The Survey, Volume 30, Number 4, Apr 26, 1913

If the immediate adoption of comprehensive, carefully considered plans, and the unification of all important resources of relief can accomplish it, the Red Cross work in the flooded district of Ohio will mean rehabilitation at every stage rather than merely the distribution of supplies. This is the end toward which the efforts of Mr. Bicknell and his associates have been directed. The state and local authorities readily grasped the idea, and showed a real sympathy with its aim.

First of all, the Red Cross has itself received in direct contributions at Washington the sum of $1,750,000. Much the larger part of this was, of course, contributed with the appalling disaster at Dayton in view, though from the beginning it was recognized that there were serious needs elsewhere in Ohio, in Indiana and other states. The Ohio authorities received in contributions $611,632, and it was decided by the governor and the flood commission which he appointed, to expend this also through the Red Cross. Finally, the Dayton citizens’ relief committee, appointed by the governor and presided over by John H. Patterson, who had taken complete charge of the situation even while the river was overflowing the levees and inundating the town, has been receiving donations directly. It has been selected as the channel through which Red Cross funds available are to be disbursed.

While Edward T. Devine and Eugene T. Lies went to Dayton originally for the Washington Headquarters of the Red Cross, they also are doing their work under the authority and with appropriations from the local committee. They are assisted by Amelia N. Sears, secretary of Woman’s City Club, Chicago, who took part in the San Francisco rehabilitation work; Rose J. McHugh, secretary of Funds to Parents Committee, Chicago; Ada H. Rankin and Johanne Bojesen of the New York Charity Organization Society, who helped in the relief of the victims of the Triangle shirt waist fire and the Titanic disaster; Grace O. Edwards of the Chicago United Charities; Edna E. Hatfield, probation officer, Indiana Harbor, Ind.; Edith S. Reider, general secretary, Associated Charities, Evanston, Ill.; Helen Zegar of the Compulsory Education Department, Chicago, who was in special charge of the relief of Polish and other immigrant families at the time of the Cherry Mine disaster. These Red Cross agents are in turn aided by a corps of local citizens, especially principals and teachers in the public schools, members of spontaneously organized local committees, and others.

There is no longer talk of plans for rehabilitation, for rehabilitation is in actual process. The careful Red Cross registration which was begun before the end of the week in which the disaster occurred, is proceeding rapidly. Four thousand families had been registered and the supplementary visits largely completed at the end of two weeks. On the basis of this registration, furniture is being provided, assistance in repairing houses and cash donations of moderate amounts, and other measures taken. All of these are intended to be a distinct step, even if in some instances not a very long one, towards the restoration of ordinary family life.

Among the measures which have been adopted in the rehabilitation stage, as distinct from the emergent distribution of supplies, are the following:

Houses which were occupied by owners of limited means and which were comparatively slightly injured are being repaired by gangs of carpenters who work in one section of the city after another. The work mainly consists of putting frame houses on their foundations, moving them back across the street, or doing such other things as an owner unaided cannot do, but which a gang of half a dozen men, some of whom are skilled carpenters can do in half a day or a day. This service is not rendered if the owner is in position to hire men to do it, or if the house is so badly injured that it involves much labor and expense.

Owners of lots, whose houses have been entirely demolished, and who wish to rebuild on the same site, are to be given an army pyramidal tent equipped with cots and tent stove. These tents will be put up by a hospital corps, under the direction of an army surgeon who will advise where on the lot the tent should be pitched, see that sewer connection or latrine is in order, and give instructions as to the use and care of the tent, so that the investment of about $100 which the donation represents may not be wasted.

The greatest immediate need after food and dry clothing, is for furniture and mattresses to replenish the thousands of homes whose furniture is utterly demolished, or so badly wrecked as to be practically useless. The first impulse was to ship in large quantities of furniture and give it away, or sell it at cost. Fortunately, a live furniture man, the president, in fact, of the National Retail Furniture Dealers’ Association, was encountered accidentally early in the proceedings. He was asked whether the retail dealers of Dayton could not handle this matter themselves. One large furniture house was entirely destroyed, but twelve others remained. All were in the flooded district, but all proved to be uninjured above the first floor. On the first floor the more expensive kinds of furniture had usually been displayed. This was all gone, either bodily out of the window—these were the more fortunate—or in a hopeless mess of mud and wreckage in the building. The less expensive kinds of beds, tables, chairs and dressers were largely stored on the upper floors. It was, therefore, only a question of cleaning out the first floor—getting the elevators into operation—often a hard job in itself—and securing trucks or wagons for delivery. This was a still harder job, for those that were not gone in the flood had been impressed into military or relief service. But the retail dealers held a meeting of their association, and agreed to handle the problem, and later the department stores which carry furniture came into line. By resolution they bound themselves not to increase prices. Requisitions are therefore given after the Red Cross registration is completed, for from $10 to $100 worth of furniture, according to the losses and circumstances of the family, to be selected by the purchaser at any one of a dozen stores from a list printed on the back of the requisition. These orders are filled in the usual way by the dealer and already such goods are being delivered.

Transportation from Dayton and other points for women, children and disabled men has been given by the railways through to the real destination after the usual inquiries and precautions familiar to those who work under the national transportation agreement.

In the first few days refugees were carried free without question to points in the vicinity of Dayton, but on the opening of the Red Cross headquarters, this indiscriminate free travelling was at once replaced by the other system.

The first considerable issue of cash and furniture orders was made on April 9—about $10,000. Since that time the number of registered families ready for decision has been so great that it taxes the energy of the central office in spite of the excellent facilities at its disposal. In some instances these grants will have to be only first installments on account of a larger plan; in many others, and it is hoped the large majority, it will be all that is necessary. In each envelope with furniture order or check, Mr. Devine is inserting, over his signature, a printed slip as follows:

“The Dayton Citizens’ Relief Committee and the American Red Cross beg you to accept this expression of sympathy for your losses and hardships and their best wishes for the speedy restoration of your prosperity and accustomed manner of living.”

FLOOD PROBLEMS TACKLED BY DRAINAGE CONVENTION

The date of the Third National Drainage Congress which convened in St. Louis April 10 to 12, seems almost to have been planned providentially. Just as significance attached to a similar meeting in New Orleans at the time of the Mississippi flood last year, the attention of this year’s gathering was concentrated on the problems which the floods of the central states have so insistently raised.

Important resolutions were passed in response to a suggestion from President Wilson that Congress should formulate some plan for the prevention of floods and their disastrous consequences. The resolutions were addressed to the President and Congress. They urged that the government, under the welfare clause of the constitution, should take adequate measures to control the water resources of the country, and continued:

“We respectfully petition the immediate consideration of adequate provisions for flood control, for the regulation and control of stream flow, and for the reclamation of swamp and overflow lands and arid lands, and in furtherance thereof we pray that in your wisdom you create a body which will put in effect at the earliest moment possible such plans, in co-operation with the several states and the other agencies, as will meet the needs of the several localities of the United States, and we believe the most effectual and direct means will be the establishment of a Department of Public Works with a secretary in charge thereof who shall be a member of the President’s cabinet.

“Be it further resolved that the wide scope of the problem of flood water control, affecting practically all the states of the Union, can best be conducted under the immediate supervision of the President of the United States in the exercise of such authority as is conferred upon him by the Congress of the United States.”

Control and prevention of malarial diseases were the subject of another important resolution. The prevalence of these diseases throughout the country, especially in regions frequently flooded, was declared to be a cause of “great disability, loss of earning capacity and a considerable number of preventable deaths.” Since there are well established methods of prevention, the Congress established a section on malaria with Dr. Oscar Dowling of the Louisiana State Board of Health as president and Dr. W. H. Deaderick of Little Rock, Ark., as secretary. It was resolved further:

“That the several states be requested to appoint malarial commissions and that the commission of the Southern Medical Association and other duly authorized malarial commissions be invited to join in this movement and that the co-operation of the federal government be requested through the United States Public Health Service and the Medical Departments of the army and navy.”

These efforts to combat malaria followed an important discussion of National Drainage and National Health by Dr. William A. Evans, formerly health commissioner of Chicago and now health editor of the Chicago Tribune. He pointed out that the aftermath from floods was frequently more serious than the disaster itself, and referred to the fact that in the flood of a year ago on the Wabash River there occurred 400 cases of typhoid fever at Peru, Ind., and 100 cases at Logansport, Ind. The main burden of his talk related to the fact that with the drainage of low lands malaria could be almost, if not entirely, extinguished. Malaria was declared to be the cause of more disturbance and economic loss than all the floods. It was estimated by Dr. Evans that the cost of malarial fever in the United States was $160,000,000 per year. The notable reduction in cases of malaria and deaths resulting therefrom in the Panama Canal Zone since the American occupation was vividly pictured as indicative of what scientific effort can accomplish.