Barton previously reached out to President Cleveland but to no avail. She was, however, successful with connecting to President McKinley. She notes, "It was as far back as November 1897, that I was made aware of the intention of our President to address a personal appeal to the people of the United States, with a view of bringing about concerted effort of sufficient magnitude to afford adequate relief to the perishing population of Cuba" . Clara Barton wrote letters to President McKinley to establish the basis of similar standing, that of paternalism, and a want to aid Americans. On October 1, 1899, Barton wrote to McKinley to demonstrate the appreciation of the paternalist leadership type tendencies of the President and her want to aid in those specific interests. By Barton writing to McKinley to establish a relationship she intended to make clear that although the ARC was an NGO, she was applying the same ideology of paternalism that the President and the American population used to…show more content… McKinley was not only thanking her for the service put in physically in Cuba, but also for being a source of "pride and patriotic sentiment " for Americans; as well as anticipating a continuation of favorable opportunities form the ARC . McKinley made it clear in correspondences with Speyer that he was thankful for the work of the ARC. More specifically, McKinley was appreciative of the actions taken by Barton to utilize American raised dollars to reconstruct homes and lives in Cuba. The appreciation of the services completed by the ARC by McKinley demonstrate the paternalistic nature of both the ARC organization and the Presidential administration by confirming Barton's underlying belief that the Cubans would not have been able to pull themselves out of their dire
