Clara Barton: A Centenary Tribute to the World's Greatest Humanitarian: Founder of the American Red Cross Society, Author of the American Amendment to the International Red Cross Convention of Geneva, Founder of the National First Aid Association of AmericaYoung, Charles Sumner
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Clara Barton: A Centenary Tribute to the World's Greatest Humanitarian: Founder of the American Red Cross Society, Author of the American Amendment to the International Red Cross Convention of Geneva, Founder of the National First Aid Association of America
Young, Charles Sumner
Barton, Clara, 1821-1912
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
on _methods 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 a _Merchant Prince_; she could teach one of America’s
most successful business men on _business points_; she excited _the
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.
[Illustration:
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C.
Dedicated to the Heroic Women of the Civil War.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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