“In the short time I have been here I have met and talked with women who saw every one they loved on earth swept away from them out in the storm. As I look out of my window I can see the blood-red flame leaping with fantastic gesture against the sky. There is no wire into Galveston, and I will have to send this message out by the first boat. “For the present the two things needed are money and disinfectants. More nurses and doctors are needed. Galveston wants help—quick, ready, willing help. Don’t waste a minute to send it. If it does not come soon this whole region will be a prey to a plague such as has never been known in America. Quick-lime and disinfectants, and money and clothes—all these things Galveston must have, and have at once, or the people of this country will have a terrible crime on their conscience. MAKING A FIGHT FOR LIFE. “The people of Galveston are making a brave and gallant fight for life. The citizens have organized under efficient and willing management. Gangs of men are at work everywhere removing the wreckage. The city is districted according to wards, and in every ward there is a relief station. They give out food at the relief stations. Such food as they have will not last long. “I sat in one relief station for an hour this morning and saw several people who had come asking for medicine and disinfectants and a few rags of clothing to cover their pitiful nakedness, turned away. The man in charge of the bureau took the last nickel in the world out of his pocket and gave it to make up a sum for a woman with a new-born baby in her arms to buy a little garment to cover its shivering flesh. “The people of the State of Texas have risen to the occasion nobly. They have done everything that human beings, staggering and dazed under such a blow, could possibly do, but they are only human. This is no ordinary catastrophe. One who has not been here to see with his own eyes the awful havoc wrought by the storm cannot realize the tenth part of the misery these people are suffering. “I asked a prominent member of the Citizens’ Committee this morning where I should go to see the worst work which the storm had done. He smiled at me a little, pitifully. His house, every dollar he had in the world, and his children were swept away from him last Saturday night. “‘Go?’ said he. ‘Why, anywhere within two blocks of the very heart of the city you will see misery enough in half an hour to keep you awake for a week of sleepless nights.’