Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-07-27

! TNIE Chicago River is not the sea, but 1t
il is as treacherous as the great deep. The
| Eastland would have capsized no more
quickly on the Atlantic than near the Clark
street bridge, II the capsizlng conditions
were present.
It is easy to say that the boat was un-
seaworthy-perhaps Il was-but other boats
supposed to be constructed to weather all
storms have sailed into that crowded port
OF missing ships which is not connected
by telegraph or mail with any other city.
The great mystery Of the seas whether
inland or bounded by the continents, re-
mains unsolved though perhaps the East
land case may provide a clue. Shifting car
goes have without any doubt been respon-
sible for many a missing ship. The cargo
Of the Eastland shifted, and the rest is
great horror, from the shock of which the
nation is still suffering and will suffer till
the next tragedy causes a new sensation.
II the Eastland had succeeded in getting
into the lake with it's precious freight the
tragedy might have been greater A pass
ing steamer would have drawn the curious
excursionists to one side OF the vessel and
the boat would have careened in deep water,
far from land where the lifeboats would
have been the only means at hand to save
the passengers.
When Ships Break Their Back
The tragedy of the Great Lakes is as great
in proportion to their size as the tragedy
of the salt seas. Many vessel has sailed
from port to be heard of no more. A fleet
of cargo steamers was built some years ago
on the theory that there was too much waste
space in the hold The boats were not prop
erly strengthened to stand storm and one
at least of them went to the bottom leaving
no trace The critics of the system of con-
struction used insisted that the strain of
the heavy seas broke the back of the boat
by forcing the steel plates to act as shears
cutting the rivets clear through and letting
the vessel go to the bottom. No will
ever know whether this theory is sound or
not
There used to be tradition that the Sar-
gasso Sea was filed with the sodden hulxs
of the wrecks of centuries, but a little ex-
ploration exploded that myth as it earlier
proved that men could cross the equator
without being burned to death by the per-
pendicular rays of the sun, and that there
were no fire breathing monsters of the deep
whose breath would scorch the life out of
the venturesome mariner. While the popu-
larly accepted nature of the mysteries of
the deep has changed, the mystery remains.
The invention of steam did not lessen it,
but wireless telegraphy has decreased the
number of tragedies that must forever re-
main unexplained II 1t had not been for
that most wonderful application of the mys-
terious force of electricity the fate of the
Titanic would have still been mystery We
should have known that the boat had gone
down with all on board. but how 1t happened
would have been explained no more fully
than Tyrone Powers note in a bottle ex-
planned the fate of the President, the first
great steamship to go down in the Atlantic.
When the President Disappeared
The President sailed from New York on
March II, 1S41, with 800 persons on board
and was never seen again. When it failed
to reach Liverpool the scheduled date
one was alarmed, for steam navigation
was still in it's infancy and delays were ex-
pected. But days passed and. grew into
weeks There was no ocean cable, so it was
impossible to communicate quickly with
America, or for Americans to learn whether
their friends had arrived safely in England.
1t was thought that the ship might have had
to put INTO a remote port for repairs Then
a letter was received by the relatives of one of
the passengers announcing that the boat had