(erielack) The Great Influenza and Erie/DL&W

[Wdburt1_@_aol.com]

I second Paul Cappeloni's recommendation of John Barry's "The Great 
Influenza."

On topic:  The railroads facilitated mass transportation, mass production, 
mass marketing and, yes, mass war.  Some would do doubt would say that the Great 
Influenza  was nature's revenge on the whole idea of "mass" anything.  While 
that may go too far, it certainly was nature's revenge on badly implemented 
mass strategies.

As best as anyone can determine, the virus started in military camp in middle 
America, hitched a ride with troop movements to Europe (by train--what 
else?--to the port of embarkation), and then back.

This was the Steam Age.  Energy was plentiful and they understood how to 
sterilize things.  And yet hygenic practices were deplorable, and scientific 
explanation remained in its infancy.  

While reading this book, I thought constantly of a June 1918 photo I have of 
a troop train stopped at Andover, New York.  The soldiers are hanging out the 
windows of wooden coaches, waving and yelling while townsfolk cheer them on to 
Europe.  Many soldiers are wearing what look like lice caps.  Their faces 
reveal a partial cross section of ethnic America.  

With a little digging I found a companion newspaper article reporting that 
the rear coach of the train had derailed and the train was held until it could 
be rerailed.  In the meantime the soldiers got off and staged an impromptu 
parade down Main Street to cheering crowds. Were the onlookers, who must have 
gathered spontaneously, responding to genuine feelings of patriotism, or the 
Wilson administration's overbearing and relentless propaganda?  We'll never know.

A close inspection of the photo shows a solid stream of water falling from 
the nearest coach to the ground--from a toilet, of course.  So here were these s
oldiers, having just left a military camp where the influenza virus was doing 
its evil work, stopped in Andover, New York to cheering crowds.  And because 
the Erie, like other railroads, did not sufficiently understand the importance 
of public hygiene, they potentially brought the flu virus to rural Allegany 
County.

The owner of this photo, a keeper of Andover's history, told me that all the 
men in the car closest to the camera died in France from influenza.

WDB


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