Chapter III: Part 3: Guide and Adviser 66 (2)

Clara Barton arrived in Great Britain in late August 1869 with no definite plans. Her doctors had ordered rest and a change of scene. She toured London, visited Paris, then proceeded to Geneva. She thought she might stay in Switzerland, but the depressing fall weather changed her mind; she moved to Corsica, seeking sun and wishing to visit the haunts of her longtime hero, Napoleon I.

She was ill, edgy, and demanding. Corsica, although beautiful, did not suit her and by March she was back in Geneva. Here, by chance, she was introduced to Dr. Louis Appia, a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross. This organization was the result of the Geneva Convention of 1864, which produced a treaty dealing with the treatment of wounded and sick soldiers, prisoners of war, and civilians under wartime conditions. The convention was inspired by a book entitled _Un Souvenir de Solferino_ (A Memory of Solferino), in which author Jean-Henri Dunant described the horrors of the Battle of Solferino. At the time of her meeting with Appia, she had not heard of the Geneva Convention nor of Dunant. When she finally read Dunant’s work, she must have identified strongly with it, for he expressed perfectly the concern for the individual which had prompted Barton’s Civil War aid: “A son idolized by his parents, brought up and cherished for years by a loving mother who trembled with alarm over his slightest ailment; a brilliant officer beloved by his family, with wife and children at home; a young soldier who had left sweetheart or mother, sisters or old father to go to war; all lie stretched in the mud and dust, drenched in their own blood.”

At their first meeting, Appia asked Barton why the United States had not signed the Treaty of Geneva. A U.S. delegate, Charles Bowles, had been at the Geneva Convention, and Dr. Henry Bellows, president of the Sanitary Commission, had urged the government to accede to the treaty. But the United States remained the only major nation that had not accepted the international pact. Barton said a key factor was probably the American public’s almost total ignorance about the treaty, and she asked Appia to provide her with further information about the International Red Cross.

Barton soon found reason, in her words, “to respect the cause and appreciate the work of the Geneva Convention.” On July 19, 1870, France declared war on Prussia. She was restless and excited by hearing guns at practice and wrote to Appia, offering her services to the Red Cross. Before he could reply, however, she made her way to Basel, Switzerland, where she worked with Red Cross volunteers making bandages. This tame work exasperated her. “It is not like me, nor like my past to be sitting quietly where I can just watch the sky reddening with the fires of a bombarded city and ... have [nothing] to do with it.” Despite her frustration, Barton’s work in Basel gave her great respect for the garnering power of the Red Cross. Its warehouses were stocked with supplies of all kinds, and trained nurses and clerks wearing Red Cross armbands stood ready to assist. “I ... saw the work of these Red Cross societies in the field, accomplishing in four months under this systematic organization what we failed to accomplish in four years without it—no mistakes, no needless suffering, no starving, no lack of care, no waste, no confusion, but order, plenty, cleanliness, and comfort wherever that little flag made its way, a whole continent marshalled under the banner of the Red Cross—as I saw all this, and joined and worked in it, you will not wonder that I said to myself, ‘If I live to return to my country, I will try to make my people understand the Red Cross and that treaty.’”

The opportunity to be useful and to forget petty irritants restored her health. “I am so glad to be able to work once more,” she told her cousin, Elvira Stone, “I _have_ worked ... all year, and grown stronger and better.” She then made her way toward the battlefields of France accompanied by Antoinette Margot, a young Swiss woman. On their way toward Mulhouse, where several battles had been reported, they met hundreds of refugees who pleaded with them to turn back. But when they encountered trouble from German troops, Barton brought out a sewing kit and speedily tacked a cross of red ribbon onto the sleeve of her dress. Thus began her first service under the Red Cross badge, which she would wear long and proudly.

Barton was disappointed to learn that she was not needed at the front, but she found her niche elsewhere. As she traveled through France, she wrote to newspaper editor Horace Greeley that she had seen deserted fields, “crops spoiled ... by both friend and foe. Her producing population stands under arms or wasting in prisons—her hungry cattle slain for food or rotting of disease—her homes deserted or smouldering in ashes.” When Louise, grand duchess of Baden and a Red Cross patron, asked her to help establish hospitals and distribute clothing to destitute civilians, she undertook the work with zeal.

Barton’s accomplishments during the Franco-Prussian War lay mainly in aid to civilians. Her most notable work was in Strasbourg, where she used her powers of organization and publicity to establish a sewing center to clothe the city’s destitute population. In a letter to a generous English philanthropist in May 1871, she wrote: “Thousands who are well to-day will rot with smallpox and be devoured by body-lice before the end of August. Against ... these two scourges there is, I believe, no check but the destruction of all infected garments; hence the imperative necessity for something to take their place. Excuse, sir, I pray you, the plain ugly terms which I have employed to express myself; the facts are plain and ugly.”

_Continues on page 40_

Jean-Henri Dunant and the Geneva Convention

On June 24, 1859, forces commanded by French Emperor Napoleon III and
Austria’s Emperor Franz Josef, met on the battlefield of Solferino, in
Northern Italy. More than 40,000 men were killed or wounded in the
battle, and towns and villages throughout the area became temporary,
crude hospitals. In nearby Castiglione, a stranger, dressed in white,
watched with horror as dazed and suffering soldiers were slowly
brought from the battlefield only to be met with a shortage of
doctors, inadequate accommodations, and an appalling lack of food and
supplies. With spirit and speed “the man in white” began to recruit
local peasants for volunteer service and to procure badly needed
bandages, water, and food.

The “man in white”—Jean-Henri Dunant—was not new to philanthropic
endeavors. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1828, he came of a
well-to-do family with a strong religious background and a tradition
of public service. As a young man Dunant had been an instigator of the
movement that created the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA),
which he hoped would promote fellowship and understanding between
young men of many cultural backgrounds. Until the age of 30, Dunant
was a banker, with business interests throughout Europe and Northern
Africa. In June of 1859, these financial affairs took him to
Castiglione.

In a sense, Dunant never completely left Solferino. The many startling
scenes he witnessed there continued to crowd his mind. “What haunted
me,” wrote Dunant, “was the memory of the terrible condition of the
thousands of wounded.” This horrible remembrance of men dying, often
for want of the simplest care, inspired him to publish in 1862 a vivid
account of the battle and its consequences. The book was called _Un
Souvenir de Solferino_ (A Memory of Solferino).

The realistic descriptions, and the compassion for the individual
soldier shown in Dunant’s book created an immediate sensation in
Europe. _Un Souvenir de Solferino_ wasted little space on the
traditional “glories” of war; Dunant was more interested in the plight
of the “simple troopers ... [who] suffered without complaint ... [and]
... died humbly and quietly.” The book advocated a radically new
concept of charitable action: that all of the wounded, friend and foe
alike, should be cared for. He had been inspired, said Dunant, by the
Italian peasant women who murmured “tutti fratelli” (all are brothers)
while treating the hated Austrians. Near the end of the book was a
brief paragraph, destined to have dramatic impact on the humanitarian
efforts of the world: “Would it not be possible,” wrote Dunant, “in
time of peace and quiet, to form relief societies for the purpose of
having care given to the wounded in wartime of zealous, devoted and
thoroughly qualified volunteers?”

The simple question may have been overlooked by readers caught up in
the battle scenes of _Un Souvenir de Solferino_. But it caught the
imagination of one influential man: Gustav Moynier, a citizen of
Geneva who headed the charitable “Committee for the Public Benefit.”
Moynier introduced a practical direction to Dunant’s dreams. He
contacted Dunant, and together they established a committee, headed by
Moynier, and including the commanding general of the Swiss Army,
Guillaume Dufour. Two distinguished doctors, Louis Appia and Theodore
Maunoir, completed the “Committee of Five.” This committee immediately
began plans for an international convention to discuss the treatment
of the wounded in wartime.

In February 1863, 16 nations met in Geneva to discuss “the relief of
wounded armies in the field.” Dunant’s proposals were debated and an
informal list of agreements was drawn up. This agreement established
the national volunteer agencies for relief in war. Then, in August
1864 a second conference was held which produced the international
pact, known as the Treaty of Geneva. The treaty rendered “neutral and
immune from injury in war the sick and wounded and all who cared for
them.” To distinguish the neutral medical personnel, supplies and
sick, an international badge was needed. Out of respect for Dunant and
the country which had been host of the conventions, the design adopted
was that of the reversed Swiss flag. Those working under the Treaty of
Geneva would thereafter be recognized by the emblem of a red cross on
a white flag. The United States signed this treaty on March 16, 1882.

Jean-Henri Dunant’s generous dream had been fulfilled, but he obtained
no glory or recognition for many years. Dunant had neglected his
business interests while promoting the Geneva conventions. By 1867 he
was bankrupt and spent most of his remaining life a pauper.

However, Dunant did live to receive, jointly with Frederic Passy, the
first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. It was a fitting tribute to the man
who, in the words of Gustav Moynier, “opened the eyes of the blind,
moved the hearts of the indifferent, and virtually effected in the
intellectual and moral realm the reformation to which [he] aspired.”

Barton did not confine her activity to Strasbourg. After eight months work, she left her sewing establishment in the hands of local officials and journeyed to Paris where she distributed clothing, money, and comfort to citizens. From Paris she went to Lyons and surveyed the surrounding countryside for a relief headquarters, finally settling in Belfort. This small border town had heroically withstood Prussian fire for more than eight months. The people were “very poor and their ignorance ... something deplorable,” noted Antoinette Margot. Many of the citizens had never seen paper money—so Barton used only coins—and less than one in 15 could write his name. Her activities were still loosely tied to the Red Cross, but in most cases she used her own judgment to come to terms with the destitution she found. Money was given according to need, solace indiscriminately. Desperate mobs often stormed the home of “Monsieur l’Administrateur” in which she was staying; assistant Margot was “amused ... to see Miss Barton _protecting her policemen_” and pacifying the crowds with her dignified bearing and calm admonition to “wait a little and be quiet.” Barton tried to help the anxious families of prisoners who had lost their means of support and provided some relief for the French leaving German-occupied Alsace. Margot later remarked that she wished “that her own people could see their country-woman at work among European poor as not one European has done.”

When the hostilities between France and Prussia ended, and with it the need for Barton’s help, her health again declined. Despite the decorations of several governments, she was despondent. Her eyes gave out, her nerves collapsed. She had over-taxed herself in nerve-shattering situations, and she suffered, in part, because she had never really learned to care for herself. Troubled throughout her life by insomnia, she often worked on four or five hours sleep. A sometimes vegetarian, she took no pains to correctly nourish herself; dinner was too often a large red apple or nothing at all. It is understandable, in the light of this negligence and spiritual decline, that she suffered a relapse into her old nervous disorders.

For a time Barton stayed in Germany. She then traveled with friends throughout Italy, a tour highlighted by a visit to Mt. Vesuvius. In May 1872, she visited the Riviera and traveled via Paris to London. Though somewhat improved, she was still weak, and her restlessness increased daily. She stayed in London for more than a year, made many friends, enjoyed horse shows and Madame Tussaud’s, and took part in a congress on prison reform. But all the time she pondered her fate, bemoaned the sacrifice of her time, and let small incidents unduly rankle. For a while she considered writing for newspapers, but she felt too listless. Visits from a niece, from the grand duchess of Baden, who had become her devoted friend, and from Antoinette Margot could not rouse her. Finally, on September 30, 1873, she sailed on the _Parthia_ for the United States, still worried and uncertain about her future. “Have ye place, each beloved one, a place in your prayer,” she plaintively asked in a poem written aboard the _Parthia_, “Have ye work, my brave countrymen, work for me there?”

Barton hoped to recover her spirits in America. Unfortunately, only a few months after her return, she received word that her sister, Sally, was critically ill. She hurried from Washington, D.C., to Oxford, Massachusetts, only to find that Sally’s death had preceded her arrival by hours. This blow was devastating; she collapsed utterly. A year later, still shaky and depressed, she faced the death of Henry Wilson, her political ally and close friend.

Barton was in serious need of a restful atmosphere. Through a young woman in Worcester she learned of a sanitarium at Dansville, New York, where the patients were treated with a popular “water cure.” There she found “congenial society, wholesome and simple food, and an atmosphere that believed health to be possible.” Her health did indeed improve at Dansville. She eventually bought a house there, and made the small town her home for the next ten years. She participated in plays, attended and gave lectures, went on outings with other patients, and enjoyed her position as the town’s most celebrated citizen. And, after one of her lectures, she met one of the most influential people in her life: Julian Hubbell, a young chemistry teacher at Dansville Seminary. They became friends, and when she told him of the Treaty of Geneva and how she hoped for its adoption in the United States, Hubbell asked what he could do to help. “Get a degree in medicine,” she advised, and Hubbell complied. He left his teaching position and entered the University of Michigan medical school in 1878.

Julian Hubbell remained uncompromisingly loyal to Barton. When the American Red Cross was established, he became its chief field agent. As such he participated in more actual relief work than she did. His skillful organization and quiet control were directly responsible for much of the success of the early Red Cross. Upon her resignation, he too gave up his career.

In the late 1870s, Barton began to be active again in political affairs. Her long interest in women’s rights was re-kindled, especially by Harriet Austin, a doctor at the sanitarium. For a time, Barton adopted the mode of Austin’s dress reform—loose, corsetless garments, which included baggy trousers. It pleased her to “shed flannels” and dress “just as free and easy as a gentleman, with lots of pockets, and perambulate around to suit herself.” In 1876 she advocated a series of dress reform meetings and helped Susan B. Anthony compile biographies of noted women. In 1878, she participated in suffrage conventions in Washington, D.C., and Rochester, New York.

As Barton’s health improved she also renewed her interest in establishing the Red Cross in the United States. She knew that her first step was to obtain the official sanction of the International Red Cross Committee and spent much of 1877 and 1878 corresponding with Dr. Louis Appia about a plan for promoting the Red Cross. Always jealous of her position as sole representative of the cause, Barton was not above discrediting both Charles Bowles and Henry Bellows, early advocates of the Red Cross in America. Bowles is “utterly unreliable ... and ... never worthy of confidence,” Barton wrote to Appia, and Bellows “wears [his title of representative] as an easy honor, and it never occurs to him that he is retarding the progress of the world.” Neither allegation was true. But Barton gained the official blessing of the international committee, and as their representative began her crusade for ratification of the Treaty of Geneva.

Her first concern was to educate the public, for she had found that “the knowledge of [the] society and its great objects in this country ... is almost unknown, and the Red Cross in America is a mystery.” In 1878, she published a small pamphlet entitled “What the Red Cross Is.” She realized that the American public did not expect to be engaged in another war and emphasized peacetime uses of the Red Cross. Red Cross action against natural disasters had actually been proposed by Henri Dunant in the third edition of _Un Souvenir de Solferino_, but in her pamphlet she gave it priority. “To afford ready succor and assistance in time of national or widespread calamities, to gather and dispense the profuse liberality of our people, without waste of time or material, requires the wisdom that comes of experience and permanent organization.”

Barton also began mentioning the Treaty of Geneva in occasional lectures to veterans and local citizens. She wrote persuasively to influential friends, such as Benjamin F. Butler, and former minister to France Elihu B. Washburne. “I am not only a patriotic but a proud woman,” she told Washburne, “and our position on this matter is a subject of mortification to me. I am humbled to see the United States stand with the barbarous nations of the world, outside the pale of civilization.” Other friends, among them Frances Dana Gage and Mrs. Hannah Shepard, wrote articles advocating establishment of the Red Cross. Barton labored many hours to translate, write, and explain materials on the Red Cross to influential men in New York and Washington.

The same year, 1878, she presented information concerning the Red Cross to President Rutherford B. Hayes. She also delivered an invitation to the United States from International Red Cross president Gustav Moynier to join the association. But she found little enthusiasm in the Hayes administration. A fear of “entangling alliances” with other countries still prevailed and the State Department shied away from permanent treaties. Furthermore, the treaty had previously been submitted by Dr. Bellows, and the Grant Administration had rejected it. Hayes considered the subject closed.

When a Congressional joint resolution to ratify the Treaty of Geneva was tabled early in 1879, she shelved her own plans for a while, traveled between New York State and Washington, D.C., lectured some, and entertained relatives at her Dansville home. But she remained alert for an opportunity, and when James A. Garfield ran for President in 1880, she campaigned in his behalf. With his election that November, she hoped for a more sympathetic administration. To her relief, she found both Garfield and Secretary of State James Blaine interested. Plans were made to submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification, and she continued to lobby senators.

In June 1881, with success in sight, Barton and a few friends formed the first American Association of the Red Cross. She was elected president, an office she originally planned to keep only until the Treaty of Geneva was signed. The organization’s main purpose at this stage was to promote adoption of the treaty, without which the body had no international authority or recognition. The first local chapter of the American Red Cross, and the first to give actual aid, was established at Dansville, New York, in August 1881.

Even with the organization established, Barton’s trials were not over. The assassination of President Garfield in the summer of 1881 deterred the process of ratification by several months. She also was concerned about the many rival organizations that were mushrooming around her. The “Red Star,” “Red Crescent,” and “White Cross” all appeared. One group, the “Blue Anchor,” posed a threat to the treaty ratification, for several senators’ wives belonged to it and were openly hostile to her. The rival charities irritated her, and she let herself indulge in self-pity and undue alarm. “There is in all the world, not one person who will come and work beside me to establish the justice of a good cause,” she wrote. “It is only natural that I should long to be out of the human surroundings which care so little for me.”

Barton need not have worried so much. The new President, Chester A. Arthur, was an advocate of the Red Cross, and when she called upon the Secretary of State early in 1882 he showed her the treaty, already printed, awaiting only the recommendations of the Senate and official signatures. As she read it, Barton began to weep, for, as a cousin remarked, “her life and hope were bound up in it.” On March 16, 1882, she received a note from Senator Elbridge Lapham informing her of “the ratification by the Senate of the Geneva Convention; of the full assent of the United States to the same.” “_Laus Deo_,” concluded the note, but to Barton it was almost anticlimactic. “I had waited so long,” she wrote in her journal, “and was so weak and broken, I could not even feel glad.”

Clara Barton’s success in securing ratification of the Treaty of Geneva is perhaps her most outstanding achievement. Primarily through her writing, speeches, and dedication the public and U.S. officials came to know of the Red Cross. For six years she persisted in lobbying Congress; the treaty ultimately passed without a dissenting vote. And, although she “could not believe that someone would not rise up” to help her, no one ever did. The American National Red Cross remains a monument to Barton’s singular perseverance and her powers of persuasion.

Barton and the Red Cross in Action

Clara Barton was 60 years old when the Treaty of Geneva was ratified by the Senate. She at first considered her work completed. But the immediate demands made on the young American Red Cross changed her mind; she felt it would be foolish to put the Red Cross into other hands.

Barton stamped the early Red Cross decisively with her personality. She was a woman of strong will and deliberate action, with, as biographer Percy Epler states, “a just and accurate estimate of her own power to master a situation.” By the 1880s, she was accustomed to being in command. She could, and did, inspire great loyalty—Antoinette Margot’s letters to her customarily begin “My own so precious, so precious Miss Barton,” or “So dear, so preciously loved Miss Barton”—though some complained that she demanded, rather than deserved the fealty. Barton left no doubt that she alone governed the Red Cross and that all others were subordinate. One of her most loyal aides referred to her as “the Queen.”

She had a sharp intellect, was able to see issues clearly, and was articulate. Although she had clear-cut opinions on nearly every subject, she was loath to force her ideas on others. Dr. Hubbell, writing after her death, maintained that she disliked controversy and would almost never argue, “but when she did speak she could tell more facts to the point ... with no possibility of misunderstanding than any person I have ever known.”

She was confident when she was in control of a situation, but she had difficulty working with others. She was a perfectionist. Determined always to do things in her own way, she early decided “that I must attend to all business myself ... and learn to do _all_ myself.” Secretaries and servants came and went, but few ever satisfied her exacting demands. In her own endeavors she could tolerate no rival, but she did not aspire to widespread power.

Privately Barton was often very different from her public image. Criticism was taken with apparent calm and stoicism, but inwardly she burned and fought the temptation “to go from all the world. I think it will come to that someday,” she sadly noted, “it is a struggle for me to keep in society at all. I want to leave all.” Her temper was also controlled and betrayed itself only by a deepening of her voice and a sharpness in her eyes. She was socially insecure and given to self-dramatization. She often exaggerated her hardships to elicit pity or respect. For example, she frequently spoke of sitting up all night on trains as both a measure of economy and a guard against unnecessary personal luxury, yet her diaries contain numerous references to comfortable berths. Several times she wrote flattering articles about herself, in the third person, which she submitted to various periodicals. In one, written during the Franco-Prussian War, she showed the way she hoped the public would view her: “Miss Clara Barton, scarcely recovered from the fatigues and indispositions resulting from her arduous and useful duties during the War of the Rebellion, was found again foremost bestowing her care upon the wounded with the same assiduity which characterized her among the suffering armies of her own country.”

Her depression and insecurity were, in most cases, undetectable to others. What they noticed were her humanitarian feelings and deep and abiding empathy for those who suffered. Her friend, the Grand Duchess Louise, thought of her as “one of those very few persons whose whole being is goodness itself.” Biographer and cousin William E. Barton recalled that she “did not merely sympathize with suffering; she suffered.” Others were struck by her witty and spontaneous sense of humor. She told one friend that she was more thankful for her sense of humor than for any other quality she possessed, for it had helped her over hard times.

Another of Barton’s assets was a keen spirit of objectivity. William Barton noted that she rarely stood on precedent and that she tried to keep an open mind about people, methods of business, and herself. This openness is perceptible in her acceptance of startling changes. Railway travel, typewriters, automobiles, and airplanes were all taken in stride, and when telephones and electric lights became available she had them installed in her home immediately. She welcomed dress reform, prison reform, and other social change. Clara Barton was a determined, sensitive, competent, difficult, and unpredictable woman, and she brought all of these qualities to, and etched them on, the American Red Cross in 1882.

During the years that she was president of the American Red Cross, it was a small but well-known group. Her name lent power and respectability to the Red Cross cause. The list of relief efforts undertaken in those early years is impressive—assistance at the sites of numerous natural disasters, foreign aid to both Russia and Turkey, battlefield relief in the Spanish-American War. She participated in nearly all of the field work, which was her métier, for it combined her humanitarian sentiments with her need to lose herself in her work and the remuneration of praise.

The first work undertaken by the Red Cross in America was actually done prior to the ratification of the Treaty of Geneva. In the fall of 1881, disastrous forest fires swept across Michigan. Local Red Cross chapters at Dansville and Rochester, New York, sent money and materials amounting to $80,000, and Barton directed Julian Hubbell to oversee the work. Thus did Hubbell, still a medical student at the University of Michigan, begin his career as chief field agent for the American Red Cross.

From 1881 on, nearly every year saw the Red Cross actively engaged in the relief of some calamity. In 1882, and again in 1884, the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers flooded, sweeping away valuable property, leaving hundreds destitute and homeless. Relief centers were established in Cincinnati and Evansville, Indiana, and the Red Cross steamers, the _Josh V. Throop_ and _Mattie Belle_, cooperated with government relief boats to supply sufferers cut off by water. All along the rivers, families were furnished with fuel, clothing and food, or cash. The Red Cross also undertook to relieve starving and sick animals by contributing oats, hay, corn, and medicine. Lumber, tools, and seeds were left to help the stricken rebuild their lives. Barton herself supervised the work on the _Mattie Belle_ as it plowed its way between the cities of St. Louis and New Orleans.

The American Red Cross did not attempt to supply every need in every instance, nor did it try to aid the victims of every calamity. A notable case in which the Red Cross declined to give aid occurred in 1887. A severe drought had plagued the people of northwestern Texas for several years; State and Federal aid had been denied and in desperation a representative of the stricken area applied to Barton for relief. She went directly to the scene, but she determined that what was needed was not Red Cross aid but an organized drive for public contributions. Through the _Dallas News_ she advertised for help and was delighted to find a quick response.

Besides flood and fire relief, the young American Red Cross helped tornado victims in Louisiana and Alabama in 1883 and contributed in the relief of an earthquake at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1886. When a tornado struck Mount Vernon, Illinois, in February 1888, Barton and her co-workers organized the inhabitants so effectively that they needed to stay at the scene only two weeks.

An outbreak of yellow fever in Jacksonville, Florida, also in 1888, precipitated the first use of trained Red Cross nurses, many of whom worked heroically. In one instance, ten of them jumped from a moving train to enter the small town of Macclenny, Florida, whose rail service had been stopped because of the fever’s epidemic proportions. But unfortunately the Jacksonville episode was not an entirely happy one. Barton had a lifelong inability to pick qualified subordinates; in this case the man she chose to supervise the nurses—a Colonel Southmayd of the New Orleans Red Cross—had extremely poor judgment. Southmayd found the Jacksonville workers to be “earnest and warm-hearted,” but all evidence is to the contrary. Some nurses refused to work for three dollars a day when they could get four dollars in private hospitals. One got drunk on the whiskey used as medicine, another was arrested for theft, and several were accused of immoral conduct. Southmayd staunchly refused to remove the offending nurses, and for a time the incident put an unfortunate stigma on Red Cross workers. It also served to strengthen Clara Barton’s determination to oversee personally as much Red Cross field work as possible.

The most celebrated peacetime relief work undertaken by the young American Red Cross was at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1889. Johnstown, at the point where Stony Creek joins the Conemaugh River, often endured spring floods, but in May 1889 the rains were unusually heavy. After several days low-lying parts of Johnstown lay under 1 to 4 meters (3 to 13 feet) of water. Then a dam broke in the mountains 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the city. A wall of water, 9 meters (30 feet) high, rushed down to kill 2,200 people and destroy millions of dollars in property.

Barton arrived in Johnstown five days after the tragedy on the first train that got through. She immediately began work, using a tent as living and office space, and a dry goods box as a desk. From that desk she administered a program that amounted to half a million dollars, conducted a publicity campaign, and joined forces with the other charitable societies working in Johnstown. One of her aides recalled the long hours and complex work that characterized their five months in Johnstown and noted that through it all she remained “calm, benign, tireless and devoted.”

Barton’s first concern was a warehouse for Red Cross supplies and under her direction workmen erected one in four days. She then turned to alleviating the acute housing shortage. Hotels, two stories high and containing more than 30 rooms each, were built and fully furnished to serve as temporary shelters. Crews of men were organized to clean up the wreckage, while women volunteered to oversee the distribution of clothing and other necessities. As in all its work, the Red Cross tried to supply jobs and a spirit of self-help along with material assistance.

Clara Barton’s organization was only one of many that came to the aid of Johnstown, but its contribution was outstanding for its quick thinking and tireless energy. Gov. James A. Beaver of Pennsylvania noted in a letter of appreciation to the Red Cross that “she was among the first to arrive on the scene of calamity.... She was also the last of the ministering spirits to leave the scene of her labors.” The city of Johnstown scarcely knew how to express its thanks. “We cannot thank Miss Barton in words,” an editorial in the _Johnstown Daily Tribune_ stated. “Hunt the dictionaries of all languages through and you will not find the signs to express our appreciation of her and her work. Try to describe the sunshine. Try to describe the starlight. Words fail.”

Field work took up a large portion of Barton’s time in the 1880s, but she was able to pursue some other interests and obligations. During 1883, for example, she was superintendent of the Women’s Reformatory Prison at Sherborn, Massachusetts. She undertook the position at the request of former general, now Gov. Benjamin F. Butler, but she took it reluctantly. Her administration was characterized by the extension of dignity and education to inmates, rather than punishment. She found the work annoying and depressing, and she was glad to leave it and get back to the Red Cross.

Between the burdensome paper work and correspondence of the Red Cross and actual relief work, Barton found time to be the official American representative to four International Red Cross conferences between 1882 and 1902. She enjoyed these trips to Europe, for they gave her a chance to see friends and to be honored, as she always was by court and convention. The international congress of 1884, at Geneva, was especially memorable. An “American Amendment” to the Geneva Treaty was adopted, and, as the head of the newest signatory power in the Red Cross she was the center of attention. The amendment sanctioned Red Cross work in peacetime calamities and was the direct result of her activities in the United States. The congress cheered as she was praised as having “the skill of a statesman, the heart of a woman, and the ‘final perserverance [_sic_] of the saints.’”

Barton was also concerned with planning a national headquarters for the American Red Cross. In the 1880s and early 1890s Red Cross headquarters were located at various spots in Washington, D.C. After 1891, however, plans were made to build a permanent home for the organization. Situated at Glen Echo, Maryland, a short distance outside Washington, the new building served both as office and home for Barton and her staff.

What few hours she could spare from Red Cross activities she devoted to raising the status of women. She was proud that the Red Cross embodied many of her beliefs. In the last two decades of the 19th century, she continued to speak at rallies and join conventions promoting women’s rights. Her lecture topics generally centered on philanthropic work done by women, but she spoke out most vehemently on female suffrage. She was incensed that the decision to let women vote hinged upon the assent of male legislators, but she remained optimistic about the ultimate outcome. She told one lecture audience that “there is no one to give woman the right to govern herself. But in one way or another, sooner or later, she is coming to it. And the number of thoughtful and right-minded men who will oppose will be much smaller than we think, and when it is really an accomplished fact, all women will wonder, as I have done, what the objection ever was.”

Barton’s prestige lent respect to the feminist cause, and she was in much demand as a lecturer and author. In 1888 alone, she spoke in Montclair, New Jersey; Dansville, New York; Boston and Dorchester, Massachusetts, and was a vice president and featured speaker at the First International Woman’s Suffrage Conference in Washington, D.C.

Red Cross activities in the 1890s followed much the same pattern as those of the previous decade. Hubbell and Barton oversaw relief to tornado victims in Pomeroy, Iowa, in 1893, and helped those ravaged by a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina in late 1893 and 1894. When news of a famine in Russia reached the United States, the American Red Cross obtained supplies, including 500 carloads of corn given by Iowa farmers, and shipped them to Russia. The actual relief was relatively little, but it pioneered the concept of peacetime foreign aid.

LECTURE!
MISS CLARA BARTON,
OF WASHINGTON,
THE HEROINE OF ANDERSONVILLE,

The Soldier’s Friend, who gave her time and fortune during the war to the Union cause, and who is now engaged in searching for the missing soldiers of the Union army, will address the people of

LAMBERTVILLE, in
HOLCOMBE HALL,
THIS EVENING,
APRIL 7TH, AT 7½ O’CLOCK.
SUBJECT:
SCENES ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.
ADMISSION, 25 CENTS.

American money and supplies also were used to help victims of religious wars in Turkey and Armenia during 1896. Although Turkey had signed the Treaty of Geneva, Red Cross efforts were at first resisted there. Under strong pressure from the American public, however, Barton and field workers of the American Red Cross sailed for Turkey. They gained admittance to the country and spent ten months helping the wounded and distributing tools and medical supplies. It was, in many ways, a harrowing experience, and the safety of the Americans was repeatedly threatened. At least one of Barton’s biographers, Blanche Colton Williams, thought that the Armenian relief work was the height of Barton’s achievement.

Despite all of Clara Barton’s peacetime achievements, the Red Cross remained officially connected with the military, its chief function being to give medical aid in time of war. The Spanish-American War in 1898 provided the first chance for the American Red Cross to serve in this official capacity. Unfortunately, the Red Cross effort was fragmented, marked by contention and controversy, and it ultimately led to the entire reorganization of the Red Cross in America.

The Red Cross, under Barton, sent various types of assistance to Cuba. The earliest efforts, starting in January 1898, were in behalf of the thousands of Cuban nationalists who had been herded into concentration camps by the Spanish colonial government. Barton was giving civilian aid in Cuba when the battleship USS _Maine_ blew up. When war was declared on April 25, 1898, Barton and her small crew went to work in field hospitals and hospital boats. She was distressed to find that once again the Army Medical Department had sent inadequate personnel, and that cots, food, and bandages were all lacking. “It is the Civil War all over,” she lamented, “no improvement in a third of a century.”

Meanwhile a controversy of distressing proportions had developed within the Red Cross. A powerful local auxiliary of the American Red Cross, in New York, felt that the handful of workers led by 77-year-old Barton was not adequate to meet the needs of troops and civilians. This chapter, which became known as the Red Cross Relief Committee of New York, was, in many ways, more powerful than Barton’s small national organization. Where Barton’s group had concentrated on “hand to mouth” relief efforts—those in which funds and supplies were given as soon as received—the New York organization had gathered stores and funds, and had established a hospital and school for nurses, and formed nearly 200 relief auxiliaries. It collected and shipped many more articles to Cuba during 1898 than did the national society and sent several times the number of trained nurses and doctors. The Red Cross Relief Committee of New York was professionally run and its leaders were distressed by Barton’s lowscale personal style, which had changed little since the Civil War.

As she tried to retain control of the relief efforts, the New York group fought for government sanction as the sole agency of the Red Cross working in Cuba. Surgeon General George Sternberg favored the New Yorkers, but the secretary of state upheld Barton’s claim. Little was resolved and the two organizations continued to work independently. When the New York Committee requested an accounting of funds spent in Cuba, of which it had supplied the bulk, Barton wired to a subordinate: “If insisted on refuse co-operation with [New York] committee.” Rivalry and jealousy took the place of collaboration.

_Continues on page 56_

Scenes from the Spanish-American War

The Spanish-American War took place between April 25, 1898, and August
13, 1898. Battles were fought in the Philippines and Puerto Rico, but
most of the fighting was in Cuba. Public reaction to the oppressive
Spanish rule of Cuba initiated the conflict, when the battleship USS
_Maine_ exploded in February 1898. Although it was never proven, the
widespread belief was that the ship had been torpedoed by the
Spaniards. Clara Barton visited the _Maine_ a few days before the
disaster, and was nearby when the explosion occurred: “The heavy
clerical work of that fifteenth day of February held [us] ... busy at
our writing tables until late at night. The house had grown still; the
noises on the streets were dying away, when suddenly the table shook
from under our hands, the great glass door opening on to the ... sea
flew open; everything in the room was in motion or out of place, the
deafening roar of such a burst of thunder as perhaps one never heard
before, and off to the right, out over the bay, the air was filled
with a blaze of light, and this in turn filled with black specks like
huge specters flying in all directions. A few hours later came ...
news of the _Maine_.

“We proceeded to the Spanish hospital San Ambrosia, to find thirty to
forty wounded—bruised, cut, burned; they had been crushed by timbers,
cut by iron, scorched by fire, and blown sometimes high in the air,
sometimes driven down through the red-hot furnace room and out into
the water, senseless, to be picked up by some boat and gotten
ashore.... Both men and officers are very reticent in regard to the
cause, but all declare it could not have been the result of an
internal explosion....”

The earliest efforts of the Red Cross in Cuba were to aid the civilian
_reconcentrados_ who were being detained by the Spaniards. Medical
aid, clothing, and food were distributed, and hospitals and orphanages
established. When fighting broke out, however, the Red Cross moved to
supply the needs of the wounded. Clara Barton described the scene of
one hospital camp in July 1898: “[We] reached here [General William
Shafter’s headquarters] yesterday. Five more of us came today by army
wagon and on foot. Eight hundred wounded have reached this hospital
from front since Sunday morning. Surgeons and little squads have
worked day and night. Hospital accommodations inadequate and many
wounded on water-soaked ground without shelter or blankets. Our
supplies a godsend. Have made barrels of gruel and malted milk and
given food to many soldiers who have had none in three days.”

Barton, as always, pursued her work with impartiality: Cubans,
Spaniards, and Americans all received her care. Henry Lathrop, a
doctor who worked for the Red Cross Committee of New York felt this
had a direct bearing on the outcome of the war. “Miss Barton was
everywhere among the Spanish soldiers, sick, wounded and well. She was
blessed by the enemies of her country and I seriously doubt if
[General] Shafter himself did more to conquer Santiago with his men,
muskets and cannon, than this woman.... The wounded men told their
comrades about the kind treatment they had received at the hands of
the Americans, and the news spread through the Army like wild-fire,
completely changing the conditions. Those that preferred death to
surrender were now anxious to surrender.”

Despite such words of praise, Barton encountered some of the same
prejudices that had hindered her work during the Civil War. Lucy
Graves, Barton’s secretary, recorded that “some of the surgeons called
on us; all seemed interested in the Red Cross, but none thought that a
woman nurse would be in place in a soldier’s hospital. Indeed, very
much out of place.”

Most of the doctors changed their tune and were very happy to receive
Barton’s help and supplies during a battle. Another grateful recipient
of Red Cross supplies was Col. Theodore Roosevelt, commander of the
celebrated “Rough Riders.” One day Roosevelt showed up at Red Cross
headquarters requesting food and supplies for his sick men. “Can I buy
them from the Red Cross?” he asked.

“Not for a million dollars,” Barton said.

The colonel looked disappointed. He was proud of his men, and said
they needed these things. “How can I get them?” he insisted. “I must
have proper food for my sick men.”

“Just ask for them, colonel,” she said.

“Then I do ask for them,” he said.

“Before we had recovered from our surprise,” related Barton, “the
incident was closed by the future President of the United States
slinging the big sack over his shoulders, striding off ... through the
jungle.”

Probably no thrill in Barton’s life was greater than the honor
accorded her after the fall of Santiago, Cuba. When this city was
conquered, the first vessel to enter the harbor was the Red Cross
relief ship _The State of Texas_. A proud Barton stood on the deck of
the ship and led the little band of Red Cross workers in singing the
Doxology and “America.”

Barton viewed the New Yorkers as insurgents trying to usurp her glory. “The world in general is after me in many ways,” she wrote. “I only wish I could draw out of it _all_.” She believed that the New Yorkers’ function should have been one of supply and support for her own group, and she could not understand why they criticized her for rushing off to give relief rather than staying at home to direct the organization. And she did not appreciate the problems that her absence from Washington caused. The Army, irritated by the internal strife in the Red Cross, supported neither group and offered little cooperation. Thus, the relief effort in Cuba ended with minimal relief given and a divided American Red Cross.

Storm and Controversy

To many members of the American Red Cross the work in the Spanish-American War exemplified all that was wrong with their organization: lack of coordination, and the arbitrary and short-sighted rule of Clara Barton. Yet she seemed perfectly satisfied. In her book, _The Red Cross in Peace and War_ (1898), she contended that the Red Cross took a major and laudatory part in the hospital operations in Cuba. She made no attempts at conciliation or compromise with her critics and continued to run the American Red Cross in the same individualistic style.

It came as no surprise to those who knew Barton when she rushed once more to a scene of a disaster. In September 1900 a hurricane and tidal wave nearly submerged Galveston, Texas, and Barton, though 80 years old, did not hesitate. Six weeks later she returned to Glen Echo laden with praise and testimonials that her achievements in Galveston were “greater than the conquests of nations or the inventions of genius.”

Her desire to remain in the field stymied the growth of the American Red Cross because she failed to delegate authority. When she spent six weeks or ten months away from Washington she left behind no organization to continue day-to-day activities, solicit contributions, or expand programs. Local chapters felt alienated from the national group and resented that they often provided the material support but saw little of the praise. One critic, Sophia Welk Royce Williams, wrote: “The National Red Cross Association in this country has been Miss Clara Barton, and Miss Clara Barton has been the National Red Cross Society.... [The Red Cross] has been of great service to suffering humanity, but when one asks for detailed reports, for itemized statements of disbursements ... these things either do not exist or are not furnished.” The better course, Williams believed, would have been for the Red Cross to adopt the organization of the Sanitary Commission. Barton’s group clearly lacked a national organization, a national board, and reports that would stand as models and guides for relief work.

If the organization suffered, the quality of relief did not. At least one initially skeptical correspondent saw much to praise in the one-woman show. While visiting the hurricane-devastated Sea Islands in South Carolina, Joel Chandler Harris wrote that the Red Cross’s “strongest and most admirable feature is extreme simplicity. The perfection of its machinery is shown by the apparent absence of all machinery. There are no exhibitions of self-importance. There is no display—no tortuous cross-examination of applicants—no needless delay. And yet nothing is done blindly, or hastily or indifferently.”

What Harris also saw was a concerted effort to assist without the demeaning effects of charity. Barton developed a knack for leaving a disaster area at the right time: “It is indispensable that one know when to end such relief, in order to avoid first the weakening of effort and powers for self-sustenance; second the encouragement of a tendency to beggary and pauperism.”

During her 23-year tenure as president of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton was both its chief asset and its greatest liability. As founder and president she promoted the Red Cross cause with all of her considerable talent, and she brought zeal and idealism to Red Cross relief work.

At the same time, her domineering, and sometimes high-handed, ways hindered organizational growth. As Red Cross historian Foster Rhea Dulles notes, her methods of administration were not always based on sound business practices and did not command the confidence of many people who might have given the association broader support.

Barton’s failure to delegate authority and to acknowledge popular contributions more formally provided the basis for the criticism that overwhelmed her between 1900 and 1904. It also accounted, at least in part, for the bitter personal attacks that led to a deepening feud between her friends and foes. Despite her adaptability in earlier days, it was almost impossible for her to adjust to the new conditions of Red Cross activity.

The group that opposed her was made up of prominent Red Cross workers and was led by Mabel Boardman, an able and ambitious society woman. Boardman’s group was anxious to see the Red Cross reorganized and their cause gained momentum during 1900 and 1901. Barton refused to consider it. Instead she divided the Red Cross into camps of “friends” and “enemies.” She accused her foes of seeking power and of trying to gain admission to the royal courts of Europe through the Red Cross. At the annual meeting in 1902 after anticipating a move to force her resignation, she rallied her forces and emerged with greater powers and the presidency for life. “Perhaps not quite wise,” she wrote, “in view of ugly remarks that may be made.” For the opposition, who believed that the new charter had been railroaded through, this was the last straw.

After the 1902 meeting Barton thought that “the clouds of despair and dread” had finally lifted, but events moved swiftly against her. Boardman’s group succeeded in convincing President Theodore Roosevelt that she was mishandling what was, by then, a quasi-governmental office. On January 2, 1903, his secretary wrote to Barton stating that the President and Cabinet would not serve—as all of his predecessors had—on a committee of consultation for the Red Cross. The President directed his secretary to announce publicly his withdrawal from the Red Cross board.