The most important journal in Texas, the “Galveston News,” commented as follows:
“The ‘News’ desires to repeat what it has already said to its now unhappy people on Galveston Island. The sorrows of the past few days are overwhelming, and we all feel them and will continue to feel them so long as we live. It could not be expected that our friends and relatives and loved ones should be so suddenly torn from us without leaving scars from which those in the ranks of maturity can never recover.
FORTITUDE OF SURVIVORS.
“But it is all in the past now. We cannot recall our dead thousands. Wherever they sleep, beneath the tireless waves or under the arching skies, we will love their memories and recall as long as we live the unspeakable and mysterious tragedy which destroyed them. But it must be remembered that we have more than 30,000 living, and many of these are children too young to have their lives and energies paralyzed by the disaster which has overtaken us.
“Our homes must be rebuilt, our schools repaired, and the natural advantages of the port must sooner or later receive our earnest attention. We have loved Galveston too long and too well to desert her in the hour of misfortune. Our distress and destitution are going to be relieved, for a sympathizing country is already providing for temporary needs. This people are too proud and self-reliant, however, to lose spirit and fail of duty. In the very darkness of the moment there is light ahead, and we must look to the light ahead. Even in the midst of our dead and our ruins light appears.
“The railroads are bending every effort to repair the bridges and place us once more in commercial communication with the mainland; the telegraph companies, putting their heavy losses behind them, are restoring their wires as fast as men can do it; the telephone company is doing likewise, and the wharf companies are similarly engaged. As the ‘News’ understands it, the Southern Pacific Company proposes to double its force to complete the improvement which was so damaged by the storm.
“The waterworks will soon be restored, the street railway repaired, and all the other elements of a metropolitan life placed in working order. The ships will come into the harbor for traffic and get it, and that traffic will afford employment to thousands. If the people will take heart, they will soon find that all has not been lost, and, moreover, much is to be saved. If we lost 5000 people, there are more than 30,000 to be provided for; if we have lost $15,000,000 in property, we still have that much to save and restore.
REBUILDING GALVESTON.
“There is much to hope for and to strive for, and we must hope and strive to save ourselves and meet the expectations of the world. The ‘News’ received a telegram last night from a great New York paper inquiring if Galveston would rebuild. The answer was sent back that Galveston did not intend to succumb to her crushing misfortune, but would again resume her place as the great port of the Gulf. This is the duty of the people here, and the ‘News’ expects in good time to see all the energies of the people concentrated upon the great work of recuperation and restoration. Will this expectation meet disappointment? Knowing this people for nearly sixty years, the ‘News’ answers, No.”
Colonel John D. Rogers was at Toronto, Ont., when the big storm swept Galveston. He and Colonel D. C. Giddings, of Brenham, have gone North together for a vacation every summer for several years past, and this year they picked Toronto as the place of recreation. As soon as the news of the storm reached them they started for Texas, and Colonel Rogers arrived on Friday, the 14th.