Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1914-01-01
Calumet, Mich, Is
Scene Of Horror. !. !.
FALSE ALARM OF FIRE
OF the Seventy-tour Bodies Re.
covered More Than Fifty
Are Those Of Children.

Calumet, Mich, Dec. 26.-At least
seventy-four persons, fifty-eight OF
whom were children ranging in ages
from five to eighteen years, attending
p Christmas celebration in Italian
nall, were trampled to death when
On unknown man appeared at the
door and shouted fire."
The cry had no sooner left his lips
when the 700 persons in the building
arose in one heaving mass and rushed
for the exits. Little children who
were formed in line in the aisles,
awaiting to pass to the stage to re-
ceive their Christmas gifts from
Santa Claus, were crushed under foot
hike straws. ,
Persons seated near the main en-
trance In the rear of the hall at
tempted to warn the panic stricken
crowd Of the false alarm, hut were
borne down under the
seethins mob. .sg-..
The Christmas observance wac
being aeld for children of striking
copper miners. Shouting and laugh
ing boYs and girls, who a few days
ago faced Christmas without gifts
|of Santa Claus, had gathered to par
take of the cheer provided for them
BY the Woman's Auxiliary of the
Western Federation of Miners. Mer-
riment was turned to horror in q
twinkling and the Christmas spirit in
the city was drowned by sorrow.
seventy.four Bodies Found.
Although seventy -four bodies had
been recovered and identified, it was
believed half dozen OF more bodies
we're taken home by relatives. The
identified dead include thirty-seyen
girls, nineteen boys. thirteen women
end five men.
Most of the dead are children of
miners, who had been on strike since
early last summer and who are being
supported during their idleness by
labor organizations.
Because of conditions surrounding
the prolonged strike, which has been
contested bitterly by both the miners
and the operators. it is feared that
should the unidentified man who
yelled fire" be apprehended a lynch
ing may follow.
President Meyer of the Western
Federation of Miners, in a telegram
to President Wilson, said according
to his best information no one in
sympathy with the strikers brought
about the catastrophe.
Whole families were wiped out in
the rush which followed the cry of
fire. The Christmas exercises were
held in Italian hall by the woman's
auxiliary of the miners union, and
children predominated. The cry of
fire was taken up in many different
languages, and In an instant most of
the 700 persons in the hall we're panic
stricken.
The children had been formed in
lines and were just starting toward
the platform in the front of the hall
tc receive Christmas presents when
the shouts of fire was heard,
Al Dash for the Exits.
Many miners and their wives had
accompanied their children to the ex.
srcises and occupied seats in the hall.
Both parents and children made a
dash for the exits. Men we're power
less In their efforts to rescue their
children from the rush for the doors
The crush was so great that many
are believed to have been suffocated
Others we're knocked down and
trampled over. a,e
The great number of dead we're
found at the bottom of the stairs.
Those who reached the stairs first
had been hurled to the bottom and
we're soon covered with the weight of
many bodies. Only a comparatively
few persons were successful in reach.
ing fre escape at the rear Of the
hall