Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1911-03-30
FIRE TRAPS / TOLL
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY LIVES
SNuFFED OUT IN A NEW
YORK HOLOCAUST
VICTIMS FACTORY GIRLS.
Not Since the sIocum Disaster Has
New York Witnessed Such an
Appalling Visitation in
Lives Sacrificed

New York, March 25.-One hun
dred and forty-eight persons, nine
tenths OF them girls from the east side
were crushed to death on the pave
ment, smothered by smoke, or burned
to crisp Saturday afternoon in tn
seen, since the steamship General
Slocum was burned to the waters
edge of North Brothers island in
1904. Nearly all, if not all, of the
victims were employed by the TRAN
gle Waist company, on the Eighth,
ninth and tenth floors of a ten story
building at % Washington place, on
the western fringe of the down town
clothing and millinery district The
partners of the firm Isaac Harris and
John Blank escaped unscratched from
the Office on the tenth floor, carry
ing with them over an adjoining roof,
Blanks two young daughters and a
governess. There was not an outside
fire escape on the building.
One hundred and forty-one bodies
have been removed from the ruins at
midnight, and seven of the forty in
iured have died in the hospitals. This
it is believed completes the list of
deaths most of whom are unidentified.
Grief crazed relatives beseiged the
morgues as the bodies were layed out.
How the fire started probably will
never be known. corner on the
eighth floor was it's point of origin,
and the three upper floors only were
swept. On the ninth floor, fifty bod
les were found, sixty-three or more
persons were crushed to death by
jumping and more than thirty clogged
the elevator shaft The loss to prop
erty will not run over 100000.
Pedestrians going home through
Washington place to Washington
square at ten minutes to 5 o'clock,
were startled by the whiz of some
thing rushing through the air before
them. There was terrible thud on
the pavement and body flattened on
the flags. Wayfarers or the seppos-
tie side of the street shaded their
eyes against the setting sun and saw
the windows of the three upper floors
of the building black with girls
crowding to the stills.
CROWD YELLED TO VICTIMS
Don't jump!" Yelled the crowd.
But the girls had no alternative. The
pressure Of the maddened hundreds
behind them and the urging of their
OWL fears were too strong, and they
began to fall to the sidewalk. 81. ~
Four alarms were rurg within five
minutes Before the engines could re-
spond, the nets stretched or the lad
ders raised, five girls had fallen from
the eighth and ninth floors so heav-
lily that they broke through the glass
and iron roofs of the sub-cellars and
crushed through the very streets into
the vaults below. In an hour the fire
was out In half hour it had done
it's work; probably the death list was
complete in 20 minutes.
FIRE ESCAPE USELESS
The building stands on corner
with exposure on two sides, but the
only fire escape was on the interior
opening onto light and air shaft. In
all their were seven exits. The sin
gle fire escape, two freight elevators
at the rear, two passenger elevators
in front and two stairways.
All of them proved almost useless,
and practically all who escaped, eth
err climbed to the roof and thence to
the roof of the American Book COM
pany adjoining, or fled in the first
rush for safety, before the crush
started and the smoke was too thick.
Seven hundred hands, five huntred
OF them women, were employed by the
company. They sat in rows at their
machines, the tables before them pill
ed with light cloths, the floor Uttered
with lint, the air itself full OF flying
inflamable dust.
The first rush of flame was almost
an explosion. Operators died in their
chairs, their lungs scored by inhaling
flames. Others were crowded into the
elevator shaft after the cars had made
their last trip. Still others were
pushed off the inadequate interior fire
escape.
In such horrible streams did the
bodies overflow from the windows,
that the fire nets stretched by the
| first company, were soon gorged be-
| yond capacity. Twelve bodies weight
ed one net to the bursting point, but
| the bodies kept on tumbling to the
pavement through meshes that coold
no longer support them.
One hundred and six bodies had
been taken from the building and
twenty Injured had been conveyed to
ST. Vincent's hospital at 10 o'clock
OF these three died soon after admit
lance. Others were not expected to
| live through the night.
The building stands tonight with
shell intact, and barely scared, rath-
er only smudged. The partitions Of
thing between floor and floor are
sound, and it is impossible for one
who did not see it to imagine how
the flames in SO short q space of
time could have wrought such havoc.
Bryan is Against License