Evening star., 1939-05-30

number of dead and missing. Nor
who they were.
Even to this day there has never
been an accurate checkup.
In Green View Cemetery are
graves of TIT unidentified dead who
perished in the Johnstown flood. In
marked graves are 1,4l8 known citi-
zens who persisted. Those were
Identified; but many more were
swept away with the waters, buried
under debris, burned or dynamited
into oblivion-not a trace of them
left-when the rescue crews set to
work.
Then Came Fire.
Day after the flood the lumber
from the destroyed houses caught
fire. With the receding waters the
flames had their play Those who
had sought shelter on top of floating
roofs and makeshift RATS merely
courted funeral pyre. They were
cremated alive
That was the meager story of
JohnstoWn that finally reached all
America. Immediately the newspa-
!. per reporters started on their way,
along with the agencies of mercy.
Pittsburgh was 80 miles to the
east, but most of the railroad track
age was destroyed and the mud
roads were Well-nigh impossible. 1t
took almost two days to get the first
relief through-and then the story
came out.
Only two structures withstood the
ravages of the flood waters, a stone
church and high school building.
Property damage scared to $10,0O0,-
900.
Clara Barton, then in her 68th
year, led the first expedition into the
town-and the horror that met her
eyes was afterward described as far
worse than any she had seen all
through the Civil War-foods IN the
Mississippi and Ohio Valleys-and
afterWard in the Russian famine,
the Cuban insurrection, and among
the starving Armenians.
With Clara Barton had come a
DR.. Hubbell, field officer of the Red
Cross Association, and a staff of
skilled assistants. They went to
work first of all to stamp out peSti-
lence.
Fortunately for Johnstown and
its survivors the rains continued.
Day after day it rained-and the
downpour purified the air, heavy
with the smell of dead.
Came Vandals.
Before foodstuffs arrived. men
and women and little children.
scantily clad, were on the verge of
starvation. That fight between life
and death became the battle of the
age-and with the humanitarian
touches of Clara Barton and her
argels of mercy came the vandals
o. civilization-looters of the dead.
Upstream a distance was camp
of foreigners rough, illiterate
foreigners who worked in the mines.
Afterwards, the correspondents
came to call them The Huns"
The Huns descended in mob
formation on Johnstown-not to
render any assistance, not to help
the helpless, but to steal
And then murder was in the air.
National Guardsmen, sent by the
State, shot and killed The Huns"
One sheriff-rated as brave man
rounded up an even dozen ghouls,
marched them at the point Of his
pistols to the brink of the swollen
Stony Greek and drowned the en-
tire 12-all with loot on either per-
sons-necklaces, wedding rings, en-
gagement rings, trinkets.
This was the CONSERVATION that
was Johnstown. When word got
around America that here was the
supreme tragedy of the age the
hearts and purse strings of human
ity were thrown open. Before she
left town, after a five months stay,
Clara Barton was pleased to report
that Americans from all parts of
the land had sent her $2,378,000.
This was distributed by flood COM
mission set up by the great war
nurse. It was not all Clothing,