CHAPTER XIV.
Twenty Thousand People Fed Every Day at a Cost of $40,000—Incidents at the Relief Stations—Applicants and Their Peculiarities—Great Mortality Among the Negroes.
Twenty thousand people were fed and cared for daily in Galveston for many days with the supplies which poured in from all parts of the country. This number was cut at least one-half about October 1.
The estimated cost of the aid extended after the first week of suffering was $40,000 a day. The great bulk of the aid went to the 4,000 men at work cleaning up the wreckage, digging for bodies and cleaning the streets. Through them it went to their families. No able-bodied laboring man was allowed to escape the work, whether he needed aid or not, though most of them did. The business men in position to resume were allowed to attend to their stores, and their clerical forces were not interfered with.
On Tuesday, September 18, the debris-hunting and street-cleaning work was put upon a cash basis, the wages being $1.50. Time had been kept from the beginning, though the records were not complete. All were paid for the full time they worked. This applied to those who had to be made to work at the point of a bayonet as well as those who volunteered their services.
This aid was given in the form of orders for tools for mechanics, lumber for those who had homes they wished to repair, etc. Heretofore practically every able-bodied man had been made to work, and unless he worked he got no supplies. The first few days’ wages consisted entirely of rations, which were given according to the number and needs of the laborer’s family, regardless of the amount of work he accomplished. Since other supplies began coming in they had been added.
The work of distribution was conducted systematically and with an apparent minimum of imposition and fraud. There was a central committee, of which W. A. McVitie, a prominent business man, was chairman. Then there was a committee for each one of the twelve wards. As fast as goods or provisions arrived from the mainland they were placed in the central warehouse, from which the different ward chairmen requisitioned them, and they were taken to supply depots in the different wards. All day long there was a motley crowd around every one of these depots, negroes predominating at least two to one. Every applicant passed in review before the ward chairman.
“Ah want a dress foh ma sistah,” said a big negress.
“You’re ’Manda Jones, and you haven’t any sister living here,” replied the chairman.