Part 60 (1/2)
Geronimo, one of the worst of all the Apaches, was once more a prisoner with his band. But he had been a prisoner before, only to escape and renew his outrages. So long as he was anywhere in the Southwest, the ranchmen felt unsafe. Accordingly, he and his leading chiefs were sent to Fort Pickens, Florida, the others being forwarded to Fort Marion, St.
Augustine. Their health after a time was affected, and they were removed to Mount Vernon, Alabama. The prisoners, including the women and children, number about 400. A school was opened, whither the boys and girls were sent to receive instruction, and some of the brightest pupils in the well-known Indian School at Carlisle were the boys and girls whose fathers were merciless raiders in Arizona only a few years ago, and who are now quiet, peaceful, contented, and ”good Indians.” The Apaches have been thoroughly conquered, and the ranchmen and their families have not the shadow of a fear that the terror that once shadowed their thresholds can ever return.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1888.
Although President Cleveland offended many of his party by his devotion to the policy of civil service reform, he was renominated in 1888, while the nominee of the Republicans was Benjamin Harrison. Other tickets were placed in the field, and the November election resulted as follows: Grover Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman, Democrats, 168 electoral votes; Benjamin Harrison and Levi P. Morton, Republicans, 233; Clinton B. Fisk and John A. Brooks, Prohibition, received 249,907 popular votes; Alson J. Streeter and C.E. Cunningham, United Labor, 148,105; James L. Curtis and James R. Greer, American, 1,591.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BENJAMIN HARRISON. (1833-.) One term, 1889-1894.]
THE TWENTY-THIRD PRESIDENT.
Benjamin Harrison was born at North Bend, Ohio, August 20, 1833. His father was a farmer, and _his_ father was General William Henry Harrison, governor of the Northwest Territory, and afterward President of the United States, and the first to die in office. His father was Benjamin Harrison, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Thus the twenty-third President possesses ill.u.s.trious lineage.
Benjamin Harrison entered Miami University when a boy, and was graduated before the age of twenty. He studied law, and upon his admission to the bar settled in Indianapolis, which has since been his home. He volunteered early in the war, and won the praise of Sheridan and other leaders for his gallantry and bravery. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1881, and his ability placed him among the foremost leaders in that distinguished body. As a debater and off-hand speaker, he probably has no superior, while his ability as a lawyer long ago placed him in the very front rank of his profession.
THE JOHNSTOWN DISASTER.
The Conemaugh Valley, in the eastern part of Pennsylvania, is about twenty miles in length. The city of Johnstown lies thirty-nine miles west-southwest of Altoona and seventy-eight miles east-by-south of Pittsburg. It is the seat of the Cambria Iron Works, which give employment to fully 6,000 men, and is one of the leading industrial establishments of the country. Conemaugh Lake is at the head of the winding valley, eighteen miles away, and was the largest reservoir of water in the world. It was a mile and a half wide at its broadest part, and two miles and a half long. Most of the lake was a hundred feet deep.
The dam was a fifth of a mile wide, ninety feet thick at its base, and one hundred and ten feet high. The ma.s.s of water thus held in restraint was inconceivable.
The people living in the valley below had often reflected upon the appalling consequences if this dam should give way. Few persons comprehend the mighty strength of water, whose pressure depends mainly upon its depth. A tiny stream, no thicker than a pipe-stem, can penetrate deeply enough into a mountain to split it apart, and, should the reservoir ever burst its bounds, it would spread death and desolation over miles of country below.
There had been several alarms, but the engineers sent to make an examination of the dam always reported it safe, and the people, like those who live at the base of a volcano, came to believe that all the danger existed in their imagination.
On the 31st of May, 1889, the dam suddenly gave way, sliding from its base, like an oiled piece of machinery, and the vast ma.s.s of water shot forward at the speed of more than two miles a minute. Seven minutes after the bursting of the dam, the head of the resistless flood was eighteen miles down the valley. A man on horseback had started, at a dead-run, some minutes before the catastrophe, shouting a warning to the inhabitants, some of whom, by instantly taking to flight up the mountain side, were able to save themselves, but the majority waited too long.
A FURIOUS TORRENT.
Imagination cannot picture the awful power of this prodigious torrent.
Trees were uptorn or flattened to the earth, houses, locomotives, and ma.s.sive machinery were tumbled over and over and bobbed about like so many corks, and the flood struck Johnstown with the fury of a cyclone, sweeping everything before it, as if it were so much chaff. Tearing through the city and carrying with it thousands of tons of wreckage of every description, it plunged down the valley till it reached the railroad bridge below Johnstown. There, for the first time, it encountered an obstruction which it could not overcome. The structure stood as immovable as a solid mountain, and the furious torrent piled up the debris for a mile in width and many feet in depth. In this ma.s.s were engines, houses, trees, furniture, household utensils, iron in all forms, while, winding in and out, were hundreds of miles of barbed wire, which knit the wreckage together. In many of the dwellings people were imprisoned, and before a step could be taken to relieve them fire broke out and scores were burned to death.
[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN MOTHER AND INFANT.]
How many people lost their lives in the Johnstown flood will never be known. The remains of bodies were found for months and even years afterward. The official list, when made up, was 2,280, of which 741 bodies were unidentified; but there is little doubt that the loss was fully twice the number given. Nothing of the kind has ever before occurred in the history of our country, and it is to be hoped that such a disaster will never be repeated.
Again the calamity awoke an instant sympathetic response. Provisions, tents, and money were sent to the sufferers from all parts of the Union, and nothing that could relieve them was neglected. Johnstown was soon rebuilt, and to-day there are no signs of the fearful visitation it received, only a comparatively short time since. On November 14, 1892, at the payment of the annuity provided for the orphans of Johnstown, the sum of $20,325 was distributed.
We came very near to having a war with Chili in the latter part of 1891.
On the 16th of October of that year, some forty men, attached to the American wars.h.i.+p _Baltimore_, lying in the harbor of Valparaiso, obtained leave to go ash.o.r.e. Sailors at such times are as frolicksome as so many boys let out for a vacation, and it cannot be claimed that these Jackies were models of order and quiet behavior. They were in uniform and without weapons.
They had been in the city only a short time, when one of them became involved in a wrangle with a Chilian. His companions went to his a.s.sistance whereupon a native mob quickly gathered and set upon them.
The Chilians detest Americans, and, seeing a chance to vent their feelings, they did so with vindictive fury. They far outnumbered the sailors, and besides nearly every one of them was armed. The boatswain's mate of the _Baltimore_, Riggin by name, was killed and several seriously wounded, one of whom afterward died from his injuries.
Thirty-five of the Americans were arrested and thrown into prison, but as they could not be held upon any criminal charge they were released.
The captain of the _Baltimore_ was the present Rear-Admiral Schley, who rescued the Greely party of Arctic explorers, and gave so good an account of himself, while in command of the _Brooklyn_, during the destruction of Cervera's fleet off Santiago, July 3, 1898. When our government learned of the affair, it directed Captain Schley to make a full investigation. He did so, and his report left no doubt that the Chilians had committed a gross outrage against our flag.