CHAPTER V
The Recuperation of Dayton
SPIRITS GO UP—SECRETARY OF WAR GARRISON ON THE SCENE—CLEARING AWAY THE DEBRIS—BOAT CREWS SAVE 979—RELIEF ON BUSINESS BASIS—STRICT SANITARY MEASURES—TALES OF THE RESCUED—A SUMMARY OF WORK ACCOMPLISHED—RAILROADS AGAIN WORKING—COMMISSION GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED—A HOME OF TENTS—MILLIONAIRES IN THE BREAD-LINE—ORVILLE WRIGHT'S ESCAPE—DEATH AND PROPERTY LOSS—THE TASK OF REBUILDING.
Dayton passed Friday night in terror because of constant shooting by the militiamen. Just how many looters were killed was unknown, as information was refused. The facts figure only in military reports.
Fifty shots were fired between midnight and three o'clock Saturday morning within hearing of the main hospital quarters in the National Cash Register Building. Civil workers in the center of the town, where efforts were being made to clear away debris, reported that five looters were shot after midnight.
One of these was a negro who had succeeded in entering a Madison Street house where he was seen by a militiaman and shot in the act of looting. It is declared that only one of the five men shot was killed.
Orders were issued to the soldiers to inflict summary execution on corpse robbers—ghouls who sneaked through the business and residence streets like hyenas after a battle.
Dayton came out in force on Saturday to look around and judge for itself the extent of the tragedy that confronted its people. Business men with forces of assistants penetrated the business section and set about the task of learning whether they had been stripped of their possessions completely.