The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1911-03-31
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IlI45 PEOPLE PERISH
IN new YORK FIRE
shIrtwaist Factory Employees
Are the Victims.

Altogether 145 persons. mostly girls,
lost their lives in the shirtwaist fac
tory fire at Washington and Greene
streets, New York city.
Nearly all, if not all, of the victims
were employed by the Triangle Shirt
Waist company on the eighth, ninth
and tenth floors of ten-story loft
building at % Washington place, on
the western fringe of the down town
wholesale clothing, fur and millinery
district
The partners of the firm, Isaac Har-
ris and Max Blanck, escaped unscath-
ed from the Office on the tenth floor
carrying with them over an adjoining
roof Blanck's two young daughters
and a governess.
There was not an outside fire es-
cape on the building.
It is believed the fire was started
by someone throwing away half
smoked cigarette into some infam-
mable material.
On the ninth floor fifty bodies we're
found; sixty-three or more persons
were crushed to death by jumping and
more than thirty clogged the elevator
shafts. The loss to property will not
exceed 100000.
Pedestrians going home through
Washington place to Washir gton
square at 10 minutes to were scat
tered by the whiz Of something rush
ing through the air before them. There
was a horrible thud on the pavement
and body fattened on the fiagstone.
Wayfarers on the opposite side OF
the street shaded their eyes against
the setting sun and saw the wiz dows
of the three upper floors of the build
ing black with girls crowding to the
stills. There were no fire escapes.
Don't jump! Don't jump" yelled
the crowd But the girls had no al
tentative. The pressure of the mad
dened hundreds behind them and the
urging of their own fears were too
strong. They began to fall to the
sidewalk in terrible rain of flesh and
blood.
fifteen minutes Before the engines
could respond. before the nets could
be stretched or the ladders raised, five
girls had fallen from the eighth and
ninth floors so heavily that they broke
through the glass and iron roofs of
the subcellars and crashed through
the very streets into the vaults be-
low
In an hour the fire was out. In half
an hour it had done it's worst. Prob
ably the death list was full in twenty
minutes.
Mayor Gaynor has called for special
contributions to alleviate suffering
from the Washington square fire and
has headed the subscription list by
contribution of 500, which he has sent
to Jacob H. Schiff, treasurer of the
New York chapter of the National Red
Cross
Architects, city officials, state fac.
tory inspectors and various civic bod
les denounced the conditions which
trapped in ten-story building when
fire started and proper means of es-
cape was lacking. District Attorney
Whitman said:
81 do not believe that more i'm
portant subject could be put before
grand jury than the ineXcusable con-
ditions that seem to prevail all over
Manhattan. Perhaps the laws are not
drastic enough; possibly such laws as
we have are not rigid1y enforced, at
any rate it will be essential. I think.
for the grand jury to spread before
the public the exact situation. Fire
Chief Croker tells me that the shock
Ing conditions at the Asch building
are duplicated all through the factory
districts and that it has been impos-
sible for him, despite numerous ap-
peals and protests, to make any head
headway.'
District Attorney Whitman made an
nouncement that he would demand
from the grand jury indictments
charging manslaughter and criminal
negligence in connection with the fire
Evidence has been presented to Mr.
Whitman that several doors were
locked, thus preventing many of the
victims from escaping. Negligence is
charged to the bureau of buildings
and Rudolph T. Miller, the superin-
tendent, will be called upon to explain
the lack of protection for the work
erS.