OCR Text |
Show THOUSAND DISASTERS RECEIVED RED CROSS AID IN FIFTY YEARS American Society to Celebrate Its Birth Year With Nationwide Nation-wide Observance Tornadoes, floods, forest fires and other calamities and upheavals of nature na-ture have visited the United States more than one thousand times In the last half century. All of these were of severe Intensity, causing loss of life and great property damage. Minor catastrophes were not counted in this list of disasters, which has been made public by the American Red Cross, in connection with the celebration cele-bration this year of Its fiftieth birthday. birth-day. It was on the evening of May 21, 1SS1, In the modest home of Miss Clara Barton In Washington, D. C, that the American Association of the Red Cross was first formed. Before the year was out, and before, indeed, the United States Government had officially moved to approve the Treaty of Geneva, adding this nation to the company com-pany of thirty-two others adhering to the treaty to protect wounded in warfare, war-fare, Miss Barton had plunged the small society into a disaster relief task. First Red Cross Unit This was In the north woods of Michigan, where forest fires swept the homestead farms of pioneering families. fam-ilies. Miss Barton, as president of the Red Cross, had organized a branch in Dansville, New York, where she was sojourning. This little group immediately imme-diately raised money, food, clothing and other supplies and sent them to the forest fire victims. In Rochester and Syracuse, New York, nearby, word spread of this charitable enterprise, and Red Cross auxiliaries were organized organ-ized there to help. So began the disaster disas-ter relief work of the Red Cross ilfty years ago. In the intervening years, millions of men, women and children have been aided. Thousands of homes have been restored. Thousands of persons, overwhelmed by floods, tornadoes, tor-nadoes, and fires until all they possessed pos-sessed had been wiped away, have been rehabilitated and prosperity and happiness again smiled upon them. This year has been dedicated by the Red Cross and its chapters in 3,500 communities to commemoration of the events which led to the birth of the society in the United States. President Hoover Speaks The celebration of the anniversary was inaugurated in Washington at a dinner, attended by many dlstin-guiuhed dlstin-guiuhed men and women, at which Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes presided, and President Hoover, wno is-4ihe president of the American Red Cross, was the chief speaker. Judge Max Huber of Geneva, Switzerland, the president of the International Committee Com-mittee of the Red Cross, in which fifty-seven fifty-seven nations are joined in a Red Cross brotherhood, also was a speaker, as were Chairman John Barton Payne of the American Red Cross, and Miss Mabel T. Boardman, secretary, and veteran leader of the society. The Red Cross standard, which flies all around the world where mercy is needed, was first introduced as an ideal in our modern civilization In Geneva in 1864, when the international Red Cross convention, afterward to be known as the Treaty of Geneva, was signed by twelve countries agreeing that on the battlefield the wounded should be given aid by doctors, nurses and others, who should wear the sign of the Red Cross, and be treated as neutrals in the warfare. Two Americans attended this first convention, the American Minister George C. Fogg, and Charles S. P. Bowles, representative in Europe of the United States Sanitary Commission, Commis-sion, a volunteer organization of sympathizers sym-pathizers with the North in our Ci-'ll War. Facts they gave resulted in adop tion of some of the American ideas. Returning to the United States, Fogg and Bowles sought recognition of the Geneva Treaty, but the Grant administration admin-istration took no interest.. Under Hayes, the same lethargy was encountered. en-countered. Clara Barton Founder But there bad emerged from the Civil War period a middle-aged woman who had seen much service on the battlefields battle-fields around Washington. This was Clara Barton. Ill health caused her to make a trip to Europe lo 1869. There she became interested in the Red Cross idea, and joined a unit which saw service in the Franco-Prussian war. Upon her return home, she launched an active campaign for the treaty, but met the same opposition as her predecessors. However. President Presi-dent Garfield, when he came into office, of-fice, recognized the merits of the movement, and when death by assassination assassi-nation removed him, his successor. President Arthur, sought approval by the U. S. Senate of the treaty. Thus was consummated a seventeen-year fight in this nation for a humanitarian ideal. Clara Barton was recognized aa the society's founder and was its president presi-dent for twenty-three years. She died in 1912 at the age of 90 years. It is not generally thought of. but the flag so familiar in every civilized nation as the emblem of the Red Cross, had a simple derivation. Because the originator of the movement, Henri Dunant, was a Swiss, and the first treaty to protect w-ounded in battle was drafted and signed In Switzerland, the flag of that Republic a white cross upon a red background was reversed, j and the Red Cross came into being. |