Family in a Tree-Top All Night—Rescue of the Perishing—Railroad Trains
Hurrying Forward with Relief—Pathetic Scenes in the Desolate City.
After suffering untold privations for over a week on Bolivar peninsula,
an isolated neck of land extending into Galveston bay a few miles from
the east end of Galveston island, the Rev. L. P. Davis, wife and five
young children reached Houston, famished, penniless and nearly naked,
but overcome with amazement and joy at their miraculous delivery from
what seemed to them certain death.
Wind and water wrecked their home, annihilated their neighbors and
destroyed every particle of food for miles around, yet they passed
through the terrible days and nights raising their voices above the
shriek of the wind in singing hymns and in prayer. And through it all
not one member of the family was injured to the extent of even a
scratch.
When the hurricane struck the Rev. Mr. Davis’ home at Patton Beach the
water rose so fast that it was pouring into the windows before the
members of the family realized their danger. Rushing out Mr. Davis
hitched his team and placing his wife and children into a wagon started
for a place of safety. Before they had left his yard another family of
refugees drove up to ask assistance, only to be upset by the waves
before his very eyes. With difficulty the party was saved from drowning,
and when safe in the Davis wagon were half floated, half drawn by the
team to a grove.
With clotheslines Mr. Davis lashed his 12 and 14 year old boys in a
tree. One younger child he secured with the chain of his wagon, and
lifting his wife into another tree he climbed beside her.
While the hurricane raged above and a sea of water dashed wildly below,
Mrs. Davis clung to her 6–month-old babe with one arm, while with the
other she held fast to her precarious haven of refuge. The minister held
a baby of 18 months in the same manner, and while the little one cried
for food he prayed. In other trees the family he had rescued from
drowning found a precarious footing.
When the night had passed and the water receded, wreckage, dead animals
and the corpses of parishioners surrounded the devoted party. There was
nothing to eat, and, nearly dead with exhaustion, the preacher and his
little flock set out on foot to seek assistance. They were too weak to
continue far, and sank down on the plain, while Mr. Davis pushed on
alone. Five miles away a farmhouse was found, partially intact, and
securing a team, Davis returned for his half-dead party.
SUBSISTED ON RAW MEAT.
For two days they remained at the home of the hospitable farmer, and
then set out afoot to find a hamlet or make their way over the
desert-like peninsula to Bolivar Point. In the heat of the burning sun
they plodded on along the water front, subsisting upon a steer which
they killed and devoured raw, until finally they came upon an abandoned
and overturned sailboat high on the beach.
With a united effort they succeeded in launching the boat, and with
improvised distress signals displayed, managed to sail to Galveston.
There, because of red tape, they were unable to secure clothing,
although they were given a little food and transportation to Houston.
Clad in an old pair of trousers, a tattered shirt and torn shoes, with
his family in even worse plight, the circuit rider of the Patton Beach,
Johnston’s Bethel, Bolivar Point and High Island Methodist Churches rode
into Houston, dirty, weak and half-starved. Here the family were sent to
a hospital and cared for.
Bolivar reported that up to date 220 bodies had been found and buried,
and many were still lying on the sands. Assistance was needed at once.
It is a fact generally commented upon, and merely emphasized by the
clergyman’s experience, that while succor is being rushed to Galveston,
other sufferers are neglected. The relief trains en route from Houston
to Galveston traverse a storm-swept section, where famishing and nearly
naked survivors sit on the wrecks of their homes and hungrily watch tons
of provisions whirling past them, while there is little prospect of aid
reaching them.
Winifred Black, a lady journalist, furnishes the following vivid account
of her experiences in reaching Galveston: “I begged, cajoled and cried
my way through the line of soldiers with drawn swords, who guard the
wharf at Texas City, and sailed across the bay on a little boat, which
is making irregular trips to meet the relief trains from Houston.
“The engineer who brought our train down from Houston spent the night
before groping around in the wrecks on the beach looking for his wife
and three children. He found them, dug a rude grave in the sand, and set
up a little board marked with his name.
ALL HAD LOST LOVED ONES.
“The man in front of me on the car had floated all Monday night with his
wife and mother on a part of the roof of his little home. He told me
that he kissed his wife good-bye at midnight and told her that he could
not hold on any longer; but he did hold on, dazed and half-conscious,
until the day broke and showed him that he was alone on his piece of
driftwood. He did not even know when the woman that he loved had died.
“Every man on the train—there were no women there—had lost some one that
he loved in the terrible disaster, and was going across the bay to try
and find some trace of his family—all except the four men in my party.
They were from outside cities—St. Louis, New Orleans and Kansas City.
They had lost a large amount of property and were coming down to see if
anything could be saved from the wreck.
“They had been sworn in as deputy sheriffs in order to get into
Galveston. The city is under martial law, and no human being who can’t
account for himself to the complete satisfaction of the officers in
charge can hope to get through. We sat on the deck of the little
steamer. The four men from outside cities and I listened to the little
boat’s wheel plowing its way through the calm waters of the bay. The
stars shone down like a benediction, but along the line of the shore
there arose a great leaping column of blood-red flame.
“What a terrible fire,” I said. “Some of the large buildings must be
burning.”
A man passing on the deck behind my chair heard me. He stopped, put his
hand on the bulwark and turned down and looked into my face, his face
like that of a dead man; but he laughed.
“Buildings!” he said. “Don’t you know what is burning over there? It is
my wife and children—such little children! Why, the tallest was not as
high as this”—he laid his hand on the bulwark—“and the little one was
just learning to talk. She called my name the other day, and now they
are burning over there—they and the mother who bore them. She was such a
little, tender, delicate thing, always so easily frightened, and now
she’s out there all alone with the two babies and they’re burning!”
The man laughed again and began again to walk up and down the deck.
HAD TO BURN BODIES OF THOUSANDS.
“That’s right,” said the Marshal of the State of Texas, taking off his
broad hat and letting the starlight shine on his strong face. “That’s
right. We had to do it. We’ve burned over 1,000 people to-day, and
to-morrow we shall burn as many more. Yesterday we stopped burying the
bodies at sea; we had to give the men on the barges whisky to give them
courage to do the work. They carried out hundreds of the dead at one
time, men and women, negroes and white people, all piled up as high as
the barge could stand it, and the men did not go far enough out to sea,
and the bodies have begun drifting back again.”
“Look!” said the man who was walking the deck, touching my shoulder with
his shaking hand. “Look there!”
“Before I had time to think I had to look, and saw floating in the water
the body of an old woman, whose hair was shining in the starlight. A
little farther on we saw a group of strange drift wood. We looked closer
and found it to be a mass of wooden slabs, with names and dates cut upon
them, and floating on top of them were marble stones, two of them.
DEAD WASHED FROM THEIR GRAVES.
“The graveyard, which has held the sleeping citizens of Galveston for
many, many years, was giving up its dead. We pulled up at a little wharf
in the hush of the starlight; there were no lights anywhere in the city
except a few scattered lamps shining from a few desolate, half-destroyed
houses. We picked our way up the street. The ground was slimy with the
debris of the sea.
“We climbed over wreckage and picked our way through heaps of rubbish.
The terrible, sickening odor almost overcame us, and it was all that I
could do to shut my teeth and get through the streets somehow. The
soldiers were camping on the wharf front, lying stretched out on the wet
sand, the hideous, hideous sand, stained and streaked in the starlight
with dark and cruel blotches. They challenged us, but the marshal took
us through under his protection. At every street corner there was a
guard, and every guard wore a six-shooter strapped around his waist.
“We got to the hotel after some terrible nightmare fashion, plodding
through dim streets like a line of forlorn ghosts in a half-forgotten
dream. General McKibben, commander in charge of the Texas Division, was
in the hotel parlor reading dispatches. He was horrified to see me.
“How in the world did you get here?” he said. “I would not let any woman
belonging to me come into this place of horror for all the money in
America.
OLD SOLDIER SHUDDERED AT THE SIGHTS.
“I am an old soldier, madame. I have seen many battlefields, but let me
tell you that since I rode across the bay the other night and helped the
man at the boat steer to keep away from the floating bodies of dead
women and little children I have not slept one single instant. Five
thousand would never cover the number of people who died here in that
terrible storm.
“In the short time I have been here I have met and talked with women who
saw every one they loved on earth swept away from them out in the storm.
As I look out of my window I can see the blood-red flame leaping with
fantastic gesture against the sky. There is no wire into Galveston, and
I will have to send this message out by the first boat.
“For the present the two things needed are money and disinfectants. More
nurses and doctors are needed. Galveston wants help—quick, ready,
willing help. Don’t waste a minute to send it. If it does not come soon
this whole region will be a prey to a plague such as has never been
known in America. Quick-lime and disinfectants, and money and
clothes—all these things Galveston must have, and have at once, or the
people of this country will have a terrible crime on their conscience.
MAKING A FIGHT FOR LIFE.
“The people of Galveston are making a brave and gallant fight for life.
The citizens have organized under efficient and willing management.
Gangs of men are at work everywhere removing the wreckage. The city is
districted according to wards, and in every ward there is a relief
station. They give out food at the relief stations. Such food as they
have will not last long.
“I sat in one relief station for an hour this morning and saw several
people who had come asking for medicine and disinfectants and a few rags
of clothing to cover their pitiful nakedness, turned away. The man in
charge of the bureau took the last nickel in the world out of his pocket
and gave it to make up a sum for a woman with a new-born baby in her
arms to buy a little garment to cover its shivering flesh.
“The people of the State of Texas have risen to the occasion nobly. They
have done everything that human beings, staggering and dazed under such
a blow, could possibly do, but they are only human. This is no ordinary
catastrophe. One who has not been here to see with his own eyes the
awful havoc wrought by the storm cannot realize the tenth part of the
misery these people are suffering.
“I asked a prominent member of the Citizens’ Committee this morning
where I should go to see the worst work which the storm had done. He
smiled at me a little, pitifully. His house, every dollar he had in the
world, and his children were swept away from him last Saturday night.
“‘Go?’ said he. ‘Why, anywhere within two blocks of the very heart of
the city you will see misery enough in half an hour to keep you awake
for a week of sleepless nights.’
“I went toward the heart of the city. I do not know what the names of
the streets were or where I was going. I simply picked my way through
masses of slime and rubbish, which scar the beautiful wide streets of
the once beautiful city. They won’t bear looking at, those piles of
rubbish. There are things there that gripe the heart to see—a baby’s
shoe, for instance, a little red shoe, with a jaunty tasseled lace—a bit
of a woman’s dress and letters. Oh, yes, I saw these things myself, and
the letters were wet and grimed with the marks of the cruel sea, but
there were a few lines legible in it.
“‘Oh, my dear,’ it read, ‘the time seems so long. When can we expect you
back?’ Whose hand had written, or who had received, no one will ever
know.
THE STENCH IS OVERPOWERING.
“The stench from these piles of rubbish is almost over-powering. Down in
the very heart of the city most of the dead bodies have been removed,
but it will not do to walk far out. To-day I came upon a group of people
in a by-street, a man and two women, colored. The man was big and
muscular, one of the women was old and one was young. They were dipping
in a heap of rubbish, and when they heard my footsteps the man turned an
evil glowering face upon me and the young woman hid something in the
folds of her dress. Human ghouls, these, prowling in search of prey.
“A moment later there was noise and excitement in the little narrow
street, and I looked back and saw the negro running, with a crowd at his
heels. The crowd caught him and would have killed him but a policeman
came up. They tied his hands and took him through the streets with a
whooping rabble at his heels. It goes hard with a man in Galveston
caught looting the dead in these days.
“A young man well known in the city shot and killed a negro who was
cutting the ears from a living woman’s head to get her earrings out. The
negro lay in the streets like a dead dog, and not even the members of
his own race would give him the tribute of a kindly look.
DESOLATION ON EVERY SIDE.
“The abomination of desolation reigns on every side. The big houses are
dismantled, their roofs gone, windows broken, and the high water mark
showing inconceivably high on the paint. The little houses are
gone—either completely gone as if they were made of cards and a giant
hand which was tired of playing with them had swept them all off the
board and put them away, or they are lying in heaps of kindling wood
covering no one knows what horrors beneath.
“The main streets of the city are pitiful. Here and there a shop of some
sort is left standing. South Fifth street looks like an old man’s jaw,
with one or two teeth protruding. The merchants are taking their little
stores of goods that have been left them and are spreading them out in
the bright sunshine, trying to make some husbanding of their small
capital. The water rushed through the stores, as it did through the
houses, in an irresistible avalanche that carried all before it. The
wonder is not that so little of Galveston remains standing, but that
there is any of it at all.
“Every street corner has its story, in its history of misery and human
agony bravely endured. The eye-witnesses of a hundred deaths have talked
to me and told me their heart rending stories, and not one of them has
told of a cowardly death.
“The women met their fate as did the men, bravely, and for the most part
with astonishing calmness. A woman told me that she and her husband went
into the kitchen and climbed upon the kitchen table to get away from the
waves, and that she knelt there and prayed.
“As she prayed, the storm came in and carried the whole house away, and
her husband with it, and yesterday she went out to the place where her
husband had been, and there was nothing there but a little hole in the
ground.
“Her husband’s body was found twisted in the branches of a tree, half a
mile from the place where she last saw him. She recognized him by a
locket he had around his neck—the locket she gave him before they were
married. It had her picture and a lock of the baby’s hair in it. The
woman told me all this without a tear or trace of emotion. No one cries
here.
“They will stand and tell the most hideous stories, stories that would
turn the blood in the veins of a human machine cold with horror, without
the quiver of an eye lid. A man sat in the telegraph office and told me
how he had lost two Jersey cows and some chickens.
“THEY WERE ALL DROWNED.”
“He went into minute particulars, told how his house was built and what
it cost, and how it was strengthened and made firm against the weather.
He told me how the storm had come and swept it all away, and how he had
climbed over a mass of wabbling roofs and found a friend lying in the
curve of a big roof, in the stoutest part of the tide, and how they two
had grasped each other and what they said.
“He told me just how much his cows cost, and why he was so fond of them,
and how hard he had tried to save them, but I said, “You have saved
yourself and your family; you ought not to complain.”
“The man stared at me with blank, unseeing eyes. “Why, I did not save my
family.” He said. “They were all drowned. I thought you knew that; I
don’t talk very much about it.”
“The hideous horror of the whole thing has benumbed every one who saw
it. No one tells the same story of the way the storm rose, or how it
went. No two men tell the story of rescue quite alike. I have just heard
of a little boy who was picked up floating on a plank. His mother and
father and brothers and sisters were all lost in the storm. He tells a
dozen different stories of his rescue on the night of the storm.
“But the city is gradually getting back to a normal understanding of the
situation, just as one comes out of a long fainting fit, and says:
“Where am I?”
“The Mayor is doing everything in his power to straighten matters out.
Martial law is strictly enforced. The Chief of Police is busy, very
busy. I caught him in the hotel rotunda this morning. There were five or
six men around him, all trying to get permits. He would not listen to
one of them.
TOO BUSY TO TALK.
“He transfixed me with a stony stare when I asked him for some
information. He did not have time to bother with me. He was too busy
feeding the hungry and comforting the destitute and taking care of
thieves to care whether the outside world knew anything about him or his
opinions or not.
“The little parks are full of homeless people. The prairies around
Galveston are dotted with little camp fires, where the homeless and
destitute are trying to gather their scattered families together, and
find out who among them are dead and who are living.
“There are thousands and thousands of families in Galveston to-day
without food or a place to lay their heads.
“But oh, in pity’s name, in America’s name, do not delay help one single
instant! Send help quickly, or it will be too late.
“One week has passed since the awful calamity which laid low beautiful
Galveston and the story has not yet been half told. The people against
whom the appalling catastrophe was visited are just beginning to awake
from the horrible nightmare which had its inception in the roaring
torrents of the Gulf of Mexico.
“With the awakening comes memory—remembrance of awful scenes following
the storm which up to now have been untold. Accounts of personal
experiences are just becoming available, and the narration of the
different stories is like a long, hideous dream.
“Quartered in the Chicago hospital in the Auditorium Theatre are persons
whose minds were a blank all the week until the ministering of the
‘Chicago American’s’ nurses and physicians restored, at least partly,
the shattered nerves and senses. During this morning’s early hours these
unfortunates related their awful experiences.
“The story of Thomas Klee was possibly the most pitiful. Klee lived near
Eleventh and N streets. When the storm burst he was alone in his house
with his two infant children. He seized one under each arm and rushed
from the frail structure in time to cheat death among the falling
timbers of his home.
LODGED HIS CHILD IN A TREE.
“Once in the open, with his babies under his arms, he was swept into the
bay among hundreds of others. He held to his precious burden and by
skillful manœuvring managed to get close to a tree which was sweeping
along with the tide. He saw a haven in the branches of the tree and
raised his two-year-old daughter to place her in the branches. As he did
so the little one was torn from his arm and carried away to her death.
“The awful blow stunned, but did not render senseless. Klee retained his
hold on the other child, aged four years, and was whirled along among
the dying and dead victims of the storm’s fury, hoping to effect a
landing somewhere. An hour in the water brought the desired end. He was
thrown ashore, with wreckage and corpses, and, stumbling to a footing,
lifted his son to a level with his face. The boy was dead.
“Klee remembered nothing until last night, when he was put ashore in
Texas City. He had a slight recollection of helping to bury dead, clear
away debris and obey the command of soldiers. His brain, however, did
not execute its functions until early to-day in the hospital.
“George Boyer’s experience was a sad one. He was thrown into the rushing
waters, and while being carried with frightful velocity down the bay saw
the dead face of his wife in the branches of a tree. The woman had been
wedged firmly between two branches.
“Margaret Lees’ life was saved at the expense of her brother’s. The
woman was in her Twelfth street home when the hurricane struck. Her
brother seized her and guided her to St. Mary’s University, a short
distance away. He returned to search for his son, and was killed by a
falling house.”
Galveston, Tex., Sept. 15.—The sound of the hammer is beginning to be
heard throughout the city. Every man not engaged in looking for and
cremating the dead is repairing the damage wrought by Saturday’s great
tidal wave.
The spirit that has been displayed by the citizens remaining here is
remarkable. They seem determined to begin immediately the work of
rebuilding the stricken city, and to that end are endeavoring to secure
building material as speedily as possible. Business houses are being
restored and restaurant keepers are conducting business on the
sidewalks.
MIRACULOUS ESCAPE FROM DEATH.
Some of the escapes of people of Galveston from the storm were nothing
less than miraculous. Charles Rutter, aged twelve, was in his father’s
house when the waves and wind swept it away. The boy seized a floating
trunk and was found at Hitchcock, twenty miles north.
The Stubbs family, consisting of father, mother and two children, was in
its home when it collapsed. They found refuge on a floating roof. This
parted, and father and one child were swept in one direction, while the
mother and the other child drifted in another. One of the children was
washed off, but last Sunday evening all four were reunited.
Mrs. P. Watkins is a raving maniac as the result of her experiences.
With her two children and her mother she was drifting on a roof, when
her mother and one child were swept away. Mrs. Watkins mistakes
attendants in the hospital for her lost relatives, and clutches wildly
for them.
Harry Steele, a cotton man, and his wife sought safety in three
successive houses which were demolished. They eventually climbed on a
floating door and were saved. W. R. Jones, with fifteen other men,
finding the building they were in about to fall, made their way to the
water tower, and, clasping hands, encircled the standpipe, to keep from
being washed or blown away.
Mrs. Chapman Bailey, wife of the southern manager of the Galveston Wharf
Company, and Miss Blanche Kennedy floated in the waters, ten to twenty
feet deep, all night and day by catching wreckage. Finally they got into
a wooden bathtub and were driven into the Gulf over night. The incoming
tide drove them back to Galveston, and they were rescued the next day.
They were fearfully bruised. All their relatives were drowned.
A Texas journal commented as follows upon the great disaster:
“Galveston thanks the nation. Her citizens, still staggering under the
blows dealt by the hurricane, have been aroused to confidence again and
inspired for the work of restoring their home city, by the magnificent
expression of sympathy and kindliness which their fellow countrymen have
made by means of their great relief fund.
NEW LIFE IN THE CITY.
“For two days after the hurricane the people of Galveston heard
practically nothing from the outside world. Then meager news came.
To-day for the first time the story of the response of the American
people to the stricken city’s involuntary appeal for relief has been
brought in.
“The hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash given for the use of the
city, the many relief trains, laden with supplies of food, so much
needed, and of medical and surgical appliances, still more needed, the
oncoming bands of doctors and nurses and guards, mean new life to this
city.
“Despair is gone. To-day the spirit of the citizens may well be
expressed in the fine words which one of them quoted to-day. They are
taken from the doorway of a church in Tyrol, where the half-obliterated
letters represent the wisdom of centuries, and the thoughts of Galveston
men of to-day.
“Look not mournfully into the past.
It comes not back again. Wisely
Improve the present. It is thine.
Go forth to meet the shadowy future
Without fear and with a manly heart.
“The contributions and gifts of the people of the United States are the
subject of conversation wherever men meet on the streets. That a city,
which had met with disaster only five days ago, could now be the
recipient of a fund which is already approximating half a million
dollars, seems well-nigh incredible.
“Galveston has been better treated than was Chicago after its great
fire, or than were the sufferers in western Pennsylvania after the
Johnstown flood. The spirit is the same, but has grown great with good
times and swift with good hearts.
SWIFT TRAINS LOADED WITH SUPPLIES.
“The bulletins which come through Governor Sayres at Dallas, who is
earning the gratitude of Galveston people by his good work for them,
tell of swift trains coming from the Atlantic and the Pacific laden with
supplies. They tell of gifts of many thousands of dollars from great
corporations and rich men of the country, and as well of gifts from the
poorer classes in cities and villages in all parts of the Union. How
Governor Roosevelt stopped on his speaking tour long enough to wire an
appeal to the citizens of his State for relief funds, how other
governors have issued appeals, and how Americans even as far away as
Paris have spontaneously met and contributed large sums, have all been
heard here.
“It is a wonderful thing,” said Mayor Jones, “and one which speaks for
the high character of our American citizens, that so much should be done
for this city so quickly. I have just heard from Governor Sayres that
all sorts of people are contributing. His message said that many of the
churches of the land would take special contributions for our benefit.
“I cannot say how grateful I and all the people of Galveston are for
this splendid treatment. We will show our thankfulness by going ahead
with our own work, and making a new Galveston on the spot where the old
one was so nearly annihilated.”
The mayor’s confidence in the future of Galveston is shared by the
greater part of the business men. Two days ago all were downcast,
pessimistic and despondent. Many even talked of abandoning Galveston
entirely and helping to build a new city on some other location. Already
the mournful past has begun to be cast behind. The conditions of the
present are being studied, and the very best that is possible will be
made out of the future.
“GALVESTON SHALL RISE AGAIN.”
Two daily papers have already resumed their issues, and their appearance
helped to restore confidence. Both of them had stirring editorials, and
that of one had for its keynote, “Galveston Shall Rise Again.” There was
not a half hearted word in the editorial. It urged that people bury
their dead, succor their living, and then start resolutely to work to
mend the broken things and to build the city anew.
Galveston will not be abandoned for a location on higher ground
somewhere else. It has too fine a climate, it is too well known as a
summer resort, and it has too great advantages in its bathing beaches to
make abandonment a possible thing, even should business seek to move
away.
But business will not go away. If the railroads replace their bridges,
terminals and wharves, that means that they have confidence in the
future of the city, and adds to the confidence of the citizens. It is
perfectly clear already that the railroads entering Galveston are
quickly going to do their share in the work of reconstruction.
The Southern Pacific railroad has had men investigating its wharves and
tracks, and it has announced through General Manager Van Vleck that,
although the damage to its property in this city is fully 80 per cent,
it will proceed to restore it as rapidly as possible. Mr. Van Vleck says
that men and mortar are already being carried to Virginia Point for work
on the bridge, and that inside of forty days he expects to be running
trains into Galveston again. He will not work in connection with any
other road, nor build a joint bridge to the city, but he says his
company will permit other roads to use the bridge when it is ready.
The scenes on the streets when provisions are being distributed are
pathetic in the extreme. Many families, among whose members hunger was
possibly never felt before, are being supplied with provisions.
Wizened-faced, barefooted children were to be seen on the street eagerly
appropriating spoiled and cast-off stocks of food.
SYSTEMATIC RELIEF.
The committee is trying to systematize the work, so as to relieve the
worst cases first. Mayor Jones said:
“We have made such arrangements as will make it possible for us to feed
the needy until we can get in full supplies. We are relieving every case
presented to us. I think within a day or two our transportation
facilities will be sufficient temporarily to meet our needs. Galveston
has helped other cities in their distress, despite her size, and we are
consoled by the generous response of the country to our appeal.”
The committee has instructed the local drug stores to provide the poor
and needy with medicine at the expense of the relief fund.
Every strong-limbed man who has not his own home and property to look
after is being pressed into the service of the city. First of all, it is
necessary to get the waterworks in good condition, so that water may be
turned into the mains, the gutters flushed, and the sewers made usable.
The lack of water since the flood has contributed much to the discomfort
and the danger to health.
Volunteer gangs continue their work of hurried burial of the corpses
they find on the shores of Galveston Island at the neighboring points
where fatalities attended the storm. It will probably be many days,
however, before all the floating bodies have found nameless graves.
Along the beach they are constantly being washed up. Whether these are
those who were swept out into the Gulf and drowned or are simply the
return ashore of some of those cast into the sea to guard against
terrible pestilence, there is no means of knowing.
In various parts of the city the smell of decomposed flesh is still
apparent. Wherever such instances are found the authorities are freely
disinfecting. Only to-day a babe lashed to a mattress was picked up
under a residence in the very heart of the city and burned.
The following editorial, signed by the publishers, A. H. Belo & Co.,
appeared September 13th in the “Galveston News”:
HOMES MUST BE REPAIRED.
“At the first meeting of Galveston’s citizens, Sunday afternoon, after
the great hurricane, for the purpose of bringing order out of chaos, the
only sentiment expressed was that Galveston had received an awful blow.
The loss of life and property is appalling—so great that it required
several days to form anything like a correct estimate. With sad and
aching hearts, but with resolute faces, the sentiment of the meeting was
that out of the awful chaos of wrecked homes and wretched business
Galveston must rise again.
“The sentiment was not that of burying the dead and giving up the ship,
but rather bury the dead, succor the needy, appeal for aid from a
charitable world, and then start resolutely to work to mend the broken
chains. In many cases the work of upbuilding must begin over. In other
cases the destruction is only partial. Still, the sentiment was,
Galveston will, Galveston must, survive and fulfill her glorious
destiny. Galveston shall rise again.
“Galveston having been isolated since the storm of last Saturday night,
the stricken citizens of the town have not been informed as to the
thrill of horror which went over the world when the news of the
catastrophe was spread. The Associated Press brings the cheering news
that in every town and city in the United States, commercial, religious
and charitable bodies have organized into relief committees. At present
thousands of dollars and hundreds of cars of supplies are en route and
will reach the sufferers of Galveston just as soon as it is possible to
boat them across the bay. If the desolation here has been awful, the
sympathy and humanity of a great nation has been ample, and very soon
the local committees will be enabled to assist the destitute thousands.
“What the ‘News’ desires most to say to the surviving victims of last
Saturday’s catastrophe, is that in the knowledge of a world-wide
sympathy which is encompassing us, we must not give way to despair. If
we have lost all else, we still have life and the future, and it is
toward the future that we must devote the energies of our lives. We can
never forget what we have suffered; we can not forget the thousands of
our friends and loved ones who found in the angry billows that destroyed
them, a final resting place. But tears and grief must not make us forget
our present duties.
TIME FOR DAUNTLESS COURAGE.
“The blight and ruin which have desolated Galveston are not beyond
repair. We must not for a moment think Galveston is to be abandoned
because of one disaster, however horrible that disaster has been. We
have our homes here, even if those homes are in ruins, and if we loved
Galveston before, how much stronger must that affection be and how much
more sacred it must be when we think of our loved ones, whose dust
consecrates not only the land but the very waves which lash its shores.
“It is time for courage of the highest order. It is time when men and
women show the stuff that is in them, and we can make no loftier
acknowledgment of the material sympathy which the world is extending to
us than to answer back that after we shall have buried our dead,
relieved the sufferings of the sick and destitute, we will bravely
undertake the vast work of restoration and recuperation which lies
before us, in a manner which shall convince the world that we have
spirit to overcome misfortune and rebuild our homes. In this way we
shall prove ourselves worthy of the boundless tenderness which is being
showered upon us in the hour of desolation and sorrow.”
Refugees from Galveston, Alvin, Angleton and other places are fast
scattering throughout the State. Over fifty have arrived at Austin and
have found temporary homes with friends and relatives. Many have gone to
places in other States. A local Relief Committee has been organized in
Austin to look after the wants of the destitute people as fast as they
arrive. They are clothed and fed at the expense of the local people.
Similar committees are being formed in all the principal cities and
towns of the State. It is expected that this action will assist the
Relief Committees of Houston and Galveston greatly and will also reduce
the amount of money required to be expended out of the general fund that
is accumulating for the benefit of the sufferers.
Word reached here from Houston that evidences had been found there of
imposition on the part of chronic tramps who are pouring into the city
from all directions and claiming to be just from Galveston and to have
lost everything in the storm. Many of these frauds have been exposed and
driven out of the city. A plan is being arranged whereby all parties
seeking help must be identified as having come from Galveston or other
storm-swept towns.
SERMONS ON GALVESTON.
The Galveston catastrophe furnished the theme for Rev. Dr. Russell H.
Conwell’s sermon on Sunday, September 16th, in the Temple of Grace
Baptist Church, Philadelphia. He attributed the disaster to the working
of God’s immutable laws, and declared that the calamity in its end was
for the good of all things. At the conclusion of his sermon he made an
appeal for the aid of the sufferers. There was a generous response. Many
pledged themselves for specific sums.
Dr. Conwell took his text from Genesis xiii, 36. He said in part: “It
was Jacob who said ‘all things are against me,’ but Paul said, ‘All
things work together for good to them that love God.’ Paul’s position
was true. Jacob’s was untrue. Yet Jacob had philosophy in his
expression; but his philosophy was so much inferior that Paul’s inclosed
it, left it out of sight. There is no sorrow or affliction or pain or
death but it worketh out in God’s hands a greater good.
“The disaster at Galveston fills me with terror. It was a lovely city;
its people kind-hearted and enterprising. The destruction of that city
so suddenly was God’s doing, and consequently it must be for good. It
was His doing and what He does is right. The hurricane was the necessary
outcome of all the working laws of God. He sent it and it must be for
good. We can not understand that; we sit back in our heart’s darkness
and say, ‘God is wrong; He is not governing the universe.’
BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE.
“The people who now live in Galveston will be better all their lives.
This experience has deepened their natures, enriched their sympathies,
enlarged the boundaries of their feelings, and the people of that city
will be blessed by that awful experience. They are going to be better
inspired, more loving toward others, more affectionate toward each
other, and they are going to be different men even without their riches,
for riches do not make good men. The people of Galveston have been
taught that there is something more than dollars in this world. The rich
will now feel what it is to be poor. It does man good to feel the depths
of life. Many of the survivors will thank God they have to begin life
over again.
“This great calamity is good also in that it arouses the sympathies of
the whole country. When it arouses the sympathies of many tens of
thousands it must be a gigantic force to work out an ultimate good. Just
think when they begin to build the city again! How many will be
benefited? They will order lumber from the North, where the suffering
people are waiting for the order. They will order millions of dollars
worth of goods from Philadelphia, and there are poor people here waiting
for that work. When you consider how that disaster locally is going to
bless so many people outwardly, then the measure of its good may be far
greater than the measure of its evil.”
Rev. Dr. Colfelt, pastor of Oxford Presbyterian Church, touching on the
Galveston disaster in his sermon on “Repentance,” said:—
“The changes are so quick and excessive in our mortal life that none of
us know what to-morrow will bring forth. Not one of us knows whether our
money will be a blessing or a curse, separating us from our good work.
Christ declares that disasters are not to be interpreted as judgments,
but they are simply personal. The object in every instance of disaster
and calamities is to bring us fast to repentance.”
The ministers in nearly all of the churches referred to the Galveston
calamity in their sermons. At the close special collections were taken.
MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN.
Galveston’s great calamity was the central thought in many sermons
preached in Chicago, and in a majority of the churches a collection was
taken for the benefit of the sufferers. Some of the expressions were as
follows:
The Rev. William A. Burch (South Park Avenue Methodist Church)—“Such
catastrophes reveal the worst and the best. There was mutilation of the
sacred dead. But so on every battlefield a glittering diamond on the
finger or in the ear excites the passions of men. But look at the better
side. A cry for help went up and the nation was moved. Responses started
with tens of thousands of dollars, and will run into hundreds of
thousands. Human sympathy has mightily grown.”
The Rev. Charles Reynolds (North Congregational Church, Fifty-ninth and
La Salle streets)—“We have heard the news of the terrible calamity, also
heard of the depravity of the human ghouls who pounced upon the dead for
robbery, and how they were shot down like dogs. The whole has been like
a terrible nightmare. Then we must look for a bright side. We rejoice at
the noble gifts made by the people of the United States, especially
Chicago. The lesson of the terrible catastrophe is that we at all times
must be prepared to meet our God. We are facing death, which may come at
any moment, like it did upon those poor souls in Galveston.”
The Rev. Samuel Fallows (St. Paul’s Reformed Episcopal Church, Adams
street and Winchester avenue)—“From breaking hearts we must say, ‘Father
in heaven, all is well, though faith and form are sundered in the night
of fear.’ The lesson of selfhelp which this calamity teaches will not be
lost. God intended man to conquer nature, to bind its forces, to ride
triumphantly on its seemingly resistless energies. Galveston must not be
blotted out. It must rise to newness of life. Like our own Chicago, it
must be rebuilt on a higher level. It must rear its structures so that
the angriest waves shall not dash them to pieces. Another lesson of
American pluck and energy will thus be learned by mankind.”
MISFORTUNES MAKE US ONE.
The Rev. Frank DeWitt Talmage (Jefferson Park Presbyterian Church)—“We
know not why this misfortune happened. Only eternity can solve for us
the mystery, but we can learn two or three lessons that may be of help
to us. God has made of one blood all nations. The misfortunes of mankind
make us one, and when we hear the call we can hear Christ say, ‘Inasmuch
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto
Me.’”
The Rev. J. Kittredge Wheeler (Fourth Baptist Church, Ashland Boulevard
and Monroe street)—“The Galveston horror brings more prominently into
notice the universal brotherhood of mankind, and shows that when
suffering humanity calls, the response is liberal and widespread. Such a
disaster puts aside all superficial distinction, and man comes to regard
man as a fellow being without prejudice as to color or social position.”
The Rev. W. H. Carwardine (Adams Street Methodist Church)—“It was
builded upon the sand, and its destruction is a warning to those
builders who forget the foundation in the beauties of the upper
structure. The highest light that comes to the victims of the most
appalling disaster of the century is the unfolding of the world’s
friendship.”
The admirable courage and determination with which the survivors faced
the terrible situation are well expressed in the following editorial of
a leading journal:
“While the catastrophe at Galveston is calling forth proofs of sympathy
and a spirit of practical helpfulness on every hand, the people of
Galveston themselves are giving the world an equally notable proof of
courage and sturdy resolution. The situation as it has developed from
day to day has afforded a striking evidence of their ability to pull
themselves together and prepare to face the future. The conditions which
they had to confront on the days immediately following the catastrophe,
when they were cut off even from communication of the outer world and
were alone in their knowledge of the extent of the calamity, must have
been appalling beyond conception.
NO WEAK FIBRE IN GALVESTON PEOPLE.
“Stunned by a disaster in which individual griefs were lost in a common
horror and the presence of death on all sides made the finding of the
dead an incident of commonplace, they could scarcely have been expected
to act with energy, organization or promptitude. The blow sustained by
the city must have seemed irreparable.
“Irreparable it would have been if the Galveston men and women had been
of weaker fiber. It stands to their credit that as soon as the clear
comprehension of their misfortune came to them they faced it resolutely,
and pushing aside individual griefs, set themselves to protect those who
were still living. They recognized the futility of lamentation, and the
necessity of foregoing the rites and formalities which men hold to be
sacred obligations to the dead. Now that the worst part of their
terrible task is over, the reports indicate that they are setting
themselves in the same spirit to the work of rebuilding Galveston and
making of it such a city as it had never before been expected to be.
“There is no more talk about abandoning the site or allowing the city to
pass into a stage of decadence. The town is to be rebuilt, from its
ruins, and it is not merely to be rebuilt but to be improved. Judging
from the feeling manifested among the people of the city, they will come
in the future to celebrate ‘flood day’ in much the same spirit that
Chicago commemorates the anniversary of its great fire.
“The outside world has a double duty to discharge in helping the people
who are showing this resolution and pluck in a time of severest trial.
It would have been a duty to have given them aid in any event. But the
way in which they are meeting their calamity indicates a courage and a
strength of character to which the world can well afford to pay tribute.
No effort should be spared to help those who are so bravely trying to
help themselves.
“‘The Daily News’ is glad to say that in discussing Galveston’s future
it is discussing what is to be a fact—a fact, moreover, inspiring in its
lesson of invincible Anglo-Saxon will and courage that rises equal to
all occasions and throws down the challenge to despair.
HOPE FOR THE RUINED CITY.
“Outside of Galveston, when the news came of the awful destruction by
hurricane and ocean combined, there were not a few who asked, as did
‘The Daily News,’ ‘Will Galveston be rebuilt?’ and paused for a reply.
The answer has come promptly and with a ring of determination and hope
that makes Americans proud of the Galvestonians—Yes, Galveston will be
rebuilt. ‘It will rise greater and better than ever.’
“And it is now known that this resolution, taken on Sunday afternoon,
almost before the great storm had begun to subside, has been caught up
not only by Galvestonians themselves but by all the great business
interests centering there, and is re-echoed from all parts of the United
States. Chairman Walker of the board of directors of the Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad says the city will be rebuilt and doing
business at the old stand in three months. The officials of this road
further say that in six days the bridge from Virginia Point will have
been built and trains running over it.
“A like spirit is being manifested by other steamship companies, whose
trade doubled Galveston’s export business between 1892 and 1899, making
it rank fourth as an export port in the United States, only New York,
Boston, and Baltimore surpassing it.
“Leading business and representative men of Galveston, also, instead of
sitting down in despair, have been busy at work burying or otherwise
disposing of their dead, clearing away the debris and getting the city
in shape again as rapidly as possible.
“In the face of such a gallant spirit and purpose, difficulties and
discouragements which at first were appalling will disappear. In its
heroic work its strength and hope will be all the greater for the
friendly aid and encouragement and the munificent generosity of America
and Europe which will help Galveston to get upon its feet again.”