INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO.
“O cold and savage wind!
It racks my soul to hear the wild lamenting
Of wounded hearts whose grief knows no relenting,
Can not their woe e’er sway thee to repenting?
O cold and savage wind!
O melancholy wind!
Hast thou no requiem for the dead and dying?
Art thou some fierce despairing spirit sighing
O’er a lost Paradise behind thee lying?
O melancholy wind!”
Too frequently in the confusion of great disasters the woes of the
poorer classes are forgotten in the attention given to their more
opulent neighbors. There is only too often good cause given for a slight
modification of Shylock’s speech, “Hath not a Jew eyes?” etc. There is
no sadder record than that so frequently given in a single line:
“Dead--a woman, name unknown.” What fearful heart-aches often end in the
Potter’s field!
Adjoining the Louisville Hotel was a saloon and cigar store, the rooms
over which were occupied by the hotel laundry girls. These were hurled
into the cellar, and so tightly wedged that death could not have been
long delayed. One was found sitting upright, the pallor of death on her
face, and agony in every feature. Another lay upon her back, with hands
outstretched above her head, as though she tried to thrust destruction
back. A third was sitting, dead; while near by another lay upon her
face, as though refusing to behold that which she could not shun.
“Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.”
Poor laundry girls! Let their dead dust be mentioned with reverence. Had
they been spoiled daughters of wealth and fashion, press reporters would
have waxed eloquent of their birth, their history, their beauty, their
accomplishments, their heritage. We should have heard in detail the
names of their wealthy and mourning friends, and of their impressive
obsequies. Magnificent monuments would have risen to mark their sleeping
dust. These five laundry girls were taken up tenderly, and two or three
days later, together borne without pomp to humble graves. But is not
honest industry in useful avocation toiling for bread a more royal thing
than silks and diamonds, bedizzening frivolity and idleness? Is there
not in America many a haughty heiress, less worthy of our tears, than
these?
“Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure;”
and when we say, Peace to their ashes! will not the reader add a fervent
Amen!
On Seventeenth street was a pathetic sight. One blackened and charred
wall stood swaying in the wind. Just over the door was a sign--“Plain
Sewing.” An old woman had been the sole tenant. Here, any day for years
past, it may be,
“With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread:--
Stitch--Stitch--Stitch,
In poverty, hunger and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,
She sang the song of the shirt.”
Her charred body was dug from beneath the ruins. Tragic end of a life of
poverty and toil! But when we reflect on the lot of many another sewing
woman, who still survives, we may, with Solomon, feel inclined to
“praise the dead who are already dead, more than the living who are yet
alive.”
About Thirteenth and Walnut dwelt a peddler with wife and child. He
knocked a hole in the side wall of his wrecked home, and dragged out his
little family over a seemingly impassable pile of debris. Then he
thought of another woman and two helpless children imprisoned up stairs.
He rushed to their rescue, and dragged them out just in time to save
them from the flames, which two minutes later were licking up all that
would burn.
Society must think more of its lonely toilers; even of its peddlers and
publicans and sinners. It was the keeper of a brothel in Memphis, who,
during the awful yellow-fever visitation, turned her house into a
hospital, and ministered to the suffering till she fell a victim
herself. Jesus was looking at some very nice people when he said, “The
publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.” To
those good people, such a thing would be one of the “mysteries of
Providence.”
“Mysteries of Providence” are continually ferreted out on such
occasions. Reporters, to whom everything that can be written is news,
gather up a hundred items and give them to the public; often grouping
items in a manner that is strikingly grotesque. There is no grimmer
humor than the apparently matter-of-fact statement that during a great
Italian earthquake, wherein lofty cathedrals were shaken to pieces and
hundreds of people killed, statues of the Virgin escaped uninjured.
Sober-minded people are prone to wonder what is the relative value of a
human life and a graven image. One might, if such things were of
constant occurrence, consider them as meant by Providence as a very
sarcastic punishment for the violation of the second commandment.
[Illustration: EIGHTH AND MAIN STREETS, LOUISVILLE.]
It is related that at the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, a
Romish captain secured a number of fugitives, among whom he felt
satisfied there were some good Catholics. Not being able to distinguish
them readily, he referred the perplexing case to a fanatical priest. The
response came promptly: “Kill all; the Lord will know his own!”
Interpreters of the inscrutable ways of Providence might find such the
only solution for many particulars of the storm. The pious but
superstitious folk who believe that all such visitations are for the
sins of a people, instead of the result of laws that send the rain alike
upon the just and the unjust, might find some perplexity in conning the
following cases.
On the next street back of Falls City Hall stood the St. John’s
Episcopal Church. The rector, with his little four-year-old boy, was in
the study. The rectory and the church were completely destroyed, and the
rector and his child were killed. In an adjoining building, ten or
eleven men were playing cards. The house was demolished, but not one of
the players was seriously hurt. The preacher perished; the idlers were
saved--herein is food for reflection.
Tierney’s saloon was on Eleventh, between Main and Market. The ice-box
saved him and four other men from being crushed. They crowded beside it,
and crawled out uninjured. The pastor and the useful laundry girls
perished; the saloon-keeper and his patrons survived.
The Catholic buildings at Seventeenth and Broadway were Father Desney’s
residence, the Sisters’ Home, the Church of the Sacred Heart, and the
parochial school. All these were wrecked by the wind, and Sister Pius
was killed. There is a story that, amid utter ruin, the image of the
Virgin was left standing, untouched by harm. Let the devout remember
that a saloon-keeper obtained an equal deliverance.
Elmer Barnes and several others ran into Eckerle’s saloon, 1001 West
Market, and securely closed the door. The building fell with a crash,
and the men were buried in the ruins. Barnes and Eckerle were
overwhelmed by the falling bricks and timber. Eckerle was fearfully
injured; Barnes was drawn from the ruins, and died a few hours
afterward. The other men were only slightly hurt. If we have had
occasion to mention the destruction of one church and of several
saloons, it is probably only because saloons are more numerous than
churches.
At a grocery store at the corner of Sixteenth and Magazine streets the
owner and five others were standing at the bar in the back part of the
store. A dreadful roaring sound was heard, and the house rocked back and
forth. The owner’s wife and children screamed and ran out the back way.
Almost instantly the rear wall of the building fell. The six men rushed
to escape by the front door, but the wind closed it with such force that
it could not be opened. The floor beneath gave way, and three men were
dropped into the cellar and pinned among the ruins. The other three
escaped through a side window. Instantly a fire kindled and took hold on
the imprisoned men. Their cries were awful, while their escaped
companions witnesssed the horrible cremation and were powerless to
render aid.
We record but a few of the multitude of deaths, experiences, incidents
and escapes. Doubtless, there is many an untold tale--something of
personal interest connected with almost every one of the hundreds of
buildings partially or wholly wrecked. The press at first exaggerated,
and perhaps finally minimized the loss of life. There is reason to think
that not all the names of the dead were given to the public, while
subsequently several died of their wounds. To the list of those who were
killed outright, or died in a few hours, better information might have
added several names, and possibly subtracted or corrected others.
The public may find in the press reports lists of the dead and numerous
records of persons injured or killed by the fallings of walls, or by
flying missiles; but these, after all, must be regarded as exceptions.
There can be no very correct estimate of the number of people who were
in the down-town district at the time of the accident. Yet, it would be
safe to say only a very small portion of those in the path of the storm
suffered any injury.
That a storm of such magnitude and fury should have swept through the
heart of a city of 200,000 people, to destroy outright no more than five
or six score lives, may excite our wonder. The most obvious reason of
the low mortality will be found in the hour and place of the principal
visitation. The place was the business part of the city, and the hour
between eight and nine P.M., when the wholesale houses and the streets
in their vicinity were comparatively deserted. Another fact is also to
be noted. The cyclone seems to have reached the ground scarcely at any
point at all. Its principal fury was probably expended in the region
above the housetops. The roofs and tops of walls were removed; the
damage below resulted principally from their fall. Humbler buildings
sheltering human lives were sometimes crushed by the fall of the upper
portion of the wall of some contiguous building; as notably, in the case
of the house occupied by the laundry girls, and which was smashed by the
fall of the wall from the top story of the Louisville Hotel; or the case
of a colored family whose house was crushed by the wall of the Falls
City Hall. But in any case of cyclonic visitation
[Illustration: CORNER MAIN AND CLINTON STREETS, LOUISVILLE.]
the escapes will probably amaze us more than the deaths; for when it
will seem that nothing living could have escaped, the majority will not
only probably be found alive, but absolutely unhurt. Of numerous cases,
a few specimens will suffice:
Peter Speth and family were seated in the parlor when the cyclone
arrived. The family huddled together in the hall, doubtless to avail
themselves of the protection of the side walls not far apart. The walls
of the second story fell in with a crash. The building and furniture
were destroyed, but the family escaped without injury.
Eleven men were in a barber shop at 1803 Broadway. The roof was blown
off; the walls fell in, but all the men escaped through the windows
without a scratch.
At 329 Eleventh street, on the upper floor of a two-story brick, a lady
lay at the point of death; watched by her son and daughter. She begged
them to flee for their lives, but they refused to forsake her. The roof
was stripped clean off, but the devoted children with their mother
escaped injury.
In one cottage on Chapel street dwelt a family of five. At once all were
in the house, when the storm demolished it, and four escaped unhurt.
Major Galt, of the Louisville and Nashville Road, lived in a two-story
brick. He apprehended no danger till the walls fell. His wife was buried
under a pile of bricks. Her husband with difficulty extricated her, and
carried her unconscious to the house of a neighbor. Save for the shock,
she was not seriously hurt.
Now, were such cases the exception--had not such instances happened in a
hundred other places similarly visited--there would certainly be cause
for perplexity. But the phenomena of the Louisville storm tend only to
establish the truth of a fact long suspected: that the most
[Illustration: LOOKING EAST FROM TENTH AND MAIN, LOUISVILLE.]
destructive effects of a tornado are not always attributable to the
direct force of the wind. A number of interesting incidents of the
Louisville storm will serve to illustrate a now clearly established
fact.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick and her family were in a two-story brick, 1433
Seventeenth street. They were all in an upper room and could not get
out. The walls fell outward, while the floor still remained in its
place. They climbed down unhurt.
James Smith (colored) lived with his wife and seven children in Congress
Alley, in the rear of Falls City Hall. Himself, his wife and three
children were crushed beneath the mass of bricks and timbers; the
remaining four children were taken out more dead than alive. Yet, the
house was not in the least moved from its place. The building was
crushed by the wall of the hall, which fell outward. Similar was the
fate of the laundry girls. The house in which they were was crushed by
the top of the wall of the Louisville Hotel, which fell outward, toward
the wind.
The colored Odd Fellows were holding a meeting in their hall at
Thirteenth and Walnut. The two upper stories were blown entirely down.
Several large circular holes were blown through the brick walls; one of
these in the side away from the storm. Several received more or less
injury, but not one was fatally hurt.
At 1315 Eighteenth street, was a magnificent new brick cottage. The roof
remained, but in the west wall were made “six holes, round as a dollar,
and large enough to admit a flour barrel.” It is added that the missing
bricks were nowhere to be found.
Finally, take the experience of a grocer on West Market street:
“I was inside of my store, and my clerk was there, too. Standing on the
pavement outside were policeman Harlow, a man named Charles Taylor, who
said he lived in Jeffersonville, a negro whose name I do not know, and
Carl Rice, an eight-year-old boy who lived with his parents in the rooms
above my store. When the wind grew high and the hail began to pelt, Mr.
Harlow attempted to open the front door of the store, which was closed,
to come inside for shelter. At that moment the tornado came in all its
fury. No one who was not in it can conceive of its terrific force. The
suction from without, as the full force came, was so great that it was
impossible to get the front door open. My clerk at work on it on the
inside and Mr. Harlow on the outside, were as powerless against the wind
as babies would have been in attempting to move a stone wall.
“But their efforts were not of long duration. The tornado forced its way
in the rear of the upper stories of my building, and with impetuosity
unequaled forged through the apartments against the front wall. This
wall popped out and fell to the pavement below, upon those standing
there, burying them in the debris. The front is entirely gone, as you
see. Mr. Harlow and the little boy Carl Rice, were close up to the front
door, and only a small portion of the wall struck them. Taylor and the
negro were out on the pavement further, and they fared worse. Taylor’s
leg was broken at the ankle, and he was internally injured. The negro
had a hole knocked in his skull larger than a silver dollar, and was
used up generally. Mr. Harlow was bruised, but fortunately has no bones
broken, and is not dangerously hurt. The little boy’s head was pretty
badly cut and bruised, but he is not in a serious condition.”
Now, in all of these cases is noticeable the same peculiar feature of
walls falling outward, sometimes even against the wind: or of holes
being burst in walls, the bricks being
[Illustration: CORNER JEFFERSON AND TWELFTH STREETS, LOUISVILLE.]
thrown so far that they could not be found, or distinguished from those
of other houses. This might seem inexplicable--that the windward walls
often fall outward. But it must be remembered that all storms with a
wind system blowing spirally upward and inward are characterized by low
barometer, signifying a diminution in atmospheric pressure at the storm
center; and the lower the barometer, the more violent the storm. Now, it
is clear that if a storm advance slowly, and be widely diffused, the air
in the regions through which it moves has time to accommodate itself
gradually to the change, and expanding slowly to equalize the pressure
in all directions, its rarefaction is not perceptible to the ordinary
observer: and the denser air within a dwelling expands so gradually that
all the surplus can escape through chinks and crevices, if the doors and
windows be closed.
But the narrow-path tornado comes so rapidly as to produce little
atmospheric change beforehand; while directly at its center the
barometer may stand as much as two inches lower than in the surrounding
region. Now, a fall of two inches means, in round numbers, a lessening
of pressure of one pound to every square inch, or one hundred and
forty-four pounds to the square foot. As the air normally presses
equally in all directions, the passage of a storm of this sort may mean
a sudden change from fifteen pounds pressure to the inch on each side of
a wall, to fifteen pounds on the inside and fourteen only on the
outside. When such a sudden change is brought to bear on every square
inch of the interior of a house, it necessarily amounts to an explosion.
Suppose that in the case of the door which the men were unable to open,
that the pressure had been as great as one pound to the inch. Then an
ordinary seven-by-three door would be held in place by a force of a ton
and a half. This same power has been observed to burst the
weather-boarding from frame houses, leaving the frame and inner surfaces
intact.
The reader will wonder why, in such cases, the windows do not burst out,
leaving the walls unhurt. This often occurs. But very great pressure
would evidently act just as does powder in a blast: the rock is rent ere
the tamping is torn out, though the latter has far less resistive power;
while very violent explosives do not even need any tamping in order to
utilize their force.
It would seem, then, that a house with open doors and windows has a
better chance of weathering a tornado, whether in respect to direct
impact of wind, or to the expansive force of air within, than a house
which is shut up. Here, again, quite a number of instances can be
adduced of houses caught suddenly thus by tornadoes and escaping unhurt,
while houses upon either side were demolished.
But that the direct force of the wind on the Louisville occasion was
very great is abundantly evidenced. Numerous are the apparently curious
freaks that were noticed. A city paper, four days after the storm,
contained the following:
“There are hundreds of the most interesting and miraculous incidents
connected with the tornado, showing the queerest sort of freaks of the
wind. A block of iron casting, weighing over one hundred and fifty
pounds, was blown into the second story of the Chesapeake, Ohio and
Southern Railway building, near the Union Depot. Nobody knows where it
came from, and the nearest building from which it could have come is
nearly one hundred yards away. Great sheets of tin roofing were dropped
upon Dr. Barry’s farm near Turner’s Station, forty miles from the city,
on the Short Line. In the ruins of a house on West Main street a clock
was found clinging to the wall. It was a large
[Illustration: ON NINTH STREET, LOUISVILLE.]
office clock, but no one in the vicinity had ever seen it before, and no
one knows where it came from. It was badly broken, but the hands still
pointed to 8:20 P.M. A large slab of marble was found in a residence on
West Madison street which was never there before. It will weigh over one
hundred pounds. At Baird’s drug store on Market above Ninth, two bird
cages with the birds were blown in through the skylight. The cages were
not injured, and the birds are as full of song as ever. When the
building occupied by Brand & Bethel, the tobacco men of Green street,
went to pieces, a portion of the frame-work dropped through the roof of
a little cottage just east of the factory. It consisted of a heavy
timber, to which were mortised four upright pieces of timber. When this
came through the cottage the family were sitting around the table in the
dining-room, and the four uprights simply pinned them in but did not
hurt them in the least. It was one of the most wonderful escapes yet
heard of.”
To the unexperienced reader some of these items seem almost apocryphal.
But when it is remembered that a tallow candle may be shot through a
deal board, or that an ox may be killed by a putty-ball fired from a
gun, or that a revolver loaded with water instead of ball is a deadly
weapon, it will not seem preposterous that a cage may be hurled through
a skylight without seriously discommoding the birds. The writer has seen
soft pine shingles driven endwise through oak boards an inch thick by a
Missouri tornado. Other similar cases might be given.
The carrying of objects to a distance depends as much on the upward
current as the horizontal motion. One of the simplest illustrations of
the inevitable spiral course that an upward or downward current pursues
may be seen in the ordinary wash-bowl with hole in the bottom. As soon
as the plug is drawn and the water commences to
[Illustration: RUINED TOBACCO WAREHOUSES.]
pour out, it begins to assume a spiral course; and, long before the
water is out, there is a circular hole in the fluid, reaching to the
bottom of the basin. This last illustrates also that the air is rarest
at the center of the storm. Pouring liquids through a funnel will show
the same spiral tendency. So an object borne away by a tornado rises in
curves much like those of a hawk or eagle in flying.
Other peculiar feats of the wind were noticed. Some persons caught by
the storm, had no especial trouble in keeping on their feet; while
others were knocked about severely. One man was killed by having his
throat cut by a piece of flying glass. A frame house, standing near the
corner of Eighteenth and Maple, was shot full of holes by flying bricks
from another house a hundred yards away. A lady standing in the doorway
was picked up by the wind and hurled against a telegraph pole at a
distance of sixty feet. Another lady and her nephew, at the first shock
rushed into the street. They were caught up by the wind and hurled some
distance against a fence. They were found unconscious and both badly
hurt.
A frame house on Sixteenth street looked as if it had suffered
bombardment. Holes were cut in the weather-boarding by planks evidently
driven through the air endwise, and pieces several feet long had
penetrated and stuck hard and fast.
The building of the Louisville City Railway at Twelfth and Jefferson
streets was scooped through the middle, while the ends were left
standing. This was, perhaps, due to the explosive force of the air
within, which burst out the weaker portions. In a building of any
considerable length, the points most easily overthrown by lateral
pressure would naturally be found in the middle portions of the longer
walls.
At a stone-yard on Walnut, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth, the
immense iron “traveler,” with its locomotive--the whole weighing many
tons--mounted on an elevated track and used for transferring immense
blocks of stone from one side of the yard to the other, was blown into
the street and smashed to pieces, while close by, three small brick
buildings and one frame were left unharmed. Such cases show how the
larger obstacles cause the storm to somewhat overleap the smaller ones,
producing the “jumping” motion mentioned before. The narrow path of the
storm may be judged from the fact that no small portion of the good
people of Louisville were not aware of the ruinous tempest till they
read of its deeds in the morning papers.
The total damage done to property is estimated at $2,000,000. Much the
heaviest loss was among the great tobacco warehouses.
There has been some discussion as to whether any sort of buildings are
safe in a storm: but so long as the most violent tropical cyclones leave
many houses unhurt after a protracted gale, there is little fear that
the walls of our large buildings may not readily be made massive enough
to withstand any atmospheric storms.
The chief damage done to business houses was along Main, Jefferson and
Walnut streets; the damage to dwellings being greatest along Broadway.
The havoc on all the crossings in the limits of the tornado was
remarkable.
It was observed that the buildings on the north sides of the streets
parallel to the river suffered most. These more nearly faced the
advancing storm, while the open street in front of them gave the wind an
increased advantage. This will be better comprehended if the reader will
recollect that the tornado of the northern hemisphere rotates in a
direction contrary to the hands of a watch. So in the case of one
moving eastward or northeastward, the wind on the front edge is blowing
directly northward or northwestward. So the current, slightly broken in
passing through a block, regains its strength somewhat in slanting
across the next street, and assaults the next block with renewed force.
Louisville, though the principal sufferer by the storm, was not the
first. The tornado formed some distance to the southwest of the city,
and on its devastating march toward Louisville mowed clean a wide swath
through the woods, and fell upon the beautiful suburb of Parkland. The
Mayor’s two-story brick residence parted with its roof at the first
shock. The Mayor’s wife was up-stairs in bed, ill of pneumonia. Her
husband and another man seized the bed and carried her into the yard.
Scarcely was this accomplished when the full force of the storm
prostrated the building.
It may be noticed in this connection, that the most destructive wind is
never in the first shock, the parting gust being usually the most
damaging. Doubtless this is because the expansion of the atmosphere
within the house at the moment the center of calm passes over it weakens
the building to such an extent that the rear of the tornado, striking
the house from the opposite direction, readily overthrows it. No such
peculiarity is observable in a forest. The trees, containing no vast
quantities of air, are usually felled by the first stroke, if at all.
The track of the storm through Parkland was one-eighth of a mile wide.
From the rate at which it spread, it is clear it could be but
short-lived. Within its path, it was more destructive in Parkland than
in Louisville. The frame school-house was lifted from its foundation,
carried a few feet away, and then torn to fragments. The Daisy Line
depot was totally demolished. The Masonic Temple parted with its upper
story. Thirteen houses in the village were completely wrecked, and
several others more or less damaged. It will be remembered that in
Louisville the upper stories suffered most: but here the storm was
fresh, and almost every building struck was razed to the ground. The
total damage was about $20,000.
[Illustration: VIEW AT JEFFERSONVILLE.]
Passing through Louisville and crossing the river, the cyclone struck
Jeffersonville, on the Indiana side. Here, upwards of eighty houses were
seriously damaged, and quite a number totally destroyed. Two days later,
the press gave the loss at $500,000--probably a great exaggeration, as
the particulars given did not tally at all with the general statement.
Singularly enough, not a life was lost, and only one or two persons were
materially injured.
[Illustration: CORNER WALL AND FRONT STREETS, JEFFERSONVILLE.]
The damage was mostly to roofs and top-stories, and the people were
doubtless indoors and below. This, however, does not account for the
deliverance of a number of persons in buildings which were completely
destroyed. Possibly some of these may be accounted for by sudden
explosions of buildings, such as has been noticed heretofore. The
fragments would be much more apt to injure persons just outside than
those within. The largely increased percentage of damage done to roofs
and upper stories only shows how rapidly the storm was weakening. It
could not go very much farther with its devastation. The old Orphans’
Home was wrecked; one old lady injured; a pastor’s house demolished,
while two men in the upper story in some mysterious way escaped unhurt.
At the foot of Front street, a shanty occupied by a man with wife and
three children was lifted bodily and thrown into the river. The family
would have been drowned had not some car-works employes rescued them, at
the peril of their own lives. A number of guests, and some who came for
shelter, were in a house at the corner of First and Spring streets. The
shock of the tornado was followed by a hail of bricks and tumbling
walls, but no one of the entire assembly was seriously hurt.
[Illustration: WRECK AT JEFFERSONVILLE.]
The average American worships no god but Mammon. He may go to church and
bow his head to Jehovah, but it is Mammon who keeps his heart. Between
his devout amens he is thinking of the main chance. He can be converted
and made religious; it is a great deal harder to make him honest. He is
willing to sing the praises of the Lord, but he doesn’t like to foot the
bills. Amid the sorrow and bereavement of a stricken city, the American
was true to himself. Those who had lost house and friends, were asked to
pay ten dollars for a carriage in which to follow the corpse to the
grave. As about thirty victims of the storm were buried on Sunday, it
may be inferred that the carriages in each procession were none too
numerous. A sad sight was that of the four laundry girls, and the
chamber-maid, all being borne together to their long home. Hardly less
impressive was the burial at half-hour intervals of ten members of the
I. O. O. F., killed in Falls City Hall. It was a profitable day for
undertakers.
Nor did the officers of the Louisville and Southern Railroad forget
their interests. They had for some time been desirous of regaining
possession of their property controlled by the Monon Route. This they
did in the confusion, dismay and darkness, immediately following the
storm.
The writer does not wish to do any injustice to his people. Such items
present but one side of the American’s character. He is a strange
mixture of grasping greed and warm-hearted generosity. The latter is an
inborn trait; the former in-drilled. We live in a rushing age. We are no
more in a hurry about being rich than we are about a score of other
things. Haste is a national characteristic.
Further, our people are brought up with peculiar ideas of success in
life. Everything is reduced to a basis of cold cash. A man may be
learned, talented, industrious; but all these things are counted for
naught if he is not also wealthy. So our young people are brought up to
think that money-making is the one business of life; and as a result the
business world is full of those who resort to sharp practice and
questionable methods, merely because they have been taught to
subordinate honor and equity to gain-getting. Yet, the warm sympathies
and native generosity of our people are continually coming to the front,
in a way that, in view of the other traits, is sometimes amusingly
inconsistent. Men who will haggle almost
[Illustration: LOUISVILLE TORNADO--CORNER TENTH AND MAIN STREETS.]
about the price of a pin, or make their living by wild or fraudulent
speculation; nay, even professional gamblers, or worse characters, are
prompt in responding to the wail of a distressed city or state. After
all, we are brethren. Yet, our good and bad qualities are so thoroughly
mingled that we must continually rob Peter to pay Paul.
The American has another prominent trait--independence. He does not
accept aid, as such, when he feels he can do without it: nor does he
wait for demands of help, when he hears of great misfortunes that have
befallen his fellow countrymen. Leigh Hunt once asked a very ragged and
forlorn Irishman, “Why don’t you ask for alms?” “Alms, is it? Sure and
isn’t it begging I am with every bone of my body?” The average American
is generally quick to recognize a case that speaks for itself. To
Louisville, in the hour of her calamity, came tenders of help from many
quarters, and these offers would have been greatly multiplied, had not
the citizens declined the proffered assistance. They felt that the
resources of the city were equal to the necessity. They were grateful,
but self-reliant.