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

NOBLE DEEDS IN TIME OF DISASTER.

In all great catastrophes I have yet to know of one that some special act of selfishness and brutality did not occur. There is hardly a great wreck recorded in which is not depicted the brute who pushed women from boats or from spars. In all I have heard of the thousands of incidents connected with this storm, not an instance of that selfishness which would cause one person to deprive another of his means of escape has occurred. Thousands of instances of devotion of husband to wife, of wife to husband, of child to parent and parent to child can be mentioned.

One poor woman with her child and her father was cast out into the raging waters. They were separated. Both were in drift and both believed they went out in the Gulf and returned. The mother was finally cast upon the drift, and there she was pounded by the waves and debris until she pulled into a house against which the drift had lodged. During all that frightful ride she held to her 8–months-old babe, and when she was on the drift pile she lay upon her infant and covered it with her body, that it might escape the blows of the planks. She came out of the ordeal cut and maimed. But the infant had not a scratch.

Another man took his wife from one house to another by swimming until he had occupied three. Each fell in its turn, and then he took to the waves. They were separated and each, as the persons above mentioned, believed they were carried to sea. Strange to say, after three hours in the water he heard her call, and finally rescued her.

It is not necessary to go on and recite these instances, for there were thousands, each showing that in time of danger at least the best sentiments in man’s nature are aroused. It can be safely guessed that one-half of those who perished, died in their effort to aid others. The trite expression of “man’s inhumanity to man” has no place in all that may be written or spoken of this great tragedy.