East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1906-02-17
VAN SCHA|CK IS
MADE SCAPEGOAT
SLOCUM'S CAPTAIN is
PUNISHED ALONE
Owners Of the Vessel and Those Re-
sponsible for Her Equipment, Es-
cape Unpunishcd-New York Pa
pers Bitterly Censurc the Court for
the Seeming Discrimination.

OF all those responsible for for the
disaster that happened on June Is,
\ 1904, to the steamer General Slocum,
causing the loss OF 1000 lives, Captain
Van Schaick alone was convicted, and
| the press OF the country loudly calls
| for the Others says Literary Digest.
Even those papers that approve of
the 1O-year sentence for the aged
| captain believe that too many others,
| more blameworthy, have escaped.
When the jury announced its agree
ment that the captain was guilty of
| neglecting fire drills, Judge Thomas
is reported to have said to the accus-
ed: You are no ordinary criminal,
but | am going to make an example
Of YOU"
The New York Tribune comments,
Gratifying as is the verdict now OBJ
| tained against the company's salaried
employe. a verdict against the mana
gers themselves would have been well
coined as even more salutary by an
indignant community" The Charles
ton Is. c. News and Courier OBJ
| serves:
Captain Van Schaick has been SEN
fenced and it is to be hoped that his
sentence, 10 years of Imprisonment,
Will be carried out to the letter. But
so far we have heard of no trial of
the men who manufactured and sold
the life-preservers. If Captain Van
Schaick deserves his sentence, as he
| certainly does, the men who made and
| sold the dummy life-preservers should
be convicted of murder and electro
cuted at the earliest possible date"
The Brooklyn Eagle holds that the
sentence will make for greater safety
on excursion craft because captains
will be careful what commands they
undertake in the future But even
the Eagle adds, 1T would be just If
equally severe sentences had been
imposed upon the men equally guilty"
The New York American deems the
sentence a miscarriage of Justice"
and adds bitterly:
captain Van Schaick stood by his
craft to the bitter end; beached her
as promptly as was possible. He did
not equip her: he did not buy the rot
ten life-preservers nor did he build
the vessel which turned out to be
mere tinder box. TO send him to the
penitentiary for 10 years and ignore
the men who owned and equipped the
boat. and who made great profits out
OF II. would be an execrable failure of
Justice"
The New York Times. in much the
same vein, says:
THE owners who kept these fire
| traps plying for money have escaped.
The official inspectors who gave lying
certificates that the fire traps were in
good order have escaped. Every in
telligent passenger who embarked on
one of them was guilty of contribu-
tory negligence. And yet this one
poor old man, whose livelihood it was
to command excursion steamboats,,
and who could not have declined the
command of this river steamboat
without being deprived of his living,
finding any one of so others to take
what he refused. this poor old man
falls into the hands of justice, and he
gets it untempered with any degree
of mercy
"Ilis negligence was criminal He
ought to have held the fire drills
which no other captain held. But
while he is the least guilty of any
body concerned, he is the only suf-
ferer. What kind Of showing is that
of justice according to law? 1t is not
in the least to be supposed that the
executive department with which
clemency rests will allow such n sem
tence to be carried out in its full
rigor."
The New York Evening Mail quotes
Captain Van Schaick as saying. 81
think my sentence was pretty harsh
for an old man." and agrees with
him. The World asks, MAY other
owners and other inspectors feel en-
couraged to play fast and loose with
human lives i'm the assurance that in
case of disaster the captain will be
made the scapegoat?" The Philadel-
phia Inquirer fears Judge Thomas
failed to take into consideration the
facts that Captain Van Schaick, after
all, deserves credit for having remain
ed at his post and that his mental
agony in the hour of disaster was in
itself n great punishment. The In
quirer adds:
"The truth is that the destruction
Of tho General Slocum was due to the
existence of a whole set of bad con-
ditions now believed to have been re-
formed. 1t is not just nor does it
serve any public end to lay on n sin
gle scapegoat the whole burden of
expiation, That the sentence will be
allowed to stand is hardly imagna-
ble.'