CHAPTER II

CATASTROPHE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Shock reaction--Hallucination--Primitive instincts--Crowd psychology--Phenomena of emotion--How men react when bereft completely--Post-catastrophic phenomena--Human nature in the absence of repression by conventionality, custom and law--Fatigue and the human will--The stimuli of heroism--Mutual aid.

Social Psychology is a subject of primary importance to the student of society. Like Sociology itself its field is far from being exhausted. One looks in vain for a treatment of disaster psychology. In such a study the diverse phenomena involved would be of interest to the psychologist. Their effects in retarding or promoting social organization would concern the sociologist. With such possible effects in mind we are now to proceed to an examination of the major subjective reactions as they were to be seen in the Halifax catastrophe.

It is improbable that any single community has ever presented so composite a picture of human traits in such bold relief as appeared in the City of Halifax upon the day of the explosion. Human phenomena which many knew of only as hidden away in books, stood out so clearly that he who ran might read. Besides the physiological reactions there was abundant illustration of hallucination, delusion, primitive instincts, and crowd psychology as well of other phenomena all of which have important sociological significance tending either to prolong disintegration, or to hasten social recovery.

The first of these phenomena was the "stun" of the catastrophe itself. The shock reaction at Halifax has been variously described. It has been graphically likened "to being suddenly stricken with blindness and paralysis." It was a sensation of utter helplessness and disability. "We died a thousand horrible deaths" ran one description, "the nervous shock and terror were as hard to bear as were the wounds." "The people are dazed," wrote another observer, "they have almost ceased to exercise the sensation of pain." This physiological reaction animals and men shared alike. The appearance of the terror-stricken horses was as of beasts which had suddenly gone mad.

A physiological accompaniment of shock and distraction is the abnormal action of the glands. The disturbance of the sympathetic nervous system produced by the emotional stress and strain of a great excitement or a great disappointment is reflected in the stimulation or inhibition of glandular action. Much physical as well as nervous illness was precipitated by the grief, excitement and exposure of the disaster.[39] Among cases observed were those of diabetes, tuberculosis and hyper-thyroidism, as well as the nervous instability to which reference is subsequently made. Such an epidemic of hyper-thyroidism--exaggerated action of the thyroid gland--is said to have followed the Kishineff massacres, the San Francisco earthquake and the air-raids on London.[40] As to diabetes, it has been shown that

emotions cause increased output of glycogen. Glycogen is a step toward diabetes and therefore this disease is prone to appear in persons under emotional strain ... so common is this particular result in persons under prolonged emotion that someone has said that "when stocks go down in New York, diabetes goes up."[41]

[39] For a full discussion of nervous disorders induced by an explosion at short range, _vide_ Roussy and Llermette, _The Psychoneuroses of War_ (London, 1918), ch. x.

[40] Brown, W. Langden, Presidential address to Hunterian Society, London.

[41] Crile, George W., _The Origin and Nature of the Emotions_ (Phila., 1915), p. 163.

Turning now to other psychological aspects, we have to note the presence of hallucination in disaster.

Hallucination may be roughly defined as false sense impression. For example, the patient sees an object which has no real existence, or hears an imaginary voice. Hallucinations are termed visual, auditory, tactile, _etc._ according to the sense to which the false impression appears to belong.[42]

Hallucination is induced by the unusual suggesting the expected. It is sense-perception colored by association. It is the power of a dominant idea that, unbidden, enters the field of consciousness and takes possession of even the senses themselves. In Halifax one idea seemed to dominate most minds and clothe itself in the semblance of reality--the expected Germans. For a long time there had been under public discussion the question as to whether or not the city would be shelled by Zeppelin raiders, or possibly by a fleet at sea. All street-lights had been darkened by military orders. The failure to draw window shades had been subject to heavy penalty. It is no wonder eyes looked upward when there came the crash, and when seeing the strange unusual cloud beheld the Zeppelin of fancy. A man residing on the outskirts of the town of Dartmouth "heard" a German shell pass shrieking above him. Dartmouth Heights looks out over Halifax harbor, and here perhaps the vista is most expansive, and the eye sees furthest. The instant after the explosion a citizen standing here "saw" clearly a German fleet manoeuvering in the distance.[43] That shells had actually come few on the instant doubted. The head of one firm advised his employees not to run elsewhere, as "two shots never fall in the same place."

[42] Hart, Bernard, _The Psychology of Insanity_ (Cambridge, 1916), ch. iii, p. 30.

[43] "So hypochondriac fancies represent Ships, armies, battles in the firmament Till steady eyes the exhalations solve And all to its first matter, cloud, resolve." --Defoe, _Journal of the Plague Year_.

This--a German assault--was the great mental explanation that came into the majority of minds. There was one other--that of the end of the world. Many fell to their knees in prayer. One woman was found in the open yard by her broken home repeating the general confession of the church. Few would have been surprised if out of the smoky cloud-ridden skies there should have appeared the archangels announcing the consummation of mundane affairs. Indeed there were instances, not a few, of those who "saw" in the death-cloud "the clear outlines of a face." Thus both auditory and visual hallucination were manifested to a degree.

Hallucination has been described as "seeing" something which has no basis in reality. Thus it differs from delusion, which is rather a misinterpretation of what is seen. "Delusions are closely allied to hallucinations and generally accompany the latter. The distinction lies in the fact that delusions are not false sensations but false beliefs."[44] Anxiety, distraction by grief and loss, as well as nervous shock play freely with the mind and fancy and often swerve the judgment of perception. This was especially noticeable at Halifax in the hospital identification, particularly of children. A distracted father looked into a little girl's face four different times but did not recognize her as his own which, in fact, she was. The precisely opposite occurrence was also noted. A fond parent time and time again "discovered" his lost child, "seeing" to complete satisfaction special marks and features on its little body. But often there were present those who knew better, and the better judgment prevailed. Again this phenomenon was repeated in numberless instances at the morgue. Wearied and white after frantic and fruitless search wherever refugees were gathered together, the overwrought searchers would walk through the long lines of dead, and suddenly "recognize" a missing relative or friend.[45] Regretfully the attendant fulfilled the same thankless task from day to day. There had been no recognition at all. The observer had seen "not the object itself but the image evoked in the mind."[46]

[44] Hart, _op. cit._, ch. iii, p. 31.

[45] For parallel cases of erroneous recognition of the dead, _vide_ Le Bon, Gustave, _The Crowd, a Study of the Popular Mind_ (London), bk. i, ch. i, p. 51.

[46] _Ibid._, p. 51.

The primitive instincts of man were for a long time vaguely and loosely defined, until James and later McDougall essayed to give them name and number. But only with Thorndike's critical examination has it become clear how difficult a thing it is to carry the analysis of any situation back to the elemental or "primal movers of all human activity." Thorndike is satisfied to describe them as nothing save a set of original tendencies to respond to stimuli in more or less definite directions. When he speaks of instincts it is to mean only a "series of situations and responses" or "a set of tendencies for various situations to arouse the feelings of fear, anger, pity, _etc._ with which certain bodily movements usually go." Among them, there are those resulting in "food-getting and habitation," in "fear, fighting and anger" and in "human intercourse."[47] But McDougall's classification preserves the old phrases, and men are likely to go on speaking of the "instinct of flight," the "instinct of pugnacity," "parental instinct," "gregarious instinct" and the others.[48] For the sociologist it is enough that all agree that men are held under some powerful grip of nature and driven at times almost inevitably to the doing of acts quite irrespective of their social effects.

[47] Thorndike, Edward L., _The Original Nature of Man_ (N. Y., 1913), ch. v, p. 43 _et seq._

[48] McDougall, William, _An Introduction to Social Psychology_ (Boston, 1917), ch. iii, p. 49 _et seq._

In catastrophe these primitive instincts are seen most plainly and less subject to the re-conditioning influences of ordinary life. This was especially noticeable at Halifax. The instinct of flight for self-preservation was reflected in the reaction of thousands. "Almost without thought, probably from the natural instinct of self-preservation I backed from the window to a small store-room and stood there dazed."[49] The experience so described may be said to have been general. This instinct was to be seen again in the action of the crew of the explosives-laden ship. Scarcely had the collision occurred when the whole complement lowered away the boats, rowed like madmen to the nearest shore--which happened to be that opposite to Halifax--and "scooted for the woods." As the ship, although set on fire immediately after the impact, did not actually blow up until some twenty minutes later, much might have been done by men less under the domination of instinct, in the way of warning and perhaps of minimizing the inevitable catastrophe.[50]

[49] Sheldon, J., _The Busy East_ (Sackville, N. B. Can.), March, 1918.

[50] The judgment of the court of enquiry ran as follows: "The master and pilot of the Mont Blanc are guilty of neglect of public safety in not taking proper steps to warn the inhabitants of the city of a probable explosion." (Drysdale Commission, _Judgment of_, sec. viii.)

The instinct of pugnacity was to be seen in many a fine example of difficulty overcome in the work of rescue; as also in other instances, some suggestive of that early combat when animals and men struggled for mere physical existence.

The parental instinct was everywhere in evidence, and was reflected not only in the sacrifices made and the privations endured by parents for their young, but in every act of relief, which arose in involuntary response to the cry of the distressed. It perhaps partially explains the phenomenon often noticed in disasters that "immediately and spontaneously neighbors and fellow-townsmen spring to the work of rescue and first aid."[51]

[51] Deacon, J. Byron, _Disasters_ (N. Y., 1918), ch. vi, p. 151.

The gregarious instinct--the instinct to herd--showed itself in the spontaneous groupings which came about and which seemed somehow to be associated with feelings of security from further harm. The refugees found comfort in the group. They rarely remained alone.

These and other instinctive responses in a greater or less degree of complication were to be remarked of the actions not only of individuals but of groups as well. In the latter the typical phenomena of crowd psychology were manifested upon every hand. The crowd was seen to be what it is--"the like response of many to a socially inciting event or suggestion such as sudden danger." Out of a mere agglomeration of individuals and under the stress of emotional excitement there arose that mental unity, which Le Bon emphasizes.[52] There was noticeable the feeling of safety associated with togetherness which Trotter suggests.[53] There was the suggestibility, with its preceding conditions which Sidis[54] has clarified, namely, expectancy, inhibition, and limitation of the field of consciousness. There were the triple characteristics which Giddings notes: "Crowds are subject to swift contagion of feeling, they are sensitive to suggestion .... and always manifest a tendency to carry suggested ideas immediately into action."[55]

[52] Le Bon, _op. cit._, p. 26.

[53] Trotter, William, _Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War_ (London, 1919), p. 31.

[54] Sidis, Boris, _The Psychology of Suggestion_ (N. Y., 1919), ch. vi, p. 56 _et seq._

[55] Giddings, Franklin H., _Principles of Sociology_ (N. Y., 1916), bk. ii, ch. ii, p. 136.

Of illustrations of impulsive social action there are none more apt than those furnished by the reactions following the Halifax tragedy. Only Pliny's narrative of the flight from the eruption of Vesuvius, or the story of the "Day of Fear" in France,[56] or that depicting the days of the comet[57] are comparable thereto.

[56] Stephens, Henry M., _A History of the French Revolution_ (N. Y., 1886), vol. i, p. 179.

[57] Wells, H. G., _In the Days of the Comet_ (N. Y., 1906).

At first all was confusion. Some ran to the cellars. Some ran to the streets. Some ran to their shops. Those in the shops ran home. This was in the area of wounds and bruises. Farther north was the area of death. Thither the rescuers turned. Automobiles sped over broken glass and splintered boards toward the unknown. Then came the orders of the soldiers, whose barracks were situated in the very heart of the danger district, for the people to fly southward, Common-ward, to the open spaces--anywhere. Another explosion was imminent. Then came further outbreaks of the flight impulse. Runs a graphic account:

The crowd needed no second warning. They turned and fled. Hammers, shovels and bandages were thrown aside. Stores were left wide open with piles of currency on their counters. Homes were vacated in a twinkling. Little tots couldn't understand why they were being dragged along so fast. Some folks never looked back. Others did, either to catch a last glimpse of the home they never expected to see again or to tell if they could from the sky how far behind them the Dreaded Thing was.... They fled as they were.... Some carried children or bundles of such things as they had scrambled together.... Many were but scantily clad. Women fled in their night dresses. A few were stark naked, their bodies blackened with soot and grime. These had come from the destroyed section of the North End. What a storm-tossed motley throng, and as varied in its aspect and as poignant in its sufferings as any band of Belgian or Serbian refugees fleeing before the Hun.... A few rode in autos, but the great majority were on foot. With blanched faces, bleeding bodies and broken hearts, they fled from the Spectral Death they thought was coming hard after, fled to the open spaces where possibly its shadow might not fall. Soon Citadel Hill and the Common were black with terrified thousands. Thousands more trudged along St. Margaret's Bay road, seeking escape among its trees and winding curves.... Many cut down boughs and made themselves fires--for they were bitterly cold. Here they were--poorly clad, badly wounded, and with not one loaf of bread in all their number, so hastily did they leave, when galloping horsemen announced the danger was over and it was safe to return.[58]

[58] Johnstone, Dwight, _The Tragedy of Halifax_ (in MS.).

The ever-shifting responsiveness to rumor which distinguishes a crowd was noted.

The entrance to the Park was black with human beings, some massed in groups, some running anxiously back and forth like ants when their hill has been crushed. There were blanched faces and trembling hands. The wildest rumors were in circulation and every bearer of tidings was immediately surrounded.[59]

[59] _St. John Globe_, Correspondence, Dec., 1917.

Not only here but when the crowd trekked back, and in the subsequent scenes which were witnessed in supply stations and shelters, the association which Sidis draws between calamity and hyper-suggestibility in the body politic was abundantly endorsed.

We must now endeavor to understand the phenomena of emotion which accompany a great catastrophe. This is not the less difficult because the term emotion is not given consistent use even by psychologists. One interprets it as merely the affective side of the instinctive process--those "modes of affective experience," such as "anger, fear, curiosity," which accompany the excitement of "the principal powerful instincts."[60] Another sees it as also an impulsive, not merely a receptive state. It is "the way the body feels when it is prepared for a certain reaction," and includes "an impulse toward the particular reaction."[61]

[60] McDougall, _op. cit._, p. 46.

[61] Woodworth, Robert S., _Dynamic Psychology_ (N. Y., 1918), ch. iii, p. 54.

It will be accurate enough for our purpose to think of the emotions as complicated states of feeling more or less allied to one another and to the human will.[62] Among them are jealousy and envy--"discomfort at seeing others approved and at being out-done by them."[63] This appeared repeatedly in the administration of relief and should be included in disaster psychology. Again greed[64]--more strictly a social instinct than an emotion--was common. How common will receive further exemplification in a later chapter.

[62] "Anger, zeal, determination, willing, are closely allied, and probably identical in part. Certainly they are aroused by the same stimulus, namely, by obstruction, encountered in the pursuit of some end." (_Ibid._, p. 149.)

[63] Thorndike, _op. cit._, p. 101.

[64] "To go for attractive objects, to grab them when within reach, to hold them against competitors, to fight the one who tries to take them away. To go for, grab and hold them all the more if another is trying to do so, these lines of conduct are the roots of greed." (_Ibid._, p. 102.)

Fear has already been referred to. Anger, shame, resentment while evident, were of less significance. Gratitude was early shown and there were many formal expressions of it. Later on, it seemed to be replaced by a feeling that as sufferers they, the victims, were only receiving their due in whatever aid was obtained.

Of special interest is the rôle of the tender emotions, kindliness, sympathy and sorrow, as well as the reactions which may be expected when these occur in unusual exaltation through the repetition of stimuli or otherwise. Whatever may be the nature of the process whereby the feelings of his fellows affect a man, that which chiefly concerns us here, is how these reactions differ when the stimulation is multiplex. Of this multiplex stimulation in collective psychology Graham Wallas has written:

The nervous exaltation so produced may be the effect of the rapid repetition of stimuli acting as repetition acts, for instance, when it produces seasickness or tickling.... If the exaltation is extreme conscious control of feeling and action is diminished.[65] Reaction is narrowed and men may behave, as they behave in dreams, less rationally and morally than they do if the whole of their nature is brought into play.[66]

[65] M. Dide, a French psychologist, regards "the hypnosis produced by emotional shock--and this occurs not only in war but in other great catastrophies as well--as genetically a defence reaction, like natural sleep whose function according to him is primarily prophylactic against exhaustion and fatigue, ... it is comparable to the so-called death-shamming of animals." (Dide, M., _Les émotions et la guerre_ (Paris, 1918), Review of, _Psychological Bulletin_, vol. xv, no. 12, Dec., 1918, p. 441.)

[66] Wallas, Graham, _The Great Society_ (N. Y., 1917), p. 136.

What Wallas has said of the additional stimulation which the presence of a crowd induces may be given wider application, and is indeed a most illuminating thought, describing exactly the psycho-emotional reactions produced by the stimulation of terrifying scenes, such as were witnessed at Halifax.

A case in point was that of the nervous exaltation produced upon a young doctor who operated continuously for many hours in the removal of injured eyes. The emotional tension he went through is expressed in his words to a witness: "If relief doesn't come to me soon, I shall murder somebody."

Another instance where conscious control of feeling and action was diminished was that of a soldier. He was so affected by what he passed through during the explosion and his two days' participation in relief work, that he quite unwittingly took a seat in a train departing for Montreal. Later in a hospital of that city after many mental wanderings he recovered his memory. Over and over again he had been picturing the dreadful scenes which he had experienced. This condition includes a hyperactivity of the imagination "characterized by oneirism [oneiric delirium] reproducing most often the tragic or terrible scenes which immediately preceded the hypogenic shock."[67]

[67] _Ibid._, p. 440.

The nature of sympathy[68] may not be clearly comprehended but of its effects there is no doubt. It may lead to the relief of pain or induce the exactly opposite effect; or it may bring about so lively a distress as to quite incapacitate a man from giving help. Again it may lead to the avoidance of disaster scenes altogether. Thus some could on no account be prevailed upon to go into the hospitals or to enter the devastated area. Others by a process understood in the psychology of insanity secured the desired avoidance by suicide. The association of suicide with catastrophe has been already remarked in the case of San Francisco. A Halifax instance was that of a physician who had labored hard among the wounded. He later found the reaction of his emotional experiences too strong. He lost his mental balance and was discovered dead one morning near his office door. He had hanged himself during the night. Still another, a railroad man, driven to despair by loneliness and loss, his wife and children having perished, attempted to follow them in death.

[68] Classed by William James as an emotion, but considered by McDougall a pseudo-instinct.

Joy and sorrow are pleasure-pain conditions of emotional states. Sorrow is painful because "the impulse is baffled and cannot attain more than the most scanty and imperfect satisfaction in little acts, such as the leaving of flowers on the grave;"[69] although the intensity is increased by other considerations. Here again the unusual degree of stimulation which catastrophe induces brings about a behavior other than that which commonly attends the experience of grief. A phenomenon associated with wholesale bereavement is the almost entire absence of tears. A witness of the San Francisco disaster said it was at the end of the second day that he saw tears for the first time.[70] At Halifax, where the loss of life was many times greater, there was little crying. There seemed to be indeed a miserable but strong consolation in the fact that all were alike involved in the same calamity.[71]

[69] McDougall, _op. cit._, p. 152.

[70] O'Connor, Chas. J., _San Francisco Relief Survey_ (N. Y., 1913), pt. i, p. 6.

[71] "The cutting edge of all our usual misfortunes comes from their character of loneliness."--(James, William, _Memories and Studies_, N. Y., 1911, p. 224.)

There was "no bitterness, no complaint, only a great and eager desire to help some one less fortunate." Another observer said: "I have never seen such kindly feeling. I have never seen such tender sympathy. I have never heard an impatient word." And this was amongst men "who were covered with bruises, and whose hearts were heavy, who have not had a night's sleep, and who go all day long without thought of food." Another visitor remarked "there is not a more courageous, sane and reasonable people. Everyone is tender and considerate. Men who have lost wives and children, women whose sons and husbands are dead, boys and girls whose homes have been destroyed, are working to relieve the distress." A Montreal clergyman reported that "Halifax people have been meeting with dry eyes and calm faces the tragedies, the horrors, the sufferings and the exposures which followed the explosion." Grief is after all "a passive emotion," a "reaction of helplessness." It is "a state of mind appropriate to a condition of affairs where nothing is to be done"--[72] and there was much to be done at Halifax.

[72] Woodworth, _op. cit._, p. 58.

There are also to be added the phenomena of emotional parturition. As was to be expected the shock meant the immediate provision of a maternity hospital. Babies were born in cellars and among ruins. Premature births were common, one indeed taking place in the midst of the huddled thousands of refugees waiting in anguish upon the Common for permission to return to their abandoned homes. Nor were all the ills for which the shock was responsible immediately discernible. There were many post-catastrophic phenomena. Three months after the explosion many found themselves suffering an inexplicable breakdown, which the doctors attributed unquestionably to the catastrophe. It was a condition closely allied to "war-neurasthenia." Another disaster after-effect also may be here recorded. This was the not unnatural way in which people "lived on edge," for a long period after the disaster. There was a readiness and suggestibility to respond to rumor or to the least excitant. Twice at least the schools were emptied precipitately, and citizens went forth into pell-mell flight from their homes upon the circulation of reports of possible danger. No better illustration is afforded of the sociological fact that "the more expectant, or overwrought the public mind, the easier it is to set up a great perturbation. After a series of public calamities .... minds are blown about by every gust of passion or sentiment."[73]

[73] Ross, Edward A., _Social Psychology_ (N. Y., 1918), ch. iv, p. 66.

There are also to be included a few miscellaneous observations of behavior associated with the psychology of disaster relief. (1) The preference upon the part of the refugee for plural leadership and decision. (2) The aggravation of helplessness through the open distribution of relief. (3) The resentment which succeeds the intrusion of strangers in relief leadership. (4) The reaction of lassitude and depression after a period of strain. (5) The desire for privacy during interviews. (6) The vital importance of prompt decision in preventing an epidemic of complaint.[74]

[74] A list compiled by the author from suggestions in Deacon's discussion of disasters. All were to be observed at Halifax.

Analytic psychology is becoming increasingly interested in the phenomena of repression, inhibition and taboo. The real motives of action are often very different from the apparent motives which overlie them. Instinctive tendencies are buried beneath barriers of civilization, but they are buried alive. They are covered not crushed. These resistances are either within our minds or in society. The latter are summed up in conventionality, custom and law, all so relatively recent[75] in time as to supply a very thin veneer over the primitive tendencies which have held sway for ages. Few realize the place which conventionality, custom and law possess in a community until in some extraordinary catastrophe their power is broken, or what is the same thing the ability to enforce them is paralyzed. This fact is especially true of repressive enactments, and most laws fall within this category. Catastrophe shatters the unsubstantial veneer. When the police of Boston went on strike it was not only the signal for the crooks of all towns to repair to the unguarded center, but an unexpected reserve of crookedness came to light within the city itself. Lytton discovered at Pompeii signs of plunder and sacrilege which had taken place "when the pillars of the world tottered to and fro." At the time of the St. John Fire "loafers and thieves held high carnival. All night long they roamed the streets and thieved upon the misfortunes of others."[76]

[75] It has been said that were the period of man's residence on earth considered as having covered an hundred thousand years, that of civilization would be represented by the last ten minutes.

[76] Stewart, George, _The Story of the Great Fire in St. John_ (Toronto, 1877), p. 35.

With the possibility of apprehension reduced to a minimum in the confusion at Halifax, with the deterrent forces of respectability and law practically unknown, men appeared for what they were as the following statement only too well discloses:

Few folk thought that Halifax harbored any would-be ghouls or vultures. The disaster showed how many. Men clambered over the bodies of the dead to get beer in the shattered breweries. Men taking advantage of the flight from the city because of the possibility of another explosion went into houses and shops, and took whatever their thieving fingers could lay hold of. Then there were the nightly prowlers among the ruins, who rifled the pockets of the dead and dying, and snatched rings from icy fingers. A woman lying unconscious on the street had her fur coat snatched from her back.... One of the workers, hearing some one groaning rescued a shop-keeper from underneath the debris. Unearthing at the same time a cash box containing one hundred and fifty dollars, he gave it to a young man standing by to hold while he took the victim to a place of refuge. When he returned the box was there, but the young man and the money had disappeared.

Then there was the profiteering phase. Landlords raised their rents upon people in no position to bear it. The Halifax Trades and Labor Council adopted a resolution urging that the Mayor be authorized to request all persons to report landlords who "have taken advantage of conditions created by the explosion." ... Plumbers refused to hold their union rules in abeyance and to work one minute beyond the regular eight hours unless they received their extra rates for overtime; and the bricklayers assumed a dog-in-the-manger attitude and refused to allow the plasterers to help in the repair of the chimneys. And this during days of dire stress ... when many men and women were working twelve and fourteen hours a day without a cent or thought of remuneration. One Halifax newspaper spoke of these men as "squeezing the uttermost farthing out of the anguished necessities of the homeless men, women and children." Truckmen charged exorbitant prices for the transferring of goods and baggage. Merchants boosted prices. A small shopkeeper asked a little starving child thirty cents for a loaf of bread.

On Tuesday, December the twelfth, the Deputy Mayor issued a proclamation warning persons so acting that they would be dealt with under the provisions of the law.[77]

[77] Johnstone, _op. cit._

Slowly the arm of repression grew vigorous once more. The military placed troops on patrol. Sentries were posted preventing entrance to the ruins to those who were not supplied with a special pass. Orders were issued to shoot any looter trying to escape. The Mayor's proclamation, the warning of the relief committee, the storm of popular indignation gradually became effectual.

The stimulus of the same catastrophe, it thus appears, may result in two different types of responses--that of greed on the one hand or altruistic emotion on the other. One individual is spurred to increased activity by the opportunity of business profit, another by the sense of social needs. Why this is so--indeed the whole field of profiteering--would be a subject of interesting enquiry. Whether it is due to the varying degrees of socialization represented in the different individuals or whether it is not also partly due to the fact that philanthropy functions best in a sphere out of line with a man's own particular occupation, the truth remains that some display an altogether unusual type of reaction in an emergency to the actions of others; and perhaps exhibit behavior quite different from that which appears normal in a realm of conduct where associations based on habit are so strongly ingrained.

The human will as we have seen is in close association with the emotions. We are now to notice the dynamogenic value of the strong emotions aroused by catastrophe. It is first of all essential to remember the rôle of adrenin in counteracting the effects of fatigue. Wonderful phenomena of endurance in disaster might well be anticipated for "adrenin set free in pain and in fear and in rage would put the members of the body unqualifiedly at the disposal of the nervous system." This is "living on one's will" or on "one's nerve." There are "reservoirs" of power ready to pour forth streams of energy if the occasion presents itself. Strong emotions may become an "arsenal of augmented strength." This fact William James was quick to see when he said "on any given day there are energies slumbering within us which the incitements of that day do not call forth."[78] But it was left to Cannon to unfold the physiological reasons,[79] and for Woodworth to explain how the presence of obstruction has power to call forth new energies.[80] Indeed the will[81] is just the inner driving force of the individual and an effort of will is only "the development of fresh motor power."[82] Following the lines of least resistance the will experiences no unusual exercise. Catastrophe opposes the tendency to eliminate from life everything that requires a calling forth of unusual energies.

[78] James, William, _The Energies of Men_ (N. Y., 1920), p. 11.

[79] Cannon, Walter B., _Bodily changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage_, ch. xi, p. 184, _et seq._

[80] Woodworth, _op. cit._, p. 147.

[81] Will is indeed the supreme faculty, the whole mind in action, the internal stimulus which may call forth all the capacities and powers. (Conklin, Edwin G., _Heredity and Environment in the Development of Man_ [Princeton], ch. vi, p. 47.)

[82] Woodworth, _op. cit._, p. 149.

The energizing influence of an emotional excitant was shown at Halifax in the remarkable way in which sick soldiers abandoned their beds and turned them over to the victims rushed to the military hospitals. It was seen again in the sudden accession of strength displayed by the invalids and the infirm during the hurried evacuation of the houses--a behavior like that of the inhabitants of Antwerp during the bombardment of that city in October 1914, when those who fled to Holland showed extraordinary resistance to fatigue.[83] The resistance to fatigue and suffering received more abundant illustration at Halifax in the work of rescue and relief. Often men themselves were surprised at their own power for prolonged effort and prodigious strain under the excitement of catastrophe. It was only on Monday (the fifth day) that collapses from work began to appear. Among the more generally known instances of unusual endurance was that of a private, who with one of his eyes knocked out, continued working the entire day of the disaster. Another was that of a chauffeur who with a broken rib conveyed the wounded trip after trip to the hospital, only relinquishing the work when he collapsed. An unknown man was discovered at work in the midst of the ruins although his own face was half blown off. Those who escaped with lesser injuries worked day and night while the crisis lasted. Many did not go home for days, so manifold and heavy were the tasks. There was no pause for comment. Conversation was a matter of nods and silent signs, the direction of an index finger. Weeks later the workers were surprised to find themselves aged and thin. The excitement, the stimulus of an overwhelming need had banished all symptoms of fatigue. During the congestion which followed the arrival of the relief trains there were men who spent seventy-two hours with scarcely any rest or sleep. One of the telephone terminal room staff stuck to his post for ninety-two hours, probably the record case of the disaster for endurance under pressure. Magnificent effort, conspicuous enough for special notice was the work of the search parties who, facing bitterest cold and in the midst of blinding storms, continued their work of rescue; and the instance of the business girls who in the same weather worked for many hours with bottles of hot water hung about their waists. An effect which could not escape observation was the strange insensibility to suffering on the part of many of the victims themselves. Men, women and little children endured the crudest operations without experiencing the common effects of pain. They seemed to have been anaesthetized by the general shock. Sidewalk operations, the use of common thread for sutures, the cold-blooded extracting of eyes were carried on often without a tremor. This resistance to suffering was due not only to the increase of energy already described but also to the fact that the prostrating effect of pain is largely relative to the diversion of attention,--as "headaches disappear promptly upon the alarm of fire" and "toothaches vanish at the moment of a burglar's scare." Much pain is due to the super-sensitivity of an area through hyperaemia, or increased blood supply, following concentrated attention. Thus it is actually possible by volition to control the spread of pain, and the therapeutic virtues of an electric shock or a slap in the face are equally demonstrable. This reasoning is also applicable to the absence of sympathetic reactions among many disaster workers. They were found often to be "curiously detached and not greatly moved by the distressing scenes in morgue, in hospital, in the ruins and at the inquiry stations."[84]

[83] Sano, F., "Documenti della guerra: Osservazioni psicologiche notate durante il bombardamento di Anversa," _Rivista di psichologia_, anno xi, pp. 119-128.

[84] Smith, Stanley K., _The Halifax Horror_ (Halifax, 1918), ch. iv, p. 44.

Catastrophe and the sudden termination of the normal which ensues become the stimuli of heroism and bring into play the great social virtues of generosity and of kindliness--which, in one of its forms, is mutual aid. The new conditions, perhaps it would be more correct to say, afford the occasion for their release. It is said that battle does to the individual what the developing solution does to the photographic plate,--brings out what is in the man. This may also be said of catastrophe. Every community has its socialized individuals, the dependable, the helpful, the considerate, as well as the "non-socialized survivors of savagery," who are distributed about the zero point of the social scale. Calamity is the occasion for the discovery of the "presence of extraordinary individuals in a group." The relation of them to a crisis is one of the most important points in the problem of progress.

At Halifax there were encountered many such individuals as well as families who refused assistance that others might be relieved. Individual acts of finest model were written ineffaceably upon the social memory of the inhabitants. There was the case of a child who released with her teeth the clothes which held her mother beneath a pile of debris. A wounded girl saved a large family of children, getting them all out of a broken and burning home. A telegraph operator at the cost of his life stuck to his key, sent a warning message over the line and stopped an incoming train in the nick of time.

Group heroism was no less remarkable. For the flooding of the powder magazine in the naval yard an entire battery volunteered. This was why the second explosion did not actually occur. Freight handlers too, as well as soldiers, revealed themselves possessors of the great spirit. A conspicuous case was that of the longshoremen working on board of a ship laden with explosives. Fully realizing the impending danger, because of the nearness of the burning munitioner, they used what precious minutes of life remained them to protect their own ship's explosives from ignition. A fire did afterwards start upon the ship but a brave captain loosed her from the pier, and himself extinguished the blaze which might soon have repeated in part the devastations already wrought.

No disaster psychology should omit a discussion of the psychology of helpfulness--that self-help to which the best relief workers always appeal, as well as of the mutual aid upon which emergency relief must largely depend. Mutual aid while not a primary social fact is inherent in the association of members of society, as it also "obtains among cells and organs of the vital organism." As it insured survival in the earlier stages of evolution[85] so it reveals itself when survival is again threatened by catastrophe.

[85] Kropotkin, Prince, _Mutual Aid_ (N. Y., 1919), ch. i, p. 14.

The illustrations of mutual aid at Halifax would fill a volume. Not only was it evidenced in the instances of families and friends but also in the realm of business. Cafés served lunches without charge. Drug stores gave out freely of their supplies. Firms released their clerks to swell the army of relief. A noteworthy case of community service was that of the Grocers' Guild announcing that its members would

fill no orders for outside points during the crisis, that they would coöperate with the relief committee in delivering foodstuffs free of charge to any point in the city, and that their stocks were at the disposal of the committee at the actual cost to them.[86]

By incidents such as these, Halifax gained the appellation of the City of Comrades.

[86] Johnstone, _op. cit._

Catastrophe becomes also the excitant for an unparalleled opening of the springs of generosity.[87] Communication has transformed mutual aid into a term of worldwide significance. As at San Francisco, when from all directions spontaneous gifts were hurried to the stricken city, when in a period of three months seventeen hundred carloads and five steamerloads of relief goods arrived, in addition to millions of cash contributions, so was it at Halifax. So it has always been, as is proven by Chicago, Dayton, Chelsea as well as by numbers of other instances. The public heart responds with instantaneous and passionate sympathy. Halifax specials were on every railroad. Ships brought relief by sea. Cities vied with each other in their responses. Every hour brought telegraphed assistance from governments and organizations. In about fifteen weeks approximately eight millions had been received, aside from the Federal grant. But it was not the totality of the gifts, but the number of the givers which gives point to our study. So many rushed with their donations to the Calvin Austin before she sailed from Boston on her errand of relief that "the police reserves were called out to preserve order." A great mass of the contributions involved much personal sacrifice upon the part of the contributors, as accompanying letters testified. It could be written of Halifax as it was of San Francisco that:

all the fountains of good fellowship, of generosity, of sympathy, of good cheer, pluck and determination have been opened wide by the common downfall. The spirit of all is a marvelous revelation of the good and fine in humanity, intermittent or dormant under ordinary conditions, but dominant and all pervading in the shadow of disaster.[88]

Abridged and sketchy as the foregoing necessarily is, it is perhaps full enough to have at least outlined the social phenomena of the major sort which a great disaster presents. These are found to be either abnormal and handicapping, such as, emotional parturition; or stimulative and promotive, such as the dynamogenic reactions. In propositional form it may be stated that catastrophe is attended by phenomena of social psychology, which may either retard or promote social organization.

[87] There is no better evidence of the response of the public heart to a great tragedy than the fact that at Halifax upwards of a thousand offers were received for the adoption of the orphaned children.

[88] Bicknell, Ernest P., "In the Thick of the Relief Work at San Francisco," _Charities and the Commons_, vol. xvi (June, 1906), p. 299.

In addition this chapter has discussed the rôle of catastrophe in stimulating community service, in presenting models of altruistic conduct, in translating energy into action, in defending law and order, and in bringing into play the great social virtues of generosity, sympathy and mutual aid.