The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-02-28
The Los Angeles Times Disaster

IS disaster
: Vas the answer. Rico is the man who
had previously " found explosives ia
other suspicious places IN Los Angeles
/ For a time dropped the question
OF the bombs, but frequently after
ward, when j; came up again, some
one said significantly, Rico was the
man who found it"
! slacklisted For Talking About Gas.
began asking question about the
action of gas and dynamite and found
that in Los Angeles there are is men
who we're in or near the building at
the time of the explosion who testify
that in their opinion the building
could not have been blown up by dy-
Mantle and who are ready TO so state
under oath.
Since the beginning no man has
! been allowed to voice aloud the gas
/ theory, without penalty being put
upon him. W. h. Furhman, the teIe-
graph operator who left the building
short time before the explosion. tes-
. tilted that he had smelled gas all even
ing. and that gas had been escaping
for several days before the explosion
in such quantities as TO make the
men sick. Furhman was discharged
for his testimony and one telegraph
operator told me that he had been
blacklisted in both commercial COM
panies and Will not again be allowed
to work in any city in the United
States unless he takes another view
of the case.
That Cas-" Says Widow.
A woman who is prominent in club
and church work told me that she
called upon the wife of one of the men
who had been killed in the explosion
just a short time after it occurred
Its that awful gas that killed him.
He's been sick for week from il"
said the bereayed woman from the
bed where she was lying Frustrated
by the shock and the grief of it.
From another source / heard that
two telephone operators who had
been sent to the Times to repair wires
the day before the disaster had re-
ported that the conduit was so full of
gas they could not work unless the
leaks were stopped.
Me- A<r,fl c.>-L
These men are afraid to speak,
for they know it means their Jobs
said my informant, not labor man
Nobody can afford 10 speak here
We all have to make living. he
added.
1 a few years ago in Los Angeles
i there was building blown up by gas
and number of persons was killed.
The property was occupied by a res
tauraunt and the wreck, which saw
I a few hours afterward, looked much
as does the wreck OF the Times
building
OF the Is men, witnesses to the
{ explosion, whose opinions l was able
i to secure. there is not one whose tes-
timony differs in any material point
from all the others
Nearby Windows Not Broken.
o. 3. Steen mining man from
! Manhattan, Neb., who saw the wreck
declared that a charge of dynamite
sufficient to create a rent through
that building would have shattered
all the windows for a radius of three
blocks, but the windows remain in
tact. This opinion was verified b.
many other men familiar with the use
OF dynamite. NJ Steen also declared
that in q dynamite explosion the win
dows fall in, while in a gas explosion
the window fall our. The latter was
the case in the Times explosion
These IS men all declare that the
sound which accompanied the explos
ion was deep. rumbling roar, not Z
cracking sound. such as would &C
company dynamite; that there was nj
smell Of dynamite following the ex
plosion: that the whole building wa.
in flames from top TO bottom in two
minutes; that the explosion didn.
extinguish the electric lights, and tina
the force of the explosion was up
ward, while dynamite acts equally il
all directions.
1t is claimed, also that flames d.
not accompany dynamite explosions
but on the contrary, dynamite extin
guishes fire, and that sufficient ex
plosiye TO shoot a hole through /;
three-story building would have shat
tered the entire building. The walls
that are standing today prove that ii
the case of the Times building tina
was not fact.
coroner.s Jury Partial Inquiry.
Austin Lewis, attorney for the Tn
ionists, was assured by the coronei
that ne would be allowed to INTRODUCES
witnesses. The jury met, and on thu
first day identifie4 the remains. On tns