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
History
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
Autocracy cannot take precedence over heart; wealth cannot compensate
the loss of the spirit of love; wrong cannot win permanent victory over
right; official mandate cannot dim the glory of record achievements. The
highest achievement is the highest ideal, realized. In a nation the
highest ideal, realized, is not wealth, not the palace of wealth; it is
the individual. Eliminate the individual and there would be no history.
The history of the individual is the history of a nation. In Greece the
highest realized ideal is Homer; in Italy, Dante; in England,
Shakespeare; in American philanthropy it is the Founder of the American
Red Cross, of the National First Aid, and author of the American
Amendment.
As in the early sixties the Daughter of the Regiment lit the fires of
hope on the field and in the hospital of the Southland, in later years
through her “American Amendment” her service-system in alleviating human
suffering has become the system of forty civilized nations, comprising
four-fifths of the human race. Certain of fulfillment the prophecy of
our illustrious statesman, the late George F. Hoar of this city, who
said that countless millions and uncounted generations will profit
through the Founder of our American systems of philanthropy.
The achievements of the Daughter of the Regiment are the heritage of the
nation. But the fame of the daughter is indissolubly linked with that of
the regiment; the fame of the regiment, with that of the daughter.
Regiment and daughter were comrades in adversity, comrades when bullets
whizzed and death stalked. That comradeship was the most beautiful of
the humanities in the Civil War. Said a gallant son of the Twenty-first
Massachusetts: “We dearly loved her, and I do not think there was a man
in the regiment who would not have been willing to die for her.” Said
the Daughter of the Regiment: “If my life could have purchased the lives
of the patriot martyrs who fell for their country and mine, how
cheerfully and quickly would the exchange have been made.” That
sentiment reciprocal—willing to serve at the risk of life—is a sentiment
chivalric, unsurpassed by the belted and spurred knights of the sword in
Feudal Days.
The guns cease firing,—the battleground, a ghastly scene. Human ghouls
are lurking, preying upon the helpless. The “lone woman” is in their
midst, going in and coming out of houses where lay the dead and dying,
walking through the streets and alley ways, on her mission. A
knight-errant in his saddle, with hat in hand graciously bowing, gallops
up to her, admonishing that she is in great danger and offering her the
City’s protection. Pointing to the thousands of boys wearing the blue,
she answered: “No, Marshal, I think not; I am the best protected woman
in the United States.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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