CIII

Honorable Charles Sumner Young’s address was an eulogy surpassing anything ever heard in Oxford on the woman whom the town delights to honor—Clara Barton. Worcester (Mass.)Telegram, May 31, 1917.

There is properly no history—only biography.

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

(Delivered by Charles Sumner Young, at Oxford, Massachusetts, Memorial Day, 1917)

The inspiration of this historic day originated in the mind of woman. To the credit of womanhood there is a woman at the beginning of every great undertaking, sentimental and humanitarian. Today we pay the floral tribute to the late soldier-patriot. Equally befitting is it, amidst flowers of memory and at her birthplace, to pay tribute to the soldier’s comrade, the greatest woman-patriot of the Civil War.

In ancient days woman was the cultivator of the soil, the guardian of the fire, the creator of the home, the oracle of the Temple, and not infrequently the leader of men. Countless women in closing their career could similarly say as, according to Greek legend, said Semiramis: “Nature gave me the form of a woman, my actions have raised me to the level of the most valiant of men.” Artemisia was a heroine, wise in the councils of war, and had Xerxes not scoffed her advice he would not have gone down to eternal disgrace at Salamis. Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, who of her two sons said “These are my jewels,” lives honored as the highest type of Roman motherhood.

THE OXFORD, MASSACHUSETTS, MEMORIAL BUILDING“A memorial to the defenders of the Union from Oxford, Mass.”The building in which were held the funeral ceremonies for Clara Barton April 15, 1912, and the Clara Barton Memorial Exercises, Memorial Day, 1917.

THE INSIDE OF MEMORIAL BUILDING, OXFORD, MASSACHUSETTSScene on the stage, on the occasion of the Clara Barton Memorial Exercises, Memorial Day, 1917; also where were held the funeral exercises for Clara Barton, April 15, 1912.

To a woman Rome was indebted for her republic; to a woman, the legal right of plebeians to become office-holders in the Roman Commonwealth; to a woman, the inspiration of Dante in transmitting to the world the Divine Comedy; to a woman, who pawned her jewels that she might finance Columbus, must be accorded the discovery of America; to a woman, the saving of the colonists of Jamestown and the colony’s future existence; to a woman America owes the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo; to a woman, the Sisters of Charity in the United States with its thousands of angels of mercy; to a woman, the foundation of Christian Science to which is anchored the hope of millions; to a woman, known as the “Grandmother of the Revolution,” the revolt against tyranny by autocracy in Russia; to a woman, the American Red Cross with its millions of humanists.

So vital to the human race is labor that in the centuries of the classic past gods and goddesses supervised the various fields of human effort. Such was the dignity of labor that even a toiling ox was regarded sacred, and whoever killed this companion of toiling man was punishable with death.

There is dignity in laborTruer than e’er pomp arrayed.

There is dignity in labor

Truer than e’er pomp arrayed.

In the presence of more than a hundred suitors, Penelope was daily engaged in weaving while waitingthe return of her Ulysses. The celebrated Lucretia was not too proud to spin in the presence of her attendants. In the days of Homer princesses did themselves the honor to dip the water from the springs, and with their own hands to wash the linen of the household. Augustus, the world sovereign, wore with pride the clothes made by his wife and sister. The sisters of Alexander the Great made the clothes worn by their distinguished brother. To the request of her son to make Mt. Vernon her home during her declining years Mary, the mother of Washington, replied: “My wants are few in this world, and I feel perfectly competent to take care of myself.” Queen Victoria became world-beloved because she rendered personal service to her children, and to the children in families less fortunate than her own.

Hypatia, the philosopher and teacher at Alexandria, refused the advances of all would-be lovers that she might give instruction to her pupils. Elizabeth accepted maidenhood rather than motherhood that she might exclusively serve her subjects; Maria Theresa reproached herself for the time she spent in sleep, as so much robbed of her people; Clara Barton, with but a few hours of sleep daily, served not her people but strangers. Wherever locating, Clara Barton was the directing spirit of a swarm of workers where were permitted no drones, and among whom she was the queen. She adopted as her rule of conduct, “hard work and low fare,” sacrificed health without complaint, risked life without hope of reward.

Nations are the rising and falling tides of humanity; women, the fixed beacon lights along the wave-borne highway of human progress. Fabiola, the RomanMatron of the fourth century, who established the first hospital and herself cared for human wrecks, set a precedent existent through all succeeding centuries. All honor to Queen Isabella, the first to appoint military surgeons and to originate what was known as the “Queen’s Hospital” for the sick and wounded. As a nurse in her home, in the plagues of her country and the wars of the fourteenth century, Catherine Benincasa rose to the exalted position of Saint Catherine, patron saint of Italy. As a nurse among the poor, sewing, cooking, keeping the house clean indoors, and working with her brothers in the harvest field—before she saw the vision of St. Michael—prepared Joan of Arc to become the deliverer of France from Britain in the fifteenth century, and in consequence the Maid of Orleans became a patron saint of that period.

Maria Theresa provided hospitals for the wounded soldiery in the country over which she ruled, until then a soldiery wholly neglected in their sufferings on the battlefield. Ever green in memory should be kept the name of Grace Darling, and that graphic picture of her as she hastens down from the lighthouse on Farne Island, and through the mists of that terrible night in 1838 goes to the rescue of the shipwrecked sailors. Born in Florence, Italy, reared in England, a little girl caring for the injured birds and animals in her improvised hospital at Lea Hurst, the student nurse in Germany, the superintendent of nurses in the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale became adored throughout Christendom, diffusing rays of glory on the closing years of the nineteenth century.

Of England’s heroine, Longfellow sings:

A Lady with a Lamp shall standIn the great history of the land;A noble type of good,Heroic Womanhood.

A Lady with a Lamp shall stand

In the great history of the land;

A noble type of good,

Heroic Womanhood.

CLARA BARTON! The Babe of Oxford, a Christmas gift to humanity. In a little corner room of a little farmhouse, her tiny eyes greeted, first, the eyes of highly esteemed but not far-famed parents. From this Huguenot Colony, with no prestige of birth and no power of wealth, the meek, brown-eyed maiden went forth unheralded to carry her message of love and service. No Star of Destiny had cast its rays aslant the cradle, and no omen betokened her future as

Out of the quiet waysInto the world’s broad track

Out of the quiet ways

Into the world’s broad track

she ventured.

Timid as a fawn, “the sweet voiced retiring little woman” emerged from Youth’s environs. She had dreams romantic, but her romance was wrecked. She had visions of a mission, but for her no mission materialized. Things came to her “as if by a world controlling power.” In whatever her field of service, she stumbled over opportunities to be brave and good;—there seems to have been for her a decree of the Fates against “how circumscribed is woman’s destiny.”

Having a wide vision, she laid the foundation for the superstructure. She was a student of the best English writers; of the classics that gave prestige to Aspasia, the mentor of Socrates and Pericles. She studied sanitary methods at Jackson Sanitorium, and treatment of diseases with Doctor Carpenter at London and with her co-worker, Doctor Hubbell. In statesmanship shelearned at the feet of Webster, Calhoun, Sumner and Lincoln. In military tactics and military strategy, she studied Napoleon at Ajaccio, his birth-place, and at Paris made by him “Paris Beautiful,” whence the leader of men promulgated the Napoleon Code of Laws;—“Paris Beautiful” and the Code, two services which of themselves entitle Napoleon to lasting fame.

Of great versatility, she had varied accomplishments. She conversed in French, and was a close student of Holy Writ. In crayon and painting, she produced work highly commended by artists. In letter writing, as evinced by letters which “excelled all others in literary merit that come to the White House,” and by tens of thousands of other letters, she must ever rank in a class with Cornelia, the Roman matron; and Abigail Adams, the illustrious American. In poetry, as tokened in “Marmora,” “A Christmas Carol,” “The Women Who Went to the Field,” and in many other published and unpublished poems, she at times received real inspiration from some gentle muse. In pedagogy, as through Pestalozzi in Switzerland so through Clara Barton in New Jersey, “pauper schools” were transmuted into public schools.

In oratory, through her six war lectures and many other public addresses, she established her reputation as a public speaker. Speaking from the same platform, receiving a like fee and being as great a “drawing card” as John B. Gough, Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips and Henry Ward Beecher, she must rank for all time as one of the greatest orators of a half century ago. Mr. W. J. Kehoe, having reported thousands of speeches and for twenty-five years official reporter of Congress, says: “Clara Barton evinced qualities ofdiction and oratory hardly excelled by any other American.”

Separate and distinct from that of man is the inner machinery of woman’s mind; distinctive also are the outward manifestations. Whether as the ruler of a nation or the ruler of a cottage, a woman’s mind rules in its own inimitable way. In the realm of heart, woman is the queen and in that realm there can rule no king. Of our many great American heroes and statesmen, only one has been honored in having had accorded to him the heart of woman—all Americans worship at his shrine. Of a woman’s mind, the inner workings and outward manifestations, no man has made portrayal, none save perchance the Bard of Avon through his fifty heroines. Having “the brain of a statesman, the command of a general and the heart and hand of a woman” no man, as indicated by Lincoln, could have become world-adored through services such as were rendered by Clara Barton.

Equipped a leader among women, she became no Zenobia with thirst for fame; no Cleopatra, with Cæsars and Anthonys at her beck and call; no Catherine the Great, with political and military support; no Joan of Arc, with a frenzied and despairing soldiery at her heels; no Elizabeth nor Victoria, with an Empire to acclaim her reign; Clara Barton became the self-termed “lonesomest-lone-woman-in-the-world”;—a woman “majestic in simplicity,” who went about merely doing good and, in enduring influence for good, surpassed them all.

She came not from a line of ancestors reliant mainly on social prestige. Her inheritance from environments was a spirit intensely practical—the puritan spirit.

HENRY WILSONTo President Lincoln: Clara Barton is worthy of entire confidence.—Henry Wilson. U. S. Senate, 1855–1873; Chairman Committee on Military Affairs, Civil War; Vice-President, 1873–1875.Senator Henry Wilson was my always good friend.—Clara Barton.See page48.

REPRESENTATIVE MASSACHUSETTS STATESMEN

CHARLES SUMNERClara Barton has the brain of a statesman, the command of a general, and the heart and hand of a woman.—Charles Sumner, U. S. Senate, 1851–1857; 1863–1869.

GEORGE F. HOARClara Barton is the greatest “man” in America. Where will you find a man to equal her?—George F. Hoar, U. S. Senate, 1877–1901.

She achieved through nature’s endowments—a head to think, a heart to feel and hands to work. From her hard-working Barton forbears she inherited the sentiment in the Roman adage—“There is no easy way to the stars from the earth”;—all things are conquered by labor. For her to labor was to worship; to her the dignity of labor was greater than queenly dignity; labor, “wide as earth,” became her passport from the farm, the field of war, fire, flood, drouth, famine and pestilence, into every country of earth; her “labor of love,”—the open sesame to the White House, to the palaces of kings and emperors.

The illustrious author of “The True Grandeur of Nations,” a personal friend of Clara Barton, says: “No true and permanent fame can be founded, except in labors which promote the happiness of mankind.” Clara Barton learned lessons in manual training before manual training became a science; she learned to use her hands in the kitchen, in the garden, in the factory, in the sick room. She not only knew how to sew and spin and weave and cook and care for the sick, but she organized women for such work throughout two continents. Labor organized by her among the poor, the sick and wounded in Germany, France, Russia, Sea Islands, Turkey, Armenia, Cuba and other countries, attesting her appreciation Luise, the Grand Duchess of Baden, writes: “Clara Barton possesses the ever powerful mind and ready love for suffering mankind;—faithful gratitude follows her for ever.”

In person she was not a Queen of Sheba arrayed for kings to admire; not a Cleopatra bejeweled in richest splendour to beguile military heroes; not an Elizabeth with a new dress for every day in the year to impressmillions of subjects—she was a “working-woman.” Her raiment was homespun or commonplace, by her ‘made over,’ raiment which would put to shame for economy the average rural housewife, and yet she could but be envied for her artistic taste by the heiress to millions. Simple in dress she lived close to Nature, a Nature-child of perennial growth;—“a passion for service,” she developed through the years an identity all her own. Her identity thus developed, she became a landmark in her own country for humanity, as in Switzerland became Dunant who first caught the spirit of the Red Cross work on the bloody fields of Solferino.

Most unusual were Clara Barton’s physical and mental powers. If her powers were portrayed by the imaginative mind of a Homer, Clara Barton would be a composite being possessed of attributes as to the head, of a Jupiter; as to the heart, of a Venus; as to the shoulders, of an Atlas; as to the hands, of a Vulcan. But she was human, intensely human, a “frail woman,”—in her own words, a “Poor little me.” Her weakness was her strength; her courage, a woman’s heart.

She dwelt not on a Mount Olympus, not in a palace;—when on the “firing-line,” “rolled in her blankets” she camped under the wagon, or on the ground within a canvas tent. In the days ofrestthrough her closing years, she “camped” in a warehouse of thirty-eight rooms, with seventy-six closets; in her “house of rough hemlock boards,” a house stored with food and clothing and she ready “to set in motion the wheels of relief at a moment’s warning over the whole land.” She lived on the banks of the quiet Potomac, in the midst of Nature’s foliage, in the presence of the oak, the elm, the cedar, the poplar,—within “God’s first temples,”

©Harris & EwingCHARLES E. TOWNSENDMichigan people have special reason to venerate the memory of Clara Barton.—Charles E. Townsend, of Michigan. Senate, 1911——.

UNITED STATES SENATORS WHO SAW THE WORK OF CLARA BARTON

©Harris & EwingJACOB H. GALLINGERIn my investigations (in Cuba) I visited the orphanage under the care of that sainted woman, Clara Barton. I wish I could command language eloquent enough to pay just tribute to her,—a very angel of mercy, and of human love and sympathy. God bless Clara Barton.—Jacob H. Gallinger, of New Hampshire. Senate 1891–1915.

©Harris & EwingH. D. MONEYEverybody knows Clara Barton’s work, and when I mention the name of that lady, it is not only with respect but reverence, for I have seen her work in foreign lands, in hospitals, and amid scenes of suffering and distress.—H. D. Money, of Mississippi. Senate 1897–1911.

where birds sang to her beautiful songs, and where flourished sweetest scented flowers.

Within that house on the Potomac, Clara Barton received from President McKinley the command: “Go to the starving Cubans with your relief ship, and distribute as only you know how.” In haste to carry out that command, when nearing the point of service, she begged that she might have the right of way. “Not so,” said the Admiral of the Navy; “I am here to keep the supplies out of Cuba; I go first.” Clara Barton replied: “I know my place is not to precede you. When you make an opening, I will go in. You will go and do the horrible deed; I will follow you, and out of the human wreckage restore what I can.” Having herself achieved a place in unusual fields of public service, in this war timely the advice of Clara Barton: “Woman, there is a place for thee, my hitherto timid, shrinking child; go forth and fill it, that in thee mankind may be doubly blessed.”

Following the precedent of him who was “first in war, first in peace,” in war and in peace at her own expense and without salary, Clara Barton served her country. Hers was the patriotism of a Washington, “What is money without a country.” In the early days of the Civil War, as to the probable capture of the City of Washington by the Confederates, she exclaimed: “If it must be, let it come, and when there is no longer a soldier’s arm to raise the Stars and Stripes above the Capitol, may God give strength to mine.” In defiance of sentiment as to the propriety for a “lone-woman” to go with the soldiers on the battlefield, she conformed to her father’s patriot-sentiment, “Go, if it is your duty to go.”

Through the thousands of years of Pagan and Christian history there had existed the sentiment “Humanity in war must stand aside.” Among men, war-trained and war-sacrificed, rare the word of pity that reached the Most High for the wounded soldier. On the battlefield there had been seen no angel of mercy until was seen the angel nurse, with the candles of her charity lighting up the gloom of suffering and death.

At the second Bull Run, in August, 1862, with a tallow candle in her hand through the darkness, in tears the ministering angel moved gently among the suffering thousands, putting socks and slippers on the wounded, feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty. Her own life then in peril, while on that field of carnage there came from her lips the heroic words: “I should never leave a wounded man, if I were taken prisoner forty times.” Was hers patriotism to country? Greater than patriotism. Was hers woman’s love—woman’s love for her friend? It was love divine, a woman’s love for all mankind.

On, on to Chantilly, mid darkness and gloom,Fire, thunder and lightning, guns boom upon boom.

On, on to Chantilly, mid darkness and gloom,

Fire, thunder and lightning, guns boom upon boom.

At Chantilly the rain came down in torrents, the darkness impenetrable save when lit up by the lightning or the fitful flash of the guns. There up the hill to her tent she goes, falling again and again from exhaustion,—only to find a few moments’ rest on her bed of earth soaked with water. From her tent at midnight, the dead grass and leaves clinging to her, her hair and clothes dripping wet, she comes back to heartrending scenes. Forgetful of self, she carries army crackers mixed with wine, brandy and water for her compatriots, such work continuing for more than one hundred consecutive hours, save two hours of dreamful sleep.

©Harris & EwingNELSON A. MILESClara Barton is the greatest humanitarian the world has ever known.—Nelson A. Miles, Major-General Civil War, Commander American Army, 1895–1903; made Lieutenant General, 1900.

It was on Sunday morning, September 14th, 1862, in plumed hats, costly jewels, silken dresses and French-made shoes, that the ladies with their equally well-attired escorts were on their way to church. Adown Pennsylvania Avenue at the same time at our national capital, on an army wagon, the wagon loaded with well filled boxes, bags and parcels for the suffering—and seated with the driver—again there goes to the scene of war-carnage a woman, the woman self-styled as to theoretical religion a “well-disposed pagan.” For more than half a century past she has been, and for centuries to come the woman who went to the front on that Sunday morning—as to practical religion—will be known as the purest Christian womanhood.

“Chaste and immaculate in very thought,” chosen from above “by inspiration of celestial grace, to work exceeding miracles on earth!” “Inspiration of celestial grace!” That inspiration carried Clara Barton on an army wagon, through the night, past the sleeping artillery to the front of the battlefield of Antietam. There with her own hands she bandaged the wounds of the boys that were falling, falling and bleeding to death, herself escaping with a bullet through her clothes; carried her to another point on that battlefield, and there while supporting on her arm and knee a soldier his head by a cannon ball was severed from the body. That inspiration carried her with the soldiers under fire over the pontoon bridge at Fredericksburg, amidst the hissing of bullets and exploding of shells; across the Rappahannock where a cannon ball tore away a part of the skirt of her dress and where a few moments laterthe officer, who had assisted her off the bridge, was brought to her shot to death.

It was that inspiration which gave her the strength with an axe to chop the ice from around the wounded “boys in gray”; to carry them to a negro cabin; to feed them gruel and to bind up their wounds; that nerved her with a pocket knife on the field of battle to cut the bullet from the face of a wounded soldier. It was that inspiration which gave her the courage to assist in a hospital where amputated human limbs were stacked in piles like cordwood. It was this scene to which General Butler referred, and of her in her presence at a public reception in Boston, to say, “I have seen those beautiful arms red with human blood to her shoulders.” Inspiration! “Inspired to save lives,” says of her theLondon Times.

“A great mind is an appreciative mind”; Clara Barton was appreciative. Of a simple New Year’s greeting she says: “’Twere worth the passing of the year to be so remembered.” At various periods in her life, from those she served and whose minds could appreciate, upon her honors fell thick and fast as fall the autumn leaves in your maple groves. As the daughter of the twenty-first Massachusetts Regiment stood on the banks at Aquia Creek by no divine command did the waters part that she might cross on dry land; but by command of a chivalric officer, in an instant and proud of the honor, on the left knees of that line of boys in blue with the soldiers’ helping hand Clara Barton crosses over. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she relates this incident and says “This is the most beautiful tribute of love and devotion ever offered me in my life.” On the three cheers given her as she entered Lincoln Hospital by the seventy soldier boys, boys she had served on the battlefield of Fredericksburg, she says “I would not exchange their memory for the wildest applause that ever greeted conqueror or king.”

© Harris & EwingJOHN J. PERSHINGIt gives me sincere pleasure to add an expression of appreciation for the inestimable services which Miss Clara Barton rendered to her country and to mankind in founding and fostering the American Red Cross, of which she was the President for twenty-three years, as well as for her unselfish interest and splendid achievements during a life devoted to public welfare work. The accomplishments of the Red Cross during the past few years constitute an historical monument to the memory of this noble woman.—John J. Pershing, (1919) Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe; made General of the Armies of the United States, September 4, 1919.

From the days of Benjamin Franklin honors in Europe have been showered upon the dignity of the American office, on two ex-Presidents in private life, but high and above office-holders and ex-Presidents in the list of royal honors received stands Clara Barton. Her royal receptions, her royal decorations in all history have not been equaled. Czar and Czarina, Emperor and Empress, King and Queen, Prince and Princess, Duke and Duchess, all royalty so poor as to do honor to the richest in world-service. Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Geneva, Carlsruhe, Vienna, Baden-Baden, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Santiago,—no city too great, no city too unchristian, to open her gates to welcome Clara Barton.

At the great international sittings of the Red Cross in Geneva, in Carlsruhe, in Vienna, in St. Petersburg,—Clara Barton, the only woman officially representing any government among the representatives of forty nations. As the unpretentious woman of five feet three comes into the hall, the great men of the earth rise to their feet,—eyes eager, handkerchiefs in air, then huzzas that echo the heart throbs of a world humanity greet the ear and touch the heart of the “lonesomest-lone-woman” as she walks down the aisle of the auditorium to take her seat among the great world-humanitarians. Small in stature but great in deeds, a galaxy of deeds!

Peasants,—Russians, German, Austrian, Turk,Greek, Swiss, Cuban, Spaniard, Armenian, American soldier,—all so rich in gratitude as to “God bless her,” the angel of the world’s battlefields. Was it mere pastime that moved the famous generals of Europe to kneel in front of her and kiss her hand, accompanied by greetings of the highest praise? Did the Czar of all the Russians honor himself most or her when he declined to permit her to kiss his hand, as is the custom in the presence of royalty? Of Puritan origin, inpeasantattire, she was recognized as royalty itself, American royalty, the highest type of royalty.

As “fame comes only when deserved,” would you know Clara Barton? Follow her into countless permanent and improvised hospitals, over nineteen battlefields of the Civil War,—from Cedar Mountain in ’62 through the Richmond Campaign in ’65; and I beg of you not to forget that twenty-mile ride on one night in June, ’64, as on to Petersburg astride her black horse in the darkness, in a rain storm amidst thunder and lightning that “lonesomest-lone-woman” goes on her mission to the relief of the thousands of victims of an explosion. Follow her into the malarial climate through the “Campaign before Charleston,” water deadly in character, on the barren sands under a tropic sun, sand granules transforming brown eyes to eyes swollen and bloodshot, feet calloused and blistered, where again she is seen under the fire of death-dealing guns, serving the whites and blacks alike. Follow her through nineteen national disasters,—from the Michigan forest fires in ’81 to the typhoid fever epidemic in Butler, Pa., in 1904. Follow her as she accepts the commission at the hands of President Lincoln and through the long, mournful months, searches therecords, and walks the cemetery in the southland to identify the graves of the missing soldiers. Follow her over four of the great battlefields of the Franco-Prussian War; and then on the public highway as she walks into the city of stricken Paris.

Follow her again through numerous hospitals and on American relief fields. Follow her as on the relief ship State of Texas, to the strains of “My Country ’Tis of Thee” she leads the American navy into the torpedo-mined Bay of Santiago, and from Santiago into the war-stricken fields and the yellow fever camps of Cuba. Follow her as President of the American Red Cross through a score of national calamities and as President of the First Aid Association in untiring service. Follow her into an American audience where she receives the official greetings of Japan for her services in securing adhesion of the Japanese government to the Red Cross International Treaty. Follow her, as the official representative of our American nation, on four trips across the Atlantic, thence into the halls of world conference where not hate but love rules. Follow through half a century the woman whose deeds of love are as lighted candles for vestal virgins to keep burning on the altar in the Temple of Fame.

Of America’s heroine, Will Carleton sings:

A million thanks to oneWho hath a million plaudits wonFor deeds of love to many millions done.

A million thanks to one

Who hath a million plaudits won

For deeds of love to many millions done.

In having the fullest confidence of our Presidents, Clara Barton expressed herself in 1909 as follows: “I never before have so fully realized what a pleasure that privilege has been to me through half a century.”That confidence, by the record, existed between her and Lincoln, and Johnson, and Grant, and Hayes, and Garfield, and Arthur, and Cleveland, and Harrison, and McKinley, a record with presidents unequaled by any other American in public life. McKinley expressed the sentiments of nine presidents when he said: “What Clara Barton says and does is always honest and right.”

Nor might nor greatness in mortalityCan censure ’scape; back wounding calumnyThe whitest virtue strikes.

Nor might nor greatness in mortality

Can censure ’scape; back wounding calumny

The whitest virtue strikes.

All streams reach the ocean and calumny in the limpid streams of truth is lost in the grand ocean of human thought. Whenever “back wounding calumny” the nation’s heroine strikes, paraphrasing the words of President Garfield to Secretary of State Blaine and relating to Clara Barton, “Will the American people please hear the truth from the truly great and good of America on the subject herein referred to?” General Nelson A. Miles says: “Clara Barton is the greatest humanitarian the world has ever known.” “Clara Barton rendered her country and her kind great and noble service,” says Speaker Champ Clark. “The greatest of American women, the whole world knew and loved her,” says Congressman Joseph Taggart. Says Carrie Chapman Catt: “Clara Barton has won the hearts of the women of the world.” Speaking of her, no less a scholar and statesman than Senator George F. Hoar said: “Clara Barton is the most illustrious citizen of Massachusetts, the greatestmanin America.”

General W. R. Shafter says: “She was absolutely fearless. Miss Barton is a wonder; the greatest, grandest woman I have ever known.” Mrs. General John A.Logan, says of her: “One of the noblest, if not the noblest, woman of her time—the greatest woman of the nineteenth century.” Says Senator Charles E. Townsend: “The modest, unselfish and yet undaunted Clara Barton did as much for the highest good of the world as any single individual since the birth of civilization.” Says General Joe Wheeler: “The good work done by Clara Barton will live forever and her memory will be cherished wherever the Red Cross is known.” Mrs. General George E. Pickett says of her: “A veteran of the ’60’s, with all the years since filled with noble deeds, she is a marvel to the world; with all of our executive women, social figures and ambitious Zenobias, we shall never produce her like.”

Living at the same time, and serving in the same great struggle for humanity, the two names alike adored and which for all time will be associated in American history are ABRAHAM LINCOLN and CLARA BARTON. Lincoln was born in obscurity, reared on the farm; so was Clara Barton. Lincoln was inured to poverty, self-educated in mature years; similarly, Clara Barton. Lincoln stands alone,—no type, no famed ancestors, no successors; true of Clara Barton. Lincoln, in the opinion of Robert G. Ingersoll, had the brain of a philosopher and the heart of a mother; likewise Clara Barton. Lincoln was gracious to social aristocracy, but did not court it; far from it, Clara Barton.

As was true of Lincoln, Vice-President Henry Wilson said of Clara Barton: “She has the brain of a statesman, the heart of a woman.” Lincoln was a many-sided man; Clara Barton a many-sided woman. Lincoln had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride and religion without cant; so had ClaraBarton. Lincoln stood the test of power, the supremest test of mortal; so did Clara Barton. Lincoln worked seventeen years, paying in instalments a debt incurred in a mercantile adventure; Clara Barton, while serving humanity, disbursed hundreds of thousands of dollars without the appropriation of a penny to her personal use.

Oblivious of titles, epaulettes, clothes, rank and race, Lincoln saw only the weak mortal; not less so Clara Barton. Lincoln was an orator,—clear, sincere, natural, convincing. In her hundreds of lecture engagements, made through the same literary bureau, speaking from the same platform, Clara Barton was classed with Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, John B. Gough, and Henry Ward Beecher, the greatest orators of half a century ago.

Lincoln broke the shackles of the blacks in bondage; Clara Barton broke the shackles of education in America, as Pestalozzi in Europe, and transformed “pauper schools” into public schools. She broke the shackles of her sex, and her name was placed on the payroll as the first woman in the government’s service at the nation’s capital. She broke the shackles of war-ethics, and was the first woman “angel” on the battlefield.

She broke the shackles as to national lines, and was the first woman to traverse the ocean to minister to the war stricken of another continent. She broke the shackles as to national disasters, and was the first human being to organize a system to relieve human distress in times of peace, this now the system of every Red Cross organization in the world. She broke the shackles of women in educational life, in military life, in social life, in humanitarian life. Through the centuriesClara Barton, as Abraham Lincoln, will stand as the sentinel on the parapet between the warring forces of humanity and inhumanity.

Lincoln advocated the admitting of “all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms, by no means excluding females.” Clara Barton advocated “the admission of women of whatever race to all the rights and privileges—social, religious and political—which as an intelligent being belongs to her.” Lincoln directed the greatest political organization of his time; Clara Barton, the greatest humanitarian organization. Lincoln bore malice toward none,—charity for all; equally so Clara Barton. Lincoln is the strongest tie that binds together all classes of Americans; Clara Barton is the strongest, tenderest tie that binds together humanitarians. Lincoln was the grandest man in the Civil War, is now receiving the highest homage; Clara Barton, the grandest woman, and now the most beloved.

Lincoln was denounced a failure, inefficient as an executive and disloyal to the Union. Clara Barton was accused of “inharmony, unbusinesslike methods and too many years.” Lincoln passed without warning and could make no defense; in her own words Clara Barton says: “When it becomes necessary formeto defendmyselfbefore theAmerican people, let me fall.”

Fleeing the scene of his crime, and referring to Lincoln, there emitted from the lying tongue of the assassin: “Sic semper tyrannis”; in answer from the regions of the dead to the woman with the serpent’s tongue, Clara Barton replies: “Truth is eternal; evil conspiring and their kindred are doomed to die at last—my own shall come to me.” If Lincoln dead may yet do more for America and Americans than Lincoln living,so Clara Barton dead may yet do more for America and world humanity than Clara Barton living. Abraham Lincoln and Clara Barton, humanity’s martyrs, the two immortals.

A score of “the Immortals” lost to memory in any nation and that nation might well exclaim: “I have lost my reputation, I have lost the immortal part of myself.” Efface from memory the twenty, or fewer, immortals of Carthage, of Greece, of Rome, of Italy, of France, of Germany, of England, of America, then in the centuries hence over the tomb of every such nation only could be written “Nation Unknown.” In all the world destroy a score of “the Immortals” respectively in religion, in literature, in science, in art, in the heroic,—a hundred names and their influence,—and wealth greater to the human race shall have been destroyed than if were destroyed every public structure possessed by one billion six hundred millions of people now living.

Whether real or imaginary, the heroes of Homer and Virgil are worth more to the literature of that ancient period than all the physical wealth of Greece and Rome. What legacy to a nation could be greater than to have inherited the name and influence of a Homer, a Socrates, a Michael Angelo, a Queen Victoria, a Washington, a Franklin, a Lincoln, a Florence Nightingale, a Clara Barton? In the long centuries ago, of fame it was decreed: “Fame (’tis all the dead can have) shall live.” Through the centuries, Church and State have fought for their respective heroes and heroines not unlike Peter the Hermit and his followers, in the cause of Him on whom depended their future happiness. Now, as in all the past, the chiefest of a nation’s enduring wealth are the immortal names that were not born to die.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN(Picture taken in June, 1860)The President, March 4, 1861–April 15, 1865Miss Barton, I will help you.A. Lincoln(in 1865).President Lincoln was good and kind to me in whatever I tried to do for the soldiers.Clara Barton.

As an inspiration to the millions yet to be, the name of America’s Angel of Mercy will live—live heroic in the deathless songs of peace and of war. There is Second Bull Run, and Chantilly, and Antietam, and Fredericksburg, and Petersburg, and Strasburg, and Sedan, and Paris, and Johnstown, and Santiago, and Galveston,—there on tablets of memory her heroism is inscribed, there to remain forever. Neither will the millions forget, nor cease to cherish, The American Red Cross and The American Amendment and The National First Aid,—forever theirs and their children’s, through the constructive genius of the American philanthropist. If “gratitude is the fairest of flowers that springs from the soul,” perennial must spring millions of fairest flowers over her whose services to the millions are unending, and world-wide.

At Glen Echo on the Potomac when the world-humanist received her final orders, sustained by an unfaltering trust, she exclaimed: “Let me go, let me go!” Thence, as if by imperial summons called, the spirit of Clara Barton arose triumphant and on Easter Morn winged its flight to that undiscovered bourne amid the Islands of the Blest.

In yonder Silent City,Pointing heavenward,Stands a granite shaft;Above that shaft of gray,The granite Cross of Red,

In yonder Silent City,

Pointing heavenward,

Stands a granite shaft;

Above that shaft of gray,

The granite Cross of Red,

and there a shrine for the human race till the end of time.

CLARA BARTON

Clara BartonBorn at Oxford, MassachusettsChristmas Day, 1821Died at Glen Echo, MarylandEaster Morn, 1912President of the American Red Cross Societyfrom1881 to 1904President of the National First AidAssociation of Americafrom1905 to 1912; now, The PresidentIn Memoriam.

Clara Barton

Born at Oxford, Massachusetts

Christmas Day, 1821

Died at Glen Echo, Maryland

Easter Morn, 1912

President of the American Red Cross Society

from

1881 to 1904

President of the National First Aid

Association of America

from

1905 to 1912; now, The President

In Memoriam.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Born at Hodgensville, KentuckyFebruary 12, 1809Died at Washington, D. C.April 15, 1865President of the United Statesfrom1861 to 1865

Born at Hodgensville, Kentucky

February 12, 1809

Died at Washington, D. C.

April 15, 1865

President of the United States

from

1861 to 1865

THE RED CROSS MONUMENTBuilt by Stephen E. Barton, Executor of the Estate of Clara Barton in the Cemetery at North Oxford, Massachusetts.How peaceful and powerful is the grave.Lord Byron.Her memory deserves a monument. Nashville (Tenn.)Banner.Her monument is the sign of the Red Cross. Sioux Falls (S. D.)Press.Clara Barton needs no monument, her fame is written on the world’s battlefields. AlbanyPress Knickerbocker.Congress should provide for the erection of a handsome monument to the woman who has served the nation in war and in peace. BaltimoreSun.The Red Cross will serve as her monument and that is her work which, we trust, will keep alive her merciful spirit through the oncoming centuries.BostonJournal.Clara Barton needs no monument; her name will live in the hearts of the people. Jackson (Mich.)Patriot.The whole civilized world owes Clara Barton more than it can ever pay in the form of tributes or material monuments.Worcester (Mass.)Telegram.Long after the funeral service, as we passed on the way home, pathways were full of people coming from a distance; and next day hundreds trod the worn by-path in the cemetery to the still-standing Red Cross—a path that the feet of the world will tread to the end of time.Clara Barton In Memoriam.

Back to Index Next