The first thing that Johnstown people do in the morning is to go to the
relief stations and get something to eat. They go carrying big baskets,
and their endeavor is to get all they can. There has been a new system
every day about the manner of dispensing the food and clothing to the
sufferers. At first the supplies were placed where people could help
themselves. Then they were placed in yards and handed to people over the
fences. Then people had to get orders for what they wanted from the
Citizens Committee, and their orders were filled at the different relief
stations. Now the whole matter of receiving and dispensing relief
supplies has been placed in the hands of the Grand Army of the Republic
men. Thomas A. Stewart, commander of the Department of Pennsylvania, G.
A. R., arrived with his staff and established his headquarters in a tent
near the headquarters of the Citizens Committee, and opposite the
temporary post-office. Over this tent floats Commander Stewart's flag,
with purple border, bearing the arms of the State of Pennsylvania. The
members of his staff are: Quartermaster-General Tobin Taylor and his
assistant H. J. Williams, Chaplain John W. Sayres, and W. V. Lawrence,
quartermaster-general of the Ohio Department. The Grand Army men have
made the Adams Street relief station a central relief station, and all
the others, at Kernville, the Pennsylvania depot, Cambria City, and
Jackson and Somerset Street, sub-stations. The idea is to distribute
supplies to the sub-stations from the central station, and thus avoid
the jam of crying and excited people at the committee's headquarters.
The Grand Army men have appointed a committee of women to assist them in
their work. The women go from house to house, ascertaining the number of
people quartered there, the number of people lost from there in the
flood, and the exact needs of the people. It was found necessary to have
some such committee as this, for there were women actually starving, who
were too proud to take their places in line with the other women with
bags and baskets. Some of these people were rich before the flood. Now
they are not worth a dollar. A _Sun_ reporter was told of one man who
was reported to be worth $100,000 before the flood, but who now is
penniless, and who has to take his place in the line along with others
seeking the necessaries of life.
Though the Adams Street station is now the central relief station, the
most imposing display of supplies is made at the Pennsylvania Railroad
freight and passenger depots. Here, on the platforms and in the yards,
are piled up barrels of flour in long rows, three and four barrels high;
biscuits in cans and boxes, where car-loads of them have been dumped;
crackers, under the railroad sheds in bins; hams, by the hundred, strung
on poles; boxes of soap and candles, barrels of kerosene oil, stacks of
canned goods, and things to eat of all sorts and kinds. The same is
visible at the Baltimore and Ohio road, and there is now no fear of a
food famine in Johnstown, though of course everybody will have to rough
it for weeks. What is needed most in this line is cooking utensils.
Johnstown people want stoves, kettles, pans, knives, and forks. All the
things that have been sent so far have been sent with the evident idea
of supplying an instant need, and that is right and proper, but it would
be well now, if, instead of some of the provisions that are sent,
cooking utensils would arrive. Fifty stoves arrived from Pittsburgh this
morning, and it is said that more are coming.
At both the depots where the supplies are received and stored a big
rope-line incloses them in an impromptu yard, so as to give room to
those having them in charge to walk around and see what they have got.
On the inside of this line, too, stalk back and forth the soldiers, with
their rifles on their shoulders, and, beside the lines pressing against
the ropes, there stands every day, from daylight until dawn, a crowd of
women with big baskets, who make piteous appeals to the soldiers to give
them food for their children at once, before the order of the relief
committee. Those to whom supplies are dealt out at the stations have to
approach in a line, and this line is fringed with soldiers, Pittsburgh
policemen, and deputy sheriffs, who see that the children and weak women
are not crowded out of their places by the stronger ones. The supplies
are not given in large quantities, but the applicants are told to come
again in a day or so and more will be given them. The women complain
against this bitterly, and go away with tears in their eyes, declaring
that they have not been given enough. Other women utter broken words of
thankfulness and go away, their faces wreathed in smiles.
One night something in the nature of a raid was made by Father McTahney,
one of the Catholic priests here, on the houses of some people whom he
suspected of having imposed upon the relief committee. These persons
represented that they were destitute, and sent their children with
baskets to the relief stations, each child getting supplies for a
different family. There are unquestionably many such cases. Father
McTahney found that his suspicions were correct in a great many cases,
and he brought back and made the wrong-doers bring back the provisions
which they had obtained under false pretenses.
The side tracks at both the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
depots are filled with cars sent from different places, bearing relief
supplies to Johnstown. The cars are nearly all freight cars, and they
contain the significant inscriptions of the railroad officials: "This
car is on time freight. It is going to Johnstown, and must not be
delayed under any circumstances." Then, there are the ponderous labels
of the towns and associations sending the supplies. They read this way:
"This car for Johnstown with supplies for the sufferers." "Braddock
relief for Johnstown." "The contributions of Beaver Falls to Johnstown."
The cars from Pittsburgh had no inscriptions. Some cars had merely the
inscription, in great big black letters on a white strip of cloth
running the length of the car, "Johnstown." One car reads on it:
"Stations along the route fill this car with supplies for Johnstown, and
don't delay it."