The Red Cross: Some Facts Concerning Clara Barton’s Work
Booklet
By Walter P. Phillips
Bridgeport, Conn.
1903

Page 3 of 8

Transcript:
 “Every now and again there is born into the world and exceptional man or woman who seems to have been created for the specific purpose of placing a new and striking imprint upon the history of the human race.  Such were Alexander, Hannibal, Napoleon, Wellington, Marlborough, Washington, Kossuth, Garabaldi, Lincoln, Joan D’Arc, Florence Nightingale, Grace Darling, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frances Willard, and such are Susan B. Anthony and Clara Barton.

Some twenty-five years ago, when the writer was at the head of the Associated Press in Washington, a lady unknown to him at that time asked, through a mutual friend, for an audience.  Miss Barton came to my office and briefly told me the story of the Red Cross from its inception in Geneva down to that time.  Even then every important nation of the face of the earth had given its assent and become a party to the Geneva treaty, with the solitary exception of the United States.  The matter had been repeatedly presented to our Government, but it had not appealed to Secretary Seward, and his successors in the State Department were reluctant to recommend anything that had been considered and rejected by that alert and able statesman.  The latest attempt to secure the adherence of the United States had been made by the Rev. Henry W. Bellows, who had finally given up the contest against precedent and prejudice and had written to Miss Barton that while her wished her success in the filed in which he had been defeated, he saw no hope in the situation for her or anybody else…”

Clara Barton National Historic Site, CLBA 4497