REDFIELD PROCTORI especially looked into Clara Barton’s business methods, as to system, waste and extravagance. I found nothing to criticise, but everything to commend. She could teach me on these points.—Redfield Proctor, Colonel in the Civil War; Governor of Vermont; member of the U. S. Senate, 1891–1908; Chairman Red Cross Proctor Committee to “investigate” Clara Barton.See page359.
REDFIELD PROCTORI especially looked into Clara Barton’s business methods, as to system, waste and extravagance. I found nothing to criticise, but everything to commend. She could teach me on these points.—Redfield Proctor, Colonel in the Civil War; Governor of Vermont; member of the U. S. Senate, 1891–1908; Chairman Red Cross Proctor Committee to “investigate” Clara Barton.See page359.
REDFIELD PROCTORI especially looked into Clara Barton’s business methods, as to system, waste and extravagance. I found nothing to criticise, but everything to commend. She could teach me on these points.—Redfield Proctor, Colonel in the Civil War; Governor of Vermont; member of the U. S. Senate, 1891–1908; Chairman Red Cross Proctor Committee to “investigate” Clara Barton.See page359.
REDFIELD PROCTORI especially looked into Clara Barton’s business methods, as to system, waste and extravagance. I found nothing to criticise, but everything to commend. She could teach me on these points.—Redfield Proctor, Colonel in the Civil War; Governor of Vermont; member of the U. S. Senate, 1891–1908; Chairman Red Cross Proctor Committee to “investigate” Clara Barton.See page359.
Secretary: “Well, Miss Barton, we are going to an awful scene of death and destruction.”
Miss Barton: “Yes, but what are we going to; we are going to nothing, aren’t we?”
Secretary: “I suppose we are, Miss Barton.”
Miss Barton: “Why, at Johnstown I hunted a half day and couldn’t find a thimble with which to do some sewing. Here, General, take these keys and go through the house and whenever you find anything that can be usedwhere there is nothing, you pack it up.”
The secretary took the keys, went through the house of thirty-eight rooms and seventy-six closets. He found carefully stored away supplies of every description. He found packing-chests, trunks, valises and telescopes all ready for use—everything imaginable at hand. Miss Barton and her secretary worked all night. The next morning two great dray-loads of goods wereen routeto the railway station, and Galveston. Arriving at Galveston she asked: “Mr. Mayor, have ward committees been organized?”
Mayor Jones: “No, Miss Barton.”
Miss Barton: “How many wards are there in the city?”
Mayor Jones: “Twelve.”
Miss Barton: “Do go at once and organize strong committees in every ward; provide ward headquarters, and a store-room where every ward committee can take charge of supplies furnished. Have your ward committees canvass every ward thoroughly and get the name of every person and what he needs—the food necessary and in case of clothing the exact size of the clothing. Then have your committees make requisition for what is needed on the Red Cross at its headquarters. Mycorps of helpers will see that these requisitions are promptly filled, and the goods sent to ward headquarters for distribution.”
Miss Barton then said to her helpers: “Now we must work!Mr. Lewis, you go at once and secure a good saddle-horse, and direct the organization of Mayor Jones’ ward committees. General Sears, you go into the city and secure a headquarters building for the Red Cross. Mr. Talmage, you go to Houston and stay there until every delayed Red Cross car is forwarded to Galveston. Major McDowell, you go to the headquarters to take charge of the unpacking, the classifying, and the issuing of the supplies. Mr. Ward, you will go with Major McDowell to open up an office at the headquarters. Keep a careful book account of the receipts of all supplies and moneys. Mr. Marsh, you will go with Mr. Ward, to be his assistant. Mrs. Ward, you will stay by me to take such directions as I may have to give you from time to time. Miss Coombs, you are to be my stenographer and typewriter—you’ll find plenty to do to keep busy. Miss Spradling (a trained nurse), you arrange proper space for the opening up of an orphanage at headquarters building, then gather up all the homeless, uncared-for orphans in the city and take care of them. Every person in charge of work is expected to report to me daily, and hourly if necessary.” In less time than it takes the military commander to get his columns into action the woman, who had “the command of a general,” had humanity’s forces on the “firing line.”
Clara Barton possessed in the highest degree the elements necessary to succeed in business. She had the mental grasp of a great enterprise; she had executiveability; she inspired confidence in those serving with her; she was methodical in attention to details—without a superior in the business world; she was economical in her personal expenditures, exacting like economy on the part of her assistants;—ever anticipating the future by making wise provision. When much was at stake, and means necessary to accomplish her purposes, she was without limit as to expenditures. These elements, combined in her, gave to her the power she swayed as the business head of a great corporation.
The measure of success is the measure of the capacity for achievement. It was on her nursing record in the Civil War that she made her national reputation; on her business record, her world reputation. She was not a Hetty Green in a bank account, for she invested in the field of humanity, not of finance; but her genius shone in handling, unerringly, a great business enterprise, her record far surpassing that of the woman-wizard of Wall Street. By American Presidents, by commanders of armies, by statesmen, by financiers, by her co-workers, without an exception who were with her on fields of war and disaster, she was commended for her business acumen, business methods, and in the results obtained. From previous knowledge, from personal observation at the Galveston flood, from having, within the past five years, spent many months in her Glen Echo Red Cross home, with the accountants who were going through her business records and assisting myself in the work, I speak what I do know.
She did not come into the business world panoplied as from the head of a Jupiter, her record was not temporary camouflage; it is a record of years; nor was it solely through the heart, for other women have hearts.Clara Barton had genius, “the power of meeting and overcoming the unexpected;” had genius for work, and through work comes genius. Her business record is as firmly established as is that of her heart record; as is that of the great “captains of industry” and, as theirs, is based onmethods and success, the only known data for such determination. In the use of her approved methods in continuous service for twenty-three years, she was without one record-failure, achieving success under varied and most trying conditions.
It is said of her by one writer, “a woman of great force of character;” by another, from the results accomplished and without prejudice toward womankind in the business world, “one of the world’s greatest personages, for greatness knows no sex;” by another, as shown in her capacity to do things, “she must be classed as a genius, for genius is the intuitive capacity for overcoming insurmountable difficulties.”
Clara Barton’s twenty-three years as the Executive Head of the Red Cross; her collection and distribution of two and one-half millions of money and material; her unanimous election three times to the Red Cross presidency for life, on her business record, is without precedent. She might have been aMerchant Prince; she could teach one of America’s most successful business men onbusiness points; she excitedthe admiration of all who were acquainted with her business methods. Some day some man or woman may appear as her rival on the horizon of the business world but, up to the present time as an unpaid executive with unpaid helpers, Clara Barton holds the world’s record as Business Manager, in public service.
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C.Dedicated to the Heroic Women of the Civil War.Cost $800,000.00—$400,000 by Congress; $400,000 by Friends of the Red Cross (Mrs. Russell Sage, $150,000, Rockefeller Foundation, $100,000, James A. Scrymser, $100,000, Mrs. E. H. Harriman, $50,000).One and one-half million of names were represented on the petition memorializing the 65th Congress to place a Clara Barton tablet in the new Red Cross Building at Washington, D. C.—Corra Bacon-Foster, author ofClara Barton, Humanitarian.Clara Barton, “Her character eternally crystallized at the base of an enduring foundation and an immortal American destiny—the greatest an American woman has yet produced.”—Hon. Henry Breckenridge, Acting Secretary of War, at the laying of the corner stone of the American Red Cross Building at Washington, D. C., March 15, 1915.
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C.Dedicated to the Heroic Women of the Civil War.Cost $800,000.00—$400,000 by Congress; $400,000 by Friends of the Red Cross (Mrs. Russell Sage, $150,000, Rockefeller Foundation, $100,000, James A. Scrymser, $100,000, Mrs. E. H. Harriman, $50,000).One and one-half million of names were represented on the petition memorializing the 65th Congress to place a Clara Barton tablet in the new Red Cross Building at Washington, D. C.—Corra Bacon-Foster, author ofClara Barton, Humanitarian.Clara Barton, “Her character eternally crystallized at the base of an enduring foundation and an immortal American destiny—the greatest an American woman has yet produced.”—Hon. Henry Breckenridge, Acting Secretary of War, at the laying of the corner stone of the American Red Cross Building at Washington, D. C., March 15, 1915.
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C.Dedicated to the Heroic Women of the Civil War.Cost $800,000.00—$400,000 by Congress; $400,000 by Friends of the Red Cross (Mrs. Russell Sage, $150,000, Rockefeller Foundation, $100,000, James A. Scrymser, $100,000, Mrs. E. H. Harriman, $50,000).One and one-half million of names were represented on the petition memorializing the 65th Congress to place a Clara Barton tablet in the new Red Cross Building at Washington, D. C.—Corra Bacon-Foster, author ofClara Barton, Humanitarian.Clara Barton, “Her character eternally crystallized at the base of an enduring foundation and an immortal American destiny—the greatest an American woman has yet produced.”—Hon. Henry Breckenridge, Acting Secretary of War, at the laying of the corner stone of the American Red Cross Building at Washington, D. C., March 15, 1915.