A GREAT HUMANITARIAN.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1414, 15 April 1912, Page 9

A GREAT HUMANITARIAN.

CLAIiA BARTON. A Press Association cablegram from ■Washington, dated April 12, states that Miss Clara Barton, founder cf the American Red Cross Society, is dead. Death was due to chronic pneumonia. Of all the great people of the earth— the kings and conquerors, the founders of faiths and the martyrs to creeds (says a writer in the official journal of the American White Cross First Aid Society), there is not one of then; that makes such a strong enduring appeal to the real inner heart of the world as our great humanitarians. Clara Barton, news of whoso death has just been cabled to New Zealand, was one of these great souls. Over eighty years ago, on a Christmas morning, she was born in the little New England town of Oxford, the last born of a strenuous, strong, sturdy family, pioneers of New England. She grew up among her brothers an unusually sensitive delicate child, and a notable cue. At thirteen she taught in the villagA school. Next she kept tho books in her brother's mill. Then she took flight and opened the first public school at Bordentown, New Jersey. From Bordentown to Washington is on the way, and she became the first woman clerk to be employed by the United States Government. Tho first'jrun had been fired at Fort Sumter, and one memorable morning rumours came to her that the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment had been attacked cn tho streets of Baltimore on its way to the front, and was coming to Washington. She steped boldly into the stream that carried into the'awful vortex of the

Civil War. After this her carter forms a brilliant page of American history, net one particle of which has been forgotten by tho war veterans. In the summer of ISGS

Clara Barton is at Andersonville identifving the dead, and laying out tho first National Cemetery by the request of the Government. Then for four years she was searching for missing men of the army of whom no trace could be found. Eiglitv thousand missing were thus accounted for. At the end of this period the frail body inhabited by so great a soul broke down, and she was sent to Europe. She was received with unusual honours, and decorated with orders cf great distinction. In the midst of this repose the Franco-Prussian war broke out, and she worked under the of tho Red Cross—an emblem new to her at that time. Through all the r ;:cat battles of this war—through the seige of Paris arid the Commune she _ worked. _ Then came her return to America in IS7-3, full of the lessons sho had learned under the Red Cross. From the inception cf tho American Red Cross Society and its foundation by Clara Barton, its official reports and written history form'- a volume more interesting, fuller of pathos, and deep human interest than any records and histories which exist in America to-day. In 1904 Clara Barton retired from the presidency of the American National Red Cross Society, which she had held continuously since its foundation in ISBI. and lived quietly at her home at Glen Echo, a suburb of Washington. Some of the honours and decorations received by her are the Iron Cross ot Prussia, presented by the Emperor William and Empress Augusta; Diploma of Honour from German war veterans; Flag voted by the Congress of Berne; Medal of the International Committee of the Ked Cross of Geneva. Switzerland; Red Cross by Empress of Servia; Diploma of Honour* from Red Cross of Austria; Decoration of the Order of the Red Cross by the Tsar of Russia; jewels by the Queen of Prussia, and also by the Grand Duchess of Baden: Diploma and Decoration by Spain; and many others.