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.”