The catastrophe at Galveston served to bring conspicuously into notice the best and worst sides of human nature, which is always the common result of all appalling disasters.
The people of that afflicted city were suddenly overwhelmed by the almost unprecedented fury of the elements. Thousands were killed and injured. Thousands more lost their homes and places of business. They were suffering with hunger and menaced with pestilence. All were brought to a common level by dangers of every description, death in its most awful forms, and an outlook of terrible uncertainty.
And yet in the midst of all this ruin and suffering they were harassed by thugs and thieves and ghouls in human shape, who looted property, assaulted citizens who resisted them, and despoiled and disfigured the dead in a shockingly savage manner to secure rings and other jewels. Devoid of any feeling of sympathy or pity, they seized upon this awful disaster as an opportunity to enrich themselves. As soon, however, as the authorities could recover from the first shock of the disaster the city was placed under martial law, and the troops patrolling the island did not hesitate to kill every one of the vandals caught in the commission of his infamous work. Public opinion sustained this prompt style of punishment. It was a species of Southern lynching to which no objection was ever raised.
The disaster also brought into prominence the greed and mercenary passion of human nature. A clique of ravenous wretches, taking advantage of the fact that the city of Galveston was cut off from bridge communication with the mainland, conspired to secure control of the transportation facilities by water, and charged extortionate prices even to those who were seeking to carry relief to the suffering people.
Never was a more inhuman trust organized.
Again, all the fresh provisions in the city were ruined, leaving only a few canned and dried articles which were available for food. The owners of these, bent upon making personal profit out of the necessities of their fellow-citizens, pushed up the prices, raising bread to 60 cents a loaf and bacon to 50 cents a pound.
The mayor of Galveston, however, proved himself equal to the emergency, confiscated the food supply, reduced the prices to a reasonable rate, and compelled the owners of schooners and small craft to put down their prices also.
This was the dark side of human nature, but the picture had its bright side also. The news of the awful disaster had hardly appeared in the public prints before tens of thousands of helping hands were busy collecting relief. The Chief Executive of the nation, the Governors of States, and the mayors of cities issued their appeals to the people, whose sympathies were already aroused and whose hearts and hands were enlisted generously and enthusiastically in the work of relief.
Far-off countries sent their offerings; every city and town in the world where Americans live contributed; and crowned heads hastened to cable sympathy, together with more substantial evidences of their kindly feeling.
Without delay of any kind, instantly and spontaneously, the machinery of charity began its work. The people of the North might differ radically from the people of the South in many ways, but in the presence of such a dreadful visitation of nature, involving suffering and death, the brotherhood of man asserted itself and all things else were forgotten. Only the higher and nobler attributes of human nature assert themselves.