Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-07-11
A Lesson We Have Learned.

That something has been learned
burned in the East River with loss
of more than a thousand lives, was
demonstrated yesterday when her sis
ter ship, the Grand Republican, caught
fire in the Narrows but landed her
passengers without the loss of single
life, declares the New York Evening
Post.
Doubtless conditions in the recent
fire on the Grand Republic were more
favorable than on the Inflated
Slocum with its hundreds of helpless
and terror stricken women and chill
dren. But it is pleasure to record
that the engines of the Grand Re-
public were found in excellent condi-
ton; that the life preservers We're in
good snaps, and from captain down
the crew was calm and went through
the fire drill with perfection. All of
the two hundred passengers We're
safely landed and the loss to the boat
was not great.
The conditions revealed by the des-
truction of the General Slocum awak-
ened feeling of horror and indigna-
ton. Provisions for safety in case
lected. The life preservers We're rot
ten and helped those who trusted them
to drown rather than to be buOyed un-
til aid could come The crew was un
disciplined, the hose was unreliable
and there was no definite knowledge
of the working of the fire. fighting APP
paratus. There We're some instances
Of heroism but for the most part it
was every man for himself The old
captain was made the scapegoat for
the catastrophe and those higher up"
escaped with comparatively small
penalties.
The previous steamboat fire that
produced the most vivid impression on
the public mind was the burning of
the Lexington in Long Island Sound,
seventy years ago last January, when
122 lives were lost. A year later the
steamer Erie was destroyed by fire on
the lake of that name and gao persons
lost their lives. Sixty years ago the
j P. Griffin was burned on the same
sheet of water. Between these oc-
currences and the General Slocum
holocaust, such disasters were almost
went down in the Thames as the re-
suit of a collision, and seven hundred
persons, mostly women and children,
persisted.
The recurrence of such disasters it
seems should have prevented the
Slocum horror but it did not. Pre-
cautions had been ignored and duty
wilfully neglected. Human life in
many hundreds had been the pawn of
a gamble to save a few dollars.
The result of the near-horror the
other day may well serve as a vindi
cation of every measure of precaution
that has been taken in the intervening
years At the time of the Slocum
disaster her sister ship the Grand
Republic was given thorough in
spection and found in hardly better
shape than the burned vessel. She
had carried as many as six thousand
passengers at a single trip, but her
life preservers We're of the same I'M
dependable kind Hr carrying limit
was cut down to two thousand and
she was required to equip herself with
reasonable means of insuring passen-
gers safety.
These incidents in contrast-the aw-
full horror on one side and the happy
escape, which precaution made posi-
bic, on the other-should emphasize
the necessity for continued vigilance
and the maintenance of a system of
inspection and contaol whose value
mas Just been proved.
Those who trust their lives to the
care of officers and crews of steam
ers along the Kennebec and other
Maine rivers and coast, do So with
perfect confidence. Frequently re-
assured by fire drills and inspections
of boilers, engines, life preservers. and
so forth, they feel that they are
guarded by faithful men in the employ
of companies who care not to gamble
in human life,