Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1915-07-27
.fASTLANDS !,
DEAD MAY EX-
CEED 1000
More Than Announced Number of
Tickets for Excursion May
Have Been Sold.
MANY STILL ARE MISSING
Correspondence of the Leasing Com
pany is Seized by States At
torney as Evidence.
MANY STILL ARE MISSING

|
probe of the Eastland disaster ready
to begin, indications last night were
that the death list would run above
1000, the number first announced
by the coroner. This probability is
based on the belief that more than
2,4S0 tickets for the Eastland trip
were sold by the company that had
leased it for the excursion.
Plans for investigations by fed
eral state and city official bodies to
determine the blame were completed
last night. A coroner's jury will
start an inquest today, while feder-
al departments headed by Secretary
of Commerce Redfeld, 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 held.
Meantime, effort continued to re-
move victims of the disaster from
the wrecked ship and to tabulate the
dead to determine whether the total
list would remain around 1000 as
many believe, or creep up to 1,200l
or more as others predict. Registra-
ton of employees by the Western
Electric company yesterday showed
nearly 400 missing but many of the
names of these were included in the
list of S26 bodies already recovered.
1t was also said that probably
goodly number did not report, al
though safe
ney's Office announced they had seiz-
ed the tickets taken from passengers
boarding the Eastland for the ex-
cursion to Michigan City, Ind. They
these tickets numbered p
$50 and that these did not account
for children, musicians and the Y
crew members. They estimated the
total number aboard the steamer
might have been $500 or more, in
stead of the 2,4SO previously an
nounced by officers OF the Indiana
company, lesees Of
the ship.
States Attorney Hoyne last night
seized correspondence between otic-
ers of the Western Electric employ
es' organization which gave the pic
1ic, and the Indiana transportation
company, operating the Eastland
and four other steamers set aside to
carry more than 1000 persons on
his excursion. The states attorney
asserted this correspondence disclos-
I'd the fact that the steamer COM
,any had advised those in charge of
he picnic that the more tickets sold
he greater would be the rebate paid
% the employees organization.
To the confusion was added much
wrangling among officers Of differ
ant jurisdiction over tentative plans
% right the Eastland, which still
lies where it sank within twenty
feet of the south bank of the river.
Despite an all-day search of the
hulk by divers and a constant drag
cling of the river bed between the G
wreck and a net stretched across the {
liver a block down the current from
he ship, only a dozen bodies were
found yesterday. Estimates of the
number still held under water by the
Upset boat varied widely from $50
% 500.
Estimates by marine engineers
showed 1t would take from ten to
thirty days to put the EastIand on
is keel. 1t was said that until the
ship was removed it could not be de-
ermined how many, if any, bodies
lad been caught under the hull. {
Plans to use dynamite in raising t
bodies embedded in mud we're aban- t
Toned for fear the explosion might I
destroy any evidence the ship could
1--WE of possible mismanagement Of I
he water ballast system, said by a
several marine engineers to be the l
cause of the capsizing. e
z
No+ioo IF Evnirofinr