HOPE FOR THE RUINED CITY.
“Outside of Galveston, when the news came of the awful destruction by hurricane and ocean combined, there were not a few who asked, as did ‘The Daily News,’ ‘Will Galveston be rebuilt?’ and paused for a reply. The answer has come promptly and with a ring of determination and hope that makes Americans proud of the Galvestonians—Yes, Galveston will be rebuilt. ‘It will rise greater and better than ever.’
“And it is now known that this resolution, taken on Sunday afternoon, almost before the great storm had begun to subside, has been caught up not only by Galvestonians themselves but by all the great business interests centering there, and is re-echoed from all parts of the United States. Chairman Walker of the board of directors of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad says the city will be rebuilt and doing business at the old stand in three months. The officials of this road further say that in six days the bridge from Virginia Point will have been built and trains running over it.
“A like spirit is being manifested by other steamship companies, whose trade doubled Galveston’s export business between 1892 and 1899, making it rank fourth as an export port in the United States, only New York, Boston, and Baltimore surpassing it.
“Leading business and representative men of Galveston, also, instead of sitting down in despair, have been busy at work burying or otherwise disposing of their dead, clearing away the debris and getting the city in shape again as rapidly as possible.
“In the face of such a gallant spirit and purpose, difficulties and discouragements which at first were appalling will disappear. In its heroic work its strength and hope will be all the greater for the friendly aid and encouragement and the munificent generosity of America and Europe which will help Galveston to get upon its feet again.”
CHAPTER XVI.
Startling Havoc Made by the Angry Storm—Vessels Far Out on the Prairie—Urgent Call for Millions of Dollars—Tangled Wires and Mountains of Wreckage.
Colonel “Bill” Sterrett, a well-known publisher of Austin, went to Galveston after the storm and the sights he saw during his stay there are thus described by him:
“How to commence the story bothers. Whether to start out with the absolute truth and wind the sheet about the whole thing with the simple expression ‘unspeakable’ or to go on and hint the details inexpressibly sad, intimate the horrors, is the question.
“It would be better for the heart if a veil could fall from heaven and conceal what it has done. It would be better if a fog, thick, like a wall, should come up between the sea and the land that the latter might never see the crime of the former. For if calm humanity shrieked against the awfulness of the one element, it has done it now.