Catastrophe and Social Change / Based Upon a Sociological Study of the Halifax Disaster

by Samuel Henry Prince

At Halifax authoritative control following the disaster was not wholly municipal or wholly martial, but rather an admixture of authorities. Policeman and soldier joined hands as agents of general protection. This service government did and did at once.

One of the activities of the disaster relief first taken[133] was that by the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Nova Scotia, when he sent to the Chief of Police of Halifax the following order:

You are hereby authorized to commandeer and make use of any vehicle of any kind that you find necessary for the purpose of removing the injured and the dead of this city.

The service of the police of Halifax was highly commendable. They worked for long periods with little rest to maintain public peace and order. The splendid service of the King's soldiers and sailors has already been considered. They were first and foremost in the work of rescue and of warning. Military orders to vacate the North End district as a precautionary measure followed hard upon the explosion. Military orders permitted the people to return. Within a few hours after the disaster the military established a cordon around the devastated district which no one was allowed to pass without an order, which citizens having business obtained at the City Hall. This was to prevent looting as well as to facilitate the search for the wounded pinned under the debris, and to permit the removal of the bodies of the killed. The burned and devastated area was policed by the military for about two months with the concurrence of civic authority.

But catastrophe calls for much more than protection. It calls for a procedure, a guidance, a paternal care, and it calls for it at once. If we ask whether it be the function of government to take the foremost step of leadership in this care, the question is one for Political Science. If we ask the more sociological question whether governments actually and always do so, the answer is unhesitatingly—they do not. Says Cooley: “Like other phases of organization, government is merely one way of doing things, fitted by its character for doing some things, and unfitted for doing others.”[134] This proved one of the things for which it was unfitted. Not one of the governmental authorities, civic, provincial, or federal, at once assumed and held authoritatively and continuously the relief leadership. Indeed it is a peculiar commentary that they were scarcely thought of as likely immediately to do so. It should be said, however, that the Deputy-mayor—the Mayor being absent from the city—was very active personally. While one of the controllers was himself replacing the dead fire-chief, the Deputy-mayor called an emergency meeting of citizens on the morning of the disaster, and another at three in the afternoon to consider what to do. This meeting of citizens was presided over by the Lieutenant-Governor, and at it, as already noticed, a beginning in relief organization was made. The committees, it will be remembered, were afterwards reformed upon a new basis on the advice of the American unit. But no civic resources were pledged to the people as was done at the Chicago fire. No moneys were then or subsequently appropriated. The Board of Health did not assert or assume the leadership in the unprecedented situation. The City Hall was indeed set up as the relief center temporarily, but the advice to remove it elsewhere was not successfully opposed. How little civic authority was retained under the disaster circumstances is evidenced by the following complaint. The Board of Control which was then the legal representative body of the city had no member on the executive committee of the disaster administration. One of these controllers publicly criticised the method of the Citizens' Committee as autocratic. He “almost had to have a page to reach the Committee as representative of the Board of Control.” When the cabinet ministers from Ottawa were sitting in session in the legislative council room, and giving a hearing to a representative public gathering, the Mayor entered a complaint that the City Council and Corporation had been ignored by the acting committees. The Citizens' Committee exercised the general control. They were entrusted with the special grants and the civic authorities, Board of Health, police, etc., so far as emergency matters went, coöperated with them. But the various civic officers were not idle. No one was idle at Halifax. They were occupied with the rehabilitation of the various departments at City Hall and with individual programs of relief. What the civic government continued to do officially was rather in the way of providing the stiff formality of proclamation to the carefully weighed suggestions of the Citizens' Committee. Several of these proclamations were issued. Among them was one urging all people excepting those on relief work or upon especially urgent business to stay away from Halifax for two weeks. Another proclamation was a warning to merchants with regard to demanding exorbitant prices. Over the Mayor's signature went out the nation-wide appeal for aid that “a sorely afflicted people should be provided with clothing and food.” The subsequent time, thought and help which City Hall contributed is of less sociological importance to this study. It is sufficient if we have faithfully described municipal aid in disaster as falling under the general category of service, rather than direction.[135]

Turning briefly to the provincial and federal spheres of activity in disaster we note that no special session of the provincial legislature was called, as was done by the Governor of Illinois after the calamity which overtook Chicago in 1871. Yet when the legislature of Nova Scotia convened a fully considered and detailed act was passed incorporating the Halifax Relief Commission, and designating and defining its powers.[136] The several articles defined its establishment as a rehabilitation and reconstruction committee, a town-planning board, as well as its powers of expropriation, its relationship to the city charter, certain parts of which it could amend or repeal; its powers to enforce attendance at its courts and boards; its relationship to the Workmen's Compensation Act and to the insurance problem. Besides, the Commission was also invested with full and adequate discretion regarding schools, churches and business properties.

Some of the disaster legislative powers and procedures are of special interest to social legislation. Among these were the power to repair, rebuild or restore buildings, the power to repair and carry out a town-planning scheme, the power to amend, repeal, alter or add to provisions in the city charter, the automatic assumption of rights of owner to insure to the extent of the amount expended in repair, and the automatic cancellation of workmen's compensation claims. The act incorporating the commission with powers to make investigation, and administer all funds and properties constitutes Chapter VI of the year 1918. The local legislature also passed Chapter XVIII authorizing the provincial loan of one hundred thousand dollars for the benefit of the sufferers; and Chapter XIX authorizing cities, towns and municipalities to contribute for the relief of sufferers.

The action of Premier Borden of Canada for promptitude and wisdom is comparable to that of President Harrison of the United States at the time of the Johnstown flood. The Canadian Premier at the time of the disaster was in Prince Edward Island, an island province lying near Nova Scotia. He at once left for Halifax and arrived the following day. He immediately placed resources from the Federal government at the disposal of the local authorities to assist them in coping with the situation. The third day after the disaster he attended an important meeting regarding the harbor, and strengthened greatly the morale of the city by assuring a complete and rapid restoration of the harbor. Following the Premier came the Minister of Public Works and he too gave much administrative assistance. Then came five members of the Federal Cabinet, each announcing such programs of restoration as to give the community new heart and inspiration. Among these announcements was that of the establishment of a large ship-building plant upon the explosion area. The Canadian government had already as its first act made a grant of one million dollars, toward the sufferers' relief. It was then forcibly urged upon the government that it assume a responsibility towards Halifax such as the British government accepts in “its policy of holding itself responsible for loss and damage by air-raids and explosions.” Public opinion seemed to demand that the work of restoration and reparation be undertaken by the government of Canada as a national enterprise. The government while disclaiming all legal liability, acceded to the request. On January twenty-first there was announced the formation of a Federal Halifax Relief Commission to take over the whole work of rehabilitation and reconstruction,—an announcement which brought a feeling of relief to the already discouraged workers.

Another interesting contrast may be noted in the fact that while the Governor of Ohio appointed the Ohio Flood Commission to receive and administer relief funds and supplies, the Halifax Relief Commission was appointed by the Governor-General of Canada in Council. This was done under the “Enquiries Act of Canada, being Chapter CIV of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1906, and under the War Measures Act, 1914, being Chapter II of the Acts of Canada for the year 1914.” The Federal grant was later increased to five million dollars, and subsequently to eighteen millions.

There should also be here recorded the timely succour afforded by the Imperial Government at Westminster. Following the King's gracious cable of sympathy, the sum of five million dollars was voted by the British Government to the relief of Halifax. The King's words were: