Eastland Memorial Society

WORK OF IDENTIFYING EASTLAND DEAD HARDLY 200
OF UNKNOWN REMAIN

Pitiful Scenes in Drill Hall of Chicago Armory as the Relatives Recognize Loved Ones in the Silent Ranks

RELIEF WORK IS UNDER WAY

The Processions of Dead from the Steel Coffin Met by Another Procession Removing the Dead to Undertakers'

[Associated Press Dispatch] CHICAGO, July 25 -- The sorrow which spread over the city with the Eastland disaster engulfing thousands with grief, hung lowest over the silent forms of the victims in the drill hall of the Second Regiment armory, Chicago's temporary morgue.

Side by side they lay, from one end of the hall to the other with narrow pathways between, along which slowly walked hundreds of anxious seeking to identify missing loved ones. Time and again the group would pause beside a pitiful bundle. There would be a gasp, a low voiced exclamation, a flow of tears, and another would be taken from the list of unidentified dead and placed in the 'known' column.

All through the night, load after load of bodies were received at the morgue and through the morning at less frequent intervals, the procession continued.

While the victims were being identified, fifty undertakers and forty embalmers who had volunteered at the call of Coroner Hoffman, worked rapidly in space at the north end of the hall, preparing the bodies for burial.

As the morning wore along, Curtiss street in front of the armory became crowded with hearses and the incoming stream of bodies from improvised morgues and from the overturned vessel was passed by another line of bodies, identified and in the keeping of an undertaker.

Before a body was passed out, the identification was recorded by a deputy coroner and the name of the nearest relative was placed on file. So perfect had been the preparatory work of the coroner than from noon until 1 o'clock more than a hundred bodies were taken away, and a few hours later not less than 200 bodies remained in the temporary morgue.

At a meeting of the mayor, and the citizens advisory committee, called by Acting Mayor Moorhouse, it was planned immediately to raise a fund of $200,000 by public subscription for the relief of the families of Eastland victims. In addition to this sum, officials of the Western Electric company, who attended the conference held in the mayor's office, announced that the Employee's Benefit Association had $100,000 available for relief work.

The Western Electric company officials stated that not more than one-third of the victims were employees of the company, the others being members of the employees' families, and friends.

Acting Mayor Moorhouse said that the $200,000 relief fund was guaranteed by the sub-committee and would be available for use within twenty-four hours. The relief work will be in charge of the National Red Cross, the Associated Charities of Chicago and the City Health department.

At noon, Acting Mayor Moorhouse telephoned a detailed report of relief work begun to Mayor W. H. Thompson. Mayor Thompson affirmed everything that had been done and replied that he would leave San Francisco late on a special train expected to arrive in Chicago next Wednesday morning.

The managers of the Chicago theatres instead of closing their places of amusement, announced that they would keep them open and give a percentage of the receipts to the relief fund. The entire force of the city government will be at the disposal of the National Red Cross so Acting Mayor Moorhouse announced. He said the nurses of the health department were giving attention to the mourning families. The department of public welfare, in charge of Mrs. Louise Osborn Rowe, opened a bureau of information and used its employees in relief work. Ernest P. Bicknell, national director of the National Red Cross, will arrive in Chicago tonight to take part in the relief work.

"Chicago is nobly responding to the call for relief and we will not need assistance from any outside city," said Acting Mayor Moorhouse. "We have an efficient organization, all money needed, and every care of the sufferers will be promptly relieved."

At a late hour the morgue was cleared of all but a score of corpses, the rest of the victims having been identified, were removed.

DISASTER TO BE INVESTIGATED

CORNISH, July 25 -- The president ordered the department of commerce to make a complete investigation of the sinking of the Eastland. He directed that nothing be left undone to fix the responsibility.

THE CHICAGO MURDER

[EDITORIAL] -- No punishment, even capital punishment, can be too severe for the men who permitted the steamer Eastland to be boarded by 2500 picnickers at Chicago last Saturday morning. Every responsible officer of the company having charge of the Eastland should be punished in the measure of his responsibility. They knew, as everybody else knew, that the Eastland was unsafe and had always been. At least twice before that she had turned over. It must have been evident that, with the unusual load of 2500 persons, she would more likely than not repeat that performance. But there was a chance that she would not, and the gambling owners or lessees took the chance. They bet the lives of 2500 men, women and children against the paltry amount of the fares they paid that the steamer would return safely. It was a long shot, and they lost, as bettors against great odds usually do. Here was a strange reversal too, in betting, a wager of incalculably large amount on the short end against a few insignificant dollars.

The men, the boat's officers, immediately in charge of the Eastland may have been somewhat at fault. She may not have been quite as skillfully handled as possible, but the chief element of danger lay in the construction of the vessel, so that such an accident was likely to happen anywhere. It was better that it should happen where it did, within a few feet of land, rather than out on the lake where probably all the passengers would have been lost.

May there be no farce in the business of fixing the responsibility for this wholesale murder at Chicago, as there was in the trial that followed the burning of the General Slocum a few years ago. In that case the old captain of the old fire-trap was sent to the penitentiary for ten years and the owners escaped with the loss of a practically worthless steamer. The captain was far less to blame. He had no motive in filling the Slocum with human freight, while the owners had the motive of cupidity which inspires all crimes from murder down to petty larceny.

If these men of the Eastland are now dealt with as they deserve to be, the tendency of ship owners of lessees to trifle with human life for a few hundred dollars will receive a check.