The failure to publish similar reports, or, indeed, any thing that can be properly called a report or financial statement, is one of the just criticisms made against the American National Red Cross. This society has taken part in the relief of the sufferers from the forest fires in Michigan in 1881, from the overflow of the Mississippi River in 1882, and of the Ohio in 1883, from the Missis sippi cyclone in the same year, from the overflow of the Ohio and Mississippi in 1884, from the drought in Texas in 1886, from the Charleston earthquake in the same year, from the Mount Vernon (Illinois) cyclone in 1888, from the yellow fever epidemic in Florida in the same year, from the Johnstown disaster in 1889, from the inundation, hurricane, and tidal wave of the South Carolina coast in 1893 and 1894, and from the Galveston Flood in 1900.
In connection with these various enterprises, and others in which the Red Cross has been interested, large sums of money have been contributed to the Red Cross Society, but for their disbursement no suitable public accounting appears to have been made in any instance. In the pam phlets and addresses issued by the society such paragraphs as the following take the place of definite statements con cerning what was actually done and what relation such action bore to the relief work of other and often more important agencies : " The Secretary brought together the women of Johns town, bowed to the earth with sorrow and bereavement, and the most responsible were formed into committees charged with definite duties toward the homeless and dis traught of the community. Through them the wants of over three thousand families — more than twenty thousand persons — were made known in writing to the Red Cross, and by it supplied ; the white wagons with the red symbol fetching and carrying for the stricken people." It is principally considerations of this kind that have led to the recent remonstrance from some of the most prominent members of the Red Cross Society, and to an attempt, thus far unsuccessful, to bring about a reorgani zation of its management, especially on the financial It is reported, while the present volume is in press, that this reor ganization, somewhat in the nature of a compromise, has been effected.
In times of great calamity, such as we have been con sidering, many who are ordinarily quite self-supporting find themselves suddenly bereft of property, of accumu lated savings, of the means of livelihood, and even of the barest necessities of life. The disaster may befall a com munity of high industrial standards, with few, if any, paupers or public dependents — a community in which there is little lawlessness and crime. Under such condi tions the principle of indemnity, as distinct from that of charity, may well have a very general application. The principle of indemnity is that of the fire insurance com panies, and, in a modified form, also that of the life and accident insurance companies. It implies the reinstate
ment of the beneficiary as nearly as possible in the posi tion from which he was hurled by the calamity which has befallen him. It implies that to the householder shall be given the use of a house, to the mechaniC his tools, to the family its household furniture, to the laborer the oppor tunity of remunerative employment. For the community as a whole it means the speedy restoration of such com mercial and industrial activities as have been temporarily suspended, the rebuilding of bridges, the reopening of streets, the reestablishment of banks, business houses, churches, and schools. It requires that protection shall be given to the defenceless, food and shelter to the home less, suitable guardianship to the orphan, and, as nearly as possible, normal social and industrial conditions to all. The charitable principle takes account only of the neces sities of those who apply for aid ; the principle of indem nity gives greater weight to their material losses and the circumstances under which they were previously placed. It is a vital question whether the principle of indemnity might not properly have a wider application to ordinary relief than has usually been given to it, but we may be certain that the pauperizing effects supposed to result from liberal relief have not been found to follow the most generous attempts to avert completely the paralyzing and direful consequences of such disasters as we are now con sidering. Both in Chicago and in Johnstown hundreds of families were placed, by gifts of money, or of house, furniture, clothing, or tools, in a position practically as good as that which they had occupied before the fire or the flood respectively, and in the former homeless persons who owned or could rent a lot, or part of one, were given money or lumber to build a "relief shanty." In this way many people became house owners for the first time in their lives. There is ample testimony that in practically all instances good results were obtained from this policy. In Chicago harmful consequences in the subsequent chari table history of the city have been traced, whether right fully or not, to the appropriations made to charitable institutions on the condition that the society which was the custodian of the fund thereby acquired a right to con trol a proportionate number of admissions to their insti tutions ; and in Johnstown there was unquestionable hardship from the delay in its distribution and from the early indiscriminate grants made without knowledge of the circumstances of claimants ; but in neither city were there well-founded complaints of the results of dis criminating and judicious disbursements in large amounts, made with the avowed purpose of putting the recipients in a position to carry on their former or equally appropriate vocations.