Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1904-01-13
INVESTIGATION On. OF ?.
80, - SStS.HS@Es -
... THEATER HORROR
Evidence Is Heard with a View of
Fixing the Blame on the
Guilty Parties.
OFFICIAL LIST OF DEAD NUMBERS. SIS
Managers Of Playhouse md City OH.
cial Arrested, Charged with
Enthusiastically The
aters Closed.

who is conducting the investigation for
the fire department.
Carelessness in handling the lights.
lack of fire drill for employees, and de-
sertion of their posts by the employees
during the panic are charged.
The management is bitterly arraigned
for failure to keep the skylights over
the stage opened.
Il will stake my reputation upon the
statement that if the stage ventilators
and skylights had been opened during
the fire, and the skylight over the au-
dltorium had been closed, the flames
would not have reached the audience.
and hundreds of lives would have been
saved" said Mr.. Fulkerson.
The analysis of the attorney is most
important at the present time, as he has
examined many of the witnesses who
will be heard by the coroners jury. His
investigation did not have such a wide
scope as that of the coroner will take,
being confined to the origin and location
of the fire.
Absolute Lack of Supervision.
! Absolute lack of supervision over
fire appliances, fire escapes and exits
IN the theater was admitted by the
managers, Harry J. Powers and Will
j. Davis, and the business manager,
Thomas NOonan, in an examination by
Attorney Fulkerson. Noonan furnished
the most sensational testimony. AS
Stunning responsibility for the manage
ment of the employees of the theater,
he confessed that he had never in
structed the men under him what they
should do in case of fire, and had as
signed no one, to the management of
the fire apparatus. He admitted that
two exits to Randolph street on the
ground floor were locked, and that the
fire exits to the north, three each from
the parquet and first and second bal
cony floors, were bolted.
Dead Number SOS.
The coroner's official list of dead-for
use at the inquest-cOntains just SOS
names. Previous police reports indicat-
ing sol dead are declared now to be in
accurate and due to the shifting of bod
les from one morgue to another.
| Managers Arrested.
Will J. Davis, Henry J. Powers and
! Building Commissioner George Will
liams, who were arrested on warrants
| charging them with manslaughter in
connection with the Iroquois disaster,
were arraigned before Justice Under
wood and were released under bonds of
| $4,000 each. The hearing of the accusa-
| lions against the three men-Davis and
| Powers as managers and part owners Of
| the theater, and Williams as the city Of
! fetal whose province it was to prevent
the opening of an unsafe playhouse
will be held in the Stanton avenue po-
lice court January II at 10 a. m.
Chicago, Jan. 8-When the Iroquois
fire started the audience viewed it with
calmness, and in fancied security sat and
| waited, with astonishing faith, until
death suddenly swooped out from the
proscenium arch and claimed nearly 600
souls.
This terrible fact was brought out
with distinctness at the first session of
the inquest, which was begun Thursday
morning in the council chamber of the
city hall.
The great audience, largely made up
of women and children, firmly believed
in the safety THE IroQuois theater. For
several minutes after the sparks began
| to fly on the stage the audience remained
practically motionless, watching the
stage hands trying to extinguish the fire.
The audience sat, sane and practically
quiet, while the sparks changed into
| flames.
Not until the great mass of fire leaped
out from under the stalled curtain did the
panic really start. Those persons, even
in the second balcony, who needed the
| very first warnings escaped without
great difficulty.
The beginnings of the inquest indicate
that the playhouse tragedy will be
probed to the very bottom, until every
| detail of the horrible calamity and it's
day.
Exits which could not be opened, cur
tains which would not come down, aisles
which were overcrowded, fire protec-
ton which did not protect, absence of
discipline among employees and many
other things which might have con-
tributed to cause the appalling loss of
life in the 1roquois theater fire were
charged in the testimony of the wit
nesses who appeared at the first days
session of the inquest.
Gives Credit to Arhbishop Ireland.
Rome, Jan. 5.-Archbishop Guidi, the
| apostolic delegate in the Philippines, re-
porting to the vatican on the settlement
of the friars' land question, says the in
| fuence of Archbishop Ireland contrih