A Story of the Red Cross; Glimpses of Field Work

In the light of recent events, I may perhaps be pardoned for quoting a few lines from the official report of the Johnstown Flood Finance Committee appointed by Governor Beaver, as showing how these gentlemen, the foremost men in the community, regarded our efforts to give them a helping hand:

"In this matter of sheltering the people, as in others of like importance, Miss Clara Barton, President of the Red Cross Association, was most helpful. At a time when there was a doubt if the Flood Commission could furnish houses of suitable character and with the requisite promptness, she offered to assume charge, and she erected with the funds of the Association three large apartment houses, which afforded comfortable lodgings for many houseless people. She was among the first to arrive on the scene of calamity, bringing with her Dr. Hubbell, the Field Officer of the Red Cross Association, and a staff of skilled assistants. She made her own organization for relief work in every form, disposing of the large resources under her control with such wisdom and tenderness that the charity of the Red Cross had no sting, and its recipients are not Miss Barton's dependents, but her friends. She was also the last of the ministering spirits to leave the scene of her labors, and she left her apartment houses for use during the winter, and turned over her warehouse with its store of furniture, bedding, and clothing, and a well-equipped infirmary, to the Union Benevolent Association of the Conemaugh Valley, the organization of which she advised and helped to form; and its lady visitors have so well performed their work that the dreaded winter has no terrors, mendicancy has been repressed, and not a single case of unrelieved suffering is known to have occurred in all the flooded district."

Enterprising, industrious, and hopeful, the new Johnstown, ph[oe]nix-like, rose from its ruins more beautiful than the old, with a ceaseless throb of grateful memory for every kind act rendered, and every thought of sympathy given her in her great hour of desolation and woe. God bless her, and God bless all who helped save her!

V

THE RUSSIAN FAMINE

As early as 1889, the foreign journals began to tell us of the apprehension caused by an unusual failure of the crops in Central Russia, extending from Moscow north and south, and east beyond the Ural Mountains and into Siberia – embracing an era of a million square miles. This failure was followed by another in 1890.

Eighteen hundred and ninety-one found the old-time granaries empty, and a total failure of the crops, and a population of thirty-five millions of people, paralyzed with the dread of approaching famine.

The American Red Cross had placed itself in communication with the Secretary of State, Hon. James G. Blaine, whose name and memory it treasures with reverence, and Mr. Alexander Gregor, the accomplished Russian Chargé d'Affaires at Washington, and ascertained that Russia would gladly receive donations of relief from America. She would even send her ships for any food that might be offered. This, America would not permit and Congress was appealed to for ocean transportation. The Senate voted a liberal appropriation, which was defeated in the House.

Then the Red Cross, with the aid of the citizens of Washington, took up the matter. They were joined by the Order of Elks, which contributed a sum of seven hundred dollars, than which perhaps that liberal Order never made a more timely gift. Funds were raised to charter a steamship for the Red Cross. The spirit spread generally over the country. Philadelphia sent a messenger to learn what Washington was doing, and was advised to charter one of its own ships, which was done, and two consignments were finally made by them.

Minnesota had already acted, and later, by the advice and aid of the extra provision of the Red Cross, the Christian Herald sent out its ship cargo, under convoy of Rev. Dr. Talmage.

But the State of Iowa led all others in active generosity.

Under the supervision of Mr. B. F. Tillinghast, of Davenport, aided by the able pen of Miss Alice French, that State alone raised, and sent in trains across the country from Iowa to New York, one hundred and seventeen thousand bushels of corn and one hundred thousand pounds of flour, which was loaded onto the "Tynehead," a staunch British ship, and consigned to the port of Riga.

That year we had been notified of an International Conference to be held in Rome. The customary appropriation was made by Congress, and again I was appointed delegate. Too much occupied by the relief at home, Dr. Hubbell, also a delegate, went in my place to Rome, and from there reached Riga in time to receive and direct the distribution of the immense cargo of grain throughout Russia.

When Dr. Hubbell reached Riga he learned that two hundred and forty peasants had been waiting on the dock two days, watching and waiting for the ship from America. Not waiting for food, for Riga was not in a famine province, but waiting that they might not miss the opportunity and the honor of unloading the American ship that had brought food to their unfortunate brothers in the interior. As soon as they could get into the hold of the ship, one hundred and forty of them began the unloading. They worked night and day, without rest, determined to unload the entire cargo themselves, without help. But on the third night our Consul, Mr. Bornholdt, insisted on their having a relief of twelve hours, and when the twelve hours were up they were all in their places again, and remained until the cargo was out, declining to take any pay for their labor. Twelve women worked along with them in the same spirit, in the ship and on the dock, with needles, sewing up the rents in the bags, to prevent waste in handling, and cooking meals for the men.

The Mayor of St. Petersburg, in an address on behalf of that city to American donors, declared:

"The Russian people know how to be grateful. If up to this day these two great countries, Russia and the United States, have not only never quarreled, but on the contrary wished each other prosperity and strength always, these feelings of sympathy can grow only stronger in the future, both countries being conscious that in the season of trial for either it will find in the other cordial succor and support. And can true friendship be tested if not in the hour of misfortune?"

A peasant of Samara sent to a Russian editor, together with three colored eggs, a letter which he asked to have forwarded to America. The following is an extract from the letter:

"Christ is risen! To the merciful benefactors, the protectors of the poor, the feeders of the starving, the guardians of the orphans – Christ is risen.

"North Americans! May the Lord grant you a peaceful and long life and prosperity to your land, and may your fields be filled with abundant harvest – Christ is risen. Your mercifulness gives us a helping hand. Through your charity you have satisfied the starving. And for your magnificent alms accept from me this humble gift, which I send to the entire American people for your great beneficence, from all the hearts of the poor filled with feelings of joy."

In the gratitude manifested by the Russian Government and people we were glad to feel that a slight return had been made to Russia for past favors in our own peril, and a friendship never broken.

The Department of State at Washington, under date of January 11, 1894, forwarded the following:

"I have to inform you that on November 7, 1893, the American Minister at St. Petersburg received from the nobility of that city, through their Marshal, Count Alexis Bobrinskoy, an address to the people of the United States. This address, which is in the English language, embodies in terms fitly chosen the thanks of the Russian people to the American for the aid sent to their country from our own during the famine period of the past two years. It is beautifully engrossed and its illumination embraces water-color drawings which render it a most attractive work of art.

"The document, which is superbly bound and enclosed in a fine case, was duly forwarded to this city by the American Minister at St. Petersburg, and will be given a conspicuous place in the library of this department."

In so general an uprising of relief no great sum in contributions could be expected from any one source. The Red Cross felt that, if no more, it was glad to be able to pay, by the generous help of the city of Washington, the charter of a ship that conveyed its corn – $12,500 – besides several thousands distributed in Russia through Tolstoi and American agents there.

We paid the cost of loading, superintended by Mr. Tillinghast in person, whose financial record shows the exact cost of transportation. All this was done in connection with the State of Iowa. Our home record showed, when all was finished, a field closed with a small balance in our favor, which we had no active call for. By the advice of one of the best personal advisers, bankers, and friends that the Red Cross has ever had, this small sum was placed in bank, in readiness for the next call.

VI

THE SEA ISLAND RELIEF

This little timely provision, advisedly made, was none too much or none too soon.

On the 28th of August, 1893, a hurricane and tidal wave from the direction of the West Indies swept the coast of South Carolina, covering its entire range of Port Royal Islands, sixteen feet below the sea. These islands had thirty-five thousand inhabitants, mainly negroes. At first, it was thought that all must have perished. Later, it was found that only some four or five thousand had been drowned, and that thirty thousand remained with no earthly possession of home, clothing, or food. The few boats not swept away took them over to the mainland in thousands, and calls went out for help. In this emergency Governor Tillman called for the services of the Red Cross, and my note-book has this passage:

"The next night, in a dark, cheerless September mist, I closed my door behind me for ten months, and with three assistants went to the station to meet Senator Butler."

At Columbia we were joined by Governor Tillman, and thus reinforced proceeded to Beaufort. After due examination the work which had been officially placed with us by the Governor was accepted October 1st, and carried on until the following July.

The submerged lands were drained, three hundred miles of ditches made, a million feet of lumber purchased and houses built, fields and gardens planted with the best seed in the United States, and the work all done by the people themselves. The thousands of boxes of clothing received were distributed among them, and we left them in July, 1894, supplies of vegetables for the city of Beaufort.

Free transportation for supplies continued till about March. No provisions in kind were sent from any source after the first four weeks of public excitement. After this all foodstuffs were purchased in Charleston and distributed as rations. Men were compelled to work on the building of their own homes in order to receive rations.

We found them an industrious, grateful class of people, far above the ordinary grade usually met. They largely owned their little homes, and appreciated instruction in the way of improving them. The tender memory of the childlike confidence and obedience of this ebony-faced population is something that time cannot efface from either us or them.

On the third day after our arrival at Beaufort four middle-aged colored men came to the door of the room we had appropriated as an office, and respectfully asked to see "Miss Clare." They were admitted, and I waited to learn what request they would probably make of me. At length the tallest and evidently the leader, said:

"Miss Clare, we knows you doesn't remember us. But we never fo'gits you. We has all of us got somethin' to show you."

Slipping up a soiled, ragged shirtsleeve, he showed me an ugly scar above the elbow, reaching to the shoulder. "Wagner?" I asked.

"Yes, Miss Clare, and you drissed it for me that night, when I crawled down the beach – 'cause my leg was broke too," he replied. "And we was all of us there, and you took care of us all and drissed our wounz. I was with Colonel Shaw, and crawled out of the fote. The oth's nevah got in. But we all got to you, Miss Clare. And now you's got to us. We's talked about you a heap o' times, but we nevah 'spected to see you. We's nevah fo'git it, Miss Clare."

One by one they showed their scars. There was very little clothing to hide them – bullet wound and sabre stroke. The memory, dark and sad, stood out before us all. It was a moment not to be forgotten.

Our purchases consisted of meat, mainly dry sides of pork, and grits, or hominy, for eating. For planting, beside the seed contributed and the nine hundred bushels of Irish potatoes, were eighteen hundred bushels of Northern Flint seed corn.

The contributions of food and clothing had been sent to Beaufort, and were in the warehouses of the perplexed committee of its leading citizens. This had naturally drawn all the inhabitants of the scores of desolated islands for fifty miles to Beaufort, until, it is safe to say, that fifteen to twenty thousand refugees had gathered there, living in its streets and waiting to be fed from day to day.

As the food was there they could not be induced to return to the islands. Indeed, there was more often nothing on the islands to return to. The description given by the heads of families and owners, for they had largely owned their homes, gotten on the old-time plantations "'fo de wah," was this: If all had been swept out to sea and nothing remained, it was described as, "done gone." But if thrown down and parts of the wreck still remained, it was described as "ractified."

A few of the churches, being larger and more strongly built, still remained standing. During the first ten days of our stay it would have been impossible to drive through the principal streets of Beaufort. They were a solid moving mass, crowding as near to the storehouses as possible to get, in spite of the policeman, who kindly held them back.

We sat daily in counsel with the local committee, until seeing that only systematic measures and a decided change could relieve the conditions and render the city safe. We then, on the first of October, decided to accede to the request of the Governor made at first, and take sole charge of the relief.

Our first order was to close every storehouse, both of food and clothing, and inform the people that all distributions would hereafter be made from the islands. It is impossible to convey to the mind of the reader the difficulty of getting into a few intelligent sentences the idea of the means adopted to produce these changes and inaugurate a system that was to restore to active habits of life a body of utterly homeless, demoralized, and ignorant people, equal in numbers to a small new State.

If these little covers would admit the scores of pages of admirably written reports of the officers and helpers on that field, every line replete with interest, that lie here at my hand, it would be an easy and a welcome task to reproduce them entire, and no more than deserved for their faithful and gratuitous labor.

Dr. Egan's report has this passage:

"October 2d came my marching orders. Take charge of the warehouse and stores, make an inventory of them, disperse these men, and rid the city of the demoralizing influence of idle people. The doors are closed and the inventory begun."

The local committee had kindly pointed out the most suitable man to take charge of each community, and to him would be consigned the rations to be distributed to each family and person within his charge, for which receipt and distribution he became as responsible as a merchant.

The goods and rations were at once shipped across the bay to them, or taken on their own boats, if so fortunate as to have one left from the storm. It is needless to say that the multitude followed the food.

In three days there were not people enough left in Beaufort, besides its own, to be hired for a "job of work." Then followed the necessity for material to rebuild the "done gone," and to repair the "ractified" homes.

A million feet of pine lumber was purchased of a leading lumber dealer, shipped down the Combahee River, and delivered at the landings on the islands most convenient of access to the points needed. Each man received his lumber by order and receipt, and was under obligation to build his own house. The work was all performed by themselves. A garden was insisted upon. At first this proposition was resisted as impracticable.

"No use, Mistah – no use – 'cause de pig eat it all up."

It was suggested that a fence might be made enclosing at least a quarter of an acre about the house to keep "de pig" out, as we should later send, for planting, the best seed to be obtained in the country.

To this moment our thanks go out to the Agricultural Department at Washington, and the great seed houses of all the North, for the generous donations that served to bring once more into self-sustaining relations this destitute and well-disposed people.

The fact that the building of the fence, and its subsequent keeping in strict repair, had some bearing on the weekly issuance of rations, was evidently not without its influence. There were no poor fences and "de pig" did no damage. But there were such gardens, and of such varieties, as those islands had never before seen.

The earliest crop to strive for, beside the gardens, was the Irish potato, which they had never raised. Nine hundred bushels were purchased from Savannah for planting in February. The difficulty of distributing the potatoes lay in the fact that they would be more likely to find their way into the dinner pot than into the ground. To avoid this the court-yard inside our headquarters was appropriated for the purpose of preparing the potatoes for planting.

Some forty women were hired to come over from the islands and cut potatoes for seed – every "eye" of the potato making a sprout – these distributed to them by the peck, like other seed.

I recall a fine, bright morning in May, when I was told that a woman who had come over from St. Helena in the night, waited at the door to see me. I went to the door to find a tall, bright-looking woman in a clean dress, with a basket on her head, which, after salutation, she lowered and held out to me. There was something over a peck of Early Rose potatoes in the basket – in size from a pigeon's to a pullet's egg. The grateful woman could wait no longer for the potatoes to grow larger, but had dug these, and had come ten miles over the sea, in the night, to bring them to me as a first offering of food of her own raising.

If the tears fell on the little gift as I looked and remembered, no one will wonder or criticise. The potatoes were cooked for breakfast, and "Susie Jane" was invited to partake.

The shores of the mainland had not been exempt from the ravages of the storm and in many instances had suffered like the islands. Some thirty miles above Beaufort was a kind of plantation, with a community of sixty or seventy families of colored people. The property was owned by two elderly white ladies who had not returned since driven away by the storm.

This village was reported to us as in need and demoralized, with no head, scant of food, and its "ractified" houses scarcely affording a shelter.

A representative mulatto man came to tell us. An inspection was made and resulted in this man being put in charge to build up the community. Lumber and food were provided and the people set to work under his charge. From time to time word came to us, and after some months the tall representative came again. He had been asked by the people to come and bring their thanks to the Red Cross for "de home, de gard'n, de pig, and de chick'n dey all has now."

The thanks they had emphasized and proved by the heavy basket that Jackson had carefully brought all the forty miles. It contained seventy-one fresh eggs – the gift of seventy-one families – being a contribution of one egg from each family, from the day or two previous to his leaving on his mission.

Domestic gardens were a new feature among these islanders, whose whole attention had been always given to the raising of the renowned "Sea Island Cotton," the pride of the market, and a just distinction to themselves and the worthy planter. The result of this innovation was that, when we left in July, it was nearly as difficult for a pedestrian to make his way on the narrow sidewalks of Beaufort because of piled-up vegetables for sale from the islands, as it had been in October to pass through the streets because of hungry, idle men and women.

Nothing better illustrates the native good heart of these people than their kindly interest in and for each other. Often the young men, without families, would club together and put up a house for some lone old "auntie," who had neither family nor home, and occasionally there seemed to develop among them an active philanthropist. Of this type was Jack Owens, who rebuilt his own "done gone" premises. One day as the field agent was driving out on some inspection he met Jack walking into town.

His decrepit neighbor's house had burned a few weeks before, and Jack had gotten lumber and rebuilt the house himself. In describing the utter devastation, Jack explained that "all de house and de well was burned" – and he had built another house and was coming in on foot "for funituh to funish it." Jack had lost his ox, "a big ox," he said, in the storm, and now he "hadn't any nuther" to plow his ground. He pleaded for another – if it was only "a lil' critter it would grow big" – and it would help him so much.

The appeal was not to be resisted. Dr. Hubbell treasures to this day the satisfaction he felt in procuring something better than the "lil' critter" as reward and encouragement for Jack's active philanthropy.

If any practical woman reading this should try to comprehend what it would be to undertake to clothe and keep clothed thirty thousand human beings for a year, and to do this from the charitable gifts of the people, which gifts had all done more or less service before – often pretty thoroughly "ractified" – this woman will not wonder that sewing societies suggested themselves to us at headquarters.

The women were called together and this suggestion made to them, with the result that an old time "sewing circle" was instituted in every community. Its membership, officers, dues, and regulations were properly established – one-half day in each week devoted by each member to the work in its sewing-rooms, with a woman in charge to prepare it. The clothing was given out to them as received by us. Many a basket came proudly back to show us the difference between "den an' now" – good, strong, firmly mended garments. Ragged coats and pants disappeared from among the men, as no longer "'spectable fo' de fambly."

Provision was also made that the little girls from ten years old should attend and be taught to sew. Many a little dress was selected at headquarters for them to make over or repair.

I wish I could do fitting justice to the band of women volunteers who stood by me through those long months. Some had commenced with me when society belles, years before, now mistresses of their own palatial homes; some had come from under the old historic elms of Boston, and some from the hard-fought fields of Britain's Africa, and wearing the Victoria Cross. To them, white and black were the same, and no toil too hard or too menial.

The money contributed and received for the entire relief of ten months was thirty thousand five hundred, and a few additional dollars and cents which I do not at this moment recall. It aggregated one dollar apiece for the entire maintenance of thirty thousand persons for ten months.

It is the general custom in this part of the country for the merchants to furnish supplies to their patrons, and wait until the gathering of the crops for their pay. But when we left these people at the beginning of their harvest, not one family in twenty-five had contracted a debt for supplies: an experience before unknown in their history.

A report was made and passed into the hands of our legal counsellor, who, on seeing that no change could be truthfully made in it, advised that it be not published, as no one would believe it possible to be done, and we would get only distrust and discredit. Having now come to a pass where distrust and discredit are no longer to be feared by the Red Cross, we ourselves are free to make the statement. But back of the hard facts there is compensation.