In the spring of 1882 for hundreds of miles there overflowed the raging waters of the Mississippi, destroying homes and causing great suffering. Again the new association responded to the cries of distress. While the National Association was in session, devising ways and means for extending relief, a messenger came from the U. S. Senate announcing that the United States had acceded to the Treaty of Geneva. “Through all the past years, during which the Red Cross has sought recognition, protection and cooperation of the Government,” says Clara Barton, “it has been but for one purpose—to be ready.” The relief of suffering in national disasters, hitherto unknown in the history of the world through Miss Barton had become popular among the American people. The ratifying powers at Berne accepted the National American Red Cross with the proposed Clara Barton amendment, generally known as the American Amendment. The system for relief work in national disasters, made popular in the United States through Clara Barton, was later approved and adopted by the International Red Cross Committee of the Treaty of Geneva. It has therefore become a part of the Red Cross system of all Treaty nations. These nations, representing a population of more than one billion of human beings, or four-fifths of the human race, are now enjoying the beneficence of the constructive genius of Clara Barton. LXXXVI Clara Barton—one of God’s noblest. Augusta (Ga.) _Journal_. One of the world’s greatest. Sacramento (Cal.) _Record-Union_. Honored in three continents. St. Paul (Minn.) _Dispatch_. Her movement spanned the globe. Springfield (Mo.) _Republican_. The preferring of charges against Clara Barton, and her subsequent investigation, is one of the rankest instances of injustice in the history of this country. Unfounded charges, political spite and the hope of remuneration,—the charges were refuted and the schemers were discredited, but politics had triumphed and Miss Barton was cast aside. Los Angeles (Cal.) _Examiner_. It was demanded of Clara Barton that she give an accounting of goods and food distributed to dying and wounded on the battlefield. The unspeakable Turk never did anything as bad as this.—But that investigation was only an exigency, an excrescence, a malformation, a wart on the nose. _The Fra_, East Aurora, N. Y. Squint-eyed slander. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. Slanderous as Satan. SHAKESPEARE. Slander expires at a good woman’s door. EWALD. ’Twas slander filled her mouth with lying words, Slander, the foulest whelp of sin. POLLOCK—_Course of Time_. Slander, meanest spawn of Hell— And woman’s slander is the worst. TENNYSON—_The Letters_.