The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado | Page 5

another all their

lives, and it seemed not so much a duty as a natural thing to do to
respond to the call from the West, where people had lost their lives and
others were homeless and suffering.
THE COURAGE OF THE STRICKEN
This spirit of helpfulness is a fine thing. But even finer was the spirit of
self-help. Secretary Garrison's telegram to President Wilson from the
flooded districts that the people in the towns and cities affected had the
situation well in hand and that very little emergency assistance was
needed, was a splendid testimonial to the courage and the
resourcefulness of the people of the Middle West and the admirable
cheerfulness which they exhibited during the trying days that followed
the beginning of the calamity. There was not a whimper, but on the
contrary there was a spirit of optimism that must prove to be most
stimulating to the rest of the country.
MEN THAT SHOWED THEMSELVES HEROES
But perhaps the finest thing of all is the memory of the heroes that
showed themselves. When death and disaster, in the form of flood and
fire, swept Dayton, John H. Patterson arose with the tide to the level of
events. Patterson is the man, more than any other, who brought cosmos
out of chaos. When the flood was rising and nobody knew what the
result would be, John H. Patterson began to wire for motor boats. He
did not ask, he demanded. And the motor boats came. Patterson took all
of the carpenters from the National Cash Register--one hundred and
fifty skilled woodworkers--and set them to work making flat boats. The
entire force of the great institution was at the disposal of the people
who needed help. And not a man or a woman was docked or dropped
from the payroll. Everybody had time and a third.
As for John H. Patterson himself, he worked in three shifts of eight
hours each; and for forty-eight hours he practically neither slept nor ate.
And then, by way of rest, he took a Turkish bath and a horseback ride,
and forty winks, and was again on the job--this man of seventy, who
has known how to breathe and how to think and who carries with him
the body of a wrestler and the lavish heart of youth!

There were many other heroes--too many to mention here--but we
cannot forget John A. Bell, the telephone operator who was driven to
the roof of the building, where with emergency instruments he cut in on
one of the wires, and for two days and nights, in the driving rain,
without food or drink or dry clothing, kept the outside world informed
as to what was going on and the needs of the sufferers. What Bell
endured during those long hours was enough to kill the heart in a very
strong man. Yet his greeting to Governor Cox, over the crippled wire
Thursday morning, was: "Good morning, Governor. The sun is shining
in Dayton."
Could anything be finer! Men with such spirit are great men, and the
spirit that was in John H. Patterson and John A. Bell is the same spirit
that was in John Jacob Astor, and Archie Butt, and George B. Harris,
and Charles M. Hayes, and the band of musicians on the Titanic that
played in water waist deep.
As I stood amid the slimy ruins of Dayton the day after the waters
receded, Brigadier-General Wood said to me, "There go Patterson and
Bell. Would you like to shake hands with them?" And I said, "Just now
I would rather shake hands with those two men than own the National
Cash Register Company."
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The Storms By Chester Firkins
And you are still the Master. We have reared Cities and citadels of
seeming might, But in the passing of a single night You rend them unto
ruin. We who feared Nor flood nor wind nor wreckage fire-seared, We
shudder helpless in the thunder-light; The garners cherished and the
souls endeared Emptied and sudden-slaughtered in our sight.
You, whom the Cave Man battled, whom we call Nature, because we
know no better name, Goddess of gentleness and torture-flame, Still are
you despot; still are we the thrall; Still we can only wait what Fate may
fall From your wild pinions that no man can tame. Nor gold or gain,
nor battlement or wall Shall guard us from the primal flood and flame.

Our castled cities tower to your skies. 'Gainst wind and wave we pile
our stone and mold. Powered of genius, panoplied of gold, We build
the bastions of