Читать книгу The Red Cross in Peace and War - Barton Clara - Страница 31

Know all men by these presents, that we, Clara Barton, Julian B. Hubbell, Stephen E. Barton, Peter V. DeGraw and George Kennan, all being persons of full age, citizens of the United States, and a majority residents of the District of Columbia, being desirous of forming an association to carry on the benevolent and humane work of “The Red Cross” in accordance with the Articles of the International Treaty of Geneva, Switzerland, entered into on the twenty-second day of August, 1864, and adopted by the Government of the United States on the first day of March, 1882, and also in accordance with the broader scope given to the humane work of said treaty by “The American Association of the Red Cross,” and known as “The American Amendment,” whereby the suffering incident to great floods, famines, epidemics, conflagrations, cyclones, or other disasters of national magnitude, may be ameliorated by the administering of necessary relief; and being desirous of continuing the noble work heretofore performed by “The American Association of the Red Cross,” incorporated in the District of Columbia for the purpose of securing the adoption of the said Treaty of Geneva by the United States, for benevolent and charitable purposes, and to co-operate with the Comite International de Secours aux Militaires Blesses.

Now, therefore, for the purpose of creating ourselves, our associates and successors, a body politic and corporate in name and in fact, we do hereby associate ourselves together under and by virtue of sections 545, 546, 547, 548, 549 and 550 of the Revised Statutes of the United States relating to the District of Columbia, as amended and in force at this time; and do make, sign and acknowledge this Certificate of Incorporation, as follows, to wit:

First.—The name by which this association shall be known in law is: “The American National Red Cross.”

Second.—The principal office of the association shall be in the City of Washington, District of Columbia.

Third.—The term of its existence shall be fifty years from the date of this certificate.

Fourth.—The objects of this association shall be, in addition to the purposes set forth in the above preamble, as follows, to wit:

1. To garner the store materials, articles, supplies, moneys, or property of whatsoever name or nature, and to maintain a system of national relief and administer the same in the mitigation of human suffering incident to war, pestilence, famine, flood, or other calamities.

2. To hold itself in readiness for communicating and co-operating with the Government of the United States, or any Department thereof, or with the “Comite International de Secours aux Militaires Blesses,” of Geneva, Switzerland, to the end that the merciful provisions of the said “International Treaty of Geneva” may be more wisely and effectually carried out.

3. To collect and diffuse information concerning the progress and application of mercy, the organization of national relief, the advancement of sanitary science and the training and preparation of nurses or others necessary in the application of such work.

4. To carry on and transact any business, consistent with law, that may be necessary or desirable in the fulfillment of any or all of the objects and purposes hereinbefore set forth.

5. The affairs and funds of the corporation shall be controlled and managed by a Board of Directors, and the number of the directors for the first year of the corporation’s existence, and until their successors are lawfully elected and qualified, is five, and their names and addresses are as follows, to wit:

Clara Barton, Washington, D.C.; Peter V. DeGraw, Washington, D.C.; Dr. Julian B. Hubbell, Washington, D.C.; Dr. Joseph Gardner, Bedford, Ind., and Stephen E. Barton, Newtonville, Mass.

The names and addresses of the full membership of the association, who shall be designated as charter members, are as follows, to wit:

Clara Barton, Washington, D.C.; Hon. William Lawrence, Bellefontaine, Ohio; Peter V. DeGraw, Washington, D.C.; George Kennan, Washington, D.C.; Dr. Julian B. Hubbell, Washington, D.C.; Colonel Richard J. Hinton, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. Henry V. Boynton, Washington, D.C.; Rev. Rush R. Shippen, Washington, D.C.; Rev. Alexander Kent, Washington, D.C.; Rev. William Merritt Ferguson, Washington, D.C.; General Edward W. Whitaker, Washington, D.C.; Joseph E. Holmes, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. Peter V. DeGraw, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. George Kennan, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. R. Delavan Mussey, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. Omar D. Conger, Washington, D.C.; A.S. Solomons, Washington, D.C.; Walter P. Phillips; New York, N.Y.; Joseph Sheldon, New Haven, Conn.; John H. Van Wormer, New York, N.Y.; Albert C. Phillips, New York, N.Y.; Mrs. Walter P. Phillips, New York, N.Y.; Mrs. Joseph Gardner, Bedford, Ind.; Dr. Joseph Gardner, Bedford, Ind.; Miss Mary E. Almon, Newport, R.I.; Dr. Lucy Hall-Brown, Brooklyn, N.Y.; John H. Morlan, Bedford, Ind., and Stephen E. Barton, Newtonville, Mass. But the corporation shall have power to increase its membership in accordance with by-laws to be adopted.

In witness whereof, we have hereto subscribed our names and affixed our seals in triplicate, at the City of Washington, District of Columbia, this seventeenth day of April, A.D. 1893.

Witness:

Stephen E. Barton,

Clara Barton,

Julian B. Hubbell,

P.V. DeGraw.

George Kennan,

S.G. Hopkins,

F.H. Smith,

(Seal.)

I, S.G. Hopkins, a Notary Public in and for the said District of Columbia, do hereby certify that Clara Barton, Julian B. Hubbell, Stephen E. Barton, P.V. DeGraw and George Kennan, whose names are signed to the foregoing and annexed “Certificate of Incorporation of the American National Red Cross” bearing date of April 17, A.D. 1893, personally appeared before me, in the said District of Columbia, the said Clara Barton, Julian B. Hubbell, Stephen E. Barton, P.V. DeGraw and George Kennan, being personally well known to me as the persons who executed the said certificate, and each and all acknowledged the same to be his, her and their act and deed for the purpose therein mentioned.

Given under my hand and official seal, this seventeenth day of April, A.D. 1893.

(Signed.)

S.G. Hopkins, Notary Public.

Immediately following our accession to the Treaty of Geneva, March 1, 1882, the president of the Red Cross was asked by the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, to prepare a history of the Red Cross for publication by them through the government printing office. This was done, and a book of two hundred and twenty-seven pages was issued, giving an account of the origin of the organization, the steps by which it became a treaty, of our own initiation, and not only the exact text by which our accession was made, but that of every other nation within the treaty up to that time, 1882.

A bill for a reprint by Congress of fifty thousand copies of this book was lost in the session of 1898 through lack of time.

No consecutive book has been published by us since that date, but the history has been perhaps even more fully told, and that scores of times, in public addresses which its president and assistants have been called to make before great assemblies, selections from some of which will appear in this volume, as the fullest information given in the most compact manner that we can render in the short space of time allotted us.

The very title of the organization, viz.: “Relief in War,” has been a misnomer, and through all the early years especially was very generally misunderstood by the public. I have not unfrequently been invited and innocently urged to attend peace meetings and large charity gatherings for the poor and afflicted on the ground of needing instruction myself; inasmuch as I “was engaged in advocating war, wouldn’t it be well to hear something on the other side?” And I have been invited to become party to a discussion in which the merits of peace and war should be compared.

Large organizations of women, the best in the country, and, I believe, the best in the world, have faithfully labored with me to merge the Red Cross into their society as a part of woman’s work; without the smallest conception or realization of its scope, its international character, its treaty obligations, and the official ground it was liable at any time to be called to occupy.

Many charming invitations, from ladies even more charming, to address their convention or meeting, have still contained some well chosen word which might imply a question, if indeed the Red Cross really were the humane and philanthropic institution it claimed to be; naturally the address usually dealt with the question as it was put.

I name these facts as mere relics of the past, amusing now, but instructive to you of the present day (when no child even questions the motives of the Red Cross), as showing what it had to meet and live through in order to live at all.

In order to show the enthusiastic devotees of the present year how questionable the beneficence of the Red Cross appeared to the best people only a few years ago, I introduce the following address, read, by request, before a congress of women, 1895 or 1896, hoping that the charitably disposed reader will understand and appreciate the state of mind engendered by the title of the request made, and forgive any seeming acerbity: