Baltimore, Maryland Fire
February 7-8, 1904
Within 72 hours of the, start of the fire the
people of Baltimore were giving thought to
reconstruction. After an investigation it was
announced that the vaults of the Continental
Trust company, which contained securities to the
value of $200,000,000, were intact and that most
of the great bank and safety deposit vaults
escaped destruction. To relieve banks and
citizens from the embarrassment of financial
transactions the next ten days were declared
legal holidays in the commonwealth of Maryland.
Mayor McLane
reflected local public sentiment when he sent
out the following declaration to the world at
large:
“Baltimore will now enter undaunted into the
task of resurrection. A greater and more
beautiful city will rise from the ruins and we
shall make of this calamity a future blessing.
We are staggered by the terrible blow, but we
are not discouraged, and every energy of the
city as a municipality and its citizens as
private individuals will be devoted to a
rehabilitation that will not only prove the
stuff we are made of but be a monument to the
American spirit.”
With the exception of the Baltimore World all
the local newspapers suffered the loss of their
plants, moved their staffs to Washington and
issued editions regularly from there devoted to
Baltimore news. The World, published in the
thick of the ruin and desolation gave voice to
its sentiment in the following editorial:
“God be merciful unto those who suffered from
the awful calamity that swept down on Baltimore.
“Tongue fails; pen is inadequate and refuses
to comprehend the extent of the disaster that
has overtaken us. We have heard of awful
calamities to others; in fancied security we
have looked on in sympathy while others have
suffered. Now the pain, the anxiety, the
suffering is ours and we stand appalled, unable
to realize the immensity of the terrible affair.
“The World is the only newspaper office in
the city that is standing. Once it was on fire
and was saved only by the earnest, valiant and
courageous work of the World employes and the
goodness of God. To our suffering contemporaries
we extend the greatest sympathy and to the
hundreds of other sufferers also. For those
thousands who are thrown out of work in the dead
of winter, with sorrow and suffering staring
them in the face, our heart throbs with a
feeling that we cannot express. All we can say
is, ‘God help them.’”
Local and national military authorities took
immediate charge of the situation to prevent
looting and disorder, possible because of the
vast sums of money in the various safes and
vaults scattered about in the ruins. Recognition
of the disaster came from the nation in another
practical form. A bill was promptly and
appropriately introduced in Washington by
Representative Martin
Emerich of Illinois reciting the
destruction by fire in preamble and then
continuing:
Whereas, The fire has so crippled the
merchants and business interests in the City of
Baltimore that they are unable adequately and
properly to provide and care for the many who
are rendered ‘homeless and penniless by this
calamity, and
Whereas, The City of Baltimore and its people
are probably unable in the face of the unlooked
for catastrophe to provide proper means for
effectually checking the fire and promptly to
remove the embers and debris; and
Whereas, The same, while remaining, are
constantly a menace to the safety of many
citizens, it is enacted that the Secretary of
the Treasury be authorized and directed to pay
upon the order of the City Council of Baltimore,
certified by the Mayor of the city, to any
designated authority of said city, any necessary
sum of money not exceeding the sum of $1,000,000
out of any money in the treasury of the United
States not otherwise appropriated, to be used
for the purpose of providing shelter for those
rendered homeless by the said fire, and also to
be used for the purpose of clearing the streets
and localities devastated by the fire and in
order to render the city available for the use
of residents and others as speedily as possible.
The bill was referred to the committee on
appropriations.
Two days after the fire insurance men
estimated the loss at $125,000,000 and the
insurance carried at $90,000,000.
For the thousands of clerks and other
employes whose positions are gone forever there
seemed to be nothing before them but to move to
other cities.
In the work of rebuilding came employment for
another army, but it offered no avenue of escape
to those whose doom was sounded by the
explosions of dynamite and the crash of falling
walls. Few of the men were fitted for the heavy
labor of the building trades.
Baltimore’s great wholesale houses and wharf
district have been ruined—not irrevocably, but
to such an extent that the fear grips the heart
of every Baltimore business man that the city
may be unable to recover from it for many years.
Amid ruins still hot and smoking Baltimore began
its resurrection and made known its
determination to rise, Phoenix-like, through its
own efforts, by politely, yet firmly declining
proffers of help that poured in from all sides.
The blow that befell Baltimore aroused an
intense civic pride that found expression in an
effort to work out its own station. In declining
financial assistance
Mayor McLane was actuated by the
spirit shown by the Chamber of Commerce, Stock
Exchange and practically every local commercial
body, which came forward with offers of all the
money needed by the city for immediate use. It
was decided that should the Herculean task prove
too great for the municipality there would still
be ample time to seek outside assistance.
While heavily armed soldiers marched about the
blistering ruins with stately tread holding back
those who only a few hours before had fought the
police to save their valuables at the risk of
their lives, the latter—energetic business men—
were already preparing to re-open their
establishments. Old buildings, long unused,
private residences near the business section, in
fact, every available structure to be secured
blossomed forth within 24 hours with crudely
lettered signs on board or cloth announcing that
within was the temporary office of a firm. The
names on some of these signs were those that
rank high in the financial and commercial
circles of the world, and in these temporary
offices men who for years have known only
mahogany desks worked on cheap tables and plain
boards.
continued
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