“Unless they bestir themselves in time”—what a text is this! They are all the time overborne by the apathy of fear, of unused powers, of suppression and depression. Courage, hope, enterprise to bestir themselves, where will they come from? Not, surely, from fear and more discouragement.
The work of the American National Red Cross in the Russian famine of 1891-92 was comparatively less than in some others of the conspicuous fields in which it had done its work. The impulse to help in the work of that relief sprang up simultaneously in many American hearts and homes, in New York, in Philadelphia, in Minnesota, and Iowa. In Iowa it took the form of a veritable crusade for a most holy cause; beginning in the fervid and indomitable spirit of Miss Alice French—the “Octave Thanet” of literature—it quickly enlisted Mr. B. F. Tillinghast, editor of the “Davenport Democrat,” who became its director-in-chief and organizing force, everywhere organizing it, and promoting it in every direction and in every form. The movement was taken up by the women of Iowa, and Governor Boies became a prime mover, till the whole State at last joined in a triumphal march bearing corn, God’s best gift to man, to the Atlantic coast in a procession of two hundred and twenty-five carloads, exceeding five hundred bushels in each car. The corn was consigned to Clara Barton in New York and reached her agents there without accident or delay.
The American National Red Cross had authentic intelligence of the famine in Russia before it had attracted general attention; it had placed itself in communication with the Secretary of State, the Honorable James G. Blaine, and the Russian Chargé d’Affaires at Washington, Mr. Alexander Gregor, and had ascertained that Russia would gladly receive any donations of relief that the people of America might send to her famine-stricken people. Not only would they receive supplies, but would send their ships for them, and provide inland transportation from Russian ports to the destitute people for whom these benefactions were intended. America declined to allow her suffering sister nation to cross the seas to get this food, and quickly arranged to carry it to her. All the American agencies concerned in this movement met it in the noblest spirit; railroad companies gave free transportation, telegraph companies the free use of wires, brokers and steamship agents declined their usual commissions, and some insurance companies even gave premiums for the safe delivery of the precious cargo into the hands of the starving people. Funds to charter a steamship to carry the cargo to Russia were soon raised and placed in the hands of the Red Cross.
Dr. Hubbell, representative of the Red Cross to the international conference of the Red Cross to be held at Rome, and authorized to proceed to Riga and receive and distribute with the Russian Red Cross this gift of Iowa, was already on his ocean voyage and ready to do his part in this beautiful blending of international courtesies and services that it is the mission of the Red Cross to devise and to carry out wherever it can make or find the fitting opportunity. Dr. Hubbell arrived on time at Riga and superintended the distribution of the cargo.
The Sea Islands Hurricane of 1893-94
It is probable that there are few instances on record where a movement toward relief of such magnitude, commenced under circumstances so new, so unexpected, so unprepared, and so adverse, was ever carried on for such a length of time and closed with results so entirely satisfactory to both those served and those serving, as this disaster, which, if remembered at all at the present day, is designated as the “Hurricane and Tidal Wave of the Sea Islands off the Coast of South Carolina.” The descriptions of this fearful catastrophe I shall leave to the reports of those who saw, shared its dangers, and lived within its tide of death. They will tell how from three thousand to five thousand human beings (for no one knew the number) went down in a night; how in the blackness of despair they clung to the swaying tree-tops till the roots gave way, and together they were covered in the sands or washed out to the reckless billows of the great mad ocean that had sent for them; of the want, woe, and nothingness that the ensuing days revealed when the winds were hushed, the waters stilled, and the frightened survivors began to look for the lost home and the loved ones, and hunger presaged the gaunt figure of famine that silently drew near and stared them in the face; how, with all vegetable growth destroyed, all animals, even to fowls, swept away, all fresh water turned to salt—not even a sweet well remaining—not one little house in five hundred left upright, if left at all; the victims with the clothing torn and washed off them, till they were more nearly naked than clothed—how these thirty thousand people patiently stood and faced this silent second messenger of death threatening them hour by hour. Largely ignorant, knowing nothing of the world, with no real dependencies upon any section of its people, they could only wait its charity, its pity, its rescue, and its care—wait and pray—does any one who knows the negro characteristics and attributes doubt this latter? Surely, if angels do listen, they heard pleading enough in those hours of agony to save even the last man and woman and the helpless babe. Something saved them, for there is no record of one who died of starvation or perished through lack of care.
About the 28th or 29th of August, 1893, the press commenced to give notice, such as it could get over wrecked roads and broken wires, of a fearful storm coming up from the West Indies that had struck our coast in the region of South Carolina, sweeping entirely over its adjacent range of islands, known as the Old Port Royal group, covering them from the sea to a depth of sixteen feet, with the wind at a rate of one hundred and twenty miles an hour—that its destructive power was so great that it had not only swept the islands, but had extended several miles on to the mainland of the State.
I chanced to be familiar with the geography and topography of that group of islands, having lived on them in the capacity of war relief many months during the siege of Charleston in 1863-64. Knowing that they scarcely averaged four feet rise above the sea level, with no mountains, not even hills that could be called such, that the soft, sandy soil could not be trusted to hold its tree roots firm, that the habitations were only huts, to be washed away like little piles of boards—I thought I saw no escape for the inhabitants and that all must have perished; and so replied to all inquiries at first made as to whether this were not a disaster for the Red Cross to relieve, “No, there was nothing left to relieve.” Later and more reliable news brought the astonishing fact that it was estimated that from thirty to forty thousand had survived and were in the direst need. Was not this a call for the Red Cross? Still more emphatically, “No; if that is the case, it is beyond the Red Cross. Only the State of South Carolina or the general Government can cope with that”; and again we closed our ears and proceeded with our work.
But the first week of September brought pitiful paragraphs from various Southern sources—one I recall from the governor of the State, in which he proclaimed his perplexity and great distress at the condition of these poor people, needing everything, and who, at that season of the year, with crops all destroyed, would continue to need; and closed by wondering “if the Red Cross could perhaps do anything for them.”
It would not do to close our ears or eyes against this suggestion, and I at once sought our congressional neighbor, General M. C. Butler, of South Carolina, then in the Senate, asking his views. The response was such as would not have been looked for in that busy, hard-worked Senator, surrounded by a network of political wires, some of them only too likely to be “live”; he dropped all business, telegraphed at once to Governor Tillman at Columbia to learn the conditions, and urgently requested us to go, and he would even leave his seat and go with us as soon as we could be ready. Time is never a question with the Red Cross, and the next night, in a dark, cheerless September mist, with only two assistants, I closed a door behind me for ten months, went to the station to meet General Butler, prompt and kind, and proceeded on our way. At Columbia we were joyfully surprised at meeting Governor Tillman, prepared to accompany us with a member of his staff, and thus powerfully reënforced we made our entrance into Beaufort.