XIV Mr. Roosevelt at Messina
Tuesday, the sixth of April, six weeks after work began at the American camp, the German East African steamer “Admiral,” having on board Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Griscom and Captain Belknap, entered the harbor of Messina. More than a month before, on the fourth of March, Mr. Roosevelt’s term of office as President of the United States came to an end. The last months of a retiring president are always arduous, and Mr. Roosevelt must have found them peculiarly so. Besides the endless knotting up of the ordinary executive business, there was all the extra labor connected with the Italian Relief. Now he was off for a holiday in the African jungle. On his way, he looked in at Messina, to see how things were going on at the Camp. Work had been pushed at the Mosella, at Reggio, Sbarre, Palmi, Ali, all along the line; the rumor that Mr. Roosevelt was coming spurred every man to his best pace.
“We must have something worth while to show him!” said Belknap.
“All right!” the Camp answered as one man. The very hammers sang it, the saws shrieked it, the true hearts beat the gay refrain: “All right!”
As the “Admiral” passed the Faro, Belknap, who had joined the party at Naples, pointed out the royal standard flying at the masthead of a man-of-war. “That means the King and Queen are here!” They had timed their visit to Messina so as to meet the ex-President there. As the “Admiral” slowed down, a launch from the King’s ship came alongside, a dapper young officer ran up the gangway and saluted.
“His Majesty was about to go on shore; learning of the steamer’s arrival, he has delayed in the expectation of seeing Mr. Roosevelt on board.”
Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Griscom immediately embarked on the launch and went with the Italian officer to the King’s ship. So at this old “Four Corners” of the earth, Victor Emmanuel and Theodore Roosevelt met. What did they say to each other?
They probably shook hands, they may have talked about the weather, or the price of oranges (sixty cents a dozen in New York at the present writing and a drug in the markets of Sicily). Their meeting is none the less significant because we know nothing about it; the circumstances make it momentous. Though Mr. Roosevelt was no longer in office, in a certain sense, at all events, in the eyes of the Italians, he represented the American people. It was under his administration that the earthquake occurred, that the relief work was planned and started; he himself had given the impetus. Morally, if not technically, this was a meeting of the representatives of the two great allies, Italy and the United States, bound together by the strongest of all alliances, the need of each other’s help.
What would America do without the skill of the Italians? What would Italy do without the gold of the Americans? May neither ever have to stand the test!
The interview over, the King took the ex-President and the Ambassador on shore in his launch. At the landing they parted, King Victor going off with Captain Bignami to the Villaggio Regina Elena, the others starting for the Camp. On their way they passed two of our steamers unloading lumber. Mr. Roosevelt stopped and shook hands with the sailors in charge of the job. No holiday for them! Though little else went on in the way of work that afternoon, the unloading could not be delayed. The nightmare of demurrage, forfeit money paid the ship owners for every day’s delay in unloading the cargo, haunted Belknap, sleeping or waking.
The carriage with the Roosevelt party drove up the Viale San Martino, past the Tell Tale Tower, to the Camp. Though it was raining in torrents, the road was in good condition; the Italians, like the Americans, had been “rushing work.” At the Camp the party was received by Buchanan and Brofferio. The sailors were lined up; the officers, volunteers and carpenters were assembled. There was a great gathering of the clan; from Reggio came Ensign Wilcox, Gerome Brush, Robert Hale and the head carpenter. From Taormina came Mr. Bowdoin and Mr. Wood. Mr. Chanler was with the Roosevelt party, together with Avvocato Giordano who had been on the “Bayern,” Commendatore Salvatore Cortesi of the Italian Associated Press, Mr. Lloyd Derby, and Mr. Robert Bacon, Jr.
The visitors walked through Viale Taft, Viale Roosevelt and Viale Stati Uniti (the streets in the American Village are all named for men who had some part in building it). Mr. Roosevelt was keen to see every detail: the ice house, the kitchen, the neat offices, the comfortable bedrooms, and finally the “mess-room,” gay with bunting. Gasperone had set the tables with fresh linen, and decorated them with wild hyacinths and acanthus. Such hospitality as the Camp could afford was offered. The cook had baked a cake; Mr. Buchanan’s “boy,” the giant negro from Florida, had prepared a vast quantity of sandwiches. Though nobody was hungry, the good cheer must be sampled.
Mr. Roosevelt made a short speech, then, raising his glass, gave the toast:
“To every man of every nation engaged in this great work!”
They drank the toast standing.
“What did he say about every civilized nation owing a debt to Italy?” whispered a reporter to J.
“You’ve got the gist of it,” said J., “and it’s true as Gospel, too!”
All too soon it was time to go! The three hours were up! Down in the harbor the “Admiral” was blowing off steam; this was a non-schedule stop, made out of courtesy to a distinguished passenger; privileged persons must be punctual. The return to the landing was a triumphal progress. During the last year and a half Mr. Roosevelt has had many such, he has heard a deal of cheering. None, it would seem, can have moved him so profoundly as the cheers of the Messinesi, the brave remnant of a brave people!
The letters and diaries of this time ring with the echoes of those shouts.
Extract from Mr. Elliott’s Diary
“The Camp, Messina, April 6.
“Mr. Roosevelt was most cordial to us all. After saying lots and lots about the splendid work of the officers, sailors, and carpenters, he spoke of the rest of us volunteers who, he said, have given our time and energies to help a philanthropic work. The Italians cried: ‘Long live our President,’ and ran along holding on to the carriage and cheering him—a moving sight. The Queen is worshipped by the people in these parts and deserves to be. Women in
their petticoats, half dressed, evidently in the act of doing their hair, raced after her carriage with the ends of their hair held between their teeth. Somehow this was curiosity, admiration, and awe—even worship, that seemed to be expressed. The same might be said of their attitude towards the King. I thought they really seemed to worship him, and perhaps love him, too—but with Roosevelt the feeling expressed was different. It seemed to be admiration and brotherly affection—that was pleasant to see.”
Some of the visitors were quite unprepared for the magnitude of the work undertaken. They had received the impression that the building party had very little to do, except put together the portable houses (there were only forty-nine of them) that, it was commonly supposed at home, composed the larger part of the cargo of the lumber ships.
“As if,” Belknap exclaimed, “you could pick a portable house from a tree like a lemon!” In a letter to the Ambassador, Belknap gives some interesting details about the hospital.
“The hospital referred to was one that the Queen desired to be built at Villaggio Regina Elena. Like the hotel, it began as a combination of several standard cottages, but, as Mr. Elliott was never content with a makeshift when he could improve upon it, a plan was ultimately evolved which embodied all of her Majesty’s ideas, and at the same time made the most of the ground area that would be available to cover. The Queen had stipulated for kitchen, laundry and servants to be in a building separate from the hospital proper, and for a detached house to be available close at hand. Mr. Elliott’s plan was of a large, main building, forty by sixty feet, containing three wards, dining-room and pantry, bath, office, dispensary, and linen closet, with a wing thrown out on the north containing operating-room, sterilizing-room, and emergency ward, and another wing on the south for doctors’ rooms and bath, and nurses’ rooms and bath. In the rear were to be kitchen, laundry and dining-room, with servants’ sleeping-rooms and storeroom in a semi-detached building in one corner, and, symmetrically placed in the opposite corner, a small isolated building for a contagious ward. With the hospital, also, our part was at first limited to the contractor work, her Majesty sending an engineer down to arrange for plumbing, drainage, lighting and furnishing; but later we arranged for, and carried through, the plastering and tiled flooring.
“In submitting the two floor plans of the hotel, it is requested that the Ambassador take such steps as may be necessary for obtaining her Majesty’s sanction for the use of her name for the hotel.
“It is only intended to build a two-story structure, having about eighty-four rooms available for guests, and a dining-room and its accessories amply large for about two hundred at one time.
“Since we have been at work about the hotel site, several persons have approached me about undertaking to manage the hotel when completed. My reply has been that I should refer all such questions to the Ambassador, as I did not feel myself in a position to decide any matter not connected strictly with the construction. The interest in the hotel is spreading.”
The sixth of April was a red-letter day. In the morning the King came to the Camp; in the afternoon Mr. Roosevelt and the Ambassador made their long expected visit, and in the evening J. was summoned on board the Italian man-of-war, to show his plans of the hospital to the Queen.
Extract from Mr. Elliott’s Diary
“The Camp, Messina, April 7.
“Yesterday the King arrived unexpectedly at the Camp at 9 A.M. Buchanan, Brofferio and I accompanied him and his staff through the village. They came into my small office. I showed the King my designs for the hospital and the cottages we are to build at Villaggio Regina Elena, a model village the Queen has built on the other side of Messina. He liked the plans very much. When I spoke of the great disaster the King said that the American duty put on lemons was almost as great a disaster for Sicily as the earthquake. Though, he added, ‘America is perfectly right.’ At 7 P.M. I was taken on board the ‘Umberto I’ by the steam pinnace of the ‘Dandolo.’ I was received by the Queen, a most fascinating lady. She thanked me many times, till I felt quite embarrassed. She was really very enthusiastic about the plans for the hospital and the cottages. The subject of the allotment of the houses came
up. I said I thought the plan the King had spoken of as his idea—the drawing of the cottages by lots—was the only way, in spite of the fact that some undeserving people might be housed while people of higher grade, really the greatest sufferers, might get nothing.”
The day after Mr. Roosevelt’s visit the Camp was astir early. The Ambassador breakfasted with the officers and master carpenters in the mess-room; in spite of the pouring rain, he was off before eight o’clock with Belknap on a tour of inspection. He was delighted with everything, had a good word for everybody. More than twelve hundred men were now employed at Messina, Reggio, Sbarre and the smaller places, where our Lilliputian “wooden palaces” were going up. The Ambassador, who had kept in touch with every step of the work, now saw it “in full swing,” saw the working of the system, the organization of the army of labor. There were corps for clearing the ground, stacking the lumber, delivering the building materials, and for cleaning up. There were interpreters, mostly Sicilians, who had been in America, carters and water-boys. The Sicilian and Calabrian carpenters all served an apprenticeship in the “shop.” Here under the keen eye of Phillips, the carpenter in charge, each man was tested, and then taught to do one thing,—whatever he proved fittest for. To build one hundred houses a week was Belknap’s ambition; sometimes he fell short, oftener he exceeded the number. This is the way the thing was done:
First on the ground came Cook—ship’s carpenter from the “Celtic,” a Boston man—with his gang. They cleared the land (the peasants had already cut down the lemon trees), smoothed and leveled the soil, drove the foundation posts, laid the sills.
Second, came Emerson, the Philadelphian, and his gang of framers. They put up the side studs, the roof frame, the gable ends (made in the shop), and laid the floor joists.
Third, came Cox of Brooklyn with his gang. They placed the end studs, the door and window frames, their “cripples,” and the kitchen framing. When the work of these two framing gangs was done, they passed on, leaving a skeleton house behind them.
Now came one of the four enclosing gangs, organized by Neil Mackay, a canny Scot, king of carpenters they called him. There were fifty men in each enclosing gang, with one of their own number for leader, who was made responsible for the tools. At seven every morning each gang was given its tool-box; a close tally of the contents was kept, and at night the precious tools must be returned intact. The enclosing gang made more of a showing than the others. They took a skeleton house and clothed it with clapboards and floors; so that the roofers—who came next with their Sicilian capo (boss), Ferrara—found something that looked a good deal like a house. After the roofers had put on the roof, the finishers came. They hung the doors, fitted and glazed the windows, put on locks and fastenings, added the steps. When the carpenters were done with the house, the bricklayers and masons took hold and built the famous kitchen, putting in a stovepipe to make all complete, and in their turn making room for the painters. These men gave each cottage two coats of white paint, green doors and trimmings and dark neutral-colored base, “so that the mud splashed up by the rain would not show.”
When Mr. Griscom had seen the different gangs at work, he went to inspect the foundations of the hotel. While he was admiring the neat brick arches, the royal automobile whizzed up to take the Ambassador, Belknap and J. to the Villaggio Regina Elena, to meet the Queen. Having seen and approved the plans for the hospital and houses the Ambassador had promised to build in the American quarter of her model village, she wished to see the site the buildings would occupy.
They found the Queen already there; in spite of the torrential “earthquake rain,” she was determined to see every detail of her village. The Ambassador walked with her and Captain Bignami; the others fell in behind and followed with the lady-in-waiting, Brofferio and the Italian officers.
“This is the bakery!” said the Captain. “This is the baker; he himself built his oven. Your Majesty can see how light the bread is!”
Her Majesty said something kind to the baker, then crossed the street to the butcher’s shop, neat as wax, with all the latest sanitary contrivances; next to the school, then to the church, last of all to the industrial school,—a busy hive of working women and girls.
“The Queen was perfectly delighted,” writes
J. “The place fairly hummed with the noise of machinery. Everything was going at full blast; women were making stockings and weaving underclothes; there must have been twenty of them at least stitching on Singer sewing-machines (the Singer people, by the way, sent a good subscription). The Queen went into several of the houses, and found them all in apple-pie order; Captain Bignami insists on perfect cleanliness.”
As they left the building a little girl, escaping from the guards who kept the people back from pressing too closely on the royal party, threw herself at the Queen’s feet and kissed the hem of her dress. Many petitions were made, some of them for perfectly unreasonable things.
“It is so hard,” said the Queen; “these poor people think I can give them whatever they ask me for.”
“That is not wonderful, considering all that your Majesty has given them.”
“The hospital will stand here;” Captain Bignami pointed out the site on the hillside above the village, commanding a magnificent view.
“You have heard,” it was whispered, “her Majesty names it the Elizabeth Griscom Hospital?”
“What a good idea!”
The Queen now disappeared, and the Americans returned to Messina. The Ambassador soon after took the ferry-boat for Reggio. Here he looked over the work with Ensign Wilcox, and later went with Mr. Chanler to Sbarre, to see the buildings put up there under Chanler’s direction. Timothy, the carpenter, writing to his wife, says:
“The Ambassador, Captain Belknap and several other gentlemen came. My men was working, though the mud was ears deep and one could not keep looking well. The Captain introduced me to Mr. Griscom, who highly commended me on the mill and its workings. They all took dinner with us that evening, and we was twelve at table. When we got good and started and was about half-way through, Mr. Chanler came in late and made thirteen. He did not mind. Some of the boys kicked but we laughed them out of it. Many funny stories was told. Finally broke up, singing America on the party’s leaving; it was raining very hard.”
“I had hoped,” writes Belknap, “that Mr. Roosevelt might see what was to me the best feature of the whole enterprise, the hundreds of men busily employed, earning good wages, making the air ring with the noise of their saws and hammers; but it would have been futile to try and keep the men at their places while he was passing. The men were in sight, to be sure, by the hundreds, fresh from their work, with tools in hand, nail aprons on. I doubt if much work was done the whole afternoon, notwithstanding that Mr. Roosevelt was in the Camp only an hour; yet the time lost was more than made up afterwards by the enthusiasm and stimulus that the visit gave.”
So ended the meeting of the Triumvirs, Roosevelt, Griscom and Belknap. To those who helped them in their work it was of such profound interest, that the sixth of April remains the culminating point of the whole Messina business.
What did it mean to them?
All three are men of action, who delight too much in doing to waste much time in talking about what they have done. They felt it none the less for all that. A single sentence from a letter of Mr. Griscom’s tells us more than a volume of official reports.
“I may say personally, I have had the most valuable and interesting experience of my lifetime.”
We said at the time that the rain was the only drawback to the complete success of Mr. Roosevelt’s visit. Looking back at that memorable sixth of April, we are not so sure of this. Was it not really best things happened as they did? All the distinguished visitors received a more exact idea of the actual conditions under which the work they planned was carried out, than if the day had been fair. For more than three months that cruel earthquake rain continued, with only a few rare days of fair weather. The peculiar rain may in some measure have been due to the fine dust discharged into the atmosphere, since every drop of rain is formed around such a particle. This may, the scientists say, account for the rain at Messina. Peculiar rains have been observed after other earthquakes. The trouble is that earthquakes are so rare that the scientists cannot tell whether the rain was a mere coincidence or due in some measure to the disturbance. “The change of the electrical potential due to the earthquake might serve to start a rain, and altogether one is inclined to suspect that the rain was at least started by the earthquake,” writes one expert. The truth is the scientists themselves are all “up a tree” about that mysterious rain. Rosina Calabresi, Timothy, and all the simple people who endured it, have no such doubts. To them, to us, perhaps to Mr. Roosevelt, it remains a rain apart, unlike all others!