CONEMAUGH VIADUCT.
a gentleman who had raised $25,000 and sped with it to Charleston, South Carolina, at the time of the earthquake, was present, and at once moved the appropriation of $5,000, saying that when the facts should become known, ten times the sum would be required. Others did not wait for organized effort, but hastened with medicines, surgical instruments, shoes and carloads of prepared food—bread, butter, bacon, cheese, coffee—to the field of disaster. Personal contributions were many and liberal. On the 11th of June the committee placed $500,000 subject to the order of Governor Beaver. As late as the 4th of August the committee was induced through Dr. Pancoast to appropriate $10,000 to the Red Cross Hospital in Johnstown. Philadelphia is truly a city of “brotherly love.” Newsboys and bootblacks anxiously offered their mites; and in the penitentiary hundreds of convicts gave eagerly of the hard-earned pennies gained by working extra time, till the warden placed a limit upon the amount each might give. The total contributions of Philadelphia amounted to nearly $800,000.
New York went promptly to work on the 2nd of June. The churches beginning. Monday, the 3d, liberal contributions were placed in the hands of a committee, by individuals and corporations. The poor or bad boys in the charity and reform schools were an example to many, for they of their penury cast in all that they had. The boys in the House of Refuge on Randall’s Island, gave $258.22. Perhaps such lads may be yet worth saving.
The total amount contributed by the City of New York was very close to $1,000,000.
Boston gave upwards of $500,000, Chicago about $200,000, Baltimore gave liberally, and received and cared for a multitude of refugees. Fifteen hundred rendered homeless by floods at Johnstown and elsewhere arrived in Baltimore in one day.
We may not detail further. The reader who desires the fullest account of what was done, and how, and by whom, must be referred to Dr. Beale’s most interesting book. It may suffice in this place to say, that contributions were forwarded, not only from the principal cities and from every State in the Union, but from foreign countries. Ireland sent $18,252.21; England, $33,158.36; Canada, $4,454.64; Mexico, $130.40; Turkey, $876.57; Italy, $9.46; Austria, $481.70; Germany, $34,199.36; Prussia, $100; Wales, $68.60; Saxony, $2,637.20; Persia, $50; France, $24,511.13; Australia, $1,251.12. Total, $120,187.79. These figures prove that there are men everywhere who love their fellow men, and that the whole world is of kin.
The total loss in the Conemaugh valley was between $8,000,000 and $9,000,000; the total bestowment about $3,000,000. The loss of life is estimated variously; from 4,000 to 10,000. It will never be definitely known.
The aid of the sympathetic public—was it charity? No, it was duty. I owe to help my fellow man in distress just as much as I owe to pay my debts, and sometimes more. Mercy is due to men no less than justice. “If any man seeth his brother have need and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion against him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” We might add: How dwelleth the love of man in him? He that does not love his fellow men is not entitled to a place among them, any more than fleas or serpents are entitled a place in human beds.