Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1900 — NO SIGHS FOR THE DEAD. [ARTICLE]

NO SIGHS FOR THE DEAD.

Survivors of Galveston Disaster Too Much Stunned for Grief. Nowhere save in the presence of some dread calamity is a field offered to study man as he really is. without pretense or subterfuge. Such is the consensus of opinion among those who rushed to Galveston when the news of the disaster first startled the world and who have since remained in the charnel island amid the scenes of bitterness and grief, the everpresent odor of burning human flesh and the thousand and one terrors that were added to the grewsome situation as each succeeding day passed. As soon as the danger from wind and water was over at Galveston and it became apparent that the thousands of dead were elements of greater danger than even the sweeping waves of the gulf, the festering and distorted masses of flesh that filled the streets and yards and floated about the bay were no longer regarded as the sacred dead, but as threatening monsters that bespoke the approach of pestilence of all kinds—per-l haps the deadly and dreaded yellow fever. With the energy that only the spirit of self-preservation could awaken the survivors fell upon the forms that threatened their annihilation and dragged them from their resting place to where they could most readily be disposed of. After a battle no matter how desperate or how heavy the loss there is always time to dig a trench as the last resting place of those who fell. Manifold as are the terrors of such a situation there is usually a chaplain to pronounce a few words over the grave. Rut in Galveston there was no time for prayers or hymns. The clergymen of the city were too busy themselves hewing away at the mountains of wreckage and dragging forth; bodies for the dead scow or the funeral pyre to conduct religious services, for, the living were at the mercy of the dead and the preachers devoted their energy to helping the living. Humanity may recoil at the thought of piling up corpses like so much cordwood' and applying the torch to the oil-soaked mass, and sentiment may rebel at the idea of dragging the unidentified dead to sea to be consigned to the element that brought about their destruction, but therewas no such sentiment to be found in Galveston. It was the living arrayed against the dead—one or the other was doomed to annihilation. At first the leading citizens mingled with the more humble and the colored population, but as the situation improved the work fell to the poorest and most ignorant classes, while the more intelligent assumed the direction of affairs. Many are the stories that are told of fathers tearing away debris only to find their own children buried beneath, crushed almost beyond recognition. Sightseers from the mainland managed to evade the guards and their appearance was the sign for them to be pressed into sen-ice at the revolver point. Then the residents of Galveston who for any reason sought to escape their full share of the ghastly work were forced by the same means and the use of weapons as a convincing argument grew apace.