The American Red Cross Bulletin (Vol. IV, No. 2, April 1909)

Chapter II: Preface (1)

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The April BULLETIN appears with a new cover, on the front page of which is a symbolical figure representing the Red Cross—a strong, womanly form, with arms outstretched over the victims of battle and disaster. What it means to any community devastated by some terrible calamity, and what it means to the sick and wounded in time of war to know that a great, strong, sympathetic organization stands ready and prepared to bring them instant help, only those who have taken part in active relief work can fully understand, but everyone can have some realization of the uplift and encouragements the Red Cross can bring in the terrible days of suffering and depression that follow disaster.

Something of what our American Red Cross has been able to do in Italy for the victims of the most terrible catastrophe of modern times is told in this BULLETIN. We are glad to have been able to give our sympathy practical form, and let the deeds of our Red Cross prove the solidarity of international brotherhood.

The report of the Red Cross Christmas Stamp is given in this number, showing how this little stamp of good cheer has accomplished a very good and widespread mission.

From China has come a report of the relief work, after the flood, near Canton, last year, with illustrations forwarded by the American Vice-Consul there.

A report of the Red Cross work at the time of the Inauguration will be given in the July BULLETIN.

Our people give so liberally when disaster arouses their sympathy, but may we not hope that the time will soon come when, by gifts and legacies to its Endowment Fund, our American Red Cross may be possessed of such a certain income that it can “continue and carry on a system of national and international relief in time of peace, and apply the same in mitigating the sufferings caused by pestilence, famine, fire, floods and other great national calamities, and to devise and carry on measures for preventing the same.” according to its charter, and have always funds on hand with which to render first aid when disasters occur, without having to wait until contributions are received.

The patriotic men and women of other countries have given millions of dollars in small and large donations and legacies to the permanent funds of their Red Cross societies. Will not our men and women show an equally patriotic and humane spirit by doing the same for the American Red Cross?

THE SICILIAN AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKE

“Messina and Reggio destroyed by an earthquake” flashed over the wires and appeared in our press the last days of the year. The terrible news, with its story of the fearful loss of life and property, seemed too appalling to be true. The world, though stunned by its magnitude, was yet to learn that no pen could describe the horrors of a disaster unparalleled in modern history, and that only those who saw the scene of devastation soon after the catastrophe have any realization of its terrible results. As for those who lived through the earthquake and escaped, the mental fear and physical agony they had undergone left their minds dazed and blank. When some realization of the truth dawned upon the world a wave of sympathy was awakened everywhere. It is especially for such times of disaster that the Red Cross has its being, and the call for help was immediately issued from headquarters at Washington. The President and Governors of States were notified that our National Society was ready to receive and transmit the contributions our people were glad to make for suffering Italy. President Roosevelt, in his cables to the King of Italy, expressing his own and his countrymen’s sympathy, stated that the “American Red Cross has issued an appeal for the sufferers.” Many Governors of States issued proclamations, asking that all contributions be sent through the American Red Cross. How promptly and how generously, our people expressed their sympathy in tangible shape is known everywhere. Glad were we in America to do what we could to help our suffering fellow-men in beautiful and well-loved Italy. Something of what the American Red Cross, our national member of that greatest of all institutions of international brotherhood, has been able to do with the contributions it has received is told in this BULLETIN by those who in Italy have helped to administer the funds. In all of this work the Society has had the most valuable and untiring assistance of Mr. Lloyd Griscom, the American Ambassador at Rome. It cannot too strongly express its appreciation of all that he has accomplished in the line of careful and prompt use of the money it has sent. What our Red Cross has accomplished has been done with a sincere desire to be of help, with a deep appreciation of the complex and difficult problem Italy has had and still has to face, and with the hope that the wounds of this beautiful country, so recently devastated by this terrible calamity, may soon be healed and the people re-established in a happy and prosperous life.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ITALIAN RED CROSS

Knowing that the Italian Red Cross was especially well organized for carrying on hospital relief work, because of its field hospitals, fourteen hospital trains and equipment for two ships’ hospitals, besides an active personnel, the American Red Cross transmitted to it through our Ambassador at Rome $320,000 to be applied to its relief work in the earthquake district. The Italian Red Cross, in two previous Calabrian earthquakes and at the time of the Vesuvian eruption, maintained a number of hospitals and relief stations. At the time of the latter disaster the American Red Cross received about $12,000, which was transmitted to the Italian Red Cross. Later a special report was made by this Society of the relief work it performed at that time. A report of the relief operations in Southern Italy will doubtless be issued sometime in the future, but this must not be expected too soon, as experience has taught how long drawn out is relief work after serious disasters. Baron Mayor des Planches, the Italian Ambassador at Washington, in speaking of the Italian Red Cross, said:

“As the representative of the Italian Government, I desire to
give the strongest indorsement of the Italian Red Cross, with
which the American Red Cross is in the most intimate relation,
and to say that my Government places absolute confidence in
this great national organization.”

On January 4, the following cablegram was received from Count Taverna:

“The Italian Red Cross tenders sincerest thanks to American Red
Cross for conspicuous contribution of 1,538,500 Italian lire,
received through American Ambassador in Rome, toward the relief
of the distressed districts of Reggio, Calabria and Messina,
and begs to express its keen appreciation of the feelings of
solidarity and warm sympathy with the stricken populations,
which have prompted their generous act.

“COUNT TAVERNA, President Italian Red Cross.”

Since this despatch was received further remittances have been made, bringing the total of the American Red Cross contributions to the Italian Red Cross up to $320,000.

THE AMERICAN RED CROSS ORPHANAGE

Hundreds of little children were left fatherless and motherless amidst the ruins of Messina and Calabria. Scores of them were even too young to be able to give any information in regard to themselves or their families. For years these must be cared for, and having been left without property or relatives, must be so educated that, after reaching mature years, they will be able to support themselves. Helpless childhood appeals strongly to everyone, and the Red Cross, which after great calamities aims when the first temporary aid is over, to rehabilitate and place again upon their feet the victims of the disasters, was ready to accept the suggestion of the Italian Government that some of the funds entrusted to its administration by the American people should be devoted to the maintenance of an agricultural colony in Sicily or Calabria for the care of a hundred or more of the orphaned children. In national relief the American Red Cross does not permit the use of its emergency funds for the purpose of any permanent endowments, but in international relief it believes it wisest to act under the suggestion of the American diplomatic representative, the Government and relief committees in the country where the disaster occurs. Therefore, when Mr. Griscom, the Ambassador at Rome, after consulting with the Italian Government, asked that such an agricultural orphanage colony be maintained by a donation from the American Red Cross, the suggestion was promptly complied with. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars are to be devoted to this purpose.

The colony will be situated in Sicily or Calabria, and will consist of model farms, where scientific agricultural instructions will be given by agents of the Royal University of Agriculture. The Italian Government will furnish the land, and the Italian National Relief, under the patronage of Queen Helena will provide the buildings. It will be called “The American Red Cross Orphanage,” and the American Ambassador is to be an ex-officio member of its governing committee. It is to be a lay institution, and not ecclesiastical. A yearly budget of its expenses will be published, which must meet the approval of the Minister of the Interior, who at present is also the Prime Minister. A number of the poor women left widows and dependent by the earthquake, and who in many cases also lost their little children, will be given employment at this orphanage, and the care of other little children will help to lift this sorrow from their hearts. From these women the children will receive again much of that mother-love and care of which this terrible disaster has robbed them.

Speaking of this orphanage, Mr. Griscom writes on February 19 to the chairman of the Central Committee of the American Red Cross:

“I can assure you that this generous gift of the American Red
Cross has made a profound impression in Italy. I made the
formal presentation to Her Majesty, the Queen, on the 16th
instant, and Her Majesty was overcome with emotion and for a
moment at loss to express herself. Finally she made a beautiful
speech and poured forth her admiration for the organization of
the American Red Cross.”

Ambassador Griscom, under date of February 18, forwarded to the State Department for transmission to the American Red Cross two letters from the Countess Spaletti Rasponi, the President of the Patronato Regina Elena, and from the Honorable Bruno Chimirri, President of the “Comitato di Vigilanza,” respectively, expressing the gratitude of the Committee and Council of the Patronato Regina Elena for the gift of $250,000, for the establishment of the Orphanage. The letters referred to follow:

“EXCELLENCY:

“The Council of the ‘Opera Nazionale di Patronato Regina
Elena,’ having known of the conspicuous offer of 1,300,000
lire made by the American National Red Cross in favor of
the children whom the recent earthquake has thrown into the
condition of orphans, has passed a vote of thanks to the
officers and to Your Excellency, to whose influential interest
it is due if so important a part of the funds collected in
America has been devoted to our institution.

“And I, interpreting the desire of the Council, warmly and
specially beg Your Excellency to kindly transmit to the
meritorious American Red Cross the expression of our profound
and heartfelt gratitude toward all the noble and great American
nation, not inferior to any other in all the manifestations of
human genius and solidarity.

“With the assurances of my highest consideration,

“The President,
(Signed) “COUNTESS SPALETTI RASPONI.”

“MR. AMBASSADOR:

“I have the honor to offer you the warmest thanks of the
Committee and Council of the ‘Opera Nazionale di Patronato
Regina Elena’ for the generous offer which you have made on
behalf of the Calabrian and Sicilian orphans.

“I beg you to be good enough to be interpreter of our very
grateful sentiments to the American Red Cross, which has
completed, with its splendid gift, its relief work in Calabria
and Sicily.

“The Agricultural Colony, which will be named American Red
Cross Orphanage,’ will perpetuate the remembrance of this
charity, and will contribute to render continually more close
the ancient ties of sympathy and friendship which unite Italy
with your mighty Republic, ties which you called attention to
in your brilliant speech on the occasion of the centenary of
the great President Lincoln.

“Accept, Mr. Ambassador, the assurances of my high
consideration.

(Signed) “B. CHIMIRRI.

“To His Excellency,
“Hon. Lloyd C. Griscom,
“Ambassador of the United States of America, Rome.”

HOUSES FOR ITALY

Our own experiences after serious disasters in the United States have taught us that in nearly all of such cases one of the most serious problems to be met is the providing of shelter for the thousands—sometimes hundreds of thousands of victims. Italy has had this same serious problem to meet after the late unparalleled disaster in Sicily and Calabria. The American Ambassador at Rome was requested by the State Department to consult with the Italian Government as to the best use to be made of the $500,000 left by the Congressional appropriation of $800,000, after the supplies on the Navy ships, _Celtic_ and _Culgoa_, which were sent to the scene of the disaster, had been paid for. The reply came in the nature of a request that this fund be expended in the purchase and providing of materials for houses. This suggestion has been admirably carried out by the Navy Department, which has purchased and shipped, fully prepared, materials for the immediate erection of 2,500 houses, including window sashes, doors, etc., and the charter of four ships for their transportation. Some eight expert carpenters and a large number of tools have been sent on these vessels, that the erection of these houses may go on promptly.

But the need of shelter will continue, for Mr. Griscom writes that the homes of 1,100,000 persons have been completely or partially destroyed and their mode of life interrupted, so on his advice and that of the Italian Government, the American Red Cross, with the kind aid of Pay-Inspector J. A. Mudd, of the United States Navy, who took entire charge of this matter, purchased in New Orleans, at a cost of $100,000, the materials for 550 complete houses, chartering for the purpose of their transportation the S. S. _Newlands_, which sailed for Messina on February 11. Besides the materials for these houses, there was shipped a large quantity of lumber. No carpenters nor tools were sent on this vessel, as those already sent on the Government ships would be available for the work of erecting these Red Cross houses, each of which will have before it a little metal enameled placard in red, white and blue, of which a reproduction is given at the head of this article.

Ex-Governor Guild on January 26 informed the Red Cross that forty-nine portable houses could be obtained in Massachusetts from the Springfield Portable Construction Company. These were purchased for $6,978, and shipped on one of the vessels carrying the government lumber directly to Messina, without expense. The Springfield Portable Construction Company kindly returned to the Red Cross $500 of the payment made on these houses as their contribution for the relief work.

As the Congressional appropriation has been entirely expended for house materials and the chartering of ships, the American Red Cross, besides expending $10,000 for the erection of the houses it has sent over, has transmitted $38,000 to pay for the erection of the houses to be made from the materials purchased and shipped by the United States Government.

EARLY DAYS OF RELIEF

BY W. BAYARD CUTTING, JR.

Special Representative of the American National Red Cross.

_Mr. W. Bayard Cutting, the American Vice-Consul at Milan, who was promptly sent to the scene of the disaster by the Ambassador at Rome to look after American and consular interests, was requested by the American Red Cross to act there as its Special Representative, and $15,000 was placed at his disposition to meet any immediate needs, especially those of any Americans he might discover among the victims. Mr. Cutting most kindly consented to act in this capacity. He was on the scene within a few days of the catastrophe, and his interesting article written for the_ BULLETIN _gives a graphic description of the early days of the relief work. The Red Cross is not only indebted to Mr. Cutting for this article, but for the valuable aid he rendered to the Society._—EDITOR.

When the steamer _Nord Amerika_ entered the harbor of Messina on the morning of January 2, 1909, there was no excited rush among the passengers to get a first view of the town. We knew that we were about to have one of the greatest impressions of our life, to see a panorama of desolation and destruction such as the world has rarely presented in the history of man. Amid that desolation we were to live for days and weeks, and to perform trying duties; new sensations would soon crowd upon us; curiosity would be satisfied all too soon. Meanwhile there was no reason for hurrying to a scene of horror. Thus we sat uneasily in the saloon, where we had spent a night of seasick misery, and tried to munch dry bread and ship’s biscuit, inventing pretexts for not going on deck. We all dreaded the flames and the ruins, and the corpses floating through the straits, up and down with the tide. Then the engines stopped; we had arrived, and must go ashore. Each of us stuffed a loaf or a biscuit into his pocket, and had a look at his revolver. Those few who had water-bottles filled them. With nerves braced to face any horrors, we ascended the companion way.

We saw what the traveler to Messina has seen through the centuries—one of the beautiful places of the earth bathed in the light of the rising sun. We were close to the shore, it is true, and could make out the ruins. The palaces fronting along the stately Marina were roofless. There were gaps between the palaces—white heaps of debris. Toppling buildings, and houses without outer walls, like children’s doll houses, could be made out. Here and there out of a roof came flames and curling smoke. But to see all this one had to look for it. What attracted the eye, and compelled attention through the magical appeal of its beauty, was a broad expanse of still water, protected from the sea by a projecting point of land; then a flat water front, two or three miles long; and behind, circle after circle of hills, bewildering in their rich variety of form and color. This was the real Messina, you felt, what an ancient phraseology would call its formal and final causes. With those fertile hills, with this spacious harbor, situated on a principal trade route, Messina would always be a city. Houses and inhabitants there would always be to embody the Messina idea, to fulfill the Messina purpose.

The port was filled with ships, flying the flags of many nations. Boatmen in rowboats surrounded the _Nord Amerika_ and offered to take us ashore. There was nothing catastrophic or even dramatic in their appearance and manner. I was almost disappointed to see them so well dressed, and pleased, on the other hand, to observe that they did not attempt to bargain. From the boatmen, as a matter of fact, when I talked to them, I first derived that strong impression of the oriental affinity of the Sicilians which deepened with every day of my stay in Messina. Their mood was one of submission, unsurprised and unassertive, to the hard hand of fate. They did not rebel nor complain, and on the other hand they would not strive. Life had ceased to have any value; why trouble about its prolongation? It was folly to think of building a comfortable house, when there was no one left to occupy it; or to earn money which could bring no sweetness. So most of them sat idly in the streets, or under the roof of the market, and took what food was put before them; or stood watching the soldiers dig in their own homes, where their families were buried, without raising a hand to help. The few who worked, like our boatmen, did not care what pay they received. A piece of bread they were glad to get; but when it was a matter of money, one lira or five was all the same.

This apathy of the native population, amounting to a kind of stupor, since it abolished even begging, stood out sharply before us, when we went ashore, in contrast to the activity of the military forces. As we turned to the left down the long Marina—we had landed near the northern extremity of the town and it was clear that the center of things was far to the south—the way was so crowded that we could not walk more than two abreast, and were often obliged to fall into single file. The Marina is a broad promenade along the water’s edge; but at least half its width was blocked with debris from the palaces at the back; and on the water side the way was stopped by impediments of all kinds; piles of lumber, blanket heaps and rude huts put up for temporary shelter—tarpaulins spread over poles, for the most part. As we walked down the middle, picking our way among the cracks and fissures in the ground, we were constantly making way for troops of soldiers with spades and pick-axes over their shoulders. Almost equally numerous were the parties bearing long lines of litters. They were marching in our direction or else out of side streets to our right; and as they passed we looked nervously at each burden, to see whether the face was uncovered. Sometimes it was; occasionally even the occupant of the litter was raised on his elbow, staring with uncomprehending curiosity at the crowd on either side. More often no face was exposed; then we knew that the man was one of those dead who encumbered the path to the living. No bodies were touched, we knew, unless they actually impeded the work of rescue. Otherwise they must be left alone; the living had the first claim. Yet the line of litters was unending.

On our right the view of the town was screened by a line of fairly intact house fronts. The principal palaces of Messina had flanked the Marina; their outer walls had resisted bravely, on the whole. Such glimpses as we got of the interiors made it clear that those walls were mere shells; still they gave to the Marina a deceptive appearance of solidity. Between the palaces, however, came long heaps of mere debris, thirty or forty feet high. One of them we knew must be our consulate; but which? No one could tell us. No one could even direct us to the military headquarters, or to the office of the Prefect. The Italian officers knew less than the native inhabitants; they were strangers and newcomers like ourselves. We walked ahead at random towards the curve at the southern end of the harbor where masts and funnels were most numerous. Occasionally, as we passed a side street less completely blocked than the rest, we got a view of the interior of the town—an incoherent extravagance of ruin such as no pen can describe. The street always ended in a mountainous mass of wreckage; but the houses at the sides had assumed every variety of fantastic attitude. Beams and pillars crossing at absurd angles; windows twisted to impossible shapes, floors like “montagnes russes;” roofs half detached and protruding, preserved in place quite inexplicably. And then front walls torn away, laying bare the interior of apartments. In the same house one room would be a heap of wreckage, and its neighbor absolutely intact, with the music open at the piano, a marked book on the table, and the Italian Royal Family looking down from the walls. A third room perhaps held nothing but a chandelier, but that chandelier in perfect condition, without a broken globe. No two houses were alike; the earthquake had picked its victims here and there, following no predictable rule. Sometimes the victims could be seen lying in their own houses. Here and there a rope of knotted sheets hanging from a window showed where someone had escaped. And everywhere solitude and silence, save for the sound of the pick and the shovel. Only the soldiers and officials were allowed in the town: all others must remain on the Marina.

RED CROSS STATION.

A little this side of the Municipio, or city hall, which we identified through the flames and smoke in which it was enveloped, we came upon a Red Cross station—a square building belonging to the Custom House. Here, stretched out in the sun, lay the rescued of the day—five or six only, for it was not yet nine o’clock. Opposite the Municipio was the covered market, now the home of hundreds of survivors, and a place where bread was distributed. Between the market and the Municipio a marble Neptune of the eighteenth century still posed in nude absurdity. The most trivial of figures in the most trivial of poses had been spared, to the tips of his silly fingers, to stand between the flaming wreckage of the palace and the human wreckage of the market. Still further along, where the Marina widened again, we came upon the landing where the dead were laid out—men, women and children, all deposited in haste under some inadequate covering; a ghastly sight. From time to time a row boat would come up to the landing. The bodies were piled into it, and rowed out to sea.

The Commander-in-Chief, we ascertained at last, could be found on the Duca di Genova, a steamer of the merchant marine anchored at the southern end of the harbor. Our struggle through the crowds to the landing stage; our fruitless efforts to get a boat; our final success, through the help of a friendly Italian officer; our visits to one ship and another, to authorities military and civil; our vain attempts to extract even the simplest information, such as the situation of our consulate and the fate of our consul; all this would be as dreary to tell as it was to experience. After three or four hours of ceaseless effort we returned to the shore with the following net acquisitions: an order for a tent, which we might pitch at a place to be appointed by the General in command of the third sector; permission to send one short official telegram; and a friend.

The friend was Mr. Baylis Heynes, a British merchant of Messina, who represented the firm of Peirce Brothers. His house had been spared by the earthquake. After taking his wife and children to a villa outside of the town, he had hurried back without a thought for personal safety or comfort and had thrown himself into the work of saving lives and property. In the villa his wife was caring for more than fifty destitute Messinesi, with such little food and clothing as she could procure. Mr. Heynes meanwhile was indefatigable in the work of rescue; and his coolness and intelligence at a time when everyone else was excited and flustered had already proved of inestimable value. He now offered us his house for a consulate, and the large garden behind for a Red Cross hospital. They were situated at the extreme northern end of the town, more than two miles from the headquarter’s ships. But the house was solid and uninjured and the garden spacious; it was in fact the “Lawn Tennis Club” of Messina. We accepted gladly Mr. Heynes’ kind offer, and started back with him to inspect the premises.

It was no longer morning. The sun had been shining brightly for many hours. The smell of the dead rose from the earth, unendurably penetrating. It floated across the Marina on a light shore breeze; then at places it became suddenly pungent, so pungent that you expected to tread upon the cause. The ruined masses beside us took on a new horror. Beneath them, close to the dead of whose presence we were unconscious, were thousands of living, whose only air was the air we smelt. How few the soldiers seemed, in comparison to the gigantic task of excavation! And why were they all away? Poor men, they needed their mid-day rest, perhaps the full three hours they were given; but could there not be twice as many, working in relays?

AMERICAN CONSULATE.

Mr. Heynes pointed out the Consulate—perhaps the largest, solidest, most hopeless mass of rubbish in the whole of Messina. Nothing deserving the name of an object was discernable in the whole pile, except the long flag-staff which protruded from the heap towards the street. The Consulate had been a corner house on a side street; surely we ought to be able to identify at least the remains of the stone arch which had marked the entrance to the street. But the mass was absolutely compact and uniform, obliterating every trace of an opening. It was not astonishing that the soldiers had left that particular pile unexcavated. Hundreds of men would be needed, for many days, to get to the bottom of the mound; and what chance was there, at the end, of finding a survivor? The fate of Dr. and Mrs. Cheney was already a tragic certainty; the best that could be hoped was that their death had been instantaneous.

Not far beyond the Consulate, on a side street near the Piazza Vittoria (now a large camp, filled with tarpaulin shacks), we saw the ruined house of Mr. Joseph Peirce, who had been our vice-consul until six days before the earthquake. A few soldiers were working in the heap; and several of the former occupants of the building were standing by, each waiting for some relative to be disinterred. One of the bystanders had been two days buried under the house, but had worked himself near enough to the surface to make himself heard, and had thus been rescued. All had known Mr. Peirce; two said they had seen him on the second day after the earthquake, his body buried and terribly crushed, his head alone appearing out of the wreckage. They told us that his brother had come to save him, but had not been able to remove the heavy pile of masonry and beams. When all efforts proved unavailing the brother had said goodbye to Mr. Peirce and stood there till he died. The body was gone now, evidently the brother had removed it later.

When we had returned to the Marina, near the point where we had first landed, we found our baggage heaped in the middle of the road. To my servant, Antonio Alegiani, who sat upon the pile, an old man was talking voluble English without noticing that he was not understood. The stranger introduced himself as John B. Agresta, a naturalized American, a pensioner of the Civil War and a very important person at the consulate. He had been guide and interpreter. He had done much work for Dr. Cheney. He would show us everything, the part of the house where the Cheneys slept, the office, the safe; especially the safe. In it we should find two thousand lire belonging to him (Agresta). Why did we not come at once instead of wasting time talking to people who knew nothing? Dr. Cheney was dead, of course, and Mrs. Cheney. And Mr. Lupton? Yes, he was dead, too, and there was no doubt of it. Agresta had seen him the night before the earthquake, and had since seen his hotel, not a stone of it in place. Poor Mr. Lupton was certainly dead.

Just at this moment a young man with a pipe in his mouth came round the corner. “Why, hello, Agresta,” he said, “glad to see you alive.” It was Lupton himself, our vice-consul. We thought he must have stepped out of a ruin, or been dug out; in our greeting, no doubt, was something of the awe with which one would salute a visitor from the other world. Lupton soon explained that he had never left the earth, nor even its surface. Half of his hotel had been spared; he had walked down the stairs into the black street, and waded about in water up to his knees till morning dawned. The story has been published in his own words; I wish I could insert the anecdotes and reproduce the turns of the phrases with which he made us see, as in a flash, that prodigious morning of December 28th. We told him we had come to help him, and put ourselves under his orders; he seemed glad to see us; we were soon friends. Together we set out to inspect Mr. Heynes’ house and garden.

It was a solid two-story building, one of an uninjured block; the very house, as a tablet reminded us, in which Garibaldi had lived at the time of his triumphant entrance into Messina at the head of the Thousand. Over the door we set up the American shield, and hung out the flag from a corner window. A week later the British flag flew beside it. Mr. Heynes had been appointed acting vice-consul of his nation. Meanwhile we turned the entrance hall below into a consular office, and set up our beds in the large garden behind, under a tent, so soon as we were able to obtain that coveted article. Sleeping upstairs was unsafe, so long as we continued to have four or five shocks a day, some of them severe enough to bring down a number of buildings.

Once settled, three problems confronted us; to excavate the old consulate, to ascertain the fate of such Americans as had been in Sicily at the time of the earthquake, and to bring relief to the suffering population of Messina.

The first task fell almost entirely to Major Landis, our Military Attachè at the Embassy in Rome. On the night of our arrival a squad of thirty Italian soldiers, under a lieutenant, was put at his disposition for the excavation of the consulate, and there he spent the work hours of the next fortnight. Towards the end the Italian soldiers were replaced by sailors from our own warships; it was the crew of the _Illinois_ who finally discovered the remains of Dr. and Mrs. Cheney. They were found at the very bottom of the pile, only four feet above the street level, though their bedroom had been on the second floor. They had been killed at once and apparently without suffering; it was reasonable to hope that no return of consciousness had broken the slumber from which they passed into eternal rest.

Our second duty was to find and succor Americans. Among the survivors at Messina, besides Dr. Lupton and Agresta, we found only one family, a naturalized American with the six small children of one of his brothers who lived in Brooklyn. These we sent back to the United States. But, what Americans had been killed? This question we had no means of solving. We had brought with us long lists of Americans known to be in Sicily, whose relatives were inquiring anxiously about their fate. Something must be attempted in order to put an end to the agonized suspense of so many families. Most of the persons whom we wished to find were doubtless safe at one of the Sicilian resorts. As for telegrams, none had yet arrived from any source, and letters were not delivered until the eleventh day; there were no postal clerks, we were informed, to distribute them. It was plain that the only way to get information was to go and get it. Two of us were accordingly detailed to take the train to Taormina.

After obtaining with some difficulty the military pass allowing us to return, we walked to the railroad station and boarded a train. No one knew whether it would start that day or the next. As a matter of fact it began to move less than two hours after our arrival, and with surprising speed considering its portentous length and its over-crowded condition. In spite of long stops at every station, to take out wounded or to let them aboard, the journey of thirty miles was completed in two hours and a quarter. We were surprised to find that after eight or ten miles all signs of destruction ceased. The first villages were in ruins, like Messina; and in the fields soldiers were digging great rows of trenches, in which they deposited lime: obviously the sea was no longer to receive all the dead. But soon we came upon towns with only a few fallen houses; before long a mutilated roof was a curiosity; and fifteen miles from Messina the country presented a completely normal appearance. We did not realize then that those villages between Messina and Taormina were in greater distress than any district, probably, in the whole of Sicily or Calabria. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of refugees from the city fled on foot to these little towns, imploring charity. The inhabitants received them with true hospitality and gave them of their best. But as the days and weeks passed the supply of food ran short. Nothing arrived by rail; the trains were filled with cargoes for Messina or else for Taormina or Catania; charity passed the little places by. It was a month after the earthquake that two American gentlemen from Taormina, Messrs. Wood and Bowdoin, discovered and reported the incredible distress of this starving rural population. And now another American, Mr. Billings, of Boston, is devoting himself to the relief of this district and is spending there the principal part of the generous offerings of Massachusetts.

TAORMINA.

Taormina was full of rumors. For a week the only news had been supplied by wounded refugees, distraught with fear and misery; in their description the earthquake had become almost a supernatural event. Strange lights had blazed in the sky; a comet had struck the earth and raised the waters of the deep. Luckily the wires to Catania and Syracuse, and from Catania to Palermo, were open. By telegraphing to all of these cities and by searching the hotel registers of Taormina, we were able to find nearly all the names on our lists. There were many Americans still in Taormina and many English. All of them were working together, distributing relief and caring for the sick. A hundred and fifty refugees were in the hospital of Taormina and three hundred and eighty in the little fishing village of Giardini at the foot of the cliff. Our countrymen were working night and day to help them, giving them food and clothing; and instead of complaining of the heavy burden of so many patients, they begged us to send more. One or two of them met every train from Messina, to distribute bread to the hungry passengers. The ladies devoted themselves chiefly to the hospitals, where they worked with unremitting energy.

BACK TO MESSINA.

Our brief glance at the efficient relief of Taormina made the conditions at Messina, upon our return, seem even more desperate than before. Here the problem was vastly complicated by the dispersion of the population and the lack of any registers of inhabitants. The scarcity of houses had driven the population to take refuge, so far as possible, in the hill villages surrounding the town. Here most of the families were installed, not only the able-bodied, but the sick and wounded as well. One of each family would spend the days in Messina, trying to procure enough food to keep his relatives alive. The complete lack of transport animals and the absorption of the soldiers in the work of rescue, made relief expeditions to the villages impossible. For food distributions in Messina the rule had been adopted; one man, one loaf. The absence of registers made it possible for a strong man to push repeatedly to the head of the line, and to get bread at all the distributing places in succession. The result was a more or less disorderly rush for bread at all the distributing points, and the exclusion of all but the strongest, while many worthy families suffered from hunger in the midst of comparative plenty.

On the evening of our first arrival at Messina, I had a chance to talk to Senator Duranti, the chief of a hospital expedition sent by the order of the Cross of Malta. I asked him what articles of food, clothing and medical supplies were most needed, and how the American money accumulating in Rome could be spent with most profit to Messina. He told me that medical stores of all kinds were sadly wanted, and that there was still a lack of food, bread, macaroni, olive oil, butter, and especially milk—for the women and children—and also underclothes and shirts. The milk should be sterilized, not condensed, because the ignorant peasant women could not be induced to give their children an unaccustomed food, especially if it had to be prepared or mixed. Acting upon Senator Duranti’s advice, we telegraphed that night to the Ambassador in Rome for the enumerated supplies. The U. S. despatch boat _Scorpion_, which had just arrived from Constantinople, was starting for Naples to coal. Her commander, Captain Logan, kindly took our dispatches to the Ambassador, and brought back the supplies, which we received on the 6th. At the same time we learned that an American relief ship was being stocked in Rome, and would soon arrive with huge stores of food and clothing, and that the U. S. S. _Culgoa_ was due on the 8th from Port Said with immense supplies of all kinds.

The arrival of our first stores—which luckily far exceeded our requests—brought us face to face with the problem of direct distribution. Messina was already more orderly. On the 6th or 7th the Marina was first lighted by electricity—a fortunate occurrence, since most of the foreign warships on whose search lights we had been dependent, had now departed. To these ships Messina and Italy had good reason to be grateful.

BRITISH AND RUSSIAN SAILORS’ AID.

I do not know what words could adequately convey the extent of service rendered by all the fleets, but especially the British and Russian. As transports, store ships, refugees’ hospitals, telegraph stations they had been invaluable: but it was as rescuers of the living that they were pre-eminent. The Russian sailor was a revelation to those who did not know the quiet common sense, the tactful sympathy and the unassuming heroism of the moujik. The Russians were the only people who always had everything on the spot. The saying got about that they had ordered the earthquake and fitted out a fleet beforehand for the purpose of relief. As to the British bluejackets, they had not a reputation to make. They did exactly what was expected of them; and in the expected way; that is with energy and courage, with easy practical mastery of every kind of work, and with complete unconsciousness of anything unusual or particularly meritorious in their performance. And the English nation and press, instinctively realizing that silence may be a higher tribute than praise, has accepted the fleet’s work at its own valuation; as a task performed in the ordinary way of duty, and performed well, as became British sailors.

About the same time or a little later, the water supply was connected with a portion of the town. Lack of water had been one of our chief discomforts. It could be procured at one place only, two miles from the consulate; with great difficulty we had obtained a pailful each day for our party. The streets had become filthy beyond description: now it was possible to flood them. A train to Palermo crawled out of Messina from time to time. The dead were being removed from the streets, and many of them were buried instead of being taken out to sea. On the fires in front of the tarpaulin houses stood pots of macaroni cooking. The hospital ships which departed for Naples, Genoa or Catania were no longer crowded to over-flowing. The people actually living in Messina were comparatively comfortable. But every improvement in organization brought out more clearly the needs which confusion had obscured. Inside the city and out, no one had any clothes except what he had been able to snatch from his house on the morning of the 28th; and not two miles from the Municipio, in all directions, ran the hunger line—beyond which lay the region of actual famine.

It must be remembered that Messina was in a state of siege. That means that it was controlled in every department by a single central military authority. The state of siege was necessary in order to maintain order and health; but it entailed inevitable disadvantages in connection with relief work. Effective relief should be decentralized; it should operate through innumerable agents invested with responsibility and discretionary power, who seek out the individual and have the means to assist him. Government by martial law means that nothing can be done or given except by permission of the military chief, and an order for stores cannot be obtained in a minute. This was why the hospitals, the Red Cross stations and relief agencies of all kinds were so frequently short of supplies. Requisitions of particular articles which had run out, such as brandy or antiseptics or milk, required too great an expense of time; the workers were everywhere fewer than the needs: they could not be spared. From our own experience in sending telegrams or procuring permits we learned to appreciate the inevitable disabilities of a system of complete centralization in dealing with a situation of such chaotic complexity.

What part we could take as independent distributors was not evident. Under the circumstances we decided to divide our supplies into three parts. The first, consisting of medical stores, milk, butter, oil, chocolate and underclothes, was given to the central medical officials, for use in the hospitals. The second, of a similar nature, we took to Reggio and San Giovanni, for distribution to the hospitals there. The medical authorities of each place selected from our lists the articles of which they were in need. The remainder of the stores we took to the consulate and distributed ourselves.

In picking out individuals to assist, we paid special attention to residents of our own district, with whom we were beginning to become acquainted, to persons known to Mr. Heynes, and to such inhabitants of Messina as had some connection with America. We were constantly asked by Messinesi to send telegrams to their relatives in the United States, and if possible to help them rejoin those relatives. But as our immigration laws forbid the importation of the destitute, we had to tell the applicants that we could send their telegrams, but that we could not provide passage to America.

The consulate soon became a busy place. Two soldiers stood at the door to keep the line of applicants in order; inside, one of us investigated the applicants, and registered the facts of each case in a book, another took the written orders and brought back the stores, which were handed out by a third. It is perhaps superfluous to add that in cases of actual hunger no investigation was attempted. The help of Mr. and Mrs. Heynes was invaluable throughout. It enabled us to send stores to families at a distance, who had not heard of our consulate or were unable to come. Other pitiable cases were brought to our attention by the American and English newspaper correspondents, and by Mr. Frank A. Perret, the seismic expert well known for his heroism at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius in 1906.

Meanwhile the United States Warships _Yankton_ and _Culgoa_, the latter loaded with stores, had joined the _Scorpion_ in the harbor. The sailors were detailed to help us clean the house and garden and put up a number of tents for a hospital. Colonel Radcliffe, the British Military Attachè, to whose clear-headed determination is due the chief credit for the admirable organization of British relief work, aided us in countless ways. He was occupied at that time in searching for the body of Mrs. Ogston, wife, of the British Consul. When the remains were found, it was a party of American sailers from the _Connecticut_ that formed the funeral escort.

ARRIVAL OF THE “BAYERN.”

Then, on the evening of the 8th, arrived the American Red Cross Relief Ship _Bayern_, with the American Ambassador aboard and the American Naval Attachè, Captain Belknap, in command. I am still amazed at the intuitive grasp of the situation displayed by the organizers of the expedition. From inception to completion, in every detail of planning and execution, the cruise of the _Bayern_ was emphatically a success.

Messina was not the place, however, where the _Bayern_ was needed. A day ashore convinced the Ambassador and the committee that large distributions of food and clothing were not advisable at the present time. Supplies and a sum of money were given to the Archbishop of Messina, for his hospital; the stock at the consulate was replenished; a trip was made to the Calabrian coast, where the military authorities were given what stores they requested; then, early on the morning of the 11th, the _Bayern_ sailed for Catania.

CATANIA.

We went ashore, wondering whether we were needed. An hour later we wondered whether it was worth our while to think of going anywhere else. The situation at that time was simply appalling: it is appalling today, five weeks after our visit. Catania and every house in Catania had been swamped with refugees. Three thousand of them lay in the five hospitals; two thousand in the three main refuges—converted barracks or convents; and twenty thousand were scattered over the city. One lady whom we met had sixty in her own house; another, thirty: another, seventeen. The Prefect was spending 20,000 lire daily, a sum barely sufficient to supply bread rations and to keep the hospitals running, but quite insufficient to provide sheets or clothing for the patients. Even the hospitals were short of mattresses; in the refuges the inmates slept on heaps of straw. The little towns in the country districts were as full of refugees as Catania and in still greater distress; at Catania there was at least bread. Red Cross branches, municipal committees of men and women, were working valiantly, but they were struggling with absolute penury—a complete lack of funds. The money received by the Prefect from the Government appeared to be the only cash from the outside which had yet arrived at Catania. It was still only a fortnight since the earthquake. Apparently no one in Italy had yet realized that money was needed immediately in places like Catania. Food and clothing were sent, for instance, but at Catania the food and clothing shops were well stocked. The _Bayern_ after giving away nearly its whole supply of clothes renewed the supply by purchases at Catania for distribution at Reggio. Obviously it would have been more economical to have given the Catanians money to buy the clothes of which they were in want than to send the clothes from Italy. The work of making up the clothes could have been given to the refugees themselves, had there been money to pay them. It is true that at Catania, as elsewhere, we found a general conviction that nothing would make the refugees work. The women, it was said, had their children to look after; the men could think of nothing but returning to Messina to recover their property and the remains of their relatives. All were plunged in a state of morbid apathy which made work out of the question. This view, however plausible under the circumstances, has been completely disproved; wherever the refugees have been given work to do _under proper supervision_, they have worked. But at Catania the point was not worth arguing. There was no money to buy stuffs and sewing machines, or to pay wages; no rooms which could be used as workshops. A movement might have been organized to employ fifty or a hundred women, perhaps; but with 25,000 refugees to keep from starvation and crime the city could not spare any of its workers to organize an employment agency which, at the best, would benefit only a few persons. Nothing but large sums of ready money could have helped the situation; and ready money was not yet forthcoming. The _Bayern_ had brought a certain amount of money to distribute; and I had funds of the American Red Cross. With what we had we were able to give sums of cash to the committees, the hospitals, the refuges and other charities.

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The American Red Cross Bulletin (Vol. IV, No. 2, April 1909)Chapter II: Preface (1)

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