To a gentleman who called on him and asked for an expression of his views as to the future, and his intentions as to the various properties he is interested in, Colonel Rogers talked most hopefully and confidently:
“So far as property losses are concerned,” said he, “I suspect I have lost about as heavily as any men in Galveston in proportion to the property I own here. But this constitutes no reason why I should be discouraged. I felt that way even before I reached Galveston. Colonel Giddings, from the newspaper accounts of the storm, doubted somewhat that Galveston would come again. But I told him Galveston was bound to be restored. I told him I didn’t believe the wharves were gone; no man who knows anything of the construction of wharves could have believed that story. I told him that the maintenance of Galveston as a port for the west was imperatively necessary, and that if the people of Galveston laid down and got off the island, other people would come here and build up a city.
RESUMING BUSINESS.
“A week in Galveston has made me still more confident that I was right in my conclusion. The work done during the past week has been wonderful, and within another week, I believe, every kind of business will be going on as before. We are again ready to receive cotton, and I have instructed our shippers to send it in. Before this business season is over we will be doing as much business as ever before, and before twelve months have passed our buildings will be restored.
“I know that croakers will say that this cannot be done, but the croaker will never rise in any country. I don’t believe in croakers. I believe with ‘The News,’ that this storm has indisputably proven that the island will not wash away. If that storm, the severest in the history of the world, did not wash the island away, nothing ever will eliminate it from the map. And it is not conceivable that another storm of that severity will ever strike again in this spot. The flood of the Brazos river, in last July, was unprecedented.
“There had never been such a flood before, and there had never been an overflow of that river in the month of July in all the history of the State. Again, the previous rises of the river had been gradual, but in July, 1899, the river rose two and a half feet in one night. All of that was very unusual, and it is improbable that it will ever be repeated. The storm at Galveston was likewise very unusual. The waters came from the bay and Gulf simultaneously, and met on the island. They did not go up Buffalo bayou, as they did in 1875, when lives were lost at Lynchburg.
“A great deal of the loss of life has been due to flimsiness of many houses put up here in recent years for rent. The lesson which Galveston has received is a terrible one, but it will lead to safer and better buildings. It is true that some good buildings were wrecked by the jamming of wreckage from flimsy buildings, but the fact that we have many buildings standing unharmed, proves that we can build enduring structures.
GREAT DETERMINATION.
“I have given my attention since coming home to the restoration of the Gulf City compress and other property in which I am interested. We are going right ahead, with greater determination, to increase our business and to build up the city.”
“I am glad to see you alive” is the greeting with which a Galvestonian now meets his fellow-citizen on the rubbish blocked streets of the once proud city by the Texas coast. Those who have not been here can not realize what it is to a man to meet a friend alive, or to find a relative who since Saturday has been missing from the huddled few remaining who are gathered in some desolated, wrecked and wind torn building, which but a week ago was a happy home of happy people.