The Red Cross means, not national aid for the needs of the people, but the people’s aid for the needs of the Nation. She would not accept a salary or permit any friend of hers in Congress to introduce a bill for her financial advantage. How keenly she felt the importance of establishing the Red Cross upon this basis, and how sensitive she was to the opposition which grew formidable just before the treaty was adopted, is shown in a letter of hers to her long-time friend Frances Willard, who wrote to ask the reason why she was not moving faster in her work for the relief of the people in the flooded district along the Mississippi: WASHINGTON, Feby. 11, 1882 DEAR FRANCES WILLARD: Yes, I did get your letter telling me about the state of things in Mississippi and that all was lost there. I have no doubt but that it is the same the country through. It is hard and heavy and bitter; the shots of malice and detraction fall thick, but I must stand at the helm and steer my ship safely into port. The _Treaty of Geneva_ must first be secured. I have but one passage to take it through and that is lined thick on every side with guns manned by the Society ladies of the Capital of the Nation. The Red Cross, a little stranger craft from a foreign land, bearing only the banner of peace and love, and her messages of world-wide mercy begging shelter and acceptance in our capacious harbor, has chosen me for her pilot to bring her in. Besides these guns that open upon her on all sides she runs against the chains which have so long held her out--fancied Government defenses of “Non-intervention,” “Self-isolation,” beware of “Entangling alliances,” “Washington’s Farewell Address,” “Monroe Doctrine,” apathy, inertia, general ignorance, national conceit, national distrust, a desire to retain the old-time barbarous privileges of privateering and piracy which we have hugged as a precious boon against every humane treaty since we began. All these my little ship has had to meet and breast and bear down, before this new and personal attack was opened upon her, so you see I cannot turn aside from my duties of a true pilot to contest a new foe. I must bring my ship through the natural dangers and anchor it safely in port, though _it_ and I be riddled with shot. I have thrown over all extra weight, put on all sail, muzzled my guns, put my poor tired wounded crew to the pumps, nailed the little flag to the mast; and so you see us without other word or sign, plunging through the surf, breaking down chain after chain, through the fire and smoke, making for the shore. Never a messenger of mercy met a more inhospitable welcome, but the poor battered pilot has faith in the craft, and faith in God, and at no distant day, in spite of all, we shall throw out a sturdy old iron anchor to grapple with the reefs of the coast, and run up a little pennant beside the cross, “Treaty Ratified.” After this we shall