My Story (8 page)

O
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mill was completed and ready for occupancy when the Johnstown flood occurred, May 31, 1889, and in an hour wrought such havoc as no imagination can picture, havoc which must be seen to be believed possible. The property losses of our firm were very small for though our old plant was in the path of the flood and was swept away, it had been practically abandoned, much of the machinery and stock having been removed to the new mill.

We had built a steam railroad which ran from Moxham into Johnstown and for some time had been trying to get possession of the city's street railways too. It was not until after the flood, however, and in consequence of the general demoralization of that business along with all other activities, that the owners were willing to sell. Then they were only too glad to get rid of the property, and they may have had small regard for the business sagacity of anyone who would buy a railroad when cars, shops and tracks had been washed away, and when what was left of the latter was covered by a seemingly hopeless mass of debris.

We made no money out of the strap-hangers or other passengers in the first days of operating in Johnstown for the street cars like our steam railroad ran free. So with the groceries, meat markets and other shops. It
wasn't a case of “After us the deluge,” but “The deluge after us,” and “us” was everybody who had anything the community could use. There wasn't much talk about the sacred rights of property around Johnstown just then as I remember it.

When the first shock of the disaster was over the dazed people realized that there was no responsible head to which they could look for relief, guidance or protection, for that little city was made up of eleven boroughs, each with its own set of councilmen, its burgess and its miniature city government. In times of comparative peace there was no getting together of these powers because of petty jealousies, continual bickerings and contested rights. The hopelessness of expecting anything from this quarter now was perfectly apparent to all. So a public mass meeting was called, at which it was decided to elect a Dictator — one in whom all powers, legislative and executive, should be vested. The choice fell upon Mr. Moxham, and a most fortunate choice it was, for so wisely did he administer the affairs of that afflicted community that his authority was never once questioned.

Think of being called upon to feed, clothe and house a destitute and panic stricken population of thousands, to search out and care for the bodies of unnumbered dead, to clear away the wreckage of a razed city, and withal to maintain order, insure public safety and provide against further calamity. This was the task which faced Johnstown's elected dictator, himself a British subject, not an American citizen. Here was indeed “work that called for a man,” and I shall never cease to be proud of the splendid way in which Mr. Moxham responded to that call.

The first thing he did was to assign a duty to every man available for work of any kind.

It was but natural that he should look to the leading citizens, the men who stood high in business circles, those who were prominent in the churches and in the social life of the community for the most intelligent and spontaneous cooperation; but these failed so utterly to meet the emergency that their defection was a matter of general comment. They ran away from responsibility.

But if the calamity brought out the weakest and worst elements of character in this class, it had quite the opposite effect on those in the humbler walks of life. The men who were accustomed to work with their hands were not found wanting. All that was big and brave and strong and good in their characters came uppermost. And in that crisis when native worth — not artificial attributes — was the test of patriotism, or citizenship, or brotherhood, or whatever name you choose to call it by, the positions of the two classes of society in Johnstown were reserved.

One man who stood out like a giant was Bill Jones, known to the world because of his association with the early development of Andrew Carnegie's enterprises, but deserving to be known for his own sterling worth. He had been connected with the Cambria Iron Company at one time and directly after the flood he came on from Pittsburgh with a great body of men, extensive camp equipment and tools of various kinds and went to work. In his rough and ready way he got right at the essential things and brought the kind of relief that money couldn't buy.

One day when he and I were going through the devastated district on horseback, a man so begrimed with
dirt as to be unrecognizable hailed him with a hearty, “Hello, Bill!” Jones dismounted to exchange greetings with his unknown friend and said, “You'll have to tell me who you are.” The man answered,

“I'm Pat Lavell,” and then they embraced like two brothers.

There was a pause, for Bill Jones was hesitating before putting that hardest of all questions: “How did it go with you?”— the question so apt to bring a story of unthinkable disaster in reply.

“Lost everything,” answered Lavell, “my home, my savings,— everything; but,” and in spite of the grime his face lighted up with the brightest look I ever saw, “I'm the happiest man in Johnstown, for my family's all right.”

They say at some of the fine London hotels that Bill Jones didn't cut much of a figure when he visited the English metropolis. When I hear this I like to call up in my mind the image of Bill at Johnstown, and I wish I could make everybody else see the picture of that man triumphant. I cherish the memory of my acquaintance with Bill Jones as one of the great privileges of my life.

Somehow the value and importance of “leading citizens” to a community has never impressed me much since then.

I reached Johnstown from Cleveland the day after the flood, arriving just a few hours after Mr. du Pont, who had come on from Cincinnati, where he happened to be when the news of the disaster reached him. We were both immensely relieved to find our partner, Mr. Moxham, all right. We three men were all smokers, but it had not occurred to Mr. du Pont or to me to bring an extra large supply of cigars, for even if we had been thinking of our
own comfort, which we were not, we did not know that it was impossible to get tobacco in Johnstown, nor had we anticipated the difficulties in getting supplies of any kind from Pittsburgh or any other place in the outside world.

Mr. Moxham and I got together early and took account of stock and hit upon a plan which would prevent the tobacco famine from affecting Mr. du Pont for several days at least. We planned that when we got together each morning, preparatory to separating and going about our respective work for the day, that one of us would say, “Well, how many cigars have we among us?” Mr. Moxham and I would produce ours, being careful not to let Mr. du Pont know that we had no large reserve supply in our rooms; he would of course produce his and then we would divide them equally among us. Arthur and I would put ours into our pockets, remarking casually that we didn't care to smoke then but would do so later. The plan worked all right. Mr. du Pont, all unsuspecting, smoked his cigars and never knew that we carried ours around in our pockets and added them to the common store the next morning. It was the greatest source of comfort to both of us that our elder partner did not have to be deprived of his cigars, but we never dared tell him of the deception we practiced upon him, for while we considered it a good joke and enjoyed it hugely we knew he wouldn't have forgiven it.

The work delegated to me was the removal of the bodies of the victims of the disaster. No words can describe the horror and reluctance with which I approached this grewsome task. The sight of the first few bodies recovered moved me to tears. But before we had gone far I had lost all feeling of shrinking or even of sadness and
went about it in a seemingly heartless manner. It was the stress of the cruel situation, the absolute necessity for getting the awful work done which made this possible.

The natural buoyancy of my nature soon asserted itself and as there was nothing else out of which any fun could be had, I “made fun” of the free operation of our street cars, which continued for some sixty or ninety days. I told my partners that this method of operating was the most perfect device I ever had encountered for getting rid of the evils arising from the collection of fares. I insisted that it could not be improved upon; that it did away with all possibility of dishonesty or carelessness on the part of the conductors and the general public; in fact, that it was a cure-all. They retorted that they preferred the disease even in its most virulent form to so drastic a remedy.

Whether my hope of some day seeing the people riding on free street cars had its birth before this time or was due to the Johnstown object lesson I cannot say. But certain it is that that experience convinced me that free cars were not only possible but practicable. When I seriously advocated them some years later the objection I met oftenest was that people would spend all their time riding. Even if I had not been able to refute this by citing Johnstown where nothing of the kind happened, I should still have answered that people would no more ride aimlessly hour after hour on free cars than they now ride aimlessly on free elevators.

Have you ever really thought what free cars would mean?

Wouldn't the greatest advantage be the removal of franchises which are to-day the prizes that Big Business
strives for, bribes for, and even corrupts whole communities to acquire?

Did you ever hear of anybody trying to get a fire department franchise?

How would free car service be paid for? How is free elevator service paid for? The owners of buildings provide it without pay? Oh, no, they don't. In apartment houses the tenants pay for elevator service in their rent. And in office buildings the tenants seem to do the same thing, but they don't really. You and I pay for the elevator service. It is charged to us in the bills rendered by our doctors, our lawyers, our plumbers, our dressmakers, our tailors, our milliners, our contractors, albeit it isn't separately itemized.

Well, wouldn't you rather pay it that way than to fish in your pocket for a nickel or three cents or a penny every time you enter an elevator? I would.

Free street car rides would be paid for in the same way,— not by some public benefactor, some mysterious agency which gives something for nothing — but by the car riders themselves. And they would find the item in their rent receipts.

To meet the problem of a community with no money was not easy, but we were presently confronted with the graver problem of a community with too much money. The greatly exaggerated reports of the loss of property and of human lives, the first press dispatches placing the number of the latter at ten thousand, brought a correspondingly great volume of relief.

That curious inconsistency which makes human nature quite complacent in contemplating the annual slaughter of infants in our great cities, the physical, mental and moral
crimes involved in the employment of little children in industry, the menace to the race in over-working and under-paying women, and the terrible social consequences of forced unemployment of great numbers of men, but which moves it to frantic expressions of sympathy by the news of an earthquake, a fire or a kidnapping, caused the American people to empty their purses and their children's savings banks for the benefit of Johnstown.

When it was known that three millions of dollars had been sent in, the town quit work and it seemed as if every inhabitant was bent upon getting a share of the cash.

The hungry were fed, the naked clothed, the homeless housed, widows pensioned; charitable acts, every one, and made possible by a generous charity fund. But these expenditures didn't exhaust it. They hardly made an impression on it.

Roads were repaired, bridges rebuilt, the river widened, cemeteries laid out, monuments erected, hospitals established; public work every bit of it with no legitimate claim on a charity fund. But still there was money left!

Three million dollars doesn't sound like much when you say it, so familiar have we become with figures which represent the fortunes of the one hundred men whom Senator LaFollette named by name for the enlightenment of his professedly skeptical colleagues, but when you take three million dollars and go out to buy things with it, real material things, it turns out to be a very great deal of money.

When we had managed to use perhaps a million of the fund a meeting was called to decide what should be done with the rest of it. The situation was extremely serious. The flood of gold threatened as great disaster, though of a different nature, as the flood of water had caused. The
residents couldn't be induced to work and workmen had to be brought in from the outside, thus further taxing the capacity of the already overcrowded houses.

The Governor of the State, James A. Beaver, frightened us by counseling delay and investigation of individual cases. Others urged indemnification for losses. This was clearly as improper a use for a charity fund, a fund given to relieve actual suffering and immediate distress, as the public work had been.

Surely no body of men assembled in conference was ever faced by a more unique situation. At this meeting I shocked everybody by advising that the money be converted into silver dollars, since it could not be returned to the donors, loaded into wagons, hauled out and dumped into the streets where the people might literally scramble for it. It was now absolutely certain that nothing could be done until we got rid of it, and this plan had the merit of speed to recommend it anyhow, and I wasn't at all sure that it wouldn't result in about as full a measure of justice as any plan that could be devised after protracted investigation. Mr. Moxham and I were for any plan that was quick.

In the end the committee reimbursed losers, giving each a certain percentage of estimated losses. Before the people were completely demoralized the money was all given away or appropriated, and then the town went to work, went back to the sober pursuit of every-day affairs, and life assumed a normal aspect once more.