For the present every thing is satisfactory. The Government could not,
and cannot do more or better than it has done, to organise ready help
through all the vast zone of the Vesuvian country stricken by this
dreadful conflagration. The life of one hundred and fifty thousand
people running away, has been guarded and protected with energy and
wisdom, and the deserted towns, those less damaged, have been in
the quickest possible way set again to their own normal life. The
streets quite destroyed have been rebuilt, at least in those parts
where circulation is more necessary, and with the return of the many
fugitives to the towns where the dreadful shower was worse, they
have managed to start again a life, abnormal perhaps, but at least a
life. You need only go over this long, fatiguing, hard pilgrimage,
in these countries stricken by the terrible disaster, to realize the
extraordinary new start to life, the work of reparation, the rebuilding
of everything, where nothing more had been left. All has been made
anew, from the bread for the famished, to the medical assistance to the
sick, from the first work in removing cinders and lappillus, to the
building of wooden barracks, from the trains already running through
the high piles of rocks, to the tearing down of tumbling roofs, from
the free dinners distributed all around, to the Serino water brought
here from Naples every day. All has sprung to a new life. To say who
has done all this is easy: The Government has had this simple, happy
idea. It has trusted two men of intelligence, two men of will, the Duke
of Aosta and General Tarditi; it has put its trust in the obedience,
abnegation, heroism of the chiefs and of the soldiers; it has added to
this sane, serious, and practical civil element, and has given much
money, it has adhered to all requests, it has answered to all demands.
Ready help is active, there where life is. How long will all this last?
And can it last? And must it last? The salvation of to day is done!
Man has saved man! Those who had power, intellect, good will, ardor,
enthusiasm have given it all! The history of these days will remain
memorable in the pages of human help! And I would like to have the
vigour and the time to write it up myself, as an homage to the ideal
which binds men. But what, and who will save to-morrow man and his
house, man and his descendence, man and his bread, man and his field?
Who and what will create a new life firm, continued, of constant
evolution?
One is the secret: this country must be saved. Oh men! who are tenderly
concerned over the despair of nearly ten thousand people, oh! men of
heart and mind, give, give food to all these unfortunate beings, to
these poor people who have nothing to do, to the women, to the old
people, to the children! Alas! you will not be able to do it always!
Build, rebuild roofs and hearths that they may find a shelter, but the
house will perhaps be empty, and the hearth fireless. Have the streets
cleared free from the rocks, lapillus, and cinders which the fury of
the vulcano has brought down, but these streets will be deserted and
sad. Reform the social life with its laws and regulations, but all that
will be a dead letter. Ah! all is useless if the country is not saved.
The land which gives bread and fire, the land which gives life must be
saved in all its region so terribly damaged. This land alone knows the
secret of its resurrection. Save the land, you men of good will. Save
it in all its modest and imposing forms: save the little orchard, and
the small tract, the garden, the humble edge which closes the large
field, save the land of the poor farmer, of the modest peasant, of the
small land-owner, fertil or steril as it may be. Modest peasant, save
the land, no matter how it is, rich or poor; the land is always the
land, the spring of life, the earth which is flour, vegetables, the
earth which is life itself! From the miserable little grass, to the
highest of trees, the earth which enriches man, warms him up, lights up
his nights. The earth which gives food to the tired limbs, wood to the
hearth, oil to the lamp. Save this land! You cannot help these people
beyond a certain length of time, your money would not be enough, your
charitable impulse would not last, and of these charities people, after
all, will get tired. And so it will be, for the necessity of human
conscience, for the dignity of man, even if marked by misfortune.
No alms any longer, but some means by which everybody may rise
again, take up again his modest and laborious round of existence,
support himself and his family, and close every day, with a blessing
to God. Some means by which he may end his mortal pilgrimage having
accomplished his work among men, as a worker, and head of a family.
Save the earth, save the wheat and the vine, the oil and the oak, save
every inch of land around the silent country homes. Save the land which
slopes down over the cruel and fatal mountain, just as that, farther
off, which cannot fear its tragic explosion. Ah, those poor lands
ascending up to S. Anastasia all covered and buried, but still trying
to emerge, those poor country lands around beautiful Somma Vesuviana
cut out of existence, smothered and gone! Ah! that silent and deserted
grave which is now the country between Somma and Ottaiano, dead, under
half a meter of stones and cinders, everything dead, the grass, the
plants, the bushes, the trees! Who will forget, who will ever forget
that incomparable vision of death?
Call men of science, those who study science to better life, and tell
them to get together, to observe, to notice, to reveal to the ignorant
the secret to save this dead land. Call men of finances, not those who
understand it as a mere dance of cyphers, but those who know what it
means to life, and let them form a great project, by which the land may
be saved.
Money will come, people are already giving it, and more will still be
given, especially if people know that it is not only used for charities
but for the redemption of work, not only used for provisory help, but
for a larger, wiser, and more austere aid.
The Government will give now or later all that is necessary, and
perhaps beyond what is necessary. Form a great, serious practical
project, based on strong views, an agrary and financial project, which
may teach, guide, advise! Give little or much money, as needed or where
it is needed, in order that every farmer may get back his little tract
of land, that every peasant may rebuild his field, and every owner may
redeem his property.
Give your advice and take the easiest means to have it fulfilled.
Let money be given, not lent to he who has cleared and redeemed his
field. If the money has to be lent, let it be on long time, and let the
Government pay a strong part of the interest on the agrary loan, just
as was done at the time of the earthquake in Ligury. Let the cheapest
and most efficacious advice be given, that every man may start with his
own hands and the help of his people, to free his land from its funeral
shroud, and let help be given as a prize to will, and tenacity. Let it
be a civil help to honest citizens, that their small destroyed fortune
may be rebuilt for their children. This, at least, you must do, men of
good will.
Let all the land around be delivered from the heavy mantle which wraps
and smothers it, let it be free, and from one season to another, let
the grass, plants, trees, flowers and fruits grow up again.
May the waving crops spring up again, in the devastated fields, and
the olive and vines grow there anew. May the almond tree bloom once
more with red flowers there where the storm has passed, leaving death
behind. Oh men of good will if you will know how to do this, you will
have saved your country, and in renewing life where death has reigned,
you will have come as near to God as anybody ever did before.
April 21, 1906.