There remains but one question more. To whom is this movement due? Who instituted it? In what minds did it originate? I wish I could say it was all woman's work; but the truth compels the fact that this great, humane idea originated with men; the movement was instituted by them. They thought it out, and they wrought it out, and it was only meet and proper that they should, for the terrible evil that made it necessary was theirs as well. Women as a rule are not war-makers. For centuries the caprices of men have plunged the world in strife, covered the earth's surface with armies, and enriched its soil with the best blood that ever flowed in human veins. It is only right that at length, in the cycle of ages, something should touch man's heart and set him humbly down to find out some way of mending as much of his mischief as he could. Perhaps he "builded better than he knew," for in that one effort he touched the spring that sooner or later will mend it all. No grander or truer prophecy has ever been made than uttered in that first convention: "_The Red Cross shall teach war to make war upon itself._" It is the most practical and effective peace-maker and civilizer in the known world. It reaches where nothing else can. If proof of this be wanting, study the action of Japan in its late war.
But is man doing this work alone? No--gladly, no! Scarcely had he made his first move, when the jeweled hands of royal woman glistened beside him, and right royally have they borne their part. Glance at the galaxy--the great leader and exemplar of them all, Empress Augusta of Germany, her illustrious daughter, the Grand Duchess of Baden, Eugenia, Empress Frederick, Victoria and Princess Louise of England, Margherita of Italy, Natalia of Servia and the entire Court of Russia, and to-day the present Empress of Germany, and the hard-working Empress of Japan, with her faithful, weary court, even now busy in the hospitals of convalescing Chinese. The various auxiliary societies of women of all the principal Red Cross nations are a pride and a glory to humanity.
These nations have all two important features in their movement, which, thus far, have not been accorded to us. Their governments have instituted laws protecting the insignia and name of the Red Cross from misuse and abuse as trademarks by unscrupulous venders, and appropriation by false societies for dishonest purposes. This lack, and this alone, has thus far rendered general organization in the United States impracticable and unsafe. For seven years the most strenuous efforts at protection have failed; the loss has been to the people in general.