THE 



NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Vol. XI OCTOBER, 1900 Xo. 10 



THE LESSONS OF GALVESTON 



By W J McGee 

 Formerly Geologist in Charge Coastal Plain Division, U. S. Geological Survey 



The darkest horror of American histor}' has fallen on our southern 

 coast; a city comparable in population and wealth with Ephesus and 

 Sodom of old, with Herculaneuai and Pompeii of a})palling memory, 

 and with earthquake-wrecked Lisbon of later centuries, is blotted out 

 in a night. Thirty-eight tiiousand people, the life and soul of a pro- 

 gressive and thriving city, are overwhelmed and doubly decimated 

 by wind and wave in the darkness ; literal thousands are crushed in 

 their own falling houses or drowned in the raging waters ; every sur- 

 vivor is made homeless, and most of them are utterh'' impoverished. 

 The morning's sun rises on a scene of suffering and devastation hardly 

 paralleled in the history of the world — a scene which has been, and 

 will be again and again, described by tongue and pen, but never in 

 more than a fraction or suggestion of the ghastly details. Out of the 

 awful chaos spring the twin progeny of catastrophe, begotten of the 

 best and the worst of humanity — Heroism, clad gloriously in helpful- 

 ness and self-abnegation, and Ghoulism, shrouded vilely in cowardice 

 and unholy greed. For many hours the disaster is secluded b}^ the 

 very extent of its wreckage, but the next day brings s^nnpathy and 

 substantial aid in a measure unequaled in the annals of nations : the 

 great State of Texas is stirred into nol)le activit}' ; hard-pressed Fed- 

 eral officials turn promptly from grave political and international 

 problems toward the stricken city on the coast, while literal millions 

 of fellow citizens spring to seek means of contributing to the allevia- 

 tion of tile lot of the sufferers. Viewed as a physical phenomenon, 

 the destruction of Galveston was a moving spectacle; viewed in its 

 effect on human sym[)athy. it was sublime beyond all precedent. 



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