Bronze John raised an issue that still causes controversy today. The magnitude of the disaster put monumental strains on the assistance agencies. Thousands of refugees had flooded the countryside and they did not always receive a warm welcome from the people of outlying regions. The town of Milan, Tennessee employed armed guards to prevent displaced Memphians from entering their municipality. Milan residents set out provisions for the Memphians in fields outside of town, but once the refugees had quenched their thirst and eaten some of the victuals, armed guards herded them back into the rail cars. Relief organizations had to attend to the needs of both the displaced and those who stayed in the festering necropolis. The Citizen’s Relief Committee set up six refugee camps outside of town. The strain of provisioning these temporary settlements became too much for private donors to support, and some people realized this even before the Committee convened on the 16th of August. Dr. Paul Otey tendered a proposal that probably seemed a bit unusual for a leader during the Gilded Age. He asserted that the resources of the Relief Committee could not cope with the the disaster and that they would have to petition Washington D.C. for help. He knew that the volume of refugees would overwhelm the resources of the surrounding towns. Even if cities near Memphis had the will to help, they would have become swamped with an overload of demand. He realized that the only other option involved sheltering them in temporary tent cities. Despite the questionable nature of the proposal, others did not seem inclined to disagree in light of the appalling circumstances. The postmaster of Memphis telegraphed the Secretary of War, G.W. McCrary, for assistance. The Memphians would need tents and food to establish and maintain the refugee camps. People have an interesting way of swallowing their pride when the crack of doom bears down on them, and their philosophy of states’ rights and limited government suddenly evaporates like the stench of one of the city’s corpses. When Bronze John struck Memphis in 1878, the United States had survived only one century and the obligation of the federal government in a matter like this remained a topic of debate. Jeanette Keith states that McCrary questioned the constitutionality of the request, but this doubt did not prevent him from issuing one-thousand tents and giving in to a later request for food. He sent forty-thousand food rations. In the absence of this intervention Memphians would have suffered through spectre of starvation as well as the depredations of yellow fever.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 20:06:37 +0000
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