Cresco plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1913-1945, 1915-07-30
REDfIELD Will
CONDUCT PROBE
Secretary Intends Investigating
Chicago Horror.
OTHER OFFICIALS ARE BUSY

Evidence Is Being Secured in an Ell
fort to Place the Responsibility fol-
the Loss of About One Thousand
Lives When the Steamer Eastlane
| Capsized.
Chicago. July 27.-Plans for inves
LEGATIONS by federal, state and city of
| ficials, to determine who was to blame
| for the capsiZing of the steamer East
land in the Chicago river Saturday
| with loss of hundreds of lives, have
been completed.
A coroner's jury will start an in
quest, while federal departments
headed by Secretary of Commerce
Redtield, and officers from the police
department and the Office of the
states attorney will proceed with the
gathering of evidence, holding formal
inquiry in allegiance until the inquest
is over
Secretary Redfield will arrive in
Chicago to take personal charge OF
the departments investigation of the
Eastland disaster. He is en- route
from Syracuse, N. Y, where he has
been taking vacation.
Solicitor Thurman of the depart.
ment of commerce, armed with all the
dc lot i,,o fN
to join the secretary and George
Uhler. chief of the steamboat inspec.
ton service, now touring the Pacific
coast, probably will be called to Chi
cagO.
Solicitor Thurman, who will have
charge of the legal phases of the in
vestigation, will cooperate with local
officials OF the department in ascer-
tanning the causes Of the tragedy.
May Reoreanize Service.
Possibilities of a general reorgani-
zation of the steamboat inspection
service We're much discussed at the de-
partment and it was indicated that
something of the sort was to be ex-
pected soon.
Efforts continue to remove victims
of the disaster from the wrecked ship
and to tabulate the dead, to determine
whether the total death list would re-
main around 1000, as many believe,
or creep up to 1900 or more, as 9TH
ers predict. Registration of employees
by the Western Electric company
showed nearly 400 missing, but many
of the names of these were included
in the S26 bodies already recovered
and identified. 1t was said also that
probably goodly number did not re-
port, although safe.
The probability of swelling the list
above thousand was suggested by
the announcement of detectives from
the states attorneys office that they
had seized the tickets taken from
passengers boarding the Eastland for
the excursion to Michigan City, Ind,
and that these tickets numbered g.
500. These, it was pointed out, did
not account for children, musicians
and the seventy-two members Of the
crew.
Number on Vessel $500.
They estimated that the total num-
Der of persons aboard the steamer
might have been $500 or more, in
stead of the 2,4SO previously announc-
ed by officials of the Indiana Trans
portation company, lessees of the
ship.
Estimates by marine engineers
showed that it would take from ten
to thirty days to put the Eastland on
it's keel. 1t was said that until the
ship was removed it could not be de-
how many bodies, if any,
lad been caught under the hull and
Plans to use dynamite in raising |
bodies embedded in mud were aban-
loned for the time being, for fear the |
explosion might destroy any evidence |
he ship could give of possible mis-
of the water ballast sys- |
EN-, said by several marine engineers
o be the probable cause of the cap
sizing.
Coroner Hoffman placed w. J.
Wood. naval architect who dubbed |
he Eastland the crank of the lakes"
II charge of ell work at the wreck,
20 that any evidence of faulty con-
truction of the ship or of improper
handling may be discovered and pre-
erved while the work of recovering
.odes proceeds.
ILLS MANY SHIPS UNSAFE