Clara Barton Typed Letter Signed Regarding Her Desire to Help the First Aid Association....

When you left me at Oxford the morning after that happy visit, you were to finish up the really fine lecture, and get the membership plan in action. All seemed so hopeful, that I had difficulty in getting you to accept the trifle I wanted you to take. Then followed my own neglected and accumulated matters five hundred miles away,- with several hundred dollars accruing cemetery bills still to be met in Oxford. Yet I wanted to help, and it seemed to me that what I wanted to say in the leaflet of Greetings would, at least not harm; it would call attention, strengthen confidence, and open the way to membership. The letters running into the hundreds in response more than confirm the correctness of this impression. They are a volume in themselves, full of love, confidence and hope for the "Great and successful work." Three-fourths of these people would be ready to take part. - Only now and then one sees the gulf at our feet and the axe over our heads."