Commenting on the great Johnstown flood, Julian Hawthorne wrote:
We know, despite all deprecation, that the heights and depths
of humanity can not be overstated. One man rides hand in hand
with death for the sake of the lives of his fellow men. Another
mutilates the sacred hand of the infant for the sake of its
gold ring. A mother intrusts her children, one after the other,
to the flood, hoping the reeling plank may save them, but
believing that, whether or not, they are safe with God. In the
midst of the kingdom of death, another mother brings a new life
into the world. An officer of the guard profanes the awful day
with maudlin drunkenness. A population sees the accumulation
of lifetimes, and half its own members, annihilated in one
desperate hour, and it is silent because silence is the only
complete expression of misery. And over all the continent, upon
converging lines, are journeying the tangible proof of sympathy
from a nation which hastens to acknowledge the indestructible
brotherhood of man.
(1455)