CHAPTER XVIII.

The World Not So Heartless as Supposed--People Give Generously to Aid the Suffering--A Social Phenomenon--Value of United States Weather Bureau.

Perhaps the world is not so bad as it has been painted, or so heartless and indifferent as some pessimists would have us believe. Ordinarily men and women have enough to do in attending to their own affairs, expecting others, of course, to do the same, and consequently they pay small attention to what is going on around them; but when their hearts are really touched they drop everything and rush to the rescue of the afflicted.

So it was in the case of Galveston.

The catastrophe at Galveston served to bring conspicuously into notice the best and worst sides of human nature, which is always the common result of all appalling disasters.

The people of that afflicted city were suddenly overwhelmed by the almost unprecedented fury of the elements. Thousands were killed and injured. Thousands more lost their homes and places of business. They were suffering with hunger and menaced with pestilence. All were brought to a common level by dangers of every description, death in its most awful forms, and an outlook of terrible uncertainty.

And yet in the midst of all this ruin and suffering they were harassed by thugs and thieves and ghouls in human shape, who looted property, assaulted citizens who resisted them, and despoiled and disfigured the dead in a shockingly savage manner to secure rings and other jewels. Devoid of any feeling of sympathy or pity, they seized upon this awful disaster as an opportunity to enrich themselves. As soon, however, as the authorities could recover from the first shock of the disaster the city was placed under martial law, and the troops patrolling the island did not hesitate to kill every one of the vandals caught in the commission of his infamous work. Public opinion sustained this prompt style of punishment. It was a species of Southern lynching to which no objection was ever raised.

The disaster also brought into prominence the greed and mercenary passion of human nature. A clique of ravenous wretches, taking advantage of the fact that the city of Galveston was cut off from bridge communication with the mainland, conspired to secure control of the transportation facilities by water, and charged extortionate prices even to those who were seeking to carry relief to the suffering people.

Never was a more inhuman trust organized.

Again, all the fresh provisions in the city were ruined, leaving only a few canned and dried articles which were available for food. The owners of these, bent upon making personal profit out of the necessities of their fellow-citizens, pushed up the prices, raising bread to 60 cents a loaf and bacon to 50 cents a pound.

The mayor of Galveston, however, proved himself equal to the emergency, confiscated the food supply, reduced the prices to a reasonable rate, and compelled the owners of schooners and small craft to put down their prices also.

This was the dark side of human nature, but the picture had its bright side also. The news of the awful disaster had hardly appeared in the public prints before tens of thousands of helping hands were busy collecting relief. The Chief Executive of the nation, the Governors of States, and the mayors of cities issued their appeals to the people, whose sympathies were already aroused and whose hearts and hands were enlisted generously and enthusiastically in the work of relief.

Far-off countries sent their offerings; every city and town in the world where Americans live contributed; and crowned heads hastened to cable sympathy, together with more substantial evidences of their kindly feeling.

Without delay of any kind, instantly and spontaneously, the machinery of charity began its work. The people of the North might differ radically from the people of the South in many ways, but in the presence of such a dreadful visitation of nature, involving suffering and death, the brotherhood of man asserted itself and all things else were forgotten. Only the higher and nobler attributes of human nature assert themselves.

Private individuals, business houses, great corporations, municipal, state and national government vied with each other, as they did when fire swept over Chicago and the flood overwhelmed Johnstown, in expediting relief to the storm-ruined people of Texas.

Day by day trains sped to Galveston from every part of the country, loaded with supplies, and the telegraph wires carried orders for money, testifying to the unanimity of the great work of relief, and to the higher and nobler instincts of human nature when it is appealed to by the claims of humanity.

The ghouls of Galveston were comparatively few in number. Its generous sympathizers were to be counted by scores of millions.

The convicts in the Texas state penitentiary at Rusk were moved by the sufferings of the Galveston victims to contribute $40 to the relief fund.

Are men who go to prison totally bad?

The scope and rapidity of the Galveston relief work all over the country afforded a spectacle at once gratifying and noteworthy. Trains laden with food and comforts for the sufferers were rushed towards the stricken city from every quarter of the United States.

From Boston to San Francisco nearly every city, regardless of size, contributed its quota to the generous cause. Even from across the Atlantic the Liverpool and Paris funds came, being on the list for $10,000 each. Within a week after the disaster Galveston was in possession of a magnificent relief fund that went far toward alleviating the physical sufferings of its homeless thousands.

Here is a social phenomenon that may well give pause to all critics who are wont to inveigh against our commercial and industrial age. These exhibitions of liberality are not rare in the United States. A long series of them might be compiled within the period between the Chicago fire and the Porto Rican hurricane.

Singly and in the aggregate they are a striking negative to the charge of sordid commercialism in our individual and national life. The modern American is making more money than ever before, but he has a heart as well as a business head, and he is giving larger sums to noble causes than were ever given before.

Probably the increased willingness of the people to help stricken communities like Galveston is due more to the railroads and telegraph lines than to anything else. Modern charity is the child of modern conditions. These indispensable adjuncts to commercial enterprise alone make widespread relief work possible.

If the telegraph and the newspaper had not placed the sad picture of Galveston's misfortunes at once before the eyes of Americans from ocean to ocean there could have been no such national impulse of generosity.

About ninety years ago an earthquake in Southern Missouri brought calamity to many settlers, but it was a month before the news reached the East, and another month would have had to elapse before relief could have been carried to the sufferers. The impulse to give cannot thrive under such circumstances.

There have been tender hearts in all ages, but only in our time have the means of quick communication made human sympathy effective across continents. The railroad, the telegraph and the newspaper have lengthened the arm of charity quite as much as that of business.

The Galveston incident is also a fine example of the way in which these agencies bind all sections of the nation together in increasing solidarity.

GREAT VALUE OF THE UNITED STATES WEATHER BUREAU.

The great value of the United States Weather Bureau and the remarkable correctness of its observations, all things considered, was demonstrated by the events preceding and succeeding the West Indian hurricane. It gave warning of the hurricane days before it manifested itself on the Texas coast. It anticipated its course from the vicinity of San Domingo until it reached Cuban waters, where it made a deflection no human skill could have foreseen.

The bureau was not caught napping, however. It sent out its hurricane signals both for the Atlantic coast and the gulf coast, and when the storm turned from the north of Cuba westward the bureau turned its attention to Texas, and on the morning of September 7, nearly thirty-six hours before the disaster, warned the people of Galveston of its coming, and during that day extended its signals all along the Texas coast, thus preventing vessels from leaving.

Of course the observers could not know what terrible energy it would gain crossing the Gulf of Mexico.

Perhaps still greater accuracy in forecasting was displayed by the bureau in the warnings given out to mariners on the Great Lakes on Tuesday morning, September 11. Though nearly all lines of communication in Texas were cut off, the bureau kept track of the storm as it swept through Oklahoma into Kansas, and gave timely warning that it would turn northeast, moving across northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, and thence across Lake Michigan and the northern end of the southern peninsula of Michigan to Canada.

It further predicted the furious winds which prevailed the next day, their maximum velocity, the change caused by the northwest current from Lake Superior, and the fall of temperature yesterday to the nicety of a degree. Every vessel captain on the lakes had ample warning given him.

In times gone by it was the habit to jeer at Old Probabilities, and whenever a prediction failed of verification to condemn the Weather Bureau as unreliable and not worth the expense of its maintenance.

During the last few years, however, its operators have gained in skill and its record now is of a character of which its officials have every reason to be proud and which amply justifies whatever expense it may entail by its great saving of life and property.

WHY SHOULD NOT GALVESTON BE REBUILT?

The appalling nature of the wreck to which Galveston was reduced naturally led to some talk of abandoning the old site altogether and rebuilding the city somewhere on the mainland. An army officer concluded his report to Washington headquarters by expressing the opinion that Galveston was destroyed beyond the ability to recover, and the Southern Pacific railway was said to be in favor of leaving the flat island to the sport of the treacherous waves and heading a movement to rebuild the city at the mouth of the Brazos river.

It is natural that non-residents of Galveston should consider the advisability of abandoning such a perilous site, especially as there can never be any complete security against a disaster like that of Saturday, September 8. But it is safe to say that Galveston will be rebuilt on its sand island. Mankind is not wont to desert any spot of the earth's surface because of a sudden and rare convulsion of nature.

Lisbon was not abandoned because of the disastrous earthquake that killed 50,000 people in 1755.

Similar earthquake disasters in Central and South America have not induced the survivors to abandon a single city.

When 100,000 Chinamen were swallowed up at Peking in the last century it did not change the site of the city, nor have the still more disastrous floods along the Yellow river ever caused the survivors to change their habitat.

History shows Europeans and Americans to be quite as tenacious in this regard as any other races.

Italian peasants continue to cultivate the slopes of Vesuvius in spite of all past disasters, and the inhabitants of the Sea Islands along the Carolina coast were not disheartened when the elements committed fearful ravages.

The leading business men of Galveston emphasized a point when they began to talk of rebuilding which had escaped general attention until that time. They were exceedingly anxious that commercial bodies, steamship owners, brokers and those interested in the commerce of Galveston should be as considerate as possible in their treatment of the city, that is to say, there should be liberality in the commercial relations. These men urged that the extent of the calamity should be taken into account when adjustment of contracts took place and in all business arrangements until the city could regain its footing. Charters provide by special mention for "Visitations of Providence," for the "Acts of God."

The Galveston business men hoped that their business connections would apply a like spirit to all commerce affected by the storm.

They were not disappointed, as the result showed.

Galveston was just entering upon the busy season. There were from 200 to 300 ships under sailing contracts with that port for the months of September, November and December. Some of these ships were, when the storm came, on the high seas. Even a temporary paralysis of thirty days meant much loss and the derangement of many contracts.

It was a time which called for the generous policy, not for strict enforcements of the letter of agreements. Galveston only asked what her business men thought was just, that thereby the shock to commerce might be mitigated. When the time came Galveston found that she had not asked too much, as she received all the consideration she could wish.

Representatives of the railroad systems which connected Galveston with the outside world before the occurrence of the disaster agreed in saying, in a meeting held at New York, that her residents would rebuild on the same sand island in spite of the terrible experiences. They believed that Galveston, injured financially though her citizens had been, would be rebuilt by her citizens without the aid of outside capital.

A. F. Walker, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, said he felt certain that Galveston would be rebuilt.

The new energy and courage displayed by the people of Galveston is what was to be expected in a city so full of American pluck. Though stunned and prostrate under the most fatal disaster that had ever overtaken an American community, Galveston took only a few days to regain its breath. It has simply reasserted the same indomitable courage and will power by which Americans in times past built up a great nation where there was a wilderness a century ago.

The terse motto stuck up on every street corner of the wrecked city is "Clean Up." Behind its grim humor there lies a stern determination that is one of the proudest attributes of our race.

There is no reason why a greater Galveston, should not speedily rise on the site of the present ruins.

The report of an army officer that the city was ruined beyond recovery and the suggestions of other persons that Galveston should be rebuilt on another site find no sympathy among the citizens. Galveston will be rebuilt upon its former site.

Carpenters, masons and artisans are being called for by thousands, and, with the generous aid contributed by people all over the country, there will be a rapid transformation. The city has thrust its sorrow behind it and has its face set toward the future.

Since the danger of flood cannot be removed so long as the city stands at its present level, it is to be hoped its builders will begin a new era of security by raising the grade of the streets.

A few feet will materially decrease the danger from tidal waves. It will also be wise to construct the foundations of all permanent large buildings of stone to a height above the level reached by the recent inundation. In resolving to defy an untoward fate Galveston should begin by adopting all practical means for defying wind and waves.

Even though the expense and delay will be greater, it will pay to give the new buildings all possible safeguards of solidity.

Galveston will be rebuilt, as it was after the disaster of fourteen years previously. Its inhabitants will reason that the city had existed for two-thirds of a century in comparative safety, and that such a tidal wave is not likely to be repeated in a hundred years. The same commercial advantages that first tempted settlers to the island, and that made Galveston one of the most thriving cities on the gulf coast, are still present.

Men who own real estate on the island will not abandon it, even though the improvements thereon have been reduced to a wreck. They know that even if they did abandon it there would be plenty of others to take it--risks and all--and rebuild the city.

The federal government may hesitate about rebuilding its structures on so precarious a site, but private interests are not likely to abandon a city even for so terrible a disaster as that at Galveston.