Johnstown weekly Democrat. (Johnstown, Cambria County, Pa.) 1889-1916, 1889-11-01
CLARA BARTON.
THE JoHNSToWN DISASTER COM
PARED WITH OTHER HORRORS

Observation-An Elegant Testimonial
Previous to Her Departure.
Miss Clara Barton, being about to leave
our city, is attracting much attention. In
fact she will not be fully appreciated
until she has left us. " Blessings brighten
as they take their flight, is an old
sa, ing. The people are now beginning to
sec more fully how much good Miss Bar
ton has been doing amongst us, Although
she and the Red Cross have been appreci-
ated ever since they have been here, their
withdrawal will make more apparent
what blessing they were.
A part of recent interview with Miss
Barton was as follows:
How does the Johnstown flood COM
pare in its effects with scenes that you
have elsewhere witnessed in war or pes
tilence?"
"The scenes here could scarcely be
compared with those Of war, This thing
happened all at once, and it was done.
War goes on. In the war the victims are
not all killed. Some of them remain to
be cared for. This would seem to have
been like battle in olden times, when
the victors went through and slew all the
wounded and left only dead on the field.
In the matter of relief, it was easier to
relieve here, for one was safe while doing
so. | have been accustomed, while on
the field, to give while under fire and in
danger the kind of relief that | gave.
Here one might work unmolested. This
spectacle was as CHASTITY, for the first few
days, as a battle with the burying of its
dead. l should judge that, for the hours
it lasted, while the people were in the
flood, it was worse, more terrible, than
battle. The victims faced death more
certainly. There must have seemed to
them to be less chance of escape than
even that of body of soldiers engaged III
a charge of the most perilous nature. In
the matter of absolute, acute suffering of
the people as first saw them, it seemed
to have been mercifully provided for.
They were dazed. There were no tears,
no wailings for the dead. They seemed
to have come up to the measure of human
suffering and horror and desolation-to
have reached point beyond which they
could not feel. In their moments of
danger they seemed to have suffered all
that it was possible for human beings to
suffer and still live. The survivors
seemed surprised that they had escaped.
do not think that all of them were glad
of it when they found themselves so ut
terlY bereft of friends, but they could
only seem astonished, dazed and steeed.
There was another feature which
made it incompatible with a battle
these victims were largely women and
children. l have seen something like
this after seige, when city was enter
ed, and the hospitals filed with women
and children. This is always regarded
as the most dreadful and pitiful feature in
such spectacle.
1t is scarcely possible to bring the
two pictures into actual contrast, as their
similarity would mainly exist in their
dreadfulness, their terribleness."
" What has been, or is likely TO be, the
ultimate effect upon the sufferers, espec-
tally the women so far as insanity or
melancholia is concerned ?"
do not think that have observed
any general tendency toward insanity. 1t
would be difficult to judge precisely what
it would be that was weighing upon the
mind of woman, even if one saw her
elancholy-whether it was the effect of
the shock, or of the necessities it had
brought her by the loss of friends and
home and property, or of dread of tie flu
ture. | am inclined to think that the lat
ter are weighing more heavily to-day
upon the mentality of these people than
are the results of any shock which they
may have sustsined at the time of the dis
aster, Some, however, went insane at the
disaster, and have never since recovered
their reason.n
A SAD STORY.
What do you regard as the most pitt
able case that came under your observa-
tiop ~