Dark Tide of Greed

Stephen Puleo

Dark Tide, by Stephen Puleo, was a very good book, filled with interesting information about the era surrounding the beginning of World War I, 1915, when the molasses holding tank was built in the Boston wharf area. It was intended to hold molasses that would be trucked to a nearby plant where it would be made into industrial alcohol that would be used to make munitions.  The company was selling the alcohol to other countries involved in WWI, and then eventually, when we got into the war, to our manufacturers.

I didn't know that there were all these anarchists in our country then who were against the war and against government as well, I guess, exploding bombs that damaged property and sometimes killed people.

But the anarchists were not to blame for the disaster that killed 20 people and injured many more, some seriously, in January 1919--greed was.  But that's not surprising at this time (not surprising at any time, really), when there were not enough regulators to enforce laws that might have saved people if they had been paid attention to.  A hastily built tank that was shoddily made could not safely contain 2.3 million gallons of molasses, especially when it started to ferment and release gases. The miracle is that it stayed upright for three years, continuously leaking, before it ruptured and spilled its contents across a wide swath of Boston.  The spill was more like a tidal wave, really, like a tsunami of molasses; a 25-foot-high wave moving at 35 mph can do a lot of damage.  It sounds comical, but when you read about the suffering of the injured and dying, you know it must have been terrifying.

Reading this story can make you angry--be forewarned! But it's a worthwhile read just the same, because the story has been forgotten, at least by everyone except Bostonians. One person I know who grew up in the Boston area said he was told that parts of the city still smelled like molasses 40 years later.  Fortunately, the guilty were made to pay for their actions, but that didn't help all the people who were devastated by this avoidable accident.

Next I'm reading an anthology of mystery stories written by women, edited by Sarah Paretsky, Women on the Case.  So far, the stories are mostly well written, especially those by Ruth Rendell and Nevada Barr.