The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1915-10-23
MANY POINTS YET
TO Be CLEARED UP
Fateful Order Not Turned Over to
County Attorney but to Rail-
way Officials; Much Room
for Speculation
(By GEORGE II. WYATT, }
DAILY Express Reporter.)


Did the running orders received by
Powell. engineer Of Inflated train No.
l., correspond with the orders given
Conductor cowan Of that train at 1885
or l2;40 O'clock Tuesday morning?
And II so. did Fireman Arnold see
those orders?
These are questions the coroner's
jury, when its members again assem-
BILE on November 4. may be called
upon to determine.
In his evidence before the corone-'s
jury Wednesday afternoon, Conductor
Cowan said their orders were iden-
tical, that he read them and handed
them to Powell and that Powell
showed them to his fireman.
Did he show these orders TO the
fireman? This develops third ques-
tion which the jury may have to deter
mine.
Cowan says he did. but Cowan. the
physician says. ia In a bad way, ner-
vous wreck, hanging upon the verge
OF mental breakdown.
Powell lies in the Chickasha hos
pltal lowering between life and death.
regaInIng consciousness for the mo-
ment only to lapse again into q state
bordering upon complete coma.
Bruce Cobb Arnold lies beneath the
sod OF his native state, crushed and
mangled corpse. Arnold will never
tell whether or not he read those fate
ful orders and after having read them
sat calmly and supinely on the LEFT
side OF his engine, and without a word
OF protest suffered it to catapult him
into the arms OF death
Billy Powell lies at deaths door.
bones OF a crushed skull lifted from i
pressure upon the tissues Of his brain
after that pressure had been endured
for hours. Medical authority says that
should Powell ultimately recover,
growing strong and vigorous phys
ically. as sequence to the nature Of
his injury he may never again be
normal mentally.
viii Powell, If he again becomes
strong physically, ever become in such
mental condition that he VIII remem-
ber whether or not his orders read
wait at Agawam for train No. 9S.
1:I5; at Rush Springs. 1:25.
And will his mental condition ever
become SO he can say positively
Bruce Cobb Arnold read those order
ss we'll as did | MYSELF"
Conductor cowan says that Arnold
read the orders-and Conductor
Cowan says that he (Cowan) failed to
inform his brakeman and his porter,
the men upon whom the duty of open
ing and closing the switches at Aga
wan and protecting their train front
and rear would have devolved, had
the orders been obeyed, the orders
which he says Powell and Arnold both
read and which he stated corre-
sponded with the orders he himself
received.
Powell's orders are said TO have
been in. his jumper pocket when he
was stripped and PLACED upon the oper-
ating table at the hospital.
County Attorney venable states he
asked for those orders in his official
capacity. in order that he might intro
duce them in evidence before the coro-
ner's jury, that, he might mark them
exhibit" so-and.so. and that they
might might. be made a part OF the
record Of the. coroner's inquiry. And
County Attorney venable states that
upon his asking for those orders--for
the orders which Billy Powell carried
in his pocket when he hurled his en-
gine, head-on into Stapleton's engine
half mile beyond the point of first
''waitlng'--h he was told that they had
been turned over to the railway Off
cials.
"Billy" Powell railway men say
was known as one OF the most careful
nnd efficient engineers in the service