The gregarious instinct—the instinct to herd—showed itself in the spontaneous groupings which came about and which seemed somehow to be associated with feelings of security from further harm. The refugees found comfort in the group. They rarely remained alone.
These and other instinctive responses in a greater or less degree of complication were to be remarked of the actions not only of individuals but of groups as well. In the latter the typical phenomena of crowd psychology were manifested upon every hand. The crowd was seen to be what it is—“the like response of many to a socially inciting event or suggestion such as sudden danger.” Out of a mere agglomeration of individuals and under the stress of emotional excitement there arose that mental unity, which Le Bon emphasizes.[52]There was noticeable the feeling of safety associated with togetherness which Trotter suggests.[53]There was the suggestibility, with its preceding conditions which Sidis[54]has clarified, namely, expectancy, inhibition,and limitation of the field of consciousness. There were the triple characteristics which Giddings notes: “Crowds are subject to swift contagion of feeling, they are sensitive to suggestion .... and always manifest a tendency to carry suggested ideas immediately into action.”[55]
Of illustrations of impulsive social action there are none more apt than those furnished by the reactions following the Halifax tragedy. Only Pliny's narrative of the flight from the eruption of Vesuvius, or the story of the “Day of Fear” in France,[56]or that depicting the days of the comet[57]are comparable thereto.
At first all was confusion. Some ran to the cellars. Some ran to the streets. Some ran to their shops. Those in the shops ran home. This was in the area of wounds and bruises. Farther north was the area of death. Thither the rescuers turned. Automobiles sped over broken glass and splintered boards toward the unknown. Then came the orders of the soldiers, whose barracks were situated in the very heart of the danger district, for the people to fly southward, Common-ward, to the open spaces—anywhere. Another explosion was imminent. Then came further outbreaks of the flight impulse. Runs a graphic account:
The crowd needed no second warning. They turned and fled. Hammers, shovels and bandages were thrown aside. Stores were left wide open with piles of currency on their counters. Homes were vacated in a twinkling. Little tots couldn't understand why they were being dragged along so fast. Some folks never looked back. Others did, either tocatch a last glimpse of the home they never expected to see again or to tell if they could from the sky how far behind them the Dreaded Thing was.... They fled as they were.... Some carried children or bundles of such things as they had scrambled together.... Many were but scantily clad. Women fled in their night dresses. A few were stark naked, their bodies blackened with soot and grime. These had come from the destroyed section of the North End. What a storm-tossed motley throng, and as varied in its aspect and as poignant in its sufferings as any band of Belgian or Serbian refugees fleeing before the Hun.... A few rode in autos, but the great majority were on foot. With blanched faces, bleeding bodies and broken hearts, they fled from the Spectral Death they thought was coming hard after, fled to the open spaces where possibly its shadow might not fall. Soon Citadel Hill and the Common were black with terrified thousands. Thousands more trudged along St. Margaret's Bay road, seeking escape among its trees and winding curves.... Many cut down boughs and made themselves fires—for they were bitterly cold. Here they were—poorly clad, badly wounded, and with not one loaf of bread in all their number, so hastily did they leave, when galloping horsemen announced the danger was over and it was safe to return.[58]
The crowd needed no second warning. They turned and fled. Hammers, shovels and bandages were thrown aside. Stores were left wide open with piles of currency on their counters. Homes were vacated in a twinkling. Little tots couldn't understand why they were being dragged along so fast. Some folks never looked back. Others did, either tocatch a last glimpse of the home they never expected to see again or to tell if they could from the sky how far behind them the Dreaded Thing was.... They fled as they were.... Some carried children or bundles of such things as they had scrambled together.... Many were but scantily clad. Women fled in their night dresses. A few were stark naked, their bodies blackened with soot and grime. These had come from the destroyed section of the North End. What a storm-tossed motley throng, and as varied in its aspect and as poignant in its sufferings as any band of Belgian or Serbian refugees fleeing before the Hun.... A few rode in autos, but the great majority were on foot. With blanched faces, bleeding bodies and broken hearts, they fled from the Spectral Death they thought was coming hard after, fled to the open spaces where possibly its shadow might not fall. Soon Citadel Hill and the Common were black with terrified thousands. Thousands more trudged along St. Margaret's Bay road, seeking escape among its trees and winding curves.... Many cut down boughs and made themselves fires—for they were bitterly cold. Here they were—poorly clad, badly wounded, and with not one loaf of bread in all their number, so hastily did they leave, when galloping horsemen announced the danger was over and it was safe to return.[58]
The ever-shifting responsiveness to rumor which distinguishes a crowd was noted.
The entrance to the Park was black with human beings, some massed in groups, some running anxiously back and forth like ants when their hill has been crushed. There were blanched faces and trembling hands. The wildest rumors were in circulation and every bearer of tidings was immediately surrounded.[59]
The entrance to the Park was black with human beings, some massed in groups, some running anxiously back and forth like ants when their hill has been crushed. There were blanched faces and trembling hands. The wildest rumors were in circulation and every bearer of tidings was immediately surrounded.[59]
Not only here but when the crowd trekked back, and inthe subsequent scenes which were witnessed in supply stations and shelters, the association which Sidis draws between calamity and hyper-suggestibility in the body politic was abundantly endorsed.
We must now endeavor to understand the phenomena of emotion which accompany a great catastrophe. This is not the less difficult because the term emotion is not given consistent use even by psychologists. One interprets it as merely the affective side of the instinctive process—those “modes of affective experience,” such as “anger, fear, curiosity,” which accompany the excitement of “the principal powerful instincts.”[60]Another sees it as also an impulsive, not merely a receptive state. It is “the way the body feels when it is prepared for a certain reaction,” and includes “an impulse toward the particular reaction.”[61]
It will be accurate enough for our purpose to think of the emotions as complicated states of feeling more or less allied to one another and to the human will.[62]Among them are jealousy and envy—“discomfort at seeing others approved and at being out-done by them.”[63]This appeared repeatedly in the administration of relief and should be included in disaster psychology. Again greed[64]—more strictly a social instinct than an emotion—was common. How common will receive further exemplification in alater chapter.
Fear has already been referred to. Anger, shame, resentment while evident, were of less significance. Gratitude was early shown and there were many formal expressions of it. Later on, it seemed to be replaced by a feeling that as sufferers they, the victims, were only receiving their due in whatever aid was obtained.
Of special interest is the rôle of the tender emotions, kindliness, sympathy and sorrow, as well as the reactions which may be expected when these occur in unusual exaltation through the repetition of stimuli or otherwise. Whatever may be the nature of the process whereby the feelings of his fellows affect a man, that which chiefly concerns us here, is how these reactions differ when the stimulation is multiplex. Of this multiplex stimulation in collective psychology Graham Wallas has written:
The nervous exaltation so produced may be the effect of the rapid repetition of stimuli acting as repetition acts, for instance, when it produces seasickness or tickling.... If the exaltation is extreme conscious control of feeling and action is diminished.[65]Reaction is narrowed and men may behave, as they behave in dreams, less rationally and morally than they do if the whole of their nature is brought into play.[66]
The nervous exaltation so produced may be the effect of the rapid repetition of stimuli acting as repetition acts, for instance, when it produces seasickness or tickling.... If the exaltation is extreme conscious control of feeling and action is diminished.[65]Reaction is narrowed and men may behave, as they behave in dreams, less rationally and morally than they do if the whole of their nature is brought into play.[66]
What Wallas has said of the additional stimulation which the presence of a crowd induces may be given wider application, and is indeed a most illuminating thought, describing exactly the psycho-emotional reactions produced by the stimulation of terrifying scenes, such as were witnessed at Halifax.
A case in point was that of the nervous exaltation produced upon a young doctor who operated continuously for many hours in the removal of injured eyes. The emotional tension he went through is expressed in his words to a witness: “If relief doesn't come to me soon, I shall murder somebody.”
Another instance where conscious control of feeling and action was diminished was that of a soldier. He was so affected by what he passed through during the explosion and his two days' participation in relief work, that he quite unwittingly took a seat in a train departing for Montreal. Later in a hospital of that city after many mental wanderings he recovered his memory. Over and over again he had been picturing the dreadful scenes which he had experienced. This condition includes a hyperactivity of the imagination “characterized by oneirism [oneiric delirium] reproducing most often the tragic or terrible scenes which immediately preceded the hypogenic shock.”[67]
The nature of sympathy[68]may not be clearly comprehended but of its effects there is no doubt. It may lead to the relief of pain or induce the exactly opposite effect; or it may bring about so lively a distress as to quite incapacitate a man from giving help. Again it may lead to the avoidance of disaster scenes altogether. Thus some could on no account be prevailed upon to go into the hospitals or to enter the devastated area. Others by a process understood in the psychology of insanity secured the desired avoidance by suicide. The association of suicide with catastrophe has been already remarked in the case of San Francisco. A Halifax instance was that of a physician who had labored hard among the wounded. He later found the reaction ofhis emotional experiences too strong. He lost his mental balance and was discovered dead one morning near his office door. He had hanged himself during the night. Still another, a railroad man, driven to despair by loneliness and loss, his wife and children having perished, attempted to follow them in death.
Joy and sorrow are pleasure-pain conditions of emotional states. Sorrow is painful because “the impulse is baffled and cannot attain more than the most scanty and imperfect satisfaction in little acts, such as the leaving of flowers on the grave;”[69]although the intensity is increased by other considerations. Here again the unusual degree of stimulation which catastrophe induces brings about a behavior other than that which commonly attends the experience of grief. A phenomenon associated with wholesale bereavement is the almost entire absence of tears. A witness of the San Francisco disaster said it was at the end of the second day that he saw tears for the first time.[70]At Halifax, where the loss of life was many times greater, there was little crying. There seemed to be indeed a miserable but strong consolation in the fact that all were alike involved in the same calamity.[71]
There was “no bitterness, no complaint, only a great and eager desire to help some one less fortunate.” Another observer said: “I have never seen such kindly feeling. I have never seen such tender sympathy. I have never heard an impatient word.” And this was amongst men “who were covered with bruises, and whose hearts were heavy, who have not had a night's sleep, and who go all day long withoutthought of food.” Another visitor remarked “there is not a more courageous, sane and reasonable people. Everyone is tender and considerate. Men who have lost wives and children, women whose sons and husbands are dead, boys and girls whose homes have been destroyed, are working to relieve the distress.” A Montreal clergyman reported that “Halifax people have been meeting with dry eyes and calm faces the tragedies, the horrors, the sufferings and the exposures which followed the explosion.” Grief is after all “a passive emotion,” a “reaction of helplessness.” It is “a state of mind appropriate to a condition of affairs where nothing is to be done”—[72]and there was much to be done at Halifax.
There are also to be added the phenomena of emotional parturition. As was to be expected the shock meant the immediate provision of a maternity hospital. Babies were born in cellars and among ruins. Premature births were common, one indeed taking place in the midst of the huddled thousands of refugees waiting in anguish upon the Common for permission to return to their abandoned homes. Nor were all the ills for which the shock was responsible immediately discernible. There were many post-catastrophic phenomena. Three months after the explosion many found themselves suffering an inexplicable breakdown, which the doctors attributed unquestionably to the catastrophe. It was a condition closely allied to “war-neurasthenia.” Another disaster after-effect also may be here recorded. This was the not unnatural way in which people “lived on edge,” for a long period after the disaster. There was a readiness and suggestibility to respond to rumor or to the least excitant. Twice at least the schools were emptied precipitately, and citizens went forth into pell-mell flight from their homes upon the circulation of reports of possible danger. No better illustration is affordedof the sociological fact that “the more expectant, or overwrought the public mind, the easier it is to set up a great perturbation. After a series of public calamities .... minds are blown about by every gust of passion orsentiment.”[73]
There are also to be included a few miscellaneous observations of behavior associated with the psychology of disaster relief. (1) The preference upon the part of the refugee for plural leadership and decision. (2) The aggravation of helplessness through the open distribution of relief. (3) The resentment which succeeds the intrusion of strangers in relief leadership. (4) The reaction of lassitude and depression after a period of strain. (5) The desire for privacy during interviews. (6) The vital importance of prompt decision in preventing an epidemic of complaint.[74]
Analytic psychology is becoming increasingly interested in the phenomena of repression, inhibition and taboo. The real motives of action are often very different from the apparent motives which overlie them. Instinctive tendencies are buried beneath barriers of civilization, but they are buried alive. They are covered not crushed. These resistances are either within our minds or in society. The latter are summed up in conventionality, custom and law, all so relatively recent[75]in time as to supply a very thin veneer over the primitive tendencies which have held sway for ages. Few realize the place which conventionality, custom and law possess in a community until in some extraordinary catastrophe their power is broken, or what is the same thing the ability to enforce them is paralyzed.This fact is especially true of repressive enactments, and most laws fall within this category. Catastrophe shatters the unsubstantial veneer. When the police of Boston went on strike it was not only the signal for the crooks of all towns to repair to the unguarded center, but an unexpected reserve of crookedness came to light within the city itself. Lytton discovered at Pompeii signs of plunder and sacrilege which had taken place “when the pillars of the world tottered to and fro.” At the time of the St. John Fire “loafers and thieves held high carnival. All night long they roamed the streets and thieved upon the misfortunes of others.”[76]
With the possibility of apprehension reduced to a minimum in the confusion at Halifax, with the deterrent forces of respectability and law practically unknown, men appeared for what they were as the following statement only too well discloses:
Few folk thought that Halifax harbored any would-be ghouls or vultures. The disaster showed how many. Men clambered over the bodies of the dead to get beer in the shattered breweries. Men taking advantage of the flight from the city because of the possibility of another explosion went into houses and shops, and took whatever their thieving fingers could lay hold of. Then there were the nightly prowlers among the ruins, who rifled the pockets of the dead and dying, and snatched rings from icy fingers. A woman lying unconscious on the street had her fur coat snatched from her back.... One of the workers, hearing some one groaning rescued a shop-keeper from underneath the debris. Unearthing at the same time a cash box containing one hundred and fifty dollars, he gave it to a young man standing by to hold while he took the victim to a place of refuge. When he returned the box was there, but the young man and the money had disappeared.Then there was the profiteering phase. Landlords raisedtheir rents upon people in no position to bear it. The Halifax Trades and Labor Council adopted a resolution urging that the Mayor be authorized to request all persons to report landlords who “have taken advantage of conditions created by the explosion.” ... Plumbers refused to hold their union rules in abeyance and to work one minute beyond the regular eight hours unless they received their extra rates for overtime; and the bricklayers assumed a dog-in-the-manger attitude and refused to allow the plasterers to help in the repair of the chimneys. And this during days of dire stress ... when many men and women were working twelve and fourteen hours a day without a cent or thought of remuneration. One Halifax newspaper spoke of these men as “squeezing the uttermost farthing out of the anguished necessities of the homeless men, women and children.” Truckmen charged exorbitant prices for the transferring of goods and baggage. Merchants boosted prices. A small shopkeeper asked a little starving child thirty cents for a loaf of bread.On Tuesday, December the twelfth, the Deputy Mayor issued a proclamation warning persons so acting that they would be dealt with under the provisions of the law.[77]
Few folk thought that Halifax harbored any would-be ghouls or vultures. The disaster showed how many. Men clambered over the bodies of the dead to get beer in the shattered breweries. Men taking advantage of the flight from the city because of the possibility of another explosion went into houses and shops, and took whatever their thieving fingers could lay hold of. Then there were the nightly prowlers among the ruins, who rifled the pockets of the dead and dying, and snatched rings from icy fingers. A woman lying unconscious on the street had her fur coat snatched from her back.... One of the workers, hearing some one groaning rescued a shop-keeper from underneath the debris. Unearthing at the same time a cash box containing one hundred and fifty dollars, he gave it to a young man standing by to hold while he took the victim to a place of refuge. When he returned the box was there, but the young man and the money had disappeared.
Then there was the profiteering phase. Landlords raisedtheir rents upon people in no position to bear it. The Halifax Trades and Labor Council adopted a resolution urging that the Mayor be authorized to request all persons to report landlords who “have taken advantage of conditions created by the explosion.” ... Plumbers refused to hold their union rules in abeyance and to work one minute beyond the regular eight hours unless they received their extra rates for overtime; and the bricklayers assumed a dog-in-the-manger attitude and refused to allow the plasterers to help in the repair of the chimneys. And this during days of dire stress ... when many men and women were working twelve and fourteen hours a day without a cent or thought of remuneration. One Halifax newspaper spoke of these men as “squeezing the uttermost farthing out of the anguished necessities of the homeless men, women and children.” Truckmen charged exorbitant prices for the transferring of goods and baggage. Merchants boosted prices. A small shopkeeper asked a little starving child thirty cents for a loaf of bread.
On Tuesday, December the twelfth, the Deputy Mayor issued a proclamation warning persons so acting that they would be dealt with under the provisions of the law.[77]
Slowly the arm of repression grew vigorous once more. The military placed troops on patrol. Sentries were posted preventing entrance to the ruins to those who were not supplied with a special pass. Orders were issued to shoot any looter trying to escape. The Mayor's proclamation, the warning of the relief committee, the storm of popular indignation gradually became effectual.
The stimulus of the same catastrophe, it thus appears, may result in two different types of responses—that of greed on the one hand or altruistic emotion on the other. One individual is spurred to increased activity by the opportunity of business profit, another by the sense of social needs. Why this is so—indeed the whole field of profiteering—wouldbe a subject of interesting enquiry. Whether it is due to the varying degrees of socialization represented in the different individuals or whether it is not also partly due to the fact that philanthropy functions best in a sphere out of line with a man's own particular occupation, the truth remains that some display an altogether unusual type of reaction in an emergency to the actions of others; and perhaps exhibit behavior quite different from that which appears normal in a realm of conduct where associations based on habit are so strongly ingrained.
The human will as we have seen is in close association with the emotions. We are now to notice the dynamogenic value of the strong emotions aroused by catastrophe. It is first of all essential to remember the rôle of adrenin in counteracting the effects of fatigue. Wonderful phenomena of endurance in disaster might well be anticipated for “adrenin set free in pain and in fear and in rage would put the members of the body unqualifiedly at the disposal of the nervous system.” This is “living on one's will” or on “one's nerve.” There are “reservoirs” of power ready to pour forth streams of energy if the occasion presents itself. Strong emotions may become an “arsenal of augmented strength.” This fact William James was quick to see when he said “on any given day there are energies slumbering within us which the incitements of that day do not call forth.”[78]But it was left to Cannon to unfold the physiological reasons,[79]and for Woodworth to explain how the presence of obstruction has power to call forth new energies.[80]Indeed the will[81]is just the inner driving forceof the individual and an effort of will is only “the development of fresh motor power.”[82]Following the lines of least resistance the will experiences no unusual exercise. Catastrophe opposes the tendency to eliminate from life everything that requires a calling forth of unusual energies.
The energizing influence of an emotional excitant was shown at Halifax in the remarkable way in which sick soldiers abandoned their beds and turned them over to the victims rushed to the military hospitals. It was seen again in the sudden accession of strength displayed by the invalids and the infirm during the hurried evacuation of the houses—a behavior like that of the inhabitants of Antwerp during the bombardment of that city in October 1914, when those who fled to Holland showed extraordinary resistance to fatigue.[83]The resistance to fatigue and suffering received more abundant illustration at Halifax in the work of rescue and relief. Often men themselves were surprised at their own power for prolonged effort and prodigious strain under the excitement of catastrophe. It was only on Monday (the fifth day) that collapses from work began to appear. Among the more generally known instances of unusual endurance was that of a private, who with one of his eyes knocked out, continued working the entire day of the disaster. Another was that of a chauffeur who with a broken rib conveyed the wounded trip after trip to the hospital, only relinquishing the work when he collapsed. An unknown man was discovered at work in the midst of the ruinsalthough his own face was half blown off. Those who escaped with lesser injuries worked day and night while the crisis lasted. Many did not go home for days, so manifold and heavy were the tasks. There was no pause for comment. Conversation was a matter of nods and silent signs, the direction of an index finger. Weeks later the workers were surprised to find themselves aged and thin. The excitement, the stimulus of an overwhelming need had banished all symptoms of fatigue. During the congestion which followed the arrival of the relief trains there were men who spent seventy-two hours with scarcely any rest or sleep. One of the telephone terminal room staff stuck to his post for ninety-two hours, probably the record case of the disaster for endurance under pressure. Magnificent effort,conspicuousenough for special notice was the work of the search parties who, facing bitterest cold and in the midst of blinding storms, continued their work of rescue; and the instance of the business girls who in the same weather worked for many hours with bottles of hot water hung about their waists. An effect which could notescapeobservation was the strange insensibility to suffering on the part of many of the victims themselves. Men, women and little children endured the crudest operations without experiencing the common effects of pain. They seemed to have been anaesthetized by the general shock. Sidewalk operations, the use of common thread for sutures, the cold-blooded extracting of eyes were carried on often without a tremor. This resistance to suffering was due not only to the increase of energy already described but also to the fact that the prostrating effect of pain is largely relative to the diversion of attention,—as “headaches disappear promptly upon the alarm of fire” and “toothaches vanish at the moment of a burglar's scare.” Much pain is due to the super-sensitivity of an area through hyperaemia,or increased blood supply, following concentrated attention. Thus it is actually possible by volition to control the spread of pain, and the therapeutic virtues of an electric shock or a slap in the face are equally demonstrable. This reasoning is also applicable to the absence of sympathetic reactions among many disaster workers. They were found often to be “curiously detached and not greatly moved by the distressing scenes in morgue, in hospital, in the ruins and at the inquiry stations.”[84]
Catastrophe and the sudden termination of the normal which ensues become the stimuli of heroism and bring into play the great social virtues of generosity and of kindliness—which, in one of its forms, is mutual aid. The new conditions, perhaps it would be more correct to say, afford the occasion for their release. It is said that battle does to the individual what the developing solution does to the photographic plate,—brings out what is in the man. This may also be said of catastrophe. Every community has its socialized individuals, the dependable, the helpful, the considerate, as well as the “non-socialized survivors of savagery,” who are distributed about the zero point of the social scale. Calamity is the occasion for the discovery of the “presence of extraordinary individuals in a group.” The relation of them to a crisis is one of the most important points in the problem of progress.
At Halifax there were encountered many such individuals as well as families who refused assistance that others might be relieved. Individual acts of finest model were written ineffaceably upon the social memory of the inhabitants. There was the case of a child who released with her teeth the clothes which held her mother beneath a pile of debris. A wounded girl saved a large family of children, getting them all out of a broken and burning home. A telegraphoperator at the cost of his life stuck to his key, sent a warning message over the line and stopped an incoming train in the nick of time.
Group heroism was no less remarkable. For the flooding of the powder magazine in the naval yard an entire battery volunteered. This was why the second explosion did not actually occur. Freight handlers too, as well as soldiers, revealed themselves possessors of the great spirit. A conspicuous case was that of the longshoremen working on board of a ship laden with explosives. Fully realizing the impending danger, because of the nearness of the burning munitioner, they used what precious minutes of life remained them to protect their own ship's explosives from ignition. A fire did afterwards start upon the ship but a brave captain loosed her from the pier, and himself extinguished the blaze which might soon have repeated in part the devastations already wrought.
No disaster psychology should omit a discussion of the psychology of helpfulness—that self-help to which the best relief workers always appeal, as well as of the mutual aid upon which emergency relief must largely depend. Mutual aid while not a primary social fact is inherent in the association of members of society, as it also “obtains among cells and organs of the vital organism.” As it insured survival in the earlier stages of evolution[85]so it reveals itself when survival is again threatened by catastrophe.
The illustrations of mutual aid at Halifax would fill a volume. Not only was it evidenced in the instances of families and friends but also in the realm of business. Cafés served lunches without charge. Drug stores gave out freely of their supplies. Firms released their clerks to swell the army of relief. A noteworthy case of communityservice was that of the Grocers' Guild announcing that its members would
fill no orders for outside points during the crisis, that they would coöperate with the relief committee in delivering foodstuffs free of charge to any point in the city, and that their stocks were at the disposal of the committee at the actual cost to them.[86]
fill no orders for outside points during the crisis, that they would coöperate with the relief committee in delivering foodstuffs free of charge to any point in the city, and that their stocks were at the disposal of the committee at the actual cost to them.[86]
By incidents such as these, Halifax gained the appellation of the City of Comrades.
Catastrophe becomes also the excitant for an unparalleled opening of the springs of generosity.[87]Communication has transformed mutual aid into a term of worldwide significance. As at San Francisco, when from all directions spontaneous gifts were hurried to the stricken city, when in a period of three months seventeen hundred carloads and five steamerloads of relief goods arrived, in addition to millions of cash contributions, so was it at Halifax. So it has always been, as is proven by Chicago, Dayton, Chelsea as well as by numbers of other instances. The public heart responds with instantaneous and passionate sympathy. Halifax specials were on every railroad. Ships brought relief by sea. Cities vied with each other in their responses. Every hour brought telegraphed assistance from governments and organizations. In about fifteen weeks approximately eight millions had been received, aside from the Federal grant. But it was not the totality of the gifts, but the number of the givers which gives point to our study. So many rushed with their donations to the Calvin Austin before she sailed from Boston on her errand of relief that“the police reserves were called out to preserve order.” A great mass of the contributions involved much personal sacrifice upon the part of the contributors, as accompanying letters testified. It could be written of Halifax as it was of San Francisco that:
all the fountains of good fellowship, of generosity, of sympathy, of good cheer, pluck and determination have been opened wide by the common downfall. The spirit of all is a marvelous revelation of the good and fine in humanity, intermittent or dormant under ordinary conditions, but dominant and all pervading in the shadow of disaster.[88]
all the fountains of good fellowship, of generosity, of sympathy, of good cheer, pluck and determination have been opened wide by the common downfall. The spirit of all is a marvelous revelation of the good and fine in humanity, intermittent or dormant under ordinary conditions, but dominant and all pervading in the shadow of disaster.[88]
Abridged and sketchy as the foregoing necessarily is, it is perhaps full enough to have at least outlined the social phenomena of the major sort which a great disaster presents. These are found to be either abnormal and handicapping, such as, emotional parturition; or stimulative and promotive, such as the dynamogenic reactions. In propositional form it may be stated that catastrophe is attended byphenomenaof social psychology, which may either retard or promote social organization.
In addition this chapter has discussed the rôle of catastrophe in stimulating community service, in presenting models of altruistic conduct, in translating energy into action, in defending law and order, and in bringing into play the great social virtues of generosity, sympathy and mutual aid.
The organization of relief—The disaster protocracy—The transition from chaos through leadership—Vital place of communication—Utility of association—Imitation—Social pressure—Consciousness of kind—Discussion—Circumstantial pressure—Climate—Geographic determinants—Classification of factors.
We have seen something of the disintegration which followed what has been called the “stun of the explosion.” It included the abrupt flight from, and the emptying of, all the houses and centers of employment, the division of families in the haste of the running and the rescue, and the utter helplessness of thousands in the three basic necessities of life—food, raiment and a roof. There was the dislocation of transportation, the disorganization of business, and the problem of unemployment aggravated because not only was the work gone, but also with it the will to work.
Social organization comes next in order and because its process was associated with the organization of relief—the first social activity—the sociological factors observed in the latter call for descriptive treatment. When the human organism receives an accident to one of its parts, automatic relief processes from within spring at once into being, and it is so with the body politic. This “vis medicatrix naturae” assumes sovereign power over all the resources of the community. That part of the social sensorium which is most closely organized in normal hours, first recovers consciousness in disaster. In the case of Halifax it wasthe army. So was it in San Francisco, and in Chelsea. The army has the intensive concentration, the discipline, the organization and often the resource of supplies instantly available. Its training is of the kind for the endurance of shock.[89]It so happened that at Halifax large numbers of men in uniform were stationed where they could quickly respond to call. They were very soon under orders. The military authorities realized before midday, the part which the army should play. The firemen too were a social group which largely remained organized, and responded to the general alarm soon after the explosion. Their chief and deputy-chief had been instantly killed so they were leaderless, until one of the city controllers assumed command, and in spite of the wild exodus when the alarm of a second explosion spread, these men remained at their posts.
Play actors also display similar traits of collective behavior. They are accustomed to think quickly, to live in restricted spaces, and to meet emergencies. Than the stage there is no better school. Each actor does his or her part and it alone. The Academy Stock Company, forsaking the school of Thespis for that of Esculapius, organized the first relief station established at Halifax. This was in operation about noon on the day of the disaster.
Thus it came about that the soldiers, firemen and play actors may be called the disaster protocracy.[90]They were “the alert and effective,” the most promptly reacting units in emergency. And it would appear that the part of society which is most closely organized and disciplined in normal periods first recovers social consciousness in disaster.
It is the events of the first few hours which are of special interest to the sociologist. The word most descriptive of the first observable phenomenon was leadership. The soldiers were foremost in the work of rescue, of warning, of protection, of transportation and of food distribution. But the earliest leadership that could be called social, arising from the public itself, was that on the part of those who had no family ties, much of the earliest work being done by visitors in the city. The others as a rule ran first to their homes to discover if their own families were in danger. From this body in a short while however many came forward to join in the activities of relief.
As already said those with no social, family or property ties were among the first to begin relief work. But many of these started early simply because they were present where need arose. Many indeed of the uninjured folk at a distance seemed unable to realize the terribleness of the immediate need in the stricken area. In fact, owing to the collapse of communication they did not for an appreciable time discover that there was an area more stricken than their own, and devoted themselves to cleaning up glass and the like. But within a quarter of an hour a hospital ship had sent ashore two landing parties with surgeons and emergency kits. With almost equal dispatch the passengers of an incoming train—the railroad terminal at the time being in the north end of the city—were on hand, and were among the earliest first-aid workers. One, a Montreal man, was known individually to have rendered first aid to at least a half hundred of the wounded.
It was early afternoon, perhaps five hours after the catastrophe, when a semblance of coöperative action in rescue work began. Previous to this the work had been done in a rapid and random fashion, a single ruin being dug through a second or even a third time. Then came therecognition of the utility of association.[91]Thereafter the searchers became parties each of which was detailed to go over a definite area. When a particular section had been covered it was so recorded. This process considerably expedited the work in hand. Meanwhile relief was organized in other important directions.
The vital place of communication in society was recognized at once. It is a major influence in association, and upon it in disaster depends the immediacy as well as the adequacy of relief. Connections had been cut by the explosion and the outside world could only wait and wonder. How little real information filtered through is shown by the fact that at Truro, only sixty-two miles distant, the announcement was made three hours after the explosion that the death roll would not bear more than fifty names. Nevertheless within an hour after the explosion a telegraph company had a single line established, and with news of the disaster, communities everywhere took up the rôle of the Samaritan.
While the great hegira was in progress another leader, a railroad official, drove rapidly out the Bedford Road and commandeered the first unbroken wire to Moncton. Thereafter all that the government railroad equipment could do was at the community's service. Meanwhile the dislocated railroad yards were being combed for a live engine and coaches in commission. A hospital train was put together and in less than four hours after the explosion a large number of injured people were being transported to Truro.
Even before the rushing of the wounded to the hospitals a few began to realize the great human needs which would soon be manifest among the concourse of thousands who waited in helpless suspense upon the Common and the hill. Here they wereen masse, a typical social aggregation, respondingto the primitive, gregarious instinct of the herd. “Like sheep they had flocked together too bewildered for consecutive thought.”[92]Yet here ministrations of one sort or another came into spontaneous operation. Soon the military began raising white tents upon the field. One after another they rose, presenting the appearance of an huge encampment. The idea spread by imitation,[93]the repetition of a model,—“the imitative response of many minds to the suggestive invention of one.” One or two here and one or two there began to prepare the big church halls and other roomy institutional buildings for occupancy. Hastily the windows were patched up, the glass swept out, and no sooner had the danger of a second explosion passed, and the rumor of a possible roof reached the homeless, than they began to repair thither. At first each improvised shelter became a miniature clothing and food depotaswell as a habitation. Then the idea spread of taking the refugees into such private homes as had fared less badly. Imitation is the foundation of custom. It became the thing to do. The thing to do is social pressure. It may be unwilled and unintended but it is inexorable. It worked effectively upon all who had an unused room. Many sheltered upwards of a dozen for weeks; some, more.
In the homes and shelters association of the like-minded soon came about through consciousness of kind. At first it was a very general consciousness which seemed to draw all together into a fellowship of suffering as victims of a common calamity. There was neither male nor female, just nor unjust, bond nor free. Men, women and little children lay side by side in the large sleeping rooms and “shared each other's woes,” for “the consciousness ofkind allays fear and engenderscomradeship.”[94]Then followed requests for changes of location in the dormitories, and for changes of seats at the dining tables. As various shelters sprang up, the religious element appeared. Applications came for transfers from Roman Catholic institutions to Protestant stations andvice versa. Even the politically congenial were only too ready to segregate when occasion offered.
Discussion and agreement must precede all wise concerted volition. There must be “common discussion of common action.”[95]Propositions must be “put forth” and talked over. There must be a “meeting of minds” and a “show of hands,” and decisions made. There had been no preparedness. The city possessed not even a paper organization for such a contingency as a sudden disaster; so that during the most precious hours citizens and civic officials had to consult and map out a program as best the circumstances allowed. It was late afternoon on the day of the disaster when a tentative plan had been formulated in the City Hall. The newly formed committees could do but little until the following dawn.
Men at best are largely creatures of circumstance. Innumerable causes, small and great, conspire to incite social action. But in catastrophe the control of circumstantial pressure[96]becomes almost sovereign in extent. The conditions it brings about, while often delaying measures of individual relief, account very largely for the rapidity of organization. While they limit they also provoke effort. The common danger constrains great numbers to “overlook many differences, to minimize many of their antagonisms and to combine their efforts.” At Halifax the pressureof indescribable suffering precipitated the medical and hospital arrangements which were the earliest forms of communal service. But it was the meteorological conditions which commanded the most prompt attention to the consideration of shelter and clothing. The months appeared to have lost station and February to have come out of season. The following table gives the weather record for the seven days which followed the catastrophe.[97]It is the record of a succession of snow, wind, cold and blizzard.
In consequence of otherwise unendurable conditions, the most rapid repairs were made to all habitable houses or those possible of being made so. The same was true of public buildings, hospitals, factories and warehouses. Moreover the same explanation accounts for the exodus of many who sought for shelter to the countryside nearby; and the many more who accepted the invitation of, and entrained for various Nova Scotian towns which became veritable “cities of refuge” to hundreds. The climate[98]decided the question of reconstruction in favor of temporary structures; for it was a time of year when prompt rebuilding was out of the question. Climatic conditions also seriously delayed the arrival of relief supplies, allowed but scanty provision for many, kept some from the depots of relief, or from surgical aid; and others standing in line in the bitter cold. It also added seriously to the sanitation and shelter problem. But it speeded and spurred the workers to prevent the maximum of exposure and neglect. It called imperatively for the most effective system, and many of the workable methods were hit upon under the stress of storm. An illustration of this may be found in the adoption of many food depots instead of one central station. Regional influence thus “fixes the possibilities of organization and collective effectiveness.”[99]The sociologist muststudy maps of lands and plans of cities. The location of the food stations at Halifax was a matter of topography as were the later administration districts. The city is widely spread out. It has fifty more miles of street than a city of similar population in a neighboring province. Six depots were established for the public distribution of supplies,[100]situated so as to touch the entire needy population most effectively, and to equalize the groups to some degree. So too, in the matter of dressing stations, accessibility was a deciding factor. But even this system had to be supplemented. Bread vans were driven hither and thither and when halted in the center of a street were usually immediately surrounded. Thus social reorganization in catastrophe witnesses to an urgency resident no less in space than in time and reëmphasizes the importance placed upon the physical factors in sociology.
Thus may be said to have come about the transition from chaos to a semblance of community organization. Not the normal civil social order of pre-disaster days, but the establishment of a species of collective behavior, and the organization of relationships apparently of a quite different character. The difference was one which might be compared to that between a great relief camp and a city. But the difference was only superficial. Fundamentally there were to be seen the factors underlying all social organization. These have been already illustrated, and are classified as psychological, such as leadership, gregarious instinct, imitation, consciousness of kind, discussion, recognition of utility of association and custom; and as physical, including climate and topography.[101]The conclusion was drawnthat the part of society which is most closely organized and disciplined in normality, first recovers consciousness in catastrophe, and the value of a militia organization in every community is a practical corollary. This follows not only because of the imperturbability and the promptitude of reaction, of an army in crisis, but also because of the rapidity with which it can be mobilized, its value in preserving law and order, its authoritative control and power to punish, and because of the attending psychological effects of orderly bearing and coolness in a time of general chaos, bespeaking a care that is at once paternal and sympathetic.
The reorganization of the civil social order—Division of labor—Resumption of normal activities—State and voluntary associations—Order of reëstablishment—Effects of environmental change—The play of imitation—The stimulus of lookers-on—Social conservation.
Itis not necessary to repeat the fact, which the reader has already seen, that the process of complete social organization was largely expedited by the organization of relief, and materially reacted upon by it. The community's “big men,” the men of prominence, the men of broad experience in civic and philanthropic work, the men who knew the resources of the city and had the prestige to command them, were deeply immersed in the relief work while the businesses and the departments of the shattered body politic waited or went forward in a more or less indifferent way.
But this could be both economically and socially of a temporary nature only. “Business and industry must be set agoing. Church and school must resume the ordinary routine. One by one the broken threads of the former everyday life, the life of custom and habit must be reconnected.” The division of social labor[102]is a law of society. It is traceable back to the primitive household itself, and is a result of underlying differences. The great “cause which determines the manner by which work is divided is diversity of capacity.” With the advent of the social specialists at Halifax a major division of functionbegan. The responsibility for the relief work having been delegated to a special social group, public thought and public men were free to turn their energies to the restoration of a normal society.
But it was the reorganization rather than the organization of relations which the sociologist observes to have first taken place. The stage was all laid. It was necessary only for the actors in the drama to resume their places. The old “parts” awaited them, although many of the “properties” were no more. Or to use the more sociological jargon one might say, there was still the homogeneity of stock, still a dominating like-mindedness, still a protocracy, still a group of mores to serve as media of social self-control. Indeed most of the former complexities of social structure remained. But this was only potentially true. The social relations based upon the underlying factors had to be resumed. Moreover the resumption was accompanied by various changes the significance of which will appear in later discussion. The order of the resumption of normal activities is of unusual social interest as are also the influences which were in play and the changes which ensued. It may be objected that such a tabulation is unfair to the various socially component groups and that the special exigencies of each preclude comparison. But at least one index of the bent of the social mind is the separation of those activities which must needs be first rehabilitated, from those which can wait. Organizing genius was not entirely occupied with relief in the ordinary sense of the term.
Economic vigor is one of the most vital things in a community's life. It is in a sense fundamental not only to happiness and general well-being but accompanies and conditions the cultural institutions, religious, educational and aesthetic. It is not surprising then that commercial activity was in actual fact the earliest aspect of life to resume asemblance of normality. Naturally public utilities were first on the list, for these include systems of communication without which society can hardly be. Reference has already been made to the speed with which a makeshift service was established, but our purpose here is to record the resumption of normal activity.
Wire communication is led out from the city by pole lines. Many of these had been demolished, or broken at the crossbeam. Clerks had been injured and instruments damaged. In spite of these odds one was reconnected within an hour, and by the evening of the day of the disaster six direct multiplex wires to Montreal, three to St. John and one each to Boston and New York, had been established. Upwards of a thousand messages an hour went forth the first week. The work became normal about December twentieth.
The telephone system suffered the loss of the entire northern exchange and of the harbor cable—broken through ships dragging anchor—a total material damage of one hundred thousand dollars. Its personnel was also depleted. Nevertheless telephone business may be said to have been generally resumed on the seventh, the day after the disaster, and the load of local traffic soon attained over one hundred and twenty percent above its average figure. Telephone service was absolutely suspended for only about two hours,—the period of prohibition from buildings,—and the cable telephone for about three days. Messages of a social character were tabooed for several weeks, when the work again became normal.
The illumination service was quickly restored. The company was able to give partial light and some service from noon on the sixth. Periods of intermittent darkness however, were not unusual. Gas service was off until December the ninth—the top of the gasometer having been broken and two hundred thousand cubic feet deflected fromthe mains into the air—when repairs were completed and on the tenth the service resumed. On the fourteenth gas and electric light service became normal.
Railroad communication had been dislocated. The explosion occurred in the vicinity of the principal sidings and vital portions of the system. Three miles of the main road were buried in debris, the station wrecked, equipment damaged, and crews scattered searching for their dead. In spite of this, as already noted, a hospital train was sent out in the early afternoon of the disaster day and incoming trains were switched to their new tracks leading to the south end terminal. On the evening of the day following the disaster—Friday—the first regular train for Montreal left the city. Two days later the main lines were clear and the first train left the old passenger station on Saturday evening. By Monday the full passenger service was resumed, to and from the station. Eight days after the catastrophe all branches of the service were working and conditions were fairly normal.
The rolling stock of the street-car system sustained much damage. Some of the employees were injured and others were unavailable. A scant service was restored at noon on December the sixth. By six o'clock of the seventh, tram lines in the north section were able to resume an eight-car service. Then the blizzard came and tied up all lines. It was not until Sunday, December ninth, that it was possible to resume any semblance of car service. On the twenty-second of December, twenty-two cars were operating—twenty-seven is the normal number,—but the shortage of men made it difficult to operate the full number. The service was not entirely normal for some months owing to the severe storms all winter which tied up the lines and caused delays, and to the shortage of men to handle the cars.
The newspaper offices by the employment of hand compositorswere able to produce papers on December seventh but in limited editions and of reduced size. This was owing to the dependency of the linotypes upon the gas service which had failed. The normal-size production recommenced in a week's time.[103]
The postal service was completely disorganized and was not restored to any extent until Monday the tenth of December. Owing to the innumerable changes of address, as well as many other reasons, it was weeks before there was a normal and reliable distribution of mails.
The banks were open for business the morning following the catastrophe, just as soon as the doors and windows were put in. Traffic of relief trains coming in affected the ordinary trade for three months, more or less, but principally outside of the city. In the city all business in the banks went on as usual the day after the explosion.
Two instances are selected at random to illustrate the resumption of general business activity. Out of much wreckage and a forty-thousand-dollar loss one company restarted paint and varnish making on January second. A large clothing establishment, had been badly damaged. The factory and all branches of the business were running in five weeks—January tenth. Machines were in operation with shortened staffs at an earlier date.
The regular meetings of the City Council recommenced on December twentieth, and were held regularly from that time on. The Board of Trade rooms were not badly damaged and there was no cessation of work or meetings. The theatres were speedily repaired and resumed business on Friday, December the twenty-eighth. The Citizen's Library was a few weeks closed for the circulation of books,and used in relief service as a food depot, thus ministering to a hunger which is more imperious than that of mind in the hour of catastrophe.
Of the churches several were entirely destroyed. In all cases the edifices were injured, organs disordered and windows shattered. Parishes were in some instances almost wiped out. In a single congregation four hundred and four perished. In another nearly two hundred were killed, the remainder losing their property. In a third, of the one hundred and eight houses represented in the congregation only fourteen were left standing. Hurried efforts were made to safeguard church property, but church services were not generally resumed until the second Sunday.[104]Even then the congregations were small and the worshipping-places were not in all cases churches. Theatres, halls and other buildings housed many a religious gathering. While the restoration of churches waited, clergy and church workers gave themselves unremittingly to the relief of the needy, the succor of the injured and the burial of the dead. Their intimate knowledge of family conditions was of inestimable value in the relief administration. Sunday schools were reassembled as accommodations permitted, but it was many months before the attendances approximated the normal.
The school system was badly disorganized. Three buildings were totally destroyed, and all were rendered uninhabitable for some time. The loss was approximately eight-hundred thousand dollars. The members of the staff were given over to relief committees, registration, nursing and clothing service. Early in March, about three months after the explosion, arrangements were completed wherebynearly all the children in the city could attend classes. The double-session system was introduced to accomplish this. Rooms were necessarily over-crowded and ventilation impaired. By May eighth, fifteen school buildings were in use.[105]
Progress in reopening schools is indicated by the following schedule.
The community as finally reorganized differed materially from that which had preceded. The picture of the conditions at a considerably later period will be fully presented elsewhere. Here will be noted only a few social effects immediately apparent and due to the temporary environmental conditions.
Owing to the number of men required for reconstruction work the Tramway Company found it very difficult to get a full complement of men back into the service. As a result they took into consideration the advisability of employing women conductors, and finally adopted this plan.
At the time of the explosion a heated election campaign was in progress. Then representative men of both politicalparties urged their followers to drop the election fight and the election was deferred and later rendered unnecessary by the withdrawal of one of the candidates.
The darkening of the water-front, the shading of windows, and other war-protective measures against the submarine menace, were given little attention for many weeks, and the coming into operation of the Military Service Act was postponed.
The establishment of relief stations, and later, of the temporary relief houses in the central and southern portion of the city brought about a very unusual commingling of classes, as well as a readjustment of membership in schools, parishes and various institutions.
Club life, social life, lodge and society “evenings” were for a considerable period tabooed, because of a general sentiment against enjoyment under the existing conditions as well as to lack of accommodation and of time.
The clamor for arrests, for the fixing of responsibility for the disaster, and for the meting out of punishment was for a long time in evidence, but never received complete satisfaction.
The difficulties of restoration of school attendance repeated the experience of the Cherry disaster, and the Truant Officer had a very strenuous time owing to the fact that so many people had changed their addresses.
A number of “special policemen” were recruited from citizens of all ranks, and this force materially assisted the members of the regular department. Owing to the large influx of workmen following the catastrophe, as well as for other reasons the work of the detectives was greatly increased.[106]
The survivors of two neighboring congregations, although belonging to different denominations, united in erecting atemporary church building—their respective churches having been destroyed—and have since worshipped together—a demonstration of the practicability of church union under circumstantial pressure.
The display apartments of a furniture concern were utilized as actual living rooms by refugees for a period, while at the same time business was in operation throughout the rest of the establishment.
The necessary functioning of relief activities, seven days in the week, the keeping of stores open on Sundays and the general disorganization of the parishes was reflected for a long period in a changed attitude upon the part of many towards Sabbath observance.
German residents of the city were immediately placed under arrest when the disaster occurred, but all were later given their freedom.
The citizens of Halifax were almost entirely oblivious to the progress of the war and other matters of world interest, for many days after the disaster.
The reversion to the use of candles, oil lamps and lanterns was an interesting temporary effect.
The rapidity of the reorganization, as well as the subsequent expansion, noted later, was largely effected by the social law of imitation already noticed. Many of the conditions affecting the rate of imitation were present. There was a crisis, there was necessity, there was trade and business advantage, social pressure, public demand, shibboleths—“a new Halifax” for example—but above all there was a multitude of models. The extent and scale of the rebuilding program in one area, the civic-improvement plans which accompanied the work in that district, the record time in which relief houses were completed, the marvellous speed at which the demolition companies cleared away the debris acted as models and stimuli to all inhabitants. Theprocess of speeding-up spread like a great contagion, until the most hardened pessimist began to marvel at the recuperation daily enacted before his eyes.
Among the models thus presented may be mentioned that of the rapid establishment of the morgue. This, the largest ever organized in Canada, was fitted up by forty soldiers and mechanics in the brief period of a day and a half. Another instance was that of the American Hospital. “At nine a. m. Bellevue was an officer's mess. By ten p. m. the same day it was a first-class sixty-six bed hospital, stocked with food and medicine and, in charge of Major Giddings;” it expressed a veritable “triumph of organizing ability.” In the record time of three months, Messrs. Cavicchi and Pagano, with a maximum strength of nine hundred and fifty men and two hundred and seventy horses working ten hours a day removed every vestige of the debris in the devastated area. Apartments were built at the rate of one an hour. Motor lorries multiplied so rapidly that visitors said there had been an outbreak of “truck fever” in the place.
By the stimulus of models, such as these, fresh vitality and motive were imparted to the members of the community. Halifax became busy as never before. New homes, new stores, new piers, new banks, replaced the old as if by magic. Men worked desperately hard.
An influence which must not be left unrecorded because of its continuity of functioning is that of the stimulus of lookers-on. More than two hundred cities in all parts of the world had contributed to the reconstruction, and citizens of Halifax knew they were not unobserved. Articles, lectures and sermons were telling forth to interested thousands how a city blown to pieces, swept by fire, buried under ice and snow, and deluged by rain, was a city courageous beyond words. During the month of December, five leading periodicals in Canada and twelve in the United Statesarranged for articles and photographs descriptive of the city's advantages commercial and residential.[107]Halifax became a world-known city. This added still further spur to action. Halifax simply had to make good. She was bonded to the world.
There are two considerations which may appropriately bring this chapter to a close. The first arises naturally from what has been said, namely, that in catastrophe it is only after division of function delegates to a special group the responsibility for relief work that public thought is directed to the resumption of normal society. The second is a practical deduction—that of social conservation. Every community should possess a permanent vigilance committee. There should be an emergency procedure on paper with duties outlined to which pledged men may be immediately drafted. Only in this way can social economy be preserved until the arrival of experienced disaster authorities from a distance.