Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-07-08
TERMS OF THE DISPATCH.
PITTsBURG, MONDAY. JULY s. lsSI
THE IoHNsToWN VERDICT.

When the Indictment to local feeling is
considered. probably few will feel surprised
at the verdict of the Coroner's jury of Cam
bria county, holding the owners OF the South
Fork dam responsible for the Johnstown
disaster. The jurors were necessarily Sc
le.ued from the vicinage of the catastrophe.
They were surrounded by the scenes of DESC
lation while they were vet hearing the evil
dence 1t would be strange if they were
not moved to find as strongly as possible
against those connected with the agency of
destruction. Still, these very circumstances
make the verdict one which the public must
necessarily be the slower to accept for its
own judgment. That it bears hardly and
with clear injustice in putting the whole
membership of the South Fork Club under
the condemnation of culpability, few con-
siderations conclusively show. There is no
contention that the affairs of the club were
managed directly by the members. Like
other such organizations, it necessarily en-
trusted them TO agents. As individuals the
members of the club were at the ill-fated
lake but a small part of each year,
and then trusted their lives and those
of their families to it without expectation
or thought of danger. Some of them had
but recently become members; in one case,
it is alleged, a member never even saw the
lake or attended meeting of the stockhold-
ers. Few, if any of them, were in posi-
tion to know as much respecting the dam,
or the local conditions, as many of the un-
fortunate people of Johnstown themselves,
who lived in the shadow of the valley
of death, year after year, unmoved suth-
ciently by fear or suspicion to take the de-
termined steps they surely would have
taken had there been in their own minds
serious apprehension of impending danger.
These are facts which it is impossible to
ignore. Surely they do not point to culpa-
bility on the part of the individual members
of the club.
In dwelling on these facts, which simple
Justice to the individuals concerned re-
quires should not be lost sight Of, we by no
means imply that responsibility nowhere
existed, or that the cause of this or any
other such disaster should be in any way
excused simply on the plea of not having
been foreseen. Reasonable and competent
foresight becomes itself an imperative duty
where the conditions, without it, involve
danger Whether this was exercised as to
the dam is the vital point. The Johnstown
people exhibit this terrible disaster as
demonstration of the Insufhciency of the
dam, and bring expert evidence of the in
adequacy of the structure; while, on the be-
half of the club, it is contended that
FL orl
all human expectation, caused the overflow
and the break. The club, as an organiza-
ton, may of course, be legally answerable
for the acts of commission or omission by its
agents. 1t is not the place of the press to
pass upon the point further raised as
to individual liability of members because of
acts alleged to be outside of the scope of the
charter. But whatever the law and the
facts shall prove to be, as bearing on the
question of civil responsibility, the Coroner's
verdict is clearly harsh and untenable in so
far as it imputes culpability to the club
members. That such is its intended import
is to be gathered from the intimation that
criminal prosecutions are in view. Such
would meet with no favor or support in any
quarter outside of Johnstown, and we rather
think would be soon regretted there.
There has been SO much abuse and ex-
travagant misrepresentation OF the members
of the South Fork Club in papers outside of
Pittsburg-mostly demagogic attacks be-
cause of their presumed wealth-that fair
play, which is due to rich and poor alike,
calls for just consideration of the facts in
framing judgment