The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1914-01-02
MANY ARE KILLED
Christmas Tree Rush SmOtherS
Women and Children.
STAIRS BLOCKED BY BODIES
Man Shouts "Fire" at Celebration az
Calumet, Mich, and Starts Disaster
Hundreds Caught in Jam in Mar
row Stairway-Grownups Pile on
Children.

Children.
CALUMET, MICH.,-The fool who
ran up the stairs shouting fire" is
responsible for the death of eighty
three persons and the injury of over a
score more who were attending a
Christmas eve entertainment for the
children of the striking copper miners
of Calumet in the Italian hall. Fifty
eight of the dead are children.
There was no fire. Not candle was
lighted on the three Christmas trees
in the hall, for there were no candles;
the strikers could not afford them.
But when the man came rushing in
from the street with his wild cry
there ensued one of those strange pan
les such as ended so many lives in the
IrOquOis theater in Chicago.
The majority were smothered to
death. The outside door was opened
by passers-by, but the women and
children were so solidly packed at
the bottom of the stairs and half way
to the top of the single flight that they
could not be pulled out. In the mean
time others within the building pour
ed over the bodies of the crushed and
Iifeless at the bottom of the stairs,
using them as a roadway to escape
from the building.
Stairway Blocked by Bodies.
So soliG y were the bodies at the
bottom of the stairs packed that it
was necessary for the firemen and
deputy SheriffS to go into the second
story windows with ladders and to
come down the stairs and pull the
children back off the pile at the top.
Only when the deputies appeared
in the hall at the top of the stairs
were others forcibly prevented from
piling upon the bodies below. 1t took
two hours to clear the hallway, many
in the pile breathing their last while
being taken out.
The first on the scene to help in the
work of rescue were members of the
Citizens Alliance.
Many Of the bodies were snatched
away by grief-maddened parents, as
the lifeless little forms lay along the
walks and were taken to their homes,
Bodies Are Taken to Morgue.
Seventy-six bodies were taken to
the temporary morgue established in
the Redjacket Town hall, where iden-
tifcations are being made as rapidly
as possible.
Clamoring about the building is a
mob of several thousand strikers and
others, including hundreds of women.
Many whose children were at first
thought to be among the dead later
found their little ones. Many sObbing
children are in the crowd looking for
their parents.
The children among the dead range
in age from two or three years to
twenty. Nearly all were with moth
ers or fathers in the building, but the
older people lost their heads as quick
ly as did the little ones on the cry of
fire
Deportation Stirs Strikers.
The strikers in the copper region
are aroused over the deportation of
Charles H. Meyer, president of the
Western Federation of Miners, and
the situation has become more grave.
Feeling between the strikers and the
Citizens Alliance, embittered by the
disaster of Christmas eve, reached a
point where the conservative look for
ward with relief to the early arrival
of John D. Densmore, the federal
oil fn6 RI
troubled waters.
At the headquarters of the Western
Federation of Miners is was charged
that Meyer was kidnapped because of
statements made by him growing out
of the panic in Italian hall in which
scores of lives were lost The Citi-
zens' Alliance conducted Meyer out
of the state because he would not re-
tract the assertion that according to
his information the men who started
the panic with the cry of Fire were
at the bottom of the alliance and be-
cause of his advice to bereaved fami-
lies to accept no aid from the alli-
ance.
Meyer Says He Was Shot.
GREEN BAY, WIS. = Lying in
a berth in a sleeping car, with his
head bound by blood-stained band
age, Charles H. Meyer, president of
the Western Federation of Miners,
passed through this city on a Chica-
go, Milwaukee and st. Paul train on
which he claims he was forcibly placed
and guarded by two thugs until the
train reached Claiming, Mich. He
said:
d Il was terribly beaten, shot in the
dark, dragged more than mile along
the streets, threatened with death by
hanging, and finally placed aboard a
train for Chicago"
Growth In Postal Savings.
WASHINGTON - The growth of