Free My Story by Elizabeth J. Hauser Page A

our own rolling-mill. Though this decision cost the Cambria an excellent customer, they coöperated with us in every way in building our plant which was situated in the center of a large level tract of land in a new suburb known as Moxham. We had purchased all the land in that locality which was suitable for building purposes, and our holdings reached quite to the edge of the great perpendicular bluffs which enclose the valley. We placed the mill with a view to profiting by the increased land values which would follow the growing up of the community around it, and we made money out of both.
    Protected now by special grants in the highway, by the tariff, by patents and by land monopoly my training as a monopolist had gone far. No wonder I liked my business. It was not the money making end alone that appealed to me; I liked the whole game, but the fact that I was getting rich and seeing my associates prosper may have been my greatest stimulus.

V
THE LESSONS JOHNSTOWN TAUGHT
    O UR mill was completed and ready for occupancy when the Johnstown flood occurred, May 31, 1889, and in an hour wrought such havoc as no imagination can picture, havoc which must be seen to be believed possible. The property losses of our firm were very small for though our old plant was in the path of the flood and was swept away, it had been practically abandoned, much of the machinery and stock having been removed to the new mill.
    We had built a steam railroad which ran from Moxham into Johnstown and for some time had been trying to get possession of the city’s street railways too. It was not until after the flood, however, and in consequence of the general demoralization of that business along with all other activities, that the owners were willing to sell. Then they were only too glad to get rid of the property, and they may have had small regard for the business sagacity of anyone who would buy a railroad when cars, shops and tracks had been washed away, and when what was left of the latter was covered by a seemingly hopeless mass of debris.
    We made no money out of the strap-hangers or other passengers in the first days of operating in Johnstown for the street cars like our steam railroad ran free. So with the groceries, meat markets and other shops. Itwasn’t a case of “After us the deluge,” but “The deluge after us,” and “us” was everybody who had anything the community could use. There wasn’t much talk about the sacred rights of property around Johnstown just then as I remember it.
    When the first shock of the disaster was over the dazed people realized that there was no responsible head to which they could look for relief, guidance or protection, for that little city was made up of eleven boroughs, each with its own set of councilmen, its burgess and its miniature city government. In times of comparative peace there was no getting together of these powers because of petty jealousies, continual bickerings and contested rights. The hopelessness of expecting anything from this quarter now was perfectly apparent to all. So a public mass meeting was called, at which it was decided to elect a Dictator — one in whom all powers, legislative and executive, should be vested. The choice fell upon Mr. Moxham, and a most fortunate choice it was, for so wisely did he administer the affairs of that afflicted community that his authority was never once questioned.
    Think of being called upon to feed, clothe and house a destitute and panic stricken population of thousands, to search out and care for the bodies of unnumbered dead, to clear away the wreckage of a razed city, and withal to maintain order, insure public safety and provide against further calamity. This was the task which faced Johnstown’s elected dictator, himself a British subject, not an American citizen. Here was indeed “work that called for a man,” and I shall never cease to be proud of the splendid way in which Mr. Moxham