Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.) 1890-1930, 1904-04-16
PHOENIX, ARIZONA, APRIL 16, 1904,
The Accident on the Missouri.

terrible accident or the battleshlp
Missouri is the fact that thanks to the
heroism and GOODNESS of Chief Gun
rar.s Mate Monson. the country is not
called upon to mourn the instant death
of the entire complement of officers and
men. with the destruction of the SNIP
instead of the death of thirty-two
brave men.
When the first explosion occurred
and at moment when the average
man would be stunned and dazed'
Monsoon. the hero, thinking with the
rapidity of lightning, and acting al
most as quickly, jumped into the main
magazine and closed its massive doors
behind him. An instant afterward came
the second explosion, caused by the lg-
milton of 1000 pounds of powder in the
handling room. This powder, in four
charges had been in front of the doors
of the magazine and Monson had
showed it aside in making his way in
to the magazine. The records of the
American navy are replete with stories
of heroism, but no act performed by
officer or man since the birth of the
republic exceeds in heroic merit this
performance of MOnson's. A moment
after the explosion under the battle
ship Maine occurred, Bill Anthony, the
orderly, appeared at Captain Sigbee's
49, ,oru+ad and calmly said: Il
have the honor to report, sir, that the
ship has been blown up and is rapidly
sinking" In GOODNESS and bravery
Anthony has been matched by Monson,
and in addition Monson exhibited the
intrepid qualities of a born leader CT
fighting men. No officer of the navy.
trained from youth to the duty of
thinking simultaneously, could have
surpassed the brilliant work of Mon
sen.
The whole country will insist that
this man shall have commission in
the navy.
But the brave men who met hor-
1ible death on the Missouri were of the
same quality of manhood as Monscn,
and the United States cannot afford to
lose such men. There should be
stern insistence upon knowing whether
the lives of these officers and men
were unnecessarily sacrificed. There
should be a stern insistence upon
knowing whether, in the anxiety to
make records" the lives of other
brave men and officers, on other ships
of our navy, are unnecessarily placed
in jeopardy during target practice.
Unfortunately, there is reason to be-
lieve this is Sc. During the last month
or two the dispatches have contained
several accounts of remarkable records
made by gun crews on some of Our
battleships. Newspaper readers nave
grown accustomed to the news that
this or that gun crew of this or that
ship made a surprising number of hits
in an amazingly short space of time.
Now, the great guns of the navy
cannot be fired with extreme rapidity
without several accompanying dam
gers. One danger is that through
rapid firing the gun itself may eX-
plode. Within a few weeks two &c
cidents of this kind have been reported.
but the rending of the guns has been
attributed to some obscure and my
sterious cause yet to be explained
possibly a change in the explosive
quality of the powder" as one report
had it.
The Missouri was at target practice,
Wednesday. and it appears that some
record" firing was being done with
the 12-inch guns. So rapid were the
discharges that dangerous gases ac-
cumulated. The view here expressed
is not alone the view of The Repub-
lican. An officer of the navy depart
ment is quoted as saying:
Tho Missouri accident is too appall-
ing to discuss, but fear that enthusi-
asm in making world records has led
us past the danger line. In our anxiety
TO surpass the world in the rapidity of
big gun fire. 1 fear we have permitted
our enthusiasm to get the better of our
judgment. 1t would seem from the dis
patch that not enough time had been
allowed to elapse between the firings.
IL - oHIy recently lhat we nave per-
mitted the breech to be opened almost
the moment the gun was fired, and in
so doing there is necessarily a risk
Apparently, al but three men in the
handling room were killed. How mar
rowly the entire snip escaped destruc-
ton outright is realized when it is re-
called that near by is the magazine
containing anywhere from fifty to one
hundred charges"
1t must not be inferred that Com
mander Cowles was at fault. The
fault, if fault there be. rests with the
navy department in not prescribing
such regulations covering target prac-
tice as would tend to minimize the