The Great Galveston Disaster / Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of Death; Terrible Sufferings of the Survivors; Vandals Plundering Bodies of the Dead; Wonderful Exhibitions of Popular Sympathy; Millions of Dollars Sent for the Relief of the Stricken Sufferers

by Paul Lester

GALVESTON SAFE NOW.

No man—scientist or mere citizen—is authority upon the wondrous winds and ties that reduced the island of Galveston to an incomprehensible pot pourri of devastation. All is guess work, behind which there is neither science nor common sense. As far as a deliberate proposition evolved by a fair measure of judgment in which there enters as little of egotism as is possible with human beings, I would rather trust the guesser than the scientist.

As I begin the story at nightfall, the lightning is illuminating the bank of clouds massed over the Gulf horizon. For the past half hour I have looked upon the flashes, and those around me wondered if it were to come again. The “it,” of course, means the visitation of last Saturday night. They look anxiously around as the streaks of gold and silver illumine the sky at quick intervals.

My friends are those who went through the awful experience of the cataclysm. I know as well as mortal man can know any thing that this island is no longer a target for the elements. I know that a target like this devastated island could no longer invite the shafts of the elements, even if the elements were endowed with human or divine intelligence. And I know in the simple faith of humanity that the God who “plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm” would reach out with his omnipotent arm and throttle the agencies of nature if they should again aggravate wind and wave to vent their wrath upon these desolate shores.

I know that if the sorrows of this community, what remains of it, have thrilled humanity, they must have touched the wellsprings of divine mercy and sympathy, and that the helpless victims who have survived the tragedy of this moment may feel safe from another attack from the remorselessness of the storm.