The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1893-06-10
Special to the REcoRD-UNIoN.

WASHINGTON, June 9.-Hundreds of
men carried down by the falling walls ola
building which was VIGOROUSLY insecure;
human lives crushed out by tons of brick
aud iron, and sent unheralded to the
throne of their maker; men by the score
manned and dishgured for life; happy
families hurled into the depths of despair;
women calling for their husbands, chill
dren calling for their fathers, mothers
calling tor their sons, with not an answer
to their cry.
This is but a shadow of the awful
calamity that befell this city this morn
ing. Words cannot picture the awfulness
of the accident. Imagination stands back
and fails to give any idea of the scene. Its
horrors will never be fully told. Its sud
denness was almost the chief horror. In
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, was
the change, and men who came to the
scene of their daily toll will never return
alive.
In the National Capital of the proudest
nation of the earth there has been a
catastrophe unparalleled in the annals of
its history. and in every mind there is
the horrible conviction that its genesis is
to be found in the criminal negligence of
a government too parsimonious to pro-
vide for the safety of its loyal servants
by erecting buildings proper for their
accommodation.
FLOORS FALL IN.
1t was between $50 and 10 O'Clock this
morning that the floors of the old Ford's
Theater building, on Tenth street, occu-
ID II.
Of the Surgeon-General's Office, fell in,
as though they had been cards of card
house. On each floor were scores of men
at work. Without warning they were
carried down as by an awful cataract
The foundation was made up of iron
girders hardly strong enough to support
the walls, but heavy enough to stamp out
human lives, of bricks held together by
plaster long since dried out, of wooden
beams that had been in place too long.
UNSOUND BUILDING.
The Government of great nation could
not afford to provide safe building for
faithful employees, but herded them to-
gether in a building whose unsound con-
dition was notorious. Again and again
have columns of the press been filled
There is shame and remorse on the
souls of some men who were responsible
for the state of things that confined men
working for their daily bread in build
ing that everyone in the city of Washing
TIM knew was unsafe.
SINGULAR COINCIDENCE.
Twenty-eight years ago there was an
other tragedy within the walls of this
building. The news of it was flashed TO the
four quarters of the earth, and it brought
CONSERVATION wherever it went. A man
was killed. He was President of the
United States. As though the building
had borne curse upon it from that time,
it ended its career in fitting manner.
But how much better would it have
been if the Government had removed
the structure years ago.
Those in the multitude who would
think of something beside the catastrophe
alone remarked upon the strange coinci-
dence that the building in which John
Wilkes Booth slew President Lincoln
should kill scores Of people on the very
day that the body of the assassin's
brother was being laid to its final rest
Evidence found in official records APP
pears conclusive that as long ago as 1885
this building, which the Government
purchased after the assassination, and
used as au army museum, was officially
proclaimed by Congress an unsafe de-
nository for even inanimate skeletons,
n,ummies and books ofthe army medical
museum, for which safer place OF stor-
age was provided by an Act of Congress.
No HEED TO WARNINGS.
Rnt Notwithstanding the fact that in the
public press and in Congress also con-
timed attention was called to the build
ing. the walls OF the building and its
darkness and general instability and I'M
safety, it continued to be used for the
daily employment ofnearly five hundred
Government clerks in the pension record
division of the War Office. The building
collapsed in the midst Of an ill-judged ef-
fort to remedy some of its detects. The
moral of the disaster is emphasized oy
the fact that there are known 10