The Life of Clara Barton, Founder of the American Red Cross (Vol. 2 of 2)Barton, William E. (William Eleazar)
History
The Life of Clara Barton, Founder of the American Red Cross (Vol. 2 of 2)
Barton, William E. (William Eleazar)
American National Red Cross -- Biography; Barton, Clara, 1821-1912; Nurses -- United States -- Biography
I have sent you a number of our International Bulletins which appear
every three months, and in which I have spoken of you. The annual
subscription being only six francs, your Committee would take two
subscriptions and by it would know all that is done in the different
countries. Last year we sent three delegates to Montenegro, an
interesting little country, where with material help and money we can
do a great deal of good, and where one is received like a Divinity by
this enthusiastic population, but which is also jealous and suspicious.
Our old delegates being at Geneva, yours could receive numerous and
useful information. Before realizing this ambassador, we had three
months’ study and treating.
I send you my discourse made in Brussels, which for your case does
not contain any immediate application. I might give one to your
hypothetical delegates as they pass through Geneva.
As you see, Miss Barton, and honored friend, I began with the idea
that the American Society of the Red Cross should revise and assure
its stable existence by an immediate employment of its power through a
practical application; relief funds to send to the belligerent armies
of the Oriental War. Once consecrated by action by the remembrance of
what it has done, its basis will be firmer, its credit more assured,
and then you will be able to give it a definite form and shape which
experience will have shown you to be the most useful.
Not knowing yet what Mr. Moynier has done during my absence, I shall
not send you the letter which I wish to address to your President, but
shall do it as soon as I shall have seen him, if he has not already
done it.
Write to me at any time concerning the affairs of the Red Cross and
I shall reply as well as I can, being always in accordance with Mr.
Moynier’s wishes, who does not know English.
You would do well to have Mr. Moynier’s pamphlet translated into
English, “What the Red Cross is.” My little volume, entitled “The
Surgeon at the Ambulance,” has been translated into English either in
England or in America; perhaps it would be well to have a new edition
of it for the circumstance. At last our volume “The War and Charity”
has also been translated into English. For all our publications of the
International Committee and its members it suffices to address Mr.
George, Librarian at Geneva. Perhaps it would be necessary and useful,
after you have plenty of money and fellow-laborers, to publish every
three months a small bulletin of your work in one of the good American
journals.
And now, my dear Miss Barton, I have talked enough to you about the
Red Cross. I have given you my ideas provisionally, expecting better
ones later. You see, I have spoken to you familiarly and with an
entire confidence and fraternal friendship which our intercourse and
our common work in Europe has brought forth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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