Omaha daily bee., 1896-06-01
THE DEVASTATED CITY.

| Detroit Free Press: The tornado conforms
| to no law of restraint or control 1t levels
| homes and wastes life where it will, with
| slight warning Of ito approach and swift and
| mercies1 work as it goes. 1t may not visit
a certain locality in a thousand years; ii
| may come thrice in a day.
| Chicago Record: 1t has been supposed that
| in the vicinity of large bodies of water there
was measurable exemption from cyclones,
and that large collections of bui dings served
| to break and disslpate these moving currents
of air but the cyclone that visited Racine,
Wis, few years ago and the storms in
| Chicago and in st. Louis show that neither
| large bodies of water nor compactly built
| areas are much more exempt from these
! storms than the prairies of the west and
south.
| St. Louis Republic: 1t will be many days
before st. Louis resumes all the activities
of a great modern city. Enormous repairs
must be made in nearly all the extensive de-
rartment9 of systematized industry. The eX-
perience is a strange one. We can only thank
Providence that the loss of life was so much
less than the number Of wrecked homes
might have been expected to cause; and take
up again as quickly as possible the func-
tions of trade through which dense popula-
tion lives and prospere.
st. Louis Globe Democrat: 1.-THE storm
that rends the oak uproots the flower" as
Cardinal Richelieu says, and it would be
strange, indeed if an atmospheric disturb
ance sufficiently violent to wreck a portion
of the Eads bridge did not play havoc with
ordinary dwelling houses toward which 1t
directed itself But the lesson Of the disas-
ter is in favor Of strong buildings, so few
of which were injured as compared with the
number of weak edifices destroyed. The st.
Louis of thirty years ago would have suffered
infinitely more damage by such a storm as
that Of Wednesday night than was actually
experienced in that terrible ordeal.
Chicago Times-Herald: But the damages
to property is soon dismissed in contempa-
tion of the almost Incredible loss of life.
From day to day the grim list Will approach
completion but probably the world will never
realize the full horror OF the situation. We
shall hear Of the unfortunates dug out from
the debris of wrecked buildings, but how
many scores of unnamed human creatures
were spun in the yeasty flood of the Mlssis-
sippi to an unmarked grave or far from COM
munities of their kind, shattered by the blast
in remote country places? or these we shall
never hear, and the darker side OF the great
storm of May, 1896 will not be written.
Kansas City Star: A weary week is be-
fore us. 1t will be as was the week after
the Johnstown food, filled with the stories
of death and ruin, broken and contradictory
at first; the count and recount OF the dead
and wounded, varying each day. Then will
come the true and awful story, 80 many
men, women and children swept out of life; |
80 many mortally hurt and dying later; so
many MANNED for life, and then there will |
be the summing up Of the millions Of prop |
erty broken and lost and spoiled, carried |
away by the blast, washed away by the |
water burned by lightning But this Is not |
the most real and dreadful loss, for most of |
1t can be restored, but not the dead to the |
hundreds Of mourners who will go about the
stricken and desolated streets
Chicago Tribune: Such occasions as these
bring out into bod relief the limitations of
science and mans inventive genius. The |
elements gather their forces at leisure and
sweep down on the earth, and not a barrier |
can be devised to ward off their fatal stroke.
The best minds of the age, trained In the de-
yelopments of the past. pore over natures
book in vain search for signs OF its chang
ng moods Without note OF warning, out
Of a clerk sky" the tornado rushes on its
helpless Victims 1t does not appear that
any progress is made year after year in the
Efforts TO forecast these yistations. They
ind the people as unprepared now as they
lid last year, the year before, and all former
years, and nowhere on the horizon are there
,ign9 of progress. They remain natures
inal, uncaptured, victorious battery.
Buffalo Express Human power cannot
govern the wind Human knowledge cannot
oresee or prepare for the cyclone. The ap-
FALLING loss Of life In st. Louis Is such as
night come to any city without warning,
without means OF avoidance. There seems
o be nothing tenable In the theory that
yclones are confined to any particular re-
zion OF country. Experience has shown that
hey are most frequent on the open pains,
ut they have occurred in the foothilsTof the |
Illeghanies az we'll as on the prairies OF Me-
raska. St. Louis was never supposed to
10 in a cyclone region. But II would seem
hat any locality may be a cyclone region. |
is probable that never before since the
ountry was known to civilized men has |
here been such remarkable succession Of
estructiye torRadoes In the west as has
larked this spring. u