Two of her letters concerning this journey have been quoted in a previous chapter. Clara Barton returned to her own land crowned with additional honors, but confronting new and wholly unexpected difficulties. The American Red Cross had been reincorporated by Act of Congress June 6, 1900. Under the new form of organization the board and its executive committee possessed large powers. There was a feeling on the part of some members of the board that the American Red Cross was too exclusively under the direction of Clara Barton. Her work for the relief of Galveston had been undertaken almost the moment that she first learned of its great need. She had not waited to call an executive committee meeting. While her work in that field was most heartily commended, there was a feeling on the part of members of the board that the Red Cross, being now virtually a representative organ of the United States Government, its fields of service should be determined, not by the judgment of an individual, but of the governing body of the organization itself. There was further criticism growing out of the fact that, when emergencies arose by reason of any great national disaster, a considerable part of the money was sent direct to Clara Barton on the field, and expended by her without passing through the hands of the treasurer. Miss Barton admitted that she had made these decisions at times without the formal authority of her executive committee, and that she had received and expended money according to her best judgment when the emergency was at hand. She did not desire to be bound by burdensome restrictions; she wished to be at liberty to meet the need whenever it should arrive, and in the way that seemed to be necessary. If everything had gone well with the Red Cross during the absence of Clara Barton at St. Petersburg in 1902, it may be that she would have consented to retire on her return from that notable experience. It was hardly likely that any further honor could have come to her higher than that which she had already received. Theoretically she ought to have been training up assistants who would act effectively in her absence, and in time succeed her. It was in some respects a limitation on her part that she had not found assistants to whom she could delegate authority with confidence that it would be properly used. On the other hand, she had made some experiments in training up associates, and found reason to regret it. While Clara Barton was on her way to St. Petersburg the disastrous Mont Pelée earthquake occurred. She had left the American Red Cross organized with a board of control which gave it authority to act in such an emergency. She returned from St. Petersburg bitterly disappointed because the American Red Cross played in that disaster, as she felt, a wholly insignificant part. It seemed to her to have displayed a complete lack of that initiative which had always characterized her action under such conditions.