thirteen years of relief work by the Red Cross in the United
States, every dollar and every pound that has been received and
distributed by it, has been the free-will offering of the people, given
for humanity without solicitation, and dispensed without reward. It has
received nothing from the government. No fund has been created for it.
No contributions have been made except those to be distributed as relief
at its fields. Its officers serve without pay. There is not, nor ever
was, a salaried officer in it, and even its headquarters meets its own
costs. Among the various appropriations made by Congress for relief of
calamities in the past years, as in great river floods, not a dollar so
appropriated has ever been applied through the Red Cross, although
working on the same field. I name these facts, not by way of complaint,
or even comment, but to correct popular errors of belief, which I know
you would prefer to have corrected. True to its method, this is simply a
statement of the real condition of things, and left to the choice of the
people--the Red Cross itself is theirs, created for them, and it is
peculiarly their privilege to deal with it as they will.
The following list of calamities with the approximate value of material
furnished, as well as money, will give you some appreciation of the
services rendered in the cause of humanity by the American National Red
Cross. Limit of time and space forbids even an attempt at description of
its various fields. I can only name the most important, with estimated
values distributed on each:
Michigan Forest Fires, 1881, material and money $ 80,000
Mississippi Floods, 1882, money and seeds 8,000
Mississippi Floods, 1883, material and seeds 18,500
Mississippi Cyclone, 1883, money 1,000
Balkan War, 1883, money 500
Ohio and Mississippi Floods, 1884, feed for stock and
people, clothing, tools, house furnishings 175,000
Texas Famine, 1885, appropriations and contributions on
statements made upon personal investigation 120,000
Charleston Earthquake, 1886, money 500
Mt Vernon, Ill., Cyclone, 1888, money and supplies 85,000
Florida Yellow Fever, 1888, physicians and nurses 15,000
Johnstown Disaster, 1889, money and all kinds of material,
buildings and furnishings 250,000
Russian Famine, 1891-92, mainly food 125,000
Pomeroy, Iowa, Cyclone, 1893, money and nurses 2,700
South Carolina Islands, 1893-94, money and all kinds of
supplies and materials, tools, seeds, lumber, etc 65,000
--------
$946,200
Only about one-eighth of the above estimates represent cash; the balance
represents material.
In each of these emergencies something has been added to the sum of
human happiness, something subtracted from the sum of human woe; the
naked have been clothed, the hungry fed, new homes have sprung up from
the desolated ruins, crops revived, and activities and business
relations resumed. In a neighboring State and its adjacent islands
scarcely two hundred miles distant from this, could to-day be found
several thousand human beings, living in their homes, enjoying their
family lives, following their ordinary avocations, cultivating the
ground, who, if asked, would unhesitatingly tell you that but for the
help of the Red Cross, they would two years ago have been under the
ground they now cultivate.
If the alleviation of human miseries, the saving of life, and the
bringing of helplessness and dependence back to methods of
self-sustenance and independence are counted among the philanthropic
movements of the day, then to us, who have seen so much and worked so
long and so hard among it, it would seem that the Red Cross movement
has some "significance" in connection with philanthropy.
There remains but one question more. To whom is this movement due? Who
instituted it? In what minds did it originate? I wish I could say it was
all woman's work; but the truth compels the fact that this great, humane
idea originated with men; the movement was instituted by them. They
thought it out, and they wrought it out, and it was only meet and proper
that they should, for the terrible evil that made it necessary was
theirs as well. Women as a rule are not war-makers. For centuries the
caprices of men have plunged the world in strife, covered the earth's
surface with armies, and enriched its soil with the best blood that ever
flowed in human veins. It is only right that at length, in the cycle of
ages, something should touch man's heart and set him humbly down to find
out some way of mending as much of his mischief as he could. Perhaps he
"builded better than he knew," for in that one effort he touched the
spring that sooner or later will mend it all. No grander or truer
prophecy has ever been made than uttered in that first convention: "_The
Red Cross shall teach war to make war upon itself._" It is the most
practical and effective peace-maker and civilizer in the known world. It
reaches where nothing else can. If proof of this be wanting, study the
action of Japan in its late war.
But is man doing this work alone? No--gladly, no! Scarcely had he made
his first move, when the jeweled hands of royal woman glistened beside
him, and right royally have they borne their part. Glance at the
galaxy--the great leader and exemplar of them all, Empress Augusta of
Germany, her illustrious daughter, the Grand Duchess of Baden, Eugenia,
Empress Frederick, Victoria and Princess Louise of England, Margherita
of Italy, Natalia of Servia and the entire Court of Russia, and to-day
the present Empress of Germany, and the hard-working Empress of Japan,
with her faithful, weary court, even now busy in the hospitals of
convalescing Chinese. The various auxiliary societies of women of all
the principal Red Cross nations are a pride and a glory to humanity.
These nations have all two important features in their movement, which,
thus far, have not been accorded to us. Their governments have
instituted laws protecting the insignia and name of the Red Cross from
misuse and abuse as trademarks by unscrupulous venders, and
appropriation by false societies for dishonest purposes. This lack, and
this alone, has thus far rendered general organization in the United
States impracticable and unsafe. For seven years the most strenuous
efforts at protection have failed; the loss has been to the people in
general.
The second advantage of other nations is that citizens, the men of
wealth in those countries, have created a Red Cross fund for its use,
varying in amounts from a hundred thousand to several millions of
dollars. Russia, I believe, has a fund of some three millions. It seems
never to have occurred to our wealth-burdened men that possibly a little
satisfaction might be gained, some good accomplished, and some credit
done the nation by a step in that direction. It will dawn upon them some
day, not, perhaps, in mine, but in some of yours, and then, ladies, you
can well join hands with them, and discern more clearly than now the
"significance of the Red Cross as related to philanthropy."
THE MICHIGAN FOREST FIRES.
It may be necessary to recall to the mind of the person reading these
pages hastily, the fact that the National Red Cross of America was
formed nearly a year before the accession to the treaty. This was done
by the advice of President Garfield, in order to aid as far as possible
the accession. "Accordingly a meeting was held in Washington, D.C., May
21, 1881, which resulted in the formation of an association to be known
as the American National Association of the Red Cross."