Clara Barton's Public Address, 1881

by Clara Barton

Clara Barton made a heartfelt plea to the President, Congress, and the American people to ratify the Treaty of Geneva and support the American Red Cross in her 1881 public address. Excerpted from Barton's book, The Red Cross in Peace and War (1898).

　　The following public address, written in 1881, is inserted because of its historical character, showing as it does, quite as well as anything that could now be written, the general apathy in America concerning the treaty, and the many obstacles that had to be overcome by years of struggle and weary waiting.

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