AN APPEAL by Clara Barton

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Nov 7, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 45.

Scene on 24th Street, Galveston, Texas, after the Storm.

AN APPEAL

By Clara Barton

To the Manufacturers of and Dealers in Lumber, Hardware, Builders' Materials, and Household Goods, and to the Business Men in General of the United States. GALVESTON, Texas, Oct. 7, 1900. GENTLEMEN: By the conditions which surround us, conditions which only those seeing them would be likely to conjecture, and none so likely as yourselves to comprehend, we are constrained to address you.

This unfortunate seaport island and town had four weeks ago a population of about forty thousand persons. In one day and night it is estimated that approximately ten thousand of these were either drowned or killed by the fury of the storm. The buildings were largely slate or metal roofed; this broken rock must have been hurled through the air like cannon shot. The bodies found are badly mangled.

We believe it is reliably stated that there is not one house in the area of the storm undamaged by it. A large proportion of those persons formerly occupying them are entirely without homes, or even shelter, save such as persons nearly as destitute as themselves can offer them temporarily, to their own great inconvenience and cost.

The number of this homeless class is estimated at eight thousand or more. Winter is less than two months away. Altho a mild climate, still snow and ice are known here. If tents would protect, which they would not, the sea sand and the quicksand would not hold them down; the first norther would leave their occupants as unsheltered as before, and hardships, colds, pneumonia, and consumption would finish what the storm has left.

Some substantial shelter must be had at once for these people, and it would seem to be the duty of those on the ground to put the facts in an intelligent form before the people of the country, who are not here and can not see for themselves, and who could not comprehend without seeing.

With this view the National Red Cross has, with the co-operation of the general committee, obtained estimates of the best-known architects of the vicinity regarding the material needed for the construction of the necessary number of houses, tenements, or homes for the suitable sheltering of these now unsheltered thousands of suffering people.

The following is a summary made up from these joint plans, and represents substantially the lumber and building material that would be required to shelter about eight thousand people in the most ordinary one-story, weather-proof houses, built singly, or in blocks of tenements.

Summary.

Rough lumber, spruce, or pine: 35,000 pieces 2x10, 16 feet long. 4,000 pieces 6x6, 16 feet long. 3,500 pieces 4x6, 16 feet long. 5,500 pieces 4x4, 16 feet long. 6,500 pieces 2x4, 16 feet long. Tongued and grooved flooring: 90,000 pieces 1x6, 16 feet long. 4,000 window frames and sash, 2 feet 10 by 6 feet 6. 4,000 door frames and doors, 2 feet 8 by 6 feet 6. 4,000 hinges, 3 inch, and screws. 4,000 hooks and staples. 125,000 pieces 1x12, 12 feet long. 80,000 pieces 1x3, 12 feet long.

25,000 pieces 2x8, 16 feet long. 10,000 pieces 2x4, 16 feet long. 90,000 pieces 1x6, 16 feet long. 50,000 bricks for chimneys. 7,000 squares of felt roofing, 3-ply. 50 kegs 8-penny nails. 17 kegs 20-penny nails. Carpenter's tools for 100 carpenters. Bedsteads, bedding, chairs, tables, stoves, crockery, cutlery, and sewing machines sufficient to furnish about 700 four-room houses in a modest, comfortable manner.

Some 4,000 dwellings and all their contents were absolutely washed away or lie in the piles of wreckage—a worse than worthless mass, a menace to the safety of the remaining portion of the city.

The havoc wrought by the storm in Galveston alone was much larger in loss of life and property than at Johnstown, but the donations in money thus far have aggregated one-third less for both the city and the mainland than was given at Johnstown.

Wreck of Hotel and Post-office, Galveston, Texas, after the Storm.

While the bountiful outpouring of the people's generosity enabled the general relief committee and the Red Cross to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and render the streets of Galveston partially passable, nothing has yet been done toward reinstating the impoverished survivors in houses where they can escape disease and enjoy a slight measure of the comforts of which the storm deprived them.

It is for the purpose of awakening the sympathies of the American people, and further appealing to their bountiful instincts to rescue these sufferers from the hardships still confronting them, that the above statements have been put forth.

Of the material named, it is believed that Texas and Louisiana would prefer to furnish a large portion of the lumber. The other building material and household goods must come from those States which produce such articles. AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS, CLARA BARTON, President. STEPHEN E. BARTON, 2nd Vice-Pres.