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HALIFAX DISASTER RECORD OFFICE
ARCHIBALD MACMECHAN, F.R.S.C.
DIRECTOR
HALIFAX, N. S.

of procedure without even the faintest sign of hesitation. The men who did this were men who held positions as executive heads of several of the largest business concerns in the Bay State. And now that the months have flown by and the first terrific drive of dire necessity has been met and conquered, the results of their labors are to be seen in the gigantic programme of rehabilitation that has been launched and is being carried out.
Unfortunately, owing to the stress of the time immediately following the disaster, many of those who did yeoman service on the various committees have been overlooked, but their names are on record in the reports of the committees which will later on be submitted in full. To these there should be some official recognition made by the City as they gave freely to help ameliorate the sufferings o fthe people who were deprived of all they possessed in the disaster of December 6th, 1917.
Those in charge of the restoration of the City were wherever they desired it for business reasons relieved of their duties as the most acute needs of the situation were met, and the work so splendidly begun, is being carried on by a permantenly appointed Commission who took charge of the gigantic machine the emergency workers had so well constructed, and began the work of getting the people who had lost their homes housed under newly erected roofs. On January 25th, the City was a veritable work camp all under the supervision of the Reconstruction Committee with almost an army brigade of workers looking after the erection of shelters on the various spaces allotted to the purpose. To be exact according to available figures there were at that time 3,424 workers at that time, eighty-seven teams were also constantly employed in carrying materials to the various points where the workers wehe attending to the building of a new Halifax of great grey structures, while the area cleared by the explosion was being planned carefully as a place on which to erect the permanent new city which was to replace the old as a lasting monument to those diligent hundreds who so well discharged their trust and to those thousands who came to the aid of stricken humanity.
P. E. C.

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MG 1 vol 2124 number 292d