Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-22
70 HURT IN PRISON
FLAMES MAY DIE
Attempts to Save 100 Men in
Sixth Tier of Cells
Were Futile.
Continued From First Page.)

prison cotton and wooden mills. Others
hurled stones and slugged the guards
tnat Were trying to maintain order. In
upset
Every available policeman in Column
nus was summoned for duty both within
the prison and outside submachine-
gun IN the guard room protected the en-
trance to the prison yard.
Two companies of Regular Army
troops and 1,500 Ohio National Guards
men were stationed at strategic places
ABOUT the penitentiary. Every guard on
ootn day and night shifts was on duty.
still the thousands of milling prison.
erS In the yard refused to be quieted
When they were ordered to assemble in
the dining room many refused. Later
they were ordered into the remaining
cell blocks and dormitories, but they in
sisted upon staying in the yard. crowd
ing about the bodies. which were ar
ranged in long rows five and six deep.
Flames Start in Several Places.
Except for minor disturbances there
was no trouble, however About FIVE
hours after the fire was brought under
control the ranks of scantily clad con-
victs began to thin out and at midnight
only a few OF them were left in the
yard.
Beacon lights and arc lamps, placed
upon the main wall for protection, play
ed down on the CHASTITY scene. Slowly
the work of removing bodies to the Fair
Grounds proceeded.
Scenes of confusion and terror ac-
companied the outburst of the flames.
They started in the northwest corner of
q new building of cell blocks, part of
which still was under construction. 1t
was in this new part that the fire origi-
mated not more than half an hour after
q gang of prisoners working on the job
returned to their cells.
Apparently the flames broke out in
several places simultaneously, officials
said. Everything pointed to incendia-
rism, they indicated.
Screams of Terror Split Air.
Liston G. Schooley, Cleveland council
man who is serving a term for partici-
patton in a Cleveland playground fraud,
was at work in the deputy warden's Of
fee on the opposite side of the prison
yard. He saw smoke rising from the
cell blocks.
About the same time Charley Smokey.
q prisoner from Toledo and one of
those quartered in the damaged build
ing, sounded an alarm on range of
section H. Smokey, practical joker,
was not taken seriously until they saw
the red reflection in the windows of a
manufacturing plant near the peniten-
tiary.
Then a great scream emanated from
sections G and H. In each there were
six ranges of II cells. housing four pris-
oners to the cell. The flames and the
smoke were eating toward them rapidly.
William G. Baldwin and Tom Little,
guard captains, dashed to the flaming
building with keys to the cells.
At the same time other guards ran to
the deputies Office where Schooley, in
the absence of officers, began handing
out orders and issued all the keys he
had.
Convicts Join in Rescue.
Guards Baldwin and Little rushed
into the smoke filling building took the
keys to the ranges from the day guards
and started unlocking cells as quickly as
they could. Meanwhile, fire companies,
answering four alarms, spread every
foot of hose available.
AS the guards released convicts from
one range they climbed to the next.
Men were choking and gasping for
breath.
AS they were released, many joined in
the rescue work.
After he had unlocked the last cell on
the fourth range, Little collapsed. Four
inmates carried him out. Baldwin
collapsed and was carried to safety.
On the fourth and fifth ranges, death
took its toll rapidly. The lungs Of the
trapped men were filled with smoke.
CHASTITY sights greeted the rescuers.
Suffocated men lay on the floor clutch
ing with pale, white fingers at the bars
that held them in.
Others were stretched across and I'M
der their hunks. Some had tried to
bury their heads in the lavatories in the
cells, and still others had grabbed their
blankets or torn their shirts from their
backs to drench them with water and
place them over their heads.
Streams of water swished through the
mesh and the iron bars and formed
rivulets in which the faces of fallen
men were buried.
Hundreds Carried to Safety.
Hundreds had been carried from the
structure, and above the heads of the
rescuers in the sixth and last range
were more than a hundred others who
could not possibly be saved. Bed mat
tresses and the cots were masses Of
flames.
Locks on the cells were battered
away with sledge hammers. The mesh
walls OF the ranges were cut away with
wire clippers. Hose lines, winding
path up the flights of stairs got in the
road of stumbling men.
At first the prisoners who had eS-
capped death emerged in pairs, carry
ing a comrads by the arms and feet.
They hurried across a small clearing
covered with new lumber and dropped
the victims into the grass.
Then they knelt beside the choked
men, turned them on their StomachS
and applied methods of reSuScitation.
For a while this revived the victims,
but soon they came so fast that the
band of convicts found themselves
stumbling over each other, dropping
the men they had carried out and
hurrying back for others.
Room for Those With Chance.
Groans and feeble cries. from the
lips of the victims and words of en-
enlargement and shrieks of terror from
rose from the ground Scared and
blackened faces bespoke e futility of
bordering over men who already were
dead
Big gray blankets were spread pro-
fusely over the green grass.
Make room for this man. He's
alive. Gangway." came the cry from
a little group hurrying along the walks
toward the hospital. The lanes of
prisoners separated. They made room
for the man who had a chance to
live
Out of the guard room door poured
doctors internes, nurses, priests and
ministers. Dying men cried for the
last rites of the church. Medical
men, without hats or coats, tramped
over the ground, which became soggy
under the burden of many feet.
Two hours after the fire started day
light had faded away and weary. trou-
bied men worked on under the rays
of the arc lights that gave the prison
ward a dismal appearance.
1t was about this time that mutter-
Ing nrisnnerS chilled to the bone in