Isaac's Storm (14 page)

The
city
exhibited
a
rare
harmony
of
spirit.
Blacks,
whites,
Jews,
and
immigrants
lived
and
worked
side
by
side
with
an
astonishing
degree
of
mutual
tolerance.
Through
the
Negro
Longshoremen's
Association,
Galveston's
black
population
controlled
wharf
labor
and
enjoyed
a
standard
of
living
higher
than
almost
anywhere
else
in
the
country.
The
immigrant
influence
was
obvious.
At
the
heart
of
town,
Isaac
found
the
Garten
Verein,
or
Garden
Club,
built
with
money
pooled
by
the
city's
German
residents,
who
accounted
for
one-third
of
the
population.
It
was
a
large,
octagonal
dance
pavilion
with
pilasters,
balustrades,
and
a
central
cupola,
set
in
a
park
that
included
a
bowling
green,
tennis
courts,
even
a
small
zoo.
Women
could
not
smoke
or
wear
rouge
or
lipstick
on
its
grounds.
But
they
could
dance.
In
this
staunch,
straight-backed
time
when
a
man
could
not
weep
and
a
woman
could
not
smoke,
there
was
always
dancing.

Galveston
was
too
pretty,
too
progressive,
too
prosperous
—
entirely
too
hopeful
—
to
be
true.
Travelers
arriving
by
ship
saw
the
city
as
a
silvery
fairy
kingdom
that
might
just
as
suddenly
disappear
from
sight,
a
very
different
portrait
from
that
which
would
present
itself
in
the
last
few
weeks
of
September
1900,
when
inbound
passengers
smelled
the
pyres
of
burning
corpses
a
hundred
miles
out
to
sea.

.
.
.

IT
WAS
NOT
enough
for
Isaac
to
do
merely
what
General
Greely
asked
of
him.
He
saw
in
his
transfer
to
Galveston
"great
opportunities
for
the
utilization
of
my
recreation
time."
Although
his
colleagues
might
have
been
inclined
to
ask,
what
recreation
time?

On
August
24,
1889,
his
second
daughter
arrived.
He
and
Cora
named
her
Rosemary.
They
hired
help,
most
likely.
Everyone
did.
But
a
baby
was
still
a
baby.
There
were
diapers
but
no
washing
machines.
The
nights
were
hard,
the
days
tiring.
As
for
Isaac's
work
life
—
the
Galveston
office
was
in
disarray.
Isaac
was
under
orders
not
just
to
fix
it,
but
also
to
start
the
new
Texas-wide
weather
service.
For
most
men,
all
this
would
have
been
quite
enough.
But
in
1893
Isaac
joined
the
faculty
of
the
University
of
Texas
medical
school,
based
in
Galveston,
as
an
instructor
in
medical
climatology,
and
during
the
year
delivered
thirty
lectures
on
topics
ranging
from
the
fundamentals
of
measuring
barometric
pressure
to
the
role
of
climate
in
pneumonia,
malaria,
and
yellow
fever.
He
also
enrolled
in
Add-Ran
Male
and
Female
College,
today's
Texas
Christian
University,
and
began
studying
toward
a
doctorate
in
philosophy
and
sociology.
He
taught
the
young
men's
Sunday-school
class
at
the
First
Baptist
Church.

He
quickly
turned
the
Galveston
office
into
a
showpiece.
On
November
13,
1893,
an
inspector
named
Henry
C.
Bate
paid
a
visit
to
the
Galveston
office,
the
first
inspection
since
the
transfer
of
the
weather
service
in
1891
to
the
Department
of
Agriculture,
which
formally
named
it
the
Weather
Bureau.
Isaac,
Bate
wrote,
"was
exceedingly
popular
with
everyone
...
The
service
has
few
such
men
in
the
field
—
none
better."
Bate
provided
the
underlining.

By
then,
Isaac's
brother,
Joseph,
had
joined
the
bureau.
Unlike
Isaac,
he
had
drifted
toward
weather.
He
taught
school
in
Mount
Vernon,
Tennessee,
for
twenty-five
dollars
a
month
but
quit
to
move
to
Galveston
to
become
a
salesman,
or
"drummer,"
for
a
printing
company
and
quickly
earned
a
reputation
as
being
just
about
the
only
salesman
in
town
who
did
not
drink.
He
earned
sixty
dollars
a
month,
but
Galveston
was
a
lot
more
expensive
than
Mount
Vernon
and
he
soon
found
he
was
saving
less
money.
He
joined
a
locomotive
machine
shop
operated
by
the
Gulf
Colorado
Railroad,
but
remained
for
less
than
two
months.
The
fact
Isaac
hired
him
was
evidence
that
for
the
moment
the
men
were
still
close,
still
friends.
At
the
time
of
Bate's
inspection,
Joseph
was
twenty-two
years
old
and
earning
$840
a
year,
his
best
salary
yet.
Bate
gave
him
a
total
score
of
8.8,
but
noted
his
penmanship
was
"somewhat
difficult."
In
his
concluding
remarks,
Bate
wrote
that
the
Galveston
force
was
overtaxed
and
badly
served
by
headquarters.
"I
don't
think
there
is
a
station
in
the
United
States
that
gives
out
near
the
amount
of
information
daily
and
weekly
as
this,
and
I
am
quite
sure
there
is
none
where
the
value
of
the
Service
and
this
information
is
more
genuinely
appreciated
than
here."
Yet
few
stations,
Bate
wrote,
"are
so
poorly
provided
with
office
comforts
and
facilities
—
I
hope
the
Chief
will
give
this
matter
his
favorable
consideration."

A
NEW
CHIEF
took
over
the
bureau,
Mark
W.
Harrington,
the
former
editor
of
a
meteorological
journal.
He
continued
Greely's
campaign
to
reduce
public
skepticism
about
the
bureau's
ability
to
do
much
beyond
simply
recording
changes
in
the
weather.
At
the
time
of
Harrington's
appointment,
Isaac
wrote,
"weather
forecasting
was
nothing
more
than
a
listing
of
probabilities."
Even
something
as
basic
as
predicting
the
temperature
twenty-four
hours
in
advance
was
considered
so
likely
to
result
in
failure
and
public
ridicule
that
the
bureau
forbade
it.
This
prohibition
frustrated
Isaac
Cline.
He
believed
he
understood
the
weather.
He
understood
the
rippling
of
isobars
across
the
plains.
Weather
could
be
strange,
but
never
so
strange
as
to
elude
scientific
explanation.
Isaac
had
experienced
tornadoes,
hailstorms,
freakish
floods,
and
dragon
winds.
He
understood
them
the
way
a
parent
comes
to
understand
a
difficult
child.

Chief
Harrington
gave
him
a
chance
to
prove
it.
In
September
1893,

Harrington
launched
a
competition,
open
to
all,
to
find
the
best
forecasters
in
the
Weather
Bureau.
The
grand
prize
was
a
coveted
professor's
position
in
Washington.
The
first
step
required
contestants
to
write
a
paper,
three
thousand
words
or
less,
on
the
topic
"Weather
Forecasts
and
How
to
Improve
Them"
and
to
submit
this
by
December
1,
1893.
Each
contestant
was
to
mail
his
paper
under
a
false
name
to
avoid
prejudicing
the
three-man
panel
of
judges,
but
seal
his
real
name
inside
an
attached
envelope.
Harrington
received
thirty
entries.
One
came
from
Isaac.
But
Joseph,
still
an
apprentice
weatherman
and
nine
years
Isaac's
junior,
also
submitted
an
entry.
The
rivalry
intensified.

THE
THREE
JUDGES
in
Harrington's
contest
selected
the
ten
best
papers
and
invited
their
authors
to
Washington
for
the
next
phase
of
the
competition,
in
which
the
finalists
would
take
a
written
examination
and
spend
two
weeks
testing
their
forecasting
skills
against
those
of
their
fellow
contestants.

Harrington
sent
two
letters
to
Galveston.
The
first
arrived
Christmas
Day
and
informed
Isaac
that
he
had
placed
among
the
top
ten;
the
second
told
Joseph
he
had
failed
to
make
the
cut.

The
Galveston
News
applauded
Isaac.
"While
those
interested
in
the
weather
service
work
in
Texas
wish
him
success
they
would
regret
to
see
him
called
to
other
fields
of
duty,
as
his
place
here
would
be
a
hard
one
to
fill."
The
News
made
no
mention
of
Joseph.

Early
in
January
1894,
Isaac
went
to
Washington.
He
placed
fifth
in
the
final
competition,
but
insisted
his
grade
was
only
"three-tenths
of
one
per
cent
behind
the
winners."
Two
other
contestants
tied
for
first,
one
a
balding,
mustached
man
named
Willis
L.
Moore,
with
whom
Isaac
developed
a
warm
personal
friendship.
Moore
and
his
opponent
entered
a
runoff
competition.
Moore
won,
and
received
the
Washington
professorship.

Joseph
clearly
felt
hurt
by
his
failure
to
place
among
the
top
ten
finalists.
He
believed
himself
to
be
the
best
forecaster
in
the
Weather
Bureau
and
for
proof
cited
the
fact
his
name
was
first
on
all
but
one
of
the
lists
put
out
every
six
months
by
the
bureau's
forecast
verification
unit,
which
checked
each
prediction
for
accuracy.
In
a
later
memoir,
he
never
mentioned
that
Isaac
also
had
taken
the
test.
In
fact,
in
all
251
pages
Joseph
barely
mentioned
Isaac
at
all,
and
then
only
in
the
most
cursory
way.

It
was
geneology,
by
then.
Not
love.

THE
YEAR
1894
brought
Isaac
a
third
daughter,
Esther
Bellew,
his
baby.
There
was
a
bit
of
good
news,
too,
for
the
Weather
Bureau.
Police
at
last
caught
up
with
Captain
Howgate,
the
fugitive
embezzler.
It
was
about
the
only
good
news,
however.
Conflict
continued
to
embroil
the
bureau.
It
faced
a
nation
of
skeptics,
one
of
the
most
ardent
being
Secretary
of
Agriculture
J.
Sterling
Morton,
Harrington's
boss.

Morton
wanted
to
save
money
and
did
not
think
he
was
getting
full
value
from
the
bureau's
scientists,
whom
he
believed
to
be
far
too
well
paid
for
the
little
skill
they
demonstrated
in
forecasting
the
weather.
The
previous
year
he
had
launched
an
attack
on
Cleveland
Abbe.
In
singling
out
the
bureau's
brightest
light,
it
was
clear
Morton
was
attacking
the
bureau
as
a
whole.

Morton's
assault
began
on
June
16,
1893,
when
he
wrote
to
Abbe
asking
him
to
prove
his
worth.
"It
seems
to
me
that
the
disbursements
of
the
Weather
Bureau
for
scientists
are
altogether
too
extravagant."