The advantages of Christian over Asiatic civilization are never more apparent than when the calamity of some calls for sympathy and help of all the rest. Then, in an hour, the news is borne to every city and hamlet in a broad continent, in another hour the press has thrown it off in millions of sheets, and every street is vocal with the cry of the newsboy proclaiming the disaster, millions of hearts are throbbing with sympathy, voices from opposite sides of great cities are talking to each other over the telephone, a meeting is called and quickly assembled, counsel is taken, performance is prompt, and before the day is done, the railroad train, bearing the necessary forms of aid, is flying with the speed of the wind to the relief of the sufferers.
Not often, even in a Christian land, has relief been so prompt or so bountiful as it was to Johnstown. Pittsburg read the news in the papers of Saturday morning. The Mayor called a meeting for one o’clock. It was crowded to overflowing, for the interest was intense. A committee was appointed, and work began instantly. By four o’clock nearly twenty cars were ready. Seventy volunteer aids were on board—all that could be taken—and the train was flying towards Johnstown. At 10:30 P.M. Sang Hollow, four miles from the scene of death, was reached. Here three-quarters of a mile of track had been washed entirely away, and the train stopped. But the men from Pittsburg stopped not. They sprang out, and trip after trip through the mud and dark, in the use of hands and shoulders, they bore onward their precious burdens of food for the starving brothers and sisters. Long before daylight, the installment of provisions—a car load and a half—was deposited at the Stone Bridge. Further than this it was impossible to go. The flood had broken the embankment beyond the bridge and a furious river a hundred feet wide was sweeping through.
But while these valiant relievers were struggling forward under boxes and parcels, the railroad management was working a veritable miracle. Men and material were placed on the ground, the grade was restored, the track was laid, and at seven o’clock the next morning the train was quietly standing at the Stone Bridge!
Was ever human energy more conspicuous, or in a better cause? Some corporations must have souls—at least, the Pennsylvania Railroad—for this triumph was stimulated not by self-interest, but by the interests of thousands dead or ready to perish. And it was General Superintendent Pitcairn of the Pennsylvania Road who moved the mayor to call the Pittsburg meeting.
The Baltimore & Ohio Road also signalized its achievements and generosity. By Monday morning it had entered the south side of Johnstown, bringing relief, or exit to the suffering people. Superintendent Patton called on the villages and towns along the road to load as many cars as they pleased, and they would be transported to Johnstown without charge. The services of both the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania Roads were of inestimable value, and from first to last, in a spirit of true philanthrophy, they co-operated with the efforts for the relief of a stricken people.
The labors of the Pittsburg committee knew no pause nor rest for ten days, until the State, whose duty it was in so great a calamity, stepped in, and through the Flood Commission, took hold and continued the work. Even then their labors did not cease, but were continued in hearty co-operation with the officials appointed by the State. During those ten days from the first of June to the eleventh, they had placed in the field under the most efficient management between 6,000 and 7,000 laborers, they had supplied a population of about 30,000 people with food; they had looked after sanitation and hospitals and morgues; they had accomplished much in the way of opening the streets and clearing the properties of filth and debris deposited by the flood. They had been the ministers not only of the charities of the twin cities, Alleghany and Pittsburg, but of other and more distant cities. These, recognizing the integrity and efficiency of the Pittsburg committee, directed their benefactions to them, with the request that they would control their administration. A total of $831,295 passed into their hands; of this $560,000 was turned over to the Flood Commission, the balance having been expended by themselves. Of this total, $250,770 was contributed by the cities of Pittsburgh and Alleghany.
In the ladies’ committee, Pittsburg developed another agency that was vastly beneficial. Established in rooms of the Second Presbyterian church, they began work on the 4th of June, and their doors thereafter were open day and night. A special committee was always on duty and waiting to receive every train, both of the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania Roads. These brought scores and hundreds of refugees who had lost everything, and who did not doubt that in Pittsburg, at the hands of people they had never seen, they would receive sympathy and aid. They were met at the depots, conducted to the rooms of the committee, fed and clothed, and sent to comfortable quarters till they could see a way to provide for themselves. Many were seeking homes in the country or cities beyond, and the railways generously furnished free transportation to all who were certified by the ladies’ committee. Situations were procured for many, and many fragments of families, seeking permanent homes in Pittsburg, were aided even to the anticipation of their winter supplies.
Philadelphia has long been an example to other cities, in that it has had a permanent committee of relief, ever ready with men and means to answer the call of some unusual distress. At the announcement of the great calamity, this committee was at once summoned by the mayor. R. M. McWade, city editor of the Public Ledger,
