t benefits but only burdens from other people's
calamities and wars--calamities and wars which we do not create and of
which we may properly reap the incidental advantages. But this treaty
binds none to bear burdens, but only to refrain from cruelties; it binds
not to give but to allow others to give wisely and to work humanely if
they will, while all shall guarantee to them undisturbed activity in
deeds of charity. There is then in the Red Cross no "entangling
alliance" that any but a barbarian at war can feel as a restraint. This
inculcated wariness of foreign influences, wonderfully freshened by the
conduct of foreign rulers and writers during the rebellion and deepened
by the crimes and the craft directed primarily at Mexico and ultimately
at us, made the people of America in 1864 and 1868 devoutly thankful for
the friendly and stormy sea that rolled between them and the European
states. And it is not perhaps altogether strange that American
statesmen, inspired by such a public opinion, should then have been but
little inclined to look with favor upon any new international
obligations however specious in appearance or humane in fact. But the
award of Geneva surely opened the way for the Red Cross of Geneva. Time
and success have made plain the nation's path. The postal treaty since
made among all nations and entered into heartily by this has proved
salutary to all. It has removed every valid state reason for opposition
to the harmless, humane and peaceful provisions of the treaty of the Red
Cross.

But in the midst of the rugged facts of war come sentimental objections
and objectors. For, deplore it as we may, war _is the great fact_ of all
history and its most pitiable feature is not after all so much the great
numbers slain, wounded and captured in battle, as their cruel after
treatment as wounded and prisoners, no adequate provision being made for
their necessities, no humane care even permitted, except at the risk of
death or imprisonment as spies, of those moved by wise pity or a simple
religious zeal.

