The Red Cross then was non politics, non society, non salary, non graft. President Clara Barton was obdurate, non pliable. She could not _be used_. Her virtues became her undoing. She was retired. From Europe, for inspiration in America, was brought the English heroine;—suppressed or belittled, the American Red Cross Mother in semi-official literature, “At Home and Abroad.” The _coup_ won—the conspiracy completely triumphed. And how the official records disclose. Washington is the rendezvous of “in full dress” criminals—character-assassins,—“that strange bedlam composed largely of social climbers and official poseurs.” They carry a stiletto, half truth, but in desperate cases make use of slander, of forty-five calibre. Their prospective victims range from rich Uncle Sam down to a poor lone woman, of charity. They ply their vocations sometimes, through envy, for self-glorification; sometimes, through ambition, for self-exaltation. While Washington was having the _honor_ of dishonoring the great American philanthropist, a western town was offering as a present to her a fifty thousand dollar home, just to have the honor of her presence there. Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Miss Barton’s three cospirits and co-workers for humanity, met their fate while guarded by detectives; under certain customs prevailing in the West and South, as there is no protection from slander against a woman, “Chivalry” would have come to the rescue of defenseless Clara Barton. There is an official Red Cross report to Congress, made in 1903, said report on file in House Document No. 552, Vol. 49, 58th Congress, statements of historic interest relating to the status of Red Cross affairs about that time. _In re_ the proposed annuity of $2,500 and the Honorary Presidency for Life, should Clara Barton consent to permit the minority membership _thereafter to control the Red Cross_, and other matters relating thereto, appear the following in that report: Since the filing of their (the remonstrants) Memorial in Congress, at least two thousand newspapers, in the country and out of it, have openly published these damaging statements, without the slightest knowledge of the facts. The memorial includes an ex parte statement.—It is greatly to be regretted that such action should have been taken—without giving a hearing to the majority of the organization, or to Miss Barton herself. [Illustration: From a photograph taken at St. Petersburg, Russia, July, 1902, at the time the Decoration of the Red Cross was conferred on Clara Barton by the Czar and Empress Dowager. ] [Illustration: From a photograph taken in 1904, at the time when occurred the so-called “investigation” of Clara Barton, at Washington, D. C. ] [Illustration: From a photograph taken in Washington, D. C., in 1878. ] [Illustration: From a photograph taken in 1897, just before leaving the United States for her work among the Reconcentrados in Cuba. ] [Illustration: