The Richmond palladium. (Richmond, Ind.) 1906-1907, 1906-04-20
TWO CENTS AT ALL PLACES OF
SALE.
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FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1906.
AID FOR STRICKEN CITY.

The question today is not to account
for the devastating earthquake in
San Francisco, but to devise means
of aiding the thousands of homeless
and suffering refugees. Every dis
patch from the Pacific coast brings
additional news of disasters. Not on
ly has San Francisco been wiped off
the map, but towns fifty and hundred
miles inland are being destroyed. Los
Angeles Is even reported to have
been annihilated. The suffering and
privation entailed by this widespread
ruin must be frightful, and far beyond
the complete realization of the inhab-
itants of Richmond and Wayne county.
Living ais we do at such distance
from the scene of this dreadful calam-
ity, 1t is hard to comprehend the sit
uation produced by this earthquake.
But imagine yourself a citizen of San
Francisco. Imagine your sensations
on being awakened at five o'clock in
the morning, by the violent swaying of
your house. You rush into the street
but half dressed and see people pour
ing from all the houses in sight. The
street shortly before deserted is soon
filled with mob of panic stricken
people running hither and thither
without sense of directi trying only
In their mad frenzy to escape from
the stricken city. In the mad flight of
the mob little children and women are
thrown down and trampled under foot.
The intensity of the shock incre asing,
buildings begin to fall, adding to the
terror of the mob. A building col
lapses in front of it, and recoiling,
mad rush Is made in the direction
from which it had started. mis- spec
tacle is repeated again and again as
the mob is blocked in it's efforts to es-
cane. All day long the city is in an
indescribable state of uproar and tu-
multi. and added to the crash of fall
ing buildings is the roar Of flames, al
ready completing the ruin wrought by
the earthquake. Night comes on,
and though no electric lights are
burning, the city is lighted up by the
flames. Now and then come tremen-
duors explosions of dynamite, as the
firemen vainly try to stem the tide of
the flames by blowing up the buildings
in their path. And with the dawn
what n sight! Half crazed women
wandering through the wreck enlit-
tered streets, with babies dead from
exposure, clasped in their arms. Mile
after mile of collapsed buildings,
some still burning, others but mass
OF smoking brick and stone, mutely
bearing witness to the destructiveness
of the earthquake. Three hundred
thousand people rendered homeless in
twenty-four hours. Thousands of
sur ms from hunger and thirst, and
but thinly clad. Hopelessness, mis-
cry, deiectedness. and grief pictured
on every face either on account of be-
ing separated from their loved ones,
or from the loss of their homes or both.
Rich and poor alike suffer. The manu-
facturer ruined, his shops destroyed.
his business paralyZed. The merchants
stock of goods buried under the ruins
OF his store. The laborer's future black
with vista OF unemployment. In the
face Of such condition of affairs it
is no wonder that hundreds have gone
insane. Mayor Schmitz, of San Fran
cisco, has been deluged with tele-
grams OF commiseration, but some
thing far more substantial than tele-
grams OF condolance viii be needed
to alleviate the suffering in the strick.
en- city. ard that is money. Already
other cities in Indiana are hard at