The Yale expositor., 1915-07-29
BOAT DISASTER
TAKES TERRIBLE
TOLL OF LIVES
steamer EastIand Loaded With
Excursionists Turns Over
In Chicago River
AUTHORITIES ATTEMPT
TO PLACE THE BLAME
Excursion Boat Loaded With Twenty.
Five Hundred People Bound for
Michigan City to Attend Picnic
for Employees of Western
Electric Co.

for Employees of Western
Electric Co.
Chicago-The excursion steamer,
Eastland, loaded with about twenty
five hundred picnickers, turned over
while standing at the Clark street
dock in the Chicago river Saturday
morning. Official records show a loss
of Last lives. They were for the
most part women and children bound
for the outing of the employees of
the Western Electric Co., at Michigan
City.
Panic struck the passengers when
the boat began to turn over. Best
accounts OF witnesses said the steam
er rolled slightly twice, then turned
further and that hundreds of scream
ing, struggling men, women and chill
dren slid across the sloping decks,
fought for room and clutched at CON-
| panions, deck chairs or any other OBJ
| ject that came to hand.
Women and children by the hun
dreds were caught below decks and
the scratched faces, torn clothing and
bruised bodies of the dead bore mute
evidence of the desperation with
which they had fought for life.
The steamer turned over in less
than five minutes. Members Of the
crew shouted warnings as the steam
er first tilted and endeavored to drive
the passengers to the upper side of
the deck, but the incline was already
too steep.
Slowly, so as to agonize the spec
tators drawn to the scene by the
shouts of warning and fear, the great
steel hulk turned bottom up, pouring
its passengers into the river.
Boat Loaded to Capacity.
Some 1000 tickets had been dis
tributed for the excursion and five
steamers chartered by the COM
pany. The Eastland was first to
receive its quota, and when its char
tered capacity was reached federal in
spectors ordered that no more be Ia
ken aboard. The boat was locked on
the south side of the river and when
the hundreds hurrying TO the boat
were turned back from it they stream
ed across the Clark street bridge to
the steamer Theodore Roosevelt,
which was to take the second
load
Screams OF the Eastland victims
halted this rush and the bridge was
damned with people unit police, fear
full that the structure would collapse,
ordered it cleared.
Mercantile concerns hurried motor
trucks to the scene laden with blank
cts to warm the living or cover the
dead. Pulmotors by the score were
sent to the dock.
Physicians, police fremen, govern
ment life-savers and nurses were sum-
moned.
The steamer, when relieved of its
passengers. fioated on its side into
mid-stream and tugs, motor boats
and other river craft swarmed about
1t. Firemen climbed on the hull
forced openings in the steel hull and
through these searched the cabins for
possible victims.
Bodies Piled Inside Of Boat.
When fremen chopped and forced
their way through the side of the
hull OF the overturned boat they found
bodies piled on one another like so
many boxes of merchandise. They
began taking them out and placing
them on the tug Racine, which stood
alongside. There they were placed
on stretchers and carried ashore.
AS fast as bodies were taken on
the wharfs they were carried TO the
steamer Theodore Roosevelt, or into
nearby buildings, or the stretchers
were set down on the streets where
scores of physicians and volunteer
rescuers began attempts at resuscita-
ton.
Crew Escapes BY Swimming.
There were ~ men in the crew of
the Eastland, and all of them were
reported to have escaped by swim
ming to the wharf. Later they aided
i'm the rescue work.
Bodies were removed to down town
morgues in wagon loads, where
clothing of the victims was examined
in an attempt to identify them. Sixty