Evening star., 1934-04-08

SECRETARY of the American Red
~ Cross and director of volunteer work,
Miss Mabel Thorp Boardman has Q
large responsibility for the success Of
this organization, which has more
than 10000 900 members, young and
old (and the writer's guess is that that just
about tops any organization in the world).
She puts in a good solid days work every
day, half Of it at a desk, half outside among
various Red Cross divisions and chapters. She
travels a great deal and has visited probably
every city in the United States. When I saw
her she was getting ready to meet Prince Iye-
sato Tokugawa, descendant Of ancient Shoguns
and chairman of the Red Cross of Japan, and
help entertain him during his stay in Washing
ton. with his son, Iyemasa Tokugawa. japanese
Minister to Canada, and his granddaughter.
Miss Toyo Tokugawa. That sort of entertain
ment comes along frequently, fer the Red Cross
covers the earth.
Mabel Boardman has been at this work for
well over 80 years now And she never needed
to do it in the first place-not for financial
reasons, at least. She comes Of family of
means in Cleveland. Her grandfather
the founder of the famous Sheffield Scientific
School at Yale. A great-grandfather was one
of the early United States Senators. Miss
Boardman was gay figure in the court OF
Kaiser Wilhelm as a girl, when her uncle w.
w Phelps, was our Ambassador there. In
Washington she has been social leader for
many years.
Nothing easier, considering all this, than for
her to have been a social butterfly. no more and
no less. Or perhaps filter from one philan-
thropy to another. But in the young butterfly
stage, Mabel Boardman was working hard for
the Children's Day Nursery in Cleveland and
the Chdrens Hospital in Washington. And as
for philanthropic f1tting-she has done the
reverse by concentrating for third Of Gen.
tury on one solid chunk of achievement-aS
solid as anything achieved by leader of indus
She has heen CHIEF
influence in shaping the American Red Cross
we know today.
'I\A/E CANNOT think of the Red Cross with
w out thinking of Miss Boardman," Will
liam Howard Taft once remarked. And" he
added. I'VE cannot think of Miss Boardman
without thinking Of the Red Cross" There
you have it in a nutshell. Neither can one
write about Miss Boardman without writing a
good deal about the Red Cross. The gist of our
talk the other day was-the Red Cross and
only incidentally Miss Boardman. 1t is always
that way when you try to talk to Miss Board
man about herself. Yet it is not that she is
retiring. Rather she has so merged herself,
heart and soul, into this organization that it is
tangled in her personality and cannot be sep
arated. 1t shaped her life and it gave steadfast
purpose to her days.
Yet originally she became part of the Red
Cross by the merest accident-or as much OF
an accident as the random falling Of seed
on piece Of fertile ground. Back in 1900
somebody without consulting her, put her name
down as member of the board of incorporators
of the Red Cross-perhaps somebody raising
money for the organization, since incorporation
in this case was practically another word for
patrons. Today, that seems Like putting Presl-
dent Roosevelt down as patron OF the new
deal, or Gen. johnson as patron of the N r.
A. For something in this Red Cross worked
peculiarly on Mabel Boardman's mind. There
was an affinity there like the affinity between
a match and a barrel of dynamite-when the
two get together, something happens. Which
was match and which was dynamite in this
case doesn't really matter.
The Red Cross in those days was not the
powerful, close knit, widespread perpetually &C
tive organization it is today. Founded in 1881,
it still had a comparatively small membership;
there had not been much growth; control was
centered in little Independent group. The
aura of merciful deeds hung about it, but these
activities were comparatively far apart, con-
fined to large-scale disasters.
It seemed to Miss Boardman to have far
greater possibilities. She felt this SO strongly
that she soon found herself becoming, to put it
badly, an agitator. mean that word in no
uncomplimentary sense; it is agitators who get
things done: later they called benefactors.
She was an agitator, then, for different, bet
ter, bigger Red Cross. thorn in the flesh
to some; but many others felt that there was
an inspiration in her dreams.
Whether she had vision, in those first days,
of the vast and potent thing the Red Cross was
actually to become. don't know. What is cer-
tain is that her interest was too uncomfortably
warm for any who would have liked to go on
placidly in the old way.
Such prime movers, If they have strength and
tenacity enough, get their way; this is what Is
hu fol fhot