SYRACUSE.
The Bayern spent three days at Catania. During that time I made a trip of investigation to Syracuse. Here the refugees numbered only 3,000—one-eighth of the number at Catania; but 900 of these were hospital patients. Syracuse, too, has only one-seventh of Catania’s population. Its hospital accommodations at the time of the earthquake were for one hundred patients. If Syracuse had succeeded better than any other place in mastering the difficulties of the situation it was not because the difficulties were insignificant. Syracuse was fortunate in a Prefect and a Mayor of resource and capacity; in an unusually efficient body of volunteer workers, with one woman of great ability at their head; and in the fact that the importance of the work, as a moral and mental tonic for the refugees, was realized from the very beginning. Syracuse was the first place where refugees were set to work. The credit for this is due to an American, Miss Katherine Bennett Davis, head of the New York State Reformatory for Women.
When Miss Davis first thought of employing refugee women to make clothes for the hospitals, relief work at Syracuse was just emerging from a state of chaos. Four hospitals had been equipped after a fashion for the reception of patients. The Municipal hospital was already in good running order, through the efforts of Signor Broggi-Reale, head of the local Red Cross; the Archbishop’s palace was being rapidly transformed into a second hospital by a number of ladies; at the big barracks conditions were more primitive until the arrival of a splendidly equipped expedition of the German Red Cross. Most of the hospitals were short of blankets; all needed sheets, and all were entirely unsupplied with clothes for the patients. Of the two thousand able-bodied refugees, eight hundred were maintained aboard the steamship Nord Amerika; the rest were scattered about the town. A woman’s branch of the Red Cross was being organized by the Marchesa di Rudini, whose activity covered every branch of the work of relief and extended beyond the confines of Syracuse, to all the towns of the province. Her position as wife of one of the largest landowners of the province and daughter-in-law of Italy’s lamented premier; her independence of any particular organization; her skill and tact in uniting individuals and parties made her the most influential person in Syracuse. To her is due more than to anyone else the excellent organization of the Syracuse relief work.
Miss Davis was in Sicily in order to rest. The funds at her disposal amounted to six hundred lire only. But she saw an opportunity to help in the moral regeneration of the refugees and at the same time to supply one of the most pressing needs of the city. She went to the mayor and offered to employ refugee women in making clothes for the hospitals. Like everyone else, the Mayor had been told that the refugees would not work; but unlike everyone else, he decided to make the experiment. He gave Miss Davis two of his own rooms in the Municipio, supplied her with sewing machines, and promised to furnish all the necessary materials. She opened her shop on January 8th and soon had fifty women at work.
Miss Davis was not alone in her labors. Besides the support of the officials and of Madame di Rudini, she had the direct assistance, from the first, of Mrs. Musson, wife of the British clergyman, and later of Mrs. Sisco, of Florida. When gifts of money from the American Red Cross and from the Committee of the Bayern enabled Miss Davis to found a second workshop at Santa Lucia, the quarter of Syracuse situated on the mainland, Mrs. Musson became its manager. To supplement her own scanty knowledge of Italian, Miss Davis employed as interpreter and paymaster an English resident of Messina, Miss Smith, who had escaped from the earthquake without any of her belongings beyond what she could carry. The Syracusan ladies took an active interest in the workshops; two of them, the Baronesses del Bosco, whose principal work was in the hospitals, found time nevertheless to give much of their attention to Miss Davis’ work, and assisted her particularly in the cutting-out department.
The workshops were a success from the beginning. Under Miss Davis’ unceasing supervision the women showed no tendency to idleness. A piece wage which would have put the unskillful and the beginners at a disadvantage was not found necessary; the women were paid by the day, one lira and a lunch of bread, cheese and wine. The question naturally suggested itself, could not the men also be induced to work? And could not their work be made to contribute, like that of the women, to supply their own wants?
Refugee Camp in the Piazza Vittoria.
Miss Davis had now the money to carry out her plans. But she had to face a new difficulty—the jealousy of the local artisans, who resented any influx of labor. Miss Davis began with the shoemakers because shoes, next to underwear, were the articles of clothing most needed by the refugees. She found a number of shoemakers among the refugees. These she induced the local shoemakers to employ by offering the following advantageous terms: The local man was to supply the materials and tools and to receive the price of the product, which Miss Davis promised to buy. She was also to pay wages to the refugee worker. Thus the refugee was employed, the local shoemaker profited and the stock of shoes was increased. At a later date Miss Davis found employment for all the carpenters, masons and painters among the refugees by paying them to complete a large two-story building, of which only one story had been built. When finished the building became an orphan asylum for seventy-five refugee children. The money for this work was furnished by Mr. Billings out of the Massachusetts funds.
So far only skilled laborers had been employed. But the persons who most needed work, those who deteriorated most rapidly when idle, were the common unskilled laborers belonging to the lowest classes. Even in their normal condition nothing but hunger would induce these people to work; now they were fed and were in a state of moral inertia. Miss Davis’ proposal to the Mayor to employ a squad of sixty day laborers in improving the roads seemed almost certain to fail. The Mayor, however, decided to make the attempt; he was to supply tools, materials and supervision; Miss Davis was to pay the wages. Once more the unexpected happened; the men worked moderately well at first, then better every day. In a short time all traces of idleness and discontent had disappeared.
From the point of view of actual achievement and also of example Miss Davis’ feat at Syracuse seems to me the most important single contribution to the problem of rehabilitating the sufferers from the Messina earthquake. Her efforts were not limited, however, to giving employment. With funds allotted by the Bayern Committee she opened a pension or home for forty-two refugees of the better class, giving preference to convalescents from the hospitals. Here for the first time the refugees found soap, brushes, combs, clean clothes, all the articles of first necessity of which they had been deprived since the earthquake. The home was so successful that the Marchesa di Rudini devoted most of the American money which had been given her, to spend at her discretion, to founding two similar institutions at Nolo and Avola, small towns of the province of Syracuse. These homes the Prefect of Syracuse promised to support out of Government funds when the original donations should be spent. In Miss Davis’ home at Syracuse the moral health of the inmates was never forgotten. Before the home had been opened a fortnight the women among the inmates were busy making clothes, voluntarily and without pay, for less fortunate refugees. Every scheme of Miss Davis served a double end—practical utility and moral rehabilitation.
Upon my return to Catania I found the Bayern ready to start for Reggio. During her stay she had not only dispensed relief to Catania and the environs, but had also supplied the wants of the Taormina and Giardini hospitals.