was possible to erect and provide for the great burial-place of its
dead--"Grand View," that overlooks the city. It was also suggested that
a benevolent society, as a permanent institution, be formed by the
united action of the general committee and the Red Cross. This was
successfully accomplished by the generous provision of eight thousand
dollars from the committee on its part and the turning over of our
well-made and supplied hospital buildings, and the funds we had left
placed in charge of a faithful custodian under our pay for the following
six months.
This is the present "Union Benevolent Society" of Johnstown to-day.
I remained five months with these people without once visiting my own
home, only returning to it when the frost had killed the green I had
left in May.
In that time, it was estimated, we had housed, handled, and distributed
$211,000 worth of supplies--new and old--for, by request of the weary
chairman of the general committee, at the last, we took up the close of
its distribution. It is our joy and pride to recall how closely we
worked in connection with that honored committee from first to last, and
how strong and unsullied that friendship has remained.
The value of money that passed through our hands was $39,000, as stated
in the official report of the general committee, to which all required
returns were made, recorded, and published by the committee.
Our usual quota of assistants was fifty persons, the higher grade of men
and women assistants largely volunteers. Two railroads brought our
supplies. To handle these the strongest men were required, and seven
two-horse teams ran daily for three and a half months in the
distribution, at customary rates of pay. These were the workingmen of
the town who had suffered with the rest.
It was a joy that in all the uncertainties of that uncertain field not a
single complaint ever reached us of the non-acknowledgment of a dollar
entrusted to us.
The paths of charity are over roadways of ashes; and he who would tread
them must be prepared to meet opposition, misconstruction, jealousy, and
calumny. Let his work be that of angels--still it will not satisfy all.
In the light of recent events, I may perhaps be pardoned for quoting a
few lines from the official report of the Johnstown Flood Finance
Committee appointed by Governor Beaver, as showing how these gentlemen,
the foremost men in the community, regarded our efforts to give them a
helping hand:
"In this matter of sheltering the people, as in others of like
importance, Miss Clara Barton, President of the Red Cross Association,
was most helpful. At a time when there was a doubt if the Flood
Commission could furnish houses of suitable character and with the
requisite promptness, she offered to assume charge, and she erected with
the funds of the Association three large apartment houses, which
afforded comfortable lodgings for many houseless people. She was among
the first to arrive on the scene of calamity, bringing with her Dr.
Hubbell, the Field Officer of the Red Cross Association, and a staff of
skilled assistants. She made her own organization for relief work in
every form, disposing of the large resources under her control with such
wisdom and tenderness that the charity of the Red Cross had no sting,
and its recipients are not Miss Barton's dependents, but her friends.
She was also the last of the ministering spirits to leave the scene of
her labors, and she left her apartment houses for use during the winter,
and turned over her warehouse with its store of furniture, bedding, and
clothing, and a well-equipped infirmary, to the Union Benevolent
Association of the Conemaugh Valley, the organization of which she
advised and helped to form; and its lady visitors have so well performed
their work that the dreaded winter has no terrors, mendicancy has been
repressed, and not a single case of unrelieved suffering is known to
have occurred in all the flooded district."
Enterprising, industrious, and hopeful, the new Johnstown,
phoenix-like, rose from its ruins more beautiful than the old, with a
ceaseless throb of grateful memory for every kind act rendered, and
every thought of sympathy given her in her great hour of desolation and
woe. God bless her, and God bless all who helped save her!
V
THE RUSSIAN FAMINE
As early as 1889, the foreign journals began to tell us of the
apprehension caused by an unusual failure of the crops in Central
Russia, extending from Moscow north and south, and east beyond the Ural
Mountains and into Siberia--embracing an era of a million square miles.
This failure was followed by another in 1890.
Eighteen hundred and ninety-one found the old-time granaries empty, and
a total failure of the crops, and a population of thirty-five millions
of people, paralyzed with the dread of approaching famine.
The American Red Cross had placed itself in communication with the
Secretary of State, Hon. James G. Blaine, whose name and memory it
treasures with reverence, and Mr. Alexander Gregor, the accomplished
Russian _Chargé d'Affaires_ at Washington, and ascertained that Russia
would gladly receive donations of relief from America. She would even
send her ships for any food that might be offered. This, America would
not permit and Congress was appealed to for ocean transportation. The
Senate voted a liberal appropriation, which was defeated in the House.
Then the Red Cross, with the aid of the citizens of Washington, took up
the matter. They were joined by the Order of Elks, which contributed a
sum of seven hundred dollars, than which perhaps that liberal Order
never made a more timely gift. Funds were raised to charter a steamship
for the Red Cross. The spirit spread generally over the country.
Philadelphia sent a messenger to learn what Washington was doing, and
was advised to charter one of its own ships, which was done, and two
consignments were finally made by them.
Minnesota had already acted, and later, by the advice and aid of the
extra provision of the Red Cross, the Christian Herald sent out its ship
cargo, under convoy of Rev. Dr. Talmage.
But the State of Iowa led all others in active generosity.
Under the supervision of Mr. B. F. Tillinghast, of Davenport, aided by
the able pen of Miss Alice French, that State alone raised, and sent in
trains across the country from Iowa to New York, one hundred and
seventeen thousand bushels of corn and one hundred thousand pounds of
flour, which was loaded onto the "Tynehead," a staunch British ship, and
consigned to the port of Riga.
That year we had been notified of an International Conference to be held
in Rome. The customary appropriation was made by Congress, and again I
was appointed delegate. Too much occupied by the relief at home, Dr.
Hubbell, also a delegate, went in my place to Rome, and from there
reached Riga in time to receive and direct the distribution of the
immense cargo of grain throughout Russia.
When Dr. Hubbell reached Riga he learned that two hundred and forty
peasants had been waiting on the dock two days, watching and waiting for
the ship from America. Not waiting for food, for Riga was not in a
famine province, but waiting that they might not miss the opportunity
and the honor of unloading the American ship that had brought food to
their unfortunate brothers in the interior. As soon as they could get
into the hold of the ship, one hundred and forty of them began the
unloading. They worked night and day, without rest, determined to unload
the entire cargo themselves, without help. But on the third night our
Consul, Mr. Bornholdt, insisted on their having a relief of twelve
hours, and when the twelve hours were up they were all in their places
again, and remained until the cargo was out, declining to take any pay
for their labor. Twelve women worked along with them in the same spirit,
in the ship and on the dock, with needles, sewing up the rents in the
bags, to prevent waste in handling, and cooking meals for the men.
The Mayor of St. Petersburg, in an address on behalf of that city to
American donors, declared:
"The Russian people know how to be grateful. If up to this day these two
great countries, Russia and the United States, have not only never
quarreled, but on the contrary wished each other prosperity and strength
always, these feelings of sympathy can grow only stronger in the future,
both countries being conscious that in the season of trial for either it
will find in the other cordial succor and support. And can true
friendship be tested if not in the hour of misfortune?"
A peasant of Samara sent to a Russian editor, together with three
colored eggs, a letter which he asked to have forwarded to America. The
following is an extract from the letter:
"Christ is risen! To the merciful benefactors, the protectors of the
poor, the feeders of the starving, the guardians of the orphans--Christ
is risen.
"North Americans! May the Lord grant you a peaceful and long life and
prosperity to your land, and may your fields be filled with abundant
harvest--Christ is risen. Your mercifulness gives us a helping hand.
Through your charity you have satisfied the starving. And for your
magnificent alms accept from me this humble gift, which I send to the
entire American people for your great beneficence, from all the hearts
of the poor filled with feelings of joy."
In the gratitude manifested by the Russian Government and people we were
glad to feel that a slight return had been made to Russia for past
favors in our own peril, and a friendship never broken.
The Department of State at Washington, under date of January 11, 1894,
forwarded the following:
"I have to inform you that on November 7, 1893, the American Minister at
St. Petersburg received from the nobility of that city, through their
Marshal, Count Alexis Bobrinskoy, an address to the people of the United
States. This address, which is in the English language, embodies in
terms fitly chosen the thanks of the Russian people to the American for
the aid sent to their country from our own during the famine period of
the past two years. It is beautifully engrossed and its illumination
embraces water-color drawings which render it a most attractive work of
art.
"The document, which is superbly bound and enclosed in a fine case, was
duly forwarded to this city by the American Minister at St. Petersburg,
and will be given a conspicuous place in the library of this
department."
In so general an uprising of relief no great sum in contributions could
be expected from any one source. The Red Cross felt that, if no more, it
was glad to be able to pay, by the generous help of the city of
Washington, the charter of a ship that conveyed its
corn--$12,500--besides several thousands distributed in Russia through
Tolstoi and American agents there.
We paid the cost of loading, superintended by Mr. Tillinghast in person,
whose financial record shows the exact cost of transportation. All this
was done in connection with the State of Iowa. Our home record showed,
when all was finished, a field closed with a small balance in our favor,
which we had no active call for. By the advice of one of the best
personal advisers, bankers, and friends that the Red Cross has ever had,
this small sum was placed in bank, in readiness for the next call.
VI
THE SEA ISLAND RELIEF
This little timely provision, advisedly made, was none too much or none
too soon.
On the 28th of August, 1893, a hurricane and tidal wave from the
direction of the West Indies swept the coast of South Carolina, covering
its entire range of Port Royal Islands, sixteen feet below the sea.
These islands had thirty-five thousand inhabitants, mainly negroes. At
first, it was thought that all must have perished. Later, it was found
that only some four or five thousand had been drowned, and that thirty
thousand remained with no earthly possession of home, clothing, or food.
The few boats not swept away took them over to the mainland in
thousands, and calls went out for help. In this emergency Governor
Tillman called for the services of the Red Cross, and my note-book has
this passage:
"The next night, in a dark, cheerless September mist, I closed my door
behind me for ten months, and with three assistants went to the station
to meet Senator Butler."
At Columbia we were joined by Governor Tillman, and thus reinforced
proceeded to Beaufort. After due examination the work which had been
officially placed with us by the Governor was accepted October 1st, and
carried on until the following July.
The submerged lands were drained, three hundred miles of ditches made, a
million feet of lumber purchased and houses built, fields and gardens
planted with the best seed in the United States, and the work all done
by the people themselves. The thousands of boxes of clothing received
were distributed among them, and we left them in July, 1894, supplies of
vegetables for the city of Beaufort.
Free transportation for supplies continued till about March. No
provisions in kind were sent from any source after the first four weeks
of public excitement. After this all foodstuffs were purchased in
Charleston and distributed as rations. Men were compelled to work on the
building of their own homes in order to receive rations.
We found them an industrious, grateful class of people, far above the
ordinary grade usually met. They largely owned their little homes, and
appreciated instruction in the way of improving them. The tender memory
of the childlike confidence and obedience of this ebony-faced population
is something that time cannot efface from either us or them.
On the third day after our arrival at Beaufort four middle-aged colored
men came to the door of the room we had appropriated as an office, and
respectfully asked to see "Miss Clare." They were admitted, and I waited
to learn what request they would probably make of me. At length the
tallest and evidently the leader, said:
"Miss Clare, we knows you doesn't remember us. But we never fo'gits you.
We has all of us got somethin' to show you."
Slipping up a soiled, ragged shirtsleeve, he showed me an ugly scar
above the elbow, reaching to the shoulder. "Wagner?" I asked.
"Yes, Miss Clare, and you drissed it for me that night, when I crawled
down the beach--'cause my leg was broke too," he replied. "And we was
all of us there, and you took care of us all and drissed our wounz. I
was with Colonel Shaw, and crawled out of the fote. The oth's nevah got
in. But we all got to you, Miss Clare. And now you's got to us. We's
talked about you a heap o' times, but we nevah 'spected to see you. We's
nevah fo'git it, Miss Clare."
One by one they showed their scars. There was very little clothing to
hide them--bullet wound and sabre stroke. The memory, dark and sad,
stood out before us all. It was a moment not to be forgotten.
Our purchases consisted of meat, mainly dry sides of pork, and grits, or
hominy, for eating. For planting, beside the seed contributed and the
nine hundred bushels of Irish potatoes, were eighteen hundred bushels of
Northern Flint seed corn.
The contributions of food and clothing had been sent to Beaufort, and
were in the warehouses of the perplexed committee of its leading
citizens. This had naturally drawn all the inhabitants of the scores of
desolated islands for fifty miles to Beaufort, until, it is safe to say,
that fifteen to twenty thousand refugees had gathered there, living in
its streets and waiting to be fed from day to day.
As the food was there they could not be induced to return to the
islands. Indeed, there was more often nothing on the islands to return
to. The description given by the heads of families and owners, for they
had largely owned their homes, gotten on the old-time plantations "'fo
de wah," was this: If all had been swept out to sea and nothing
remained, it was described as, "done gone." But if thrown down and parts
of the wreck still remained, it was described as "ractified."
A few of the churches, being larger and more strongly built, still
remained standing. During the first ten days of our stay it would have
been impossible to drive through the principal streets of Beaufort. They
were a solid moving mass, crowding as near to the storehouses as
possible to get, in spite of the policeman, who kindly held them back.
We sat daily in counsel with the local committee, until seeing that only
systematic measures and a decided change could relieve the conditions
and render the city safe. We then, on the first of October, decided to
accede to the request of the Governor made at first, and take sole
charge of the relief.
Our first order was to close every storehouse, both of food and
clothing, and inform the people that all distributions would hereafter
be made from the islands. It is impossible to convey to the mind of the
reader the difficulty of getting into a few intelligent sentences the
idea of the means adopted to produce these changes and inaugurate a
system that was to restore to active habits of life a body of utterly
homeless, demoralized, and ignorant people, equal in numbers to a small
new State.
If these little covers would admit the scores of pages of admirably
written reports of the officers and helpers on that field, every line
replete with interest, that lie here at my hand, it would be an easy and
a welcome task to reproduce them entire, and no more than deserved for
their faithful and gratuitous labor.
Dr. Egan's report has this passage:
"October 2d came my marching orders. Take charge of the warehouse and
stores, make an inventory of them, disperse these men, and rid the city
of the demoralizing influence of idle people. The doors are closed and
the inventory begun."
The local committee had kindly pointed out the most suitable man to take
charge of each community, and to him would be consigned the rations to
be distributed to each family and person within his charge, for which
receipt and distribution he became as responsible as a merchant.
The goods and rations were at once shipped across the bay to them, or
taken on their own boats, if so fortunate as to have one left from the
storm. It is needless to say that the multitude followed the food.
In three days there were not people enough left in Beaufort, besides its
own, to be hired for a "job of work." Then followed the necessity for
material to rebuild the "done gone," and to repair the "ractified"
homes.
A million feet of pine lumber was purchased of a leading lumber dealer,
shipped down the Combahee River, and delivered at the landings on the
islands most convenient of access to the points needed. Each man
received his lumber by order and receipt, and was under obligation to
build his own house. The work was all performed by themselves. A garden
was insisted upon. At first this proposition was resisted as
impracticable.
"No use, Mistah--no use--'cause de pig eat it all up."
It was suggested that a fence might be made enclosing at least a quarter
of an acre about the house to keep "de pig" out, as we should later
send, for planting, the best seed to be obtained in the country.
To this moment our thanks go out to the Agricultural Department at
Washington, and the great seed houses of all the North, for the generous
donations that served to bring once more into self-sustaining relations
this destitute and well-disposed people.
The fact that the building of the fence, and its subsequent keeping in
strict repair, had some bearing on the weekly issuance of rations, was
evidently not without its influence. There were no poor fences and "de
pig" did no damage. But there were such gardens, and of such varieties,
as those islands had never before seen.
The earliest crop to strive for, beside the gardens, was the Irish
potato, which they had never raised. Nine hundred bushels were purchased
from Savannah for planting in February. The difficulty of distributing
the potatoes lay in the fact that they would be more likely to find
their way into the dinner pot than into the ground. To avoid this the
court-yard inside our headquarters was appropriated for the purpose of
preparing the potatoes for planting.
Some forty women were hired to come over from the islands and cut
potatoes for seed--every "eye" of the potato making a sprout--these
distributed to them by the peck, like other seed.
I recall a fine, bright morning in May, when I was told that a woman who
had come over from St. Helena in the night, waited at the door to see
me. I went to the door to find a tall, bright-looking woman in a clean
dress, with a basket on her head, which, after salutation, she lowered
and held out to me. There was something over a peck of Early Rose
potatoes in the basket--in size from a pigeon's to a pullet's egg. The
grateful woman could wait no longer for the potatoes to grow larger,
but had dug these, and had come ten miles over the sea, in the night, to
bring them to me as a first offering of food of her own raising.
If the tears fell on the little gift as I looked and remembered, no one
will wonder or criticise. The potatoes were cooked for breakfast, and
"Susie Jane" was invited to partake.
The shores of the mainland had not been exempt from the ravages of the
storm and in many instances had suffered like the islands. Some thirty
miles above Beaufort was a kind of plantation, with a community of sixty
or seventy families of colored people. The property was owned by two
elderly white ladies who had not returned since driven away by the
storm.
This village was reported to us as in need and demoralized, with no
head, scant of food, and its "ractified" houses scarcely affording a
shelter.
A representative mulatto man came to tell us. An inspection was made and
resulted in this man being put in charge to build up the community.
Lumber and food were provided and the people set to work under his
charge. From time to time word came to us, and after some months the
tall representative came again. He had been asked by the people to come
and bring their thanks to the Red Cross for "de home, de gard'n, de pig,
and de chick'n dey all has now."
The thanks they had emphasized and proved by the heavy basket that
Jackson had carefully brought all the forty miles. It contained
seventy-one fresh eggs--the gift of seventy-one families--being a
contribution of one egg from each family, from the day or two previous
to his leaving on his mission.
Domestic gardens were a new feature among these islanders, whose whole
attention had been always given to the raising of the renowned "Sea
Island Cotton," the pride of the market, and a just distinction to
themselves and the worthy planter. The result of this innovation was
that, when we left in July, it was nearly as difficult for a pedestrian
to make his way on the narrow sidewalks of Beaufort because of piled-up
vegetables for sale from the islands, as it had been in October to pass
through the streets because of hungry, idle men and women.
Nothing better illustrates the native good heart of these people than
their kindly interest in and for each other. Often the young men,
without families, would club together and put up a house for some lone
old "auntie," who had neither family nor home, and occasionally there
seemed to develop among them an active philanthropist. Of this type was
Jack Owens, who rebuilt his own "done gone" premises. One day as the
field agent was driving out on some inspection he met Jack walking into
town.
His decrepit neighbor's house had burned a few weeks before, and Jack
had gotten lumber and rebuilt the house himself. In describing the utter
devastation, Jack explained that "all de house and de well was
burned"--and he had built another house and was coming in on foot "for
funituh to funish it." Jack had lost his ox, "a big ox," he said, in the
storm, and now he "hadn't any nuther" to plow his ground. He pleaded for
another--if it was only "a lil' critter it would grow big"--and it would
help him so much.
The appeal was not to be resisted. Dr. Hubbell treasures to this day the
satisfaction he felt in procuring something better than the "lil'
critter" as reward and encouragement for Jack's active philanthropy.
If any practical woman reading this should try to comprehend what it
would be to undertake to clothe and keep clothed thirty thousand human
beings for a year, and to do this from the charitable gifts of the
people, which gifts had all done more or less service before--often
pretty thoroughly "ractified"--this woman will not wonder that sewing
societies suggested themselves to us at headquarters.