Nor was the life of the correspondents at Johnstown altogether a happy
one. The life of a newspaper man is filled with vicissitudes. Sometimes
he feeds on the fat of the land, and at others he feeds on air; but as a
rule he lives comfortably, and has as much satisfaction in life as other
men. It may safely be asserted, however, that such experiences as the
special correspondents of Eastern papers have met with in Johnstown are
not easily paralleled. When a war correspondent goes on a campaign he is
prepared for hardship and makes provision against it. He has a tent,
blankets, heavy overcoat, a horse, and other things which are
necessaries of life in the open air. But the men who came hurrying to
Johnstown to fulfill the invaluable mission of letting the world know
just what was the matter were not well provided against the suffering
set before them.
The first information of the disaster was sent out by the Associated
Press on the evening of its occurrence. The destruction of wires made it
impossible to give as full an account as would otherwise have been sent,
but the dispatches convinced the managing editors of the wide-awake
papers that a calamity destined to be one of the most fearful in all
human history had fallen upon the peaceful valley of the Conemaugh. All
the leading Eastern papers started men for Philadelphia at once. From
Philadelphia these men went to Harrisburg. There were many able
representatives in the party, and they are ready to wager large amounts
that there was never at any place a crowd of newspaper men so absolutely
and hopelessly stalled as they were there. Bridges were down and the
roadway at many places was carried away.
Then came the determined and exhausting struggle to reach Johnstown. The
stories of the different trips have been told. From Saturday morning
till Monday morning the correspondents fought a desperate battle against
the raging floods, risking their lives again and again to reach the
city. At one place they footed it across a bridge that ten minutes later
went swirling down the mad torrent to instant destruction. Again they
hired carriages and drove over the mountains, literally wading into
swollen streams and carrying their vehicles across. Finally one party
caught a Baltimore and Ohio special train and got into Johnstown.
It was Monday. There was nothing to eat. The men were exhausted, hungry,
thirsty, sleepy. Their work was there, however, and had to be done.
Where was the telegraph office? Gone down the Conemaugh Valley to
hopeless oblivion. But the duties of a telegraph company are as
imperative as those of a newspaper. General Manager Clark, of
Pittsburgh, had sent out a force of twelve operators, under Operator
Munson as manager _pro tem._, to open communications at Johnstown. The
Pennsylvania Railroad rushed them through to the westerly end of the
fatal bridge. Smoke and the pall of death were upon it. Ruin and
devastation were all around. To get wires into the city proper was out
of the question. Nine wires were good between the west end of the bridge
and Pittsburgh. The telegraph force found, just south of the track, on
the side of the hill overlooking the whole scene of Johnstown's
destruction, a miserable hovel which had been used for the storage of
oil barrels. The interior was as dark as a tomb, and smelled like the
concentrated essence of petroleum itself. The floor was a slimy mass of
black grease. It was no time for delicacy. In went the operators with
their relay instruments and keys; out went the barrels. Rough shelves
were thrown up to take copy on, and some old chairs were subsequently
secured. Tallow dips threw a fitful red glare upon the scene. The
operators were ready.
Toward dusk ten haggard and exhausted New York correspondents came
staggering up the hillside. They found the entire neighborhood infested
with Pittsburgh reporters, who had already secured all the good places,
such as they were, for work, and were busily engaged in wiring to their
offices awful tales of Hungarian depredations upon dead bodies, and
lynching affairs which never occurred. One paper had eighteen men there,
and others had almost an equal number. The New York correspondents were
in a terrible condition. Some of them had started from their offices
without a change of clothing, and had managed to buy a flannel shirt or
two and some footwear, including the absolutely necessary rubber boots,
on the way. Others had no extra coin, and were wearing the low-cut shoes
which they had on at starting. One or two of them were so worn out that
they turned dizzy and sick at the stomach when they attempted to write.
But the work had to be done. Just south of the telegraph office stands a
two-story frame building in a state of dilapidation. It is flanked on
each side by a shed, and its lower story, with an earth floor, is used
for the storage of fire bricks. The second-story floor is full of great
gaps, and the entire building is as draughty as a seive and as dusty as
a country road in a drought. The Associated Press and the _Herald_ took
the second floor, the _Times_, _Tribune_, _Sun_, _Morning Journal_,
_World_, Philadelphia _Press_, Baltimore _Sun_, and Pittsburgh _Post_
took possession of the first floor, using the sheds as day outposts.
Some old barrels were found inside. They were turned up on end, some
boards were picked up outdoors and laid on them, and seats were
improvised out of the fire-bricks. Candles were borrowed from the
telegraph men, who were hammering away at their instruments and turning
pale at the prospect, and the work of sending dispatches to the papers
began.
Not a man had assuaged his hunger. Not a man knew where he was to rest.
All that the operators could take, and a great deal more, was filed, and
then the correspondents began to think of themselves. Two tents, a
colored cook, and provisions had been sent up from Pittsburgh for the
operators. The tents were pitched on the side of the hill, just over the
telegraph "office," and the colored cook utilized the natural gas of a
brick-kiln just behind them. The correspondents procured little or
nothing to eat that night. Some of them plodded wearily across the
Pennsylvania bridge and into the city, out to the Baltimore and Ohio
tracks, and into the car in which they had arrived. There they slept,
in all their clothing, in miserably-cramped positions on the seats. In
the morning they had nothing to wash in but the polluted waters of the
Conemaugh. Others, who had no claim on the car, moved to pity a night
watchman, who took them to a large barn in Cambria City. There they
slept in a hay-loft, to the tuneful piping of hundreds of mice, the
snorting of horses and cattle, the nocturnal dancing of dissipated rats,
and the solemn rattle of cow chains.
[Illustration: SEVENTH STREET, WASHINGTON, DURING THE FLOOD.]
In the morning all hands were out bright and early, sparring for food.
The situation was desperate. There was no such thing in the place as a
restaurant or a hotel; there was no such thing as a store. The few
remaining houses were over-crowded with survivors who had lost all. They
could get food by applying to the Relief Committee. The correspondents
had no such privilege. They had plenty of money, but there was nothing
for sale. They could not beg nor borrow; they wouldn't steal. Finally,
they prevailed upon a pretty Pennsylvania mountain woman, with fair
skin, gray eyes, and a delicious way of saying "You un's," to give them
something to eat. She fried them some tough pork, gave them some bread,
and made them some coffee without milk and sugar. The first man that
stayed his hunger was so glad that he gave her a dollar, and that
became her upset price. It cost a dollar to go in and look around after
that.
Then Editor Walters, of Pittsburgh, a great big man with a great big
heart, ordered up $150 worth of food from Pittsburgh. He got a German
named George Esser, in Cambria City, to cook at his house, which had not
been carried away, and the boys were mysteriously informed that they
could get meals at the German's. He was supposed to be one of the dread
Hungarians, and the boys christened his place the Café Hungaria. They
paid fifty cents apiece to him for cooking the meals, but it was three
days before the secret leaked out that Mr. Walters supplied the food. If
ever Mr. Walters gets into a tight place he has only to telegraph to New
York, and twenty grateful men will do anything in their power to repay
his kindness.
Then the routine of Johnstown life for the correspondents became
settled. At night they slept in the old car or the hay-mow or elsewhere.
They breakfasted at the Café Hungaria. Then they went forth to their
work. They had to walk everywhere. Over the mountains, through briers
and among rocks, down in the valley in mud up to their knees, they
tramped over the whole district lying between South Fork and New
Florence, a distance of twenty-three miles, to gather the details of the
frightful calamity. Luncheon was a rare and radiant luxury. Dinner was
eaten at the café. Copy was written everywhere and anywhere.
Constant struggles were going on between correspondents and policemen or
deputy sheriffs. The countersign was given out incorrectly to the
newspaper men one night, and many of them had much trouble. At night the
boys traversed the place at the risk of life and limb. Two _Times_ men
spent an hour and a half going two miles to the car for rest one night.
The city--or what had been the city--was wrapped in Cimmerian darkness,
only intensified by the feeble glimmer of the fires of the night guards.
The two correspondents almost fell through a pontoon bridge into the
Conemaugh. Again they almost walked into the pit full of water where the
gas tank had been. At length they met two guards going to an outlying
post near the car with a lantern. These men had lived in Johnstown all
their lives. Three times they were lost on their way over. Another
correspondent fell down three or four slippery steps one night and
sprained his ankle, but he gritted his teeth and stuck to his work. One
of the _Times_ men tried to sleep in a hay-mow one night, but at one
o'clock he was driven out by the rats. He wandered about till he found a
night watchman, who escorted him to a brick-kiln. Attired in all his
clothing, his mackintosh, rubber boots, and hat, and with his
handkerchief for a pillow, he stretched himself upon a plank on top of
the bricks inside the kiln and slept one solitary hour. It was the third
hour's sleep he had enjoyed in seventy-two hours. The next morning he
looked like a paralytic tramp who had been hauled out of an ash-heap.
Another correspondent fell through an opening in the Pennsylvania bridge
and landed in a culvert several feet below. His left eye was almost
knocked out, and he had to go to one of the hospitals for treatment. But
he kept at his work. The more active newspaper men were a sight by
Wednesday. They knew it. They had their pictures taken. They call the
group "The Johnstown Sufferers." Their costumes are picturesque. One of
them--a dramatically inclined youth sometimes called Romeo--wears a pair
of low shoes which are incrusted with yellow mud, a pair of gray stained
trousers, a yellow corduroy coat, a flannel shirt, a soft hat of a dirty
greenish-brown tint, and a rubber overcoat with a cape. And still he is
not happy.