The paper which we publish in part to-day 
evinces a diligent historical research, an 
alert, vigorous, intelligence, and an organizing 
faculty rare among superior men. The whole 
paper would richly repay the widest publica- 
tion and perusal, but we are informed that it 
is already promised for use as a lyceurn lec- 
ture. and we content ourselves with 
An Abstract of the Paper Presented by 
MISS CLARA 11ARIOA 
ON 
"International Relief in War." 
When the official invitation was 
given eight months ago, to prepare 
this paper the world slumbered in un- 
wonted peace. For a scientific and 
philanthropic association devoted to 
social science to have then been busied 
with thoughts of "International Re- 
lief in war," now seems to clothe that 
association with the mantle of wiseand 
prophetic foresight, for the same light- 
ning flash that told the terrible news 
of I he bombardment of Alexandria 
told us also that above the fire and the 
smoke of battle, above the wounded 
and the slain, floated out full and clear 
the brave, peaceful Samaritan folds of 
the flag of the Red Cross of Geneva, 
and as every newspaper in the land 
reiterated the fact, from many hearts 
went out a sigh of relief and a benedic- 
tion on those who organized this great 
mitigation of the horrors of war. We 
all learned at that moment that no 
step towards the right can be prema- 
ture, and that it is possible for the 
wisest even, to build better than he 
knows. 
Relief of any kind in war to wound- 
ed or prisoners seems not to have an- 
ciently occupied the serious attention 
of nations or individuals, and although 
the whole written history of mankind 
is filled with the slaughter of victims ; 
the sacking and burning of towns, the 
famine and pestilence of sieges, the 
torture, degradation and enslavement 
of captives; little attention has been 
given to amelioration of these wretched 
conditions, and all account of lhat 
little seems to have been dropped 
through accident by historians. One 
searches wearily through volumes of 
international law to find in Wheaton a 
few pages upon the exchange of pris- 
oners, and the conditions are not easy. 
Grotius and Puffendorf lend neither 
more light nor comfort to the subject. 
The original rule of war is laid down 
in the Old Testament in rude ferocity, 
even to the extermination of neigh- 
bors, but no hint of mitigation appears 
till the command "Love your Ene- 
mies," lights up the banner of Christ. 
When pestilence and malaria struck 
the Greek host before Troy, 
"The frequent 
pyres of the dead kept burning ever;" 
and neither man nor beast was spared. 
The plague of Athens, the expedition 
to Syracuse, the invasion of Scotland 
by the Emperor Servius, fill us with 
special terror, even in the merest re- 
cital. The Romans excelled in politi- 
cal and military organization, but 
they developed no system of care for 
the sick and wounded of their vast 
and populous armies ; although some 
monuments recently discovered seem 
to disclose that under the empire there 
were surgeons of cohorts ami surgeons 
of legions, corresponding roughly to 
regimental and brigade surgeons. 
It is less than three centuries ago 
that the leading nations began to com- 
prehend the grave responsibility rest- 
ing upon them as the creators and pro- 
mulgators of war; they then began 
an official sanitary service, the foun- 
dation of the present military medical 
service and staff- of armies which in 
comparison with all that had gone be- 
fore it, was considered so great a step 
towards supplying the sanitary neces- 
sities of soldiers, that nothing further 
could ever be required. As the gov- 
ernments took the initiative, it was 
naturally left to them to do all that 
was needful, and this charge once as- 
sumed by the governments and mili- 
tary, was left unthought of by the 
people. Thus the suffering of the sick 
and wounded soldiers constituted one 
of the large class of misfortunes for 
which no one was to blame, provided 
wars must be. The military surgeons, 
humane and noble, have been the first 
to pity, and the bravest to proclaim 
the necessities of their wretched pa- 
tients, and have ordinarily acted up to 
the full measure of ihe regulations for 
their relief. 
Little or no progress was made in 
sanitary work by the French during 
the wars of the first Napoleon ; his 
method was swift marches, over- 
whelming slaughters, new levies, and 
great wretched heaps of misery sud- 
denly left where they fell hue the 
wrecks of a tornado. The women of 
Germany, particularly of Frankfort, 
in July, 1814, united to form the 
Frauenverine of that city, to care 
for the sick and wounded in war, and 
they provided for the wants of the 
military hospitals of Frankfort with- 
out distinction of friend or foe, during 
all the war and the Q phus lhat fol- 
lowed it. 
But the events of the vast military 
operations of the war of the Crimea in 
in 1854, showed that the times had 
changed ; human progress had evolved 
a press whose lever moved the world. 
The newspaper correspondents first 
th lew back upon astonished England 
tiie terrible fact of the entire inade- 
quacy of her military and medical 
field service, and noth government 
and people awoke as from a dream, 
When the letters of Lord Sidney Her- 
bert, the British Minister of War, and 
Florence Nightingale crossed in tran- 
sit, the one begging civil help for 
military wounded, the other begging 
to render it, they marked an era in the 
world's progress. Two weeks later 
Miss Nightingale and her forty faith- 
ful attendants sailed from England- 
This little unarmed pilgrim band of 
women that day struck a blow not 
only at the barbarities of war, but at 
war itself, which wrought more for the 
advancement of mankind, more for 
the future history of the world, than 
all the fleets and armies of that vast 
campaign. The story of that volun- 
teer corps seems like a romance, and 
the world knows it by heart, how 
disease lessened, gangrene disappeared, 
pestilence fell away ; how under the 
strong support of the military author- 
ities and of the gracious Queen her- 
self, the British military hospitals in 
the Crimea, from awful depths of 
wretchedness soon became types of 
what military hospitals ought to be. 
The great example was given ; this 
seed of costly sowing took root and 
would not die. In the Italian wars of 
Napoleon III, the garden cities of 
Northern Italy-Milan, Turin, Bres- 
cia, burst into bloom with civil hospi- 
tals for the care of the sick and 
wounded, which were the wonder of 
But they were without 
organization, the first excitement died 
away beneath the weight of difficulties 
and inexperience. 
You certainly need no reminder of 
the distressing inadequacy of our own 
medical and hospital field service in 
the war of the rebellion, fearfully ap- 
parent within a month after the firing 
upon Fort Sumter, nor of the uprising 
of the Sanitary commission with its 
32 000 relief committees all over our 
land, its struggle for existence and 
military recognition, even in the face 
of the daily demonstration of thegreat 
and pressing necessity of its humane 
cooperation. No act of our country 
has ever won tor it such an amount of 
moral credit and respect from other 
nations as has resulted from this un- 
paralleled display of active humanity. 
The highest French and German au- 
thorities upon the subject are enthusi- 
astic in their praise; it was claimed to 
have marked a new era in the world's 
history ; to have been the greatest act 
of philanthropy that humanity has 
ever meditated and accomplished, to 
have modified the whole social system 
of the United States. 
Even before the American conflict 
was ended, in 1864-66, occurred the war 
of Schleswig-Holstein. Here again 
was the old experience of insufficient 
official medical service ; here again ap- 
peared ever increasing manifestations 
of unofficial relief, timely, useful, wel- 
come. 
These statements otherwise so in- 
adequate, sutfic.enlly show three facts : 
1. That the official army medical 
staff and provisions for sick and 
wounded of armies have never been 
adequate to the emergencies ot active 
service. 
2. That individual humanity and 
ingenuity have been untiring in their 
efforts to meet and supply the costly 
deficiency. 
3. That through lack of organiza- 
tion and that concerted action which 
alone supply the power to overcome 
great obstacles, the best of these efforts 
nearly failed. 
You recall how the work of the 
American Sanitary Commission wasat 
first jealously rega; ded as a cunniig 
device to gain power for selfish ends ; 
one secretary asking the committee to 
"state frankly what they did want, 
since it was evident they could net 
want only what they seemed to be 
asking for." Even President Lincoln 
thought them only "adding a fifth 
wheel to the coach." At last after re- 
peated rebuffs and discouragements, 
on the 13th of June, 1861, there was 
appointed "a commission to inquire 
and advise in respect to thesanitary in- 
terests of the United States forces." 
It was in the midst of a very carni- 
val of war in 1864 that the great key- 
note of a grand harmony of peace was 
struck in Switzerland. M. Heniy 
Dunant. a Swiss gentleman traveling 
in Italy in 1859, was in the neighbor- 
hood of Solferino on the day of the 
great battle of the 24th of June. He 
seems to have been deeply impressed 
by the aspect of the battle field and 
the sufferings and death of vast num- 
bers, from the inadequate nursing and 
official surgical relief. In 1864, in- 
spired by these memories, he stood be- 
fore the "Genovese society of public 
utility" in Switzerland and asked that 
society to consider the question of or- 
ganizing permanent volunteer relief 
societies in time of peace to act in 
time of war, by supplementing the 
regular military establishment of 
medical and surgical assistants ; also 
as to a system of neutrality between 
beligerants for hospitals, surgeons, 
nurses, supplies, and the wounded 
themselves; he also published a book 
entitled "Un Souvenir de Solferino." 
To these initial efforts of M. Dunant, 
the International Congress of 1864 
and its wonderful results are primarily 
due. An international conference, at- 
tended by delegates from sixteen gov- 
ernments, including Great Britain, 
France, Spain, Prussia, Austria ami 
Italy, was held in Oct., 1863. It sat 
four days, agreed upon some import- 
antresolutions, and rt suited in the call- 
ing of the congress known as the In- 
ternational Convention of Geneva of 
1864, for the purpose of considering the 
question of the neutralisation of the 
sick and wounded soldiers of belig- 
eiant armies. Called at the request of 
the Supreme Federal Council of 
Switzerland, it was accepted by six- 
teen powers, and opened its sessions at 
the hotel De Ville at Geneva, on the 
8th of August, 1864, by delegates ac- 
credited with sufficient power to sign 
a treaty. Nine articles agreed upon 
by the con vent ion were signed on the 
22d day of August; the main object 
being to establish, as a rule governing 
military forces on all occasions, the 
humane principles which from time 
to time had been applied exceptionally. 
The first article provides that all 
hospitals occupied by the sick and 
wounded shall be neutral. 
Articles 2 and 3 hold neutral all per- 
sons employed in the care of the sick 
and wounded. 
Article 4 settles the terms on which 
the materiel of hospitals shall be regard- 
ed. 
Article 5 offers military protection 
and certain exemptions to all who 
shall entertain and care for wounded 
in their houses. 
Article 6 relates to the treatment of 
sick and wounded prisoners, and pro- 
vides that they shall not be retained 
as prisoners of war, but if disabled for 
military service, they shall be safely 
returned to their country and friends ; 
and that all convoys of sick and 
wounded shall be protected by abso- 
lute neutrality. 
Article 7 provides a flag for hospitals 
and convoys, and an arm badge for 
persons. The design proposed was a 
red cross upon,a white ground. 
Articles 8 and 9 provide for the de- 
tails of execution, and for the treaty 
being left open for the subsequent 
admission of other governments. 
The articles adopted, constitute a 
treaty which received the signatures 
of twelve governments at first, shortly 
increased to sixteen, and now to 
double that number. 
A notable opportunity for putting 
these principles to the severest test 
soon occurred in the Franco-Germau 
war of 1870; and it is cheering to 
know that they stood triumphantly 
every test of military trial, in one of 
the momentous wars of modern times. 
No instance of the infraction of their 
regulations, or of advantage being 
taken of their privileges, is recorded. 
Every anticipated advantage was real- 
ized ; every treaty-bound power found 
its contributions for the relief of the 
sick and wounded in either army 
promptly acknowledged, faithfully 
distributed and returns made with ab- 
solute accuracy and fidelity. Every 
power not within the treaty and the 
organization, found its contributions 
objects of indifference and suspicion; 
there was no voucher for their char- 
acter and no one to take charge of 
them who could pass through army 
lines. In this condition the magnifi- 
cent contributions of this country were 
found at last, in spite of the best judg- 
ment of the most conscientious of 
agents, they partly perished and were 
largely wasted because there was no 
organized channel through which 
they might flow. 
It may be asked why this country 
had not adopted the Treaty. The 
story would be long. The United 
States had been represented in the 
convention of 1864, the articles pre- 
sented to our government and declin- 
ed. We were again represented in 
the convention of 1867-8 by the great 
head of the Sanitary Commission, the 
lamented Dr. Bellows, who formed a 
society of medical and leading men,and 
presented the subject to the United 
States government ably and well, and it 
was again declined, and the society fell 
away, to the amazement and perplex- 
ity of the International Committee of 
Geneva. It was again urged upon the 
attention of the government in 1877, 
during the administration of President 
Hayes, and a committee formed, styl- 
ing itself the " American Committee 
of the Red Cross for the relief of suf- 
ferings by war, pestilence, famine and 
other great national calamities." The 
subject was again declined ; and it 
was not until almost four years later, 
with the incoming of the administra- 
tion of President Garfield, that any 
favorable response was made to those 
urging this most important treaty of 
humanity through seventeen weary 
years. President Garfield promised to 
recommend the adoption of the Treaty 
in his first annual message to congress 
in December, 1881. The Hon. Secre- 
tary of State, Mr. Blaine, wrote a 
most cordial letter of approval, em- 
bodying the sentiments of the whole 
cabinet. President Arthur faithfully 
carried out the plan and performed 
the promise of his lamented predeces- 
sor, by recommending the accession of 
the United States to the articles of the 
Treaty of Geneva, in his first annual 
message to congress. This carried the 
subject before the able committee on 
Foreign Relations in the seriate, 
which body unanimously recommend- 
ed the accession of the government to 
the articles of the conventions of both 
1864 and 1868, covering both land and 
naval forces. The Treaty received the 
signature of President Arthur on the 
first of March, 1882. It was ratified 
by the senate in full session on the 
16th of the same month. The stipu- 
lations were exchanged at Berne, 
Switzerland, on the 9th of June, and 
on the 26th of July, less than six 
weeks ago, the Treaty was proclaimed 
by the president to the people of the 
United States. Thus, this first great 
movement towards the neutrality of 
nations, and international relief in 
war, became for the people of this 
country an accomplished tact, and a 
law of the land. 
A word of the relief societies or com- 
mittees designed to co-operate with 
the Treaty may not be out of place : 
1st. The International Committee 
of Geneva, coexistent with the tonfer- 
ence and congress of 1863 4, is the au- 
thorized medium through which the 
various nations communicate upon 
matters of international relief, and 
was invested with this prerogative by 
the great Powers constituting the 
Treaty. Ils efficient and accomplish- 
ed president is M. Gustave Moynier, 
who was also president of the congress 
of 1864. 
2d. National societies exist in thir- 
ty-two countries, and generally under 
these exist subordinate but permanent 
societies in most important towns, 
corresponding almost perfectly to the 
relief societies of the sanitary commis- 
sion. 
The American committee, in view 
of past experiences, hesitated to ex- 
tend its organization until some con- 
firmation of the adoption of the Treaty 
should be given. Immediately upon 
this assurance by PresidentGarfield, in 
June, 1881, this committee reorganized 
and became incorporated under the 
name of the " American Association 
of the Red Cross," with the same ex- 
tended scope as at first, providing for 
the relief of the greater calamities to 
which our vast country is so painfully 
liable, in the same manner that it does 
for the miseries of war. It is believed 
that no other national society has, 
until now, extended its sanitary work 
beyond the original idea of relief in 
war, although Article 20 of the Berlin 
conference of 1869, recommends the 
inelusion of great calamities. In July 
and August, 1881, subordinate societies 
were formed in Dansville, Rochester 
and Syracuse, in Western New York, 
just in time to aid in meeting the emer- 
gencies of the Michigan fires of that 
year, which they did bravely and well ; 
and the recent overflow of the Mississip- 
pi called again for help, which was ren- 
dered with a promptness, exactness and 
ease alike gratifying to all concerned. 
It is a fact worthy of mention that the 
munificent contribution of one indi- 
vidual through the Rochester society 
of $10,090 in seed for planting the des- 
olated district, was rendered doubly, 
trebly valuable by the rapidity and 
precision with which it was distribut- 
ed through the organized societies of 
the Red Cross. The slow decline of 
the water delayed the planting, until 
great haste was necessary to secure 
any return from the land the present 
year. A call from the National Com- 
mittee made upon the Rochester soci- 
ety to meet this new emergency,' was 
promptly responded to, and within 
three days the seed was on its way to 
the Red Cross society of Memphis, 
which society, being notified of its 
transit, made the necessany provisions 
for its immediate distribution, and 
within twenty-four hours after its 
arrival in Memphis it was assorted 
and reshipped to the proper points in 
five different states with full instruc- 
tions for final distribution. 
There is neither teacher nor preach- 
er like necessity, and the late lesson 
of the Mississippi valley has resulted 
in the formation of societies in most of 
the cities of importance from Chicago 
to New Orleans, all organized under a 
general constitution as auxiliary to 
the " American Association of the 
Red Cross" at Washington, and all 
affiliated with the national and subor- 
dinate societies of thirty-two nations, 
acting in concert in the common cause 
of humanity ami the practical further- 
ance of good will among mankind. 
My task is done. I have endeavored 
to submit to the judgment of this high 
assemblage such factsand observations 
in regard to the practical utility of a 
system of national and international 
voluntary relief in great emergencies 
as some years of attention to the sub- 
ject, and some little experience have 
given me. If your honorable body 
shall find the sub'ect matter of suffi- 
cient importance to attract its further 
attention, and elicit such suggestions 
and counsel as it may from time to 
time be pleased to bestow, the great 
object of my coming will have been 
attained.