Lot 4: BARTON, CLARA. Typed Letter Signed, as President of the American Red Cross, to Charles S. Smith, President of the New York Chamber of Commerce,

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Description: BARTON, CLARA. Typed Letter Signed, as President of the American Red Cross, to Charles S. Smith, President of the New York Chamber of Commerce, requesting his assistance to charter ships to take grain to Russia to assist that country's starving peasantry. 4 pages, four 4to sheets, Red Cross stationery; minor toning and staining. Washington, 1 February 1892

Notes: "... For two months the forces of the American National Red Cross have been securing material, for the speedy relief of the starving peasantry. Today, there is subject to my order, in states west of the Mississippi alone, about three steamship loads of grain... You are fully aware of the action of Congress, which has delayed the forwarding of the grain to Russia. This stopped the public from giving the funds necessary for chartering a ship, for which all arrangements had been made. The Red Cross is pledged to see that the bread-stuffs donated in the West be distributed by the hands of its field agents in the famine stricken districts... Allow me to say that the American National Red Cross will fill with grain every ship your funds will enable the Red Cross to charter... As you are doubtless aware, the object for which the Red Cross was created, was the relief of human suffering in its direst form. It exists for no other end..."