Just finished a gut-wrenching read, David McCullough's (John Adams, Truman, 1776) Johnstown Flood. In 1889 over 2000 people were killed when an earthen dam gave way above a heavily populated valley in western Pennsylvania. It was the most lethal natural disaster in America up to that point. The book tells of the dam's construction to create a lake for the summer resort of wealthy Pittsburgh industrialists, including steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. Originally sound, over the years the dam was shoddily maintained and loomed as a perpetual threat to the towns downriver. After years of false alarms the dam became something of a boogeyman to the residents of Johnstown, a pending calamity no one took seriously. When, after days of heavy rain it finally gave way, the deluge erased the nearby telegraph poles and railroad track, cutting off any possibility of warning the hapless townspeople, mostly laborers in the local steel mill. The wall of raging water started ten miles up the valley from Johnstown, gathering debris and momentum in epic proportions on its 30-minute grind to the edge of town; ten minutes later it was almost as if the town never existed.
I found it interesting that in the aftermath, popular sentiment was that the carelessness and imperiousness of the wealthy had caused this devastation. Such blame was low-hanging fruit and tapped into an underlying foment that is easily recognizable today. Johnston writes, "For despite the progress being made everywhere, despite the growing prosperity and the prospect of an even more abundant future, there were in 1889 strong feelings that perhaps all was not right with the Republic. And if the poor Hungarians of Johnstown were signs of a time to come when a "hunky" could get a job quicker than a "real American", then the gentlemen of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club were signs of something else that was perhaps even worse. Was it not the likes of them that were bringing in the hunkies, buying legislatures, cutting wages, and getting a great deal richer than was right or good for any man in a free, democratic society?" . (Loc. 3529, Kindle E-book) Today's Wall Street protesters would immediately identify with this vilification of the 1%, despite its antiquity. The survivors understandably forgot that their very existence in the valley was to trade their labor for their livelihood by working in the steel mill, owned by the members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Today if such an event happened we would be able to warn those in harm's way by calling them on our pocket computers designed and manufactured by, you guessed it, the 1%. I'm not excusing imperiousness in the 1%, but we in the 99% should not forget that we give them the fertilizer for that character flaw to flourish.
The Johnstown Flood was a tragedy, and like all tragedies there is the compulsion to cast blame - blame takes the edge off our pain, gives direction to our rage. I would argue that blame is a false trail, a blasting at phantoms, a spitting into the wind, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". 'Tragedy' is an epithet for a particularly steep nadir in the perilous path of the human condition; it's just as mysterious and inexplicable as winning the lottery or being born beautiful. Perhaps it would be wiser to philosophize as Job did: "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord". Acceptance of our fragile possibilities in light of our Creator's omniscience strikes me as more sensible than futile fury against our "mortal coil" (as I write here in the comfort of my couch, healthy, employed and sheltered).
The Johnstown Flood is superbly researched, engagingly written and, as you can tell, thought-provoking; it's well worth your time to be reminded that 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'.
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