One of the first actions of General Hastings was to at tempt to restore the ordinary municipal activities of the various boroughs. The surviving municipal officers were sought out, and municipalities were reorganized. In the interregnum there had been a voluntary submission, on the part of the whole population, to the emergency author ities. Order was well maintained, and no crimes were committed. As soon as practicable, surviving municipal officials resumed their vocations, and vacancies were filled by appointment until regular elections could be held. To the student of civil government this deliberate restoration of municipal activities was a very interesting phenomenon. To the student of economics the restoration of the ordi nary commercial and business activities of the city is of equal interest. General Hastings, with the consent of the municipal authorities, took possession of part of the pub lic square, and upon one of its fronts erected blocks of buildings available for business uses. The Finance Com mittee, to whose custody these buildings were then turned over, allotted rooms in them to business men upon appli cation from those who desired to use them. Merchants in the cities had been ready to furnish stocks of goods, in many instances on easy terms, but there had been a lack of storerooms, and of places to locate them. The permis sion to use the public square for business purposes was limited to eighteen months. The funds for the erection of buildings were supplied by the Flood Commission. Forty-two stores were opened on the first floors of these buildings, and upper floors were occupied as business offices. Thus the wheels of general business were set in motion, and the objections made to the erection of these buildings from the funds of the commission were found to be not well grounded. Nothing could have been more effective in restoring ordinary industrial and business life in the community.
By the end of June great dissatisfaction began to be felt in Johnstown because of what appeared, to the sur vivors and their friends, to be unreasonable delay in the distribution of the relief funds which were known to have been sent to the Flood Commission. The Finance Com mittee thereupon resolved to make a distribution of cash from the funds in its possession, although this was a de viation from the policy which had been adopted when the committee was organized on June 6. A resolution had then been adopted to the following effect : That the employment and payment of labor to remove the in conceivable amount of debris, in which were buried thousands of human bodies, and carcasses of animals, and in restoring the streams to their natural channels, is of first importance to us, and it is also a matter of national concern, as, if this is not fully effected, the tainted waters may carry pestilence into the regions through which they pass. This will involve an expense of which no approximate estimate can be made." It was also recognized, however, that the survivors of the flood were then, and for some time must be, wholly dependent upon issues to them of food and clothing, and that the method of distributing money to the living should receive grave consideration, and it was then suggested that another committee should be appointed for this pur pose, composed in part of citizens of Johnstown, and in part of members appointed by the governors of states, and chambers of commerce of cities from which contributions had been received, or in such other ways as would give the committee a national character, and would " assure the country that its most generous charity will be judi ciously and fully applied to the relief of the victims of our unprecedented calamity." It was evident that, even at
this time, the constitution and the relief policies of the commission did not meet with the entire approval of the Finance Committee, which, being entirely local in compo sition, thoroughly understood the situation, and was in immediate personal touch with all its phases. On June 24 the Finance Committee adopted this resolution : — " Whereas, this Committee has expected that the State Commis sion, which has control of a large amount of money contributed for the relief of the sufferers by the Flood, would adopt a plan of distribu tion for the same, and proceed with this work, and its failure to do so has cast upon this Committee the duty of taking such action itself as will at least afford partial relief of the prevailing distress, therefore " Resolved: That the resolution of this Committee, adopted June 6, defining the powers of this Committee, is hereby modified in so far as it is in conflict with the resolution following : "Resolved: That a sufficient number of offices shall be opened in each district which has suffered with the Flood, in charge of competent persons, and that the names of families and places of residence of all sufferers shall be registered by the head of the family, when there is a surviving head, and other survivors being registered individually, the present place of residence being stated when known, this being done for the purpose of enabling the Committee to distribute the funds in their hands.
" Resolved: That it shall also be the duty of the persons in charge of registration to make a record of the names of all persons lost by the Flood.
"Resolved: That the money in the hands of this Committee for distribution, shall be prorated equally among the surviving sufferers by the Flood, as soon as the registration is complete." The distribution made under these resolutions was ac complished on July 8, and, being on a per capita basis, came to be known as " head-money " distribution. The sum of $10 was paid to each person who had in any way suffered loss by the flood, without regard to the amount of his loss, or the necessities of the recipients. Payments were made to heads of families, and although the records of the commission do not show the entire number of per sons who were aided at this time, it is known that 4616 families or single persons received allowance, and that the total amount disbursed was $148,890. At about the same time a distribution of some $5200 was made by the mayor of the city of St. Louis in person, this having been the request of the donors of his fund, and a further distribu tion of $16,929.30 was made by representatives of the New York World. A number of those who participated in this first distribution disappeared thereafter from the records of relief agencies, no further applications being received from them. In some instances the amount re ceived under the per capita distribution was equal to, or in excess of, the loss that had been sustained by the recipient.