Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1886-10-14
Charleston,s Condifion.

one has broken down in the recital,
some with almost an agony of sob
bing. No one in Charleston pretend
ed to have been brave. And yet, their
trembling was not of fear, but OF the
overwhelming sense of awe and power.
lessness.
Some conception of the state OF feel
ing which then existed may be realized
by what occurred in my own knowledge
two weeks after. The steamship in
which ] reached Charleston at nine
o'lock Monday night last, soon after
mooring ut the dock, blew off steam
with more than the usual noise. A
passenger, who had gone ashore, and
was making an inquiry OF police
man in a street two squares of from
the wharf, was astounded to see the
officer tremblc like an aspen leaf, and
to hear him cry out in alarm at the
sound. AS soon as the policeman
learned what was the cause of the
noise, he made apology for his con
sternation, and said that the heavy
slamming of door would make peo-
pie flee from their homes. And yet
there are no Drawer men anywhere
than those OF our municipal police. A
young friend, who faced, without
fiinching, and was wounded in one of
the negro riots in our streets after the
war, told me that he ran an entire
block when he heard strange sound,
which proved, afterward, to be moth
ing but the step of a man on the turn
table of the street railway.
The situation here has not been
overdrawn and oyerwritten, for the
simple reason that it could not be.
We have a, city OF ruins. There is
enough externally visible, of wreck
and devastation, to alright and par.
ali2e, but what the eye sees is but
little OF what the most cursory search
reveals. / have seen and heard oil
but a single house that escaped I'M
scathed. How could it be otherwise.
All individual experiences-and Ihave
had so many given me by all ages, sexes,
classes and colors that have become
absolutely sick at the recital-agree
that the earth, upon which Charles.
ton and its village suburbs were built,
tossed and heaved and swayed and
shook literally like storm-swept sea.
Men, springing towards their doors,
found themselves climbing, at one
moment, up an ascent, only to be
tossed back again, as upon q refiuent
wave. Every movable article in
dwellings followed the motion of the
swinging earth, and chimneys, rafters,
ceilings, walls, came tumbling
about the heads OF the impris-
oned dwellers. Whole fronts and
rears of dwellings, porticoes, piazzas,
fell with a crash, and it seemed, for
the moments that appeared months,
that all the foundations of the earth
were undermined. | have scarcely
seen one person who hoped to escape
with life. The common expression
has been, ~ thought the end had
GOMEZ shall never look death in the
face so closely and consciously again"
And yet the deaths that actually
came were strangely and mercifully
few. The doors. which would not
open to presumed safety, shut in very,
very many to the only escape possible.
Nine-tenths OF the fatality was in the
street. Young Ainslie Robson was
almost the only one who lost not his
life in the effort to save it, and he was
crushed by the piazza upon which he
was sitting. His two sisters were
buried in the same ruin with him, but
were rescued without q scratch. He
lived for hours, hurt in the head, and
| died a few minutes after his release
from the superintendent mass of the
fallen beams.
But there is no need to dwell upon
| these things. They have been written,
with graphic and faithful pens, by
practiced journalists. What of the
| present and future? Why this
Charleston has not lost heart, hope
or faith. | have yet to hear one
word OF complaint, one breath Of dis
heartenment. The people are ready
to spring forward to rehabilitate their
homes and city, not with defiant, but
| determined energy. Theunspeakable,
| unreasonable sympathy, help and
tender thought of the whole country
for them would have nerved their
hands, even if they had been palsied,
but those hands have never lost their
cunning OF confidence to grapple with
adversely, and upheld by the ungrudg-
ing and inspiring support OF the whole
country else, they will fear no failure
to recover what has been lost.
The chief need is aid to rebuild
homes. There is no danger of starya-
tion-the city is sentineled with agen-
cies of relief for the impoverished.
Food and raiment will be lacking to
none. The grandly, generous country,
north, east and west, yea and south,
has provided for this. But the small
householders, who are in the major
ity, and who must pull down shatter-
ed walls and rebuIld-these will need
the means by which the expense can
be met, and the aggregate oftheir need
will be an imposing sum. The north.
profuse, Overlooking and monumental
as has been it's liberality, need not
fear that its good will can surpass the
| claim upon it, nor its bounty be I'M
wisely orunworthily bestowed.
1could write columns upon the theme
OF which perhaps, have already writ
ten too much. If | have exceeded
proper limits, toyour thought, my ex-
cuse must be, that l have scarcely
said anythingto my own. May beg,
in closing, to make grateful &C
acknowledgement to the friends in Albany,
who, during my brief sojourn there on
my way here, made me the custodian
of generous contributions, which l was
personally to dispense among the
needy here. / am discharging that
grateful Office daily, and in two days,
have placed SITS in hands which were
empty, and which are lifted in prayer
for and benediction upon the kind
donors. ! have other sums which
are to be disbursed by me PERSONAL
ly in like manner. The friends
who thus enabled me to give in
dividual experience and care to the
help which they afforded to stricken
ones were those who had already con-
tributed to the large fund which has
been raised in the dear old city of Al
bany by public subscription, and for
warded TO the mayor of Charleston.
May God bless them all, whose kindly
feeling for US took such tangible and
practical form, and may the time
never come when an earthquake shall
shake the town which has stood
for two hundred years upon the Hud-
son, as it has shaken the town which
has passed it's bIcentennial upon the
Ashley and Cooper.
CHARLES s. VEDDER,
Pastor, Huguenot church, Charleston,
S..