Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-23
Inquiry Reveals New Angles
to Probers, Who Demand
Explanation From Him in
Seeking Cause of Fire.
MEN WOULD HAVE SLAIN
THOMAS, CHAPLAIN SAYS
Escaped Enraged Convicts by TAX
ing Charge Outside, Asserts
Priest-Death Toll Reaches 318.
Fire Marshal Denies That Wir-
ing Is to Blame.
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 23.-
Warden Preston E. Thomas of
Ohio Penitentiary was summoned
to appear again this afternoon be-
fore the board investigating the
tragic fire that took the lives Of
318 prisoners in four cell blocks
Monday night.
Attorney General Gilbert Bett-
man, heading the inquiry, said the
warden would be asked to answer
these questions:
''What arrangements were made
to take care Of any emergency
such as that which attended the
holocaust?
What specific arrangements
were made to handle fire? What
equipment was available to fight
fire? What information he has
learned as to the cause Of the
blaze that sent dense clouds Of
smoke rolling through six ranges
while the victims were locked in
their cells?"
The warden testified before the
board yesterday, but the inquiry
has revealed new angles which re-
Quire explanation from him.
The opinion that Warden Thomas
would have been killed had he entered
the prison yard during the disastrous
IRE Monday night was expressed today
by Rev. Father Albert O'Brien, Catholic
chaplain.
The penitentiary chaplain, comment
ing on the fact that the warden ordered
his chief deputy to take charge inside,
and himself took command outside to
prevent any possible movement OF pr1s-
oners over the walls, said: IF Warden
Thomas had stepped inside the walls
of the penitentiary during the pande-
monium of the fire, he surely would
have been killed"
"Those men had no thought of escape.
They were thinking of those men per-
iShing in the flames, but they were
enraged; angered because of the utter
helplessness; because they were beyond
the help Of those gathered outside
walls"
Says ConvictS Were Heroes.
Father O'Brien, who worked among
the dead and dying in the prison yard,
said the convictS themselves were the
heroes of the fire.
Statements of convicts that the tragic
fire was caused by a short circuit OF
electric wires, were denied today by
State Fire Marshal Ray r. Gill. He
told State Welfare Director Hal Girls
void, who is conducting an tnvesttga-
ton of the disaster, that he was salts
fed the cause was not short -clrcuited
wires. He said he found all fuses IN
the Inflated cell blocks 20. K"
Gill and his chief deputies, Joseph
3. Clear and Edward L. Lee, continued
their investigation Of the fire today.
The death toll in the disaster was
increased to 318, when Edward Wills
succumbed in the prison hospital to-
day. Death was caused by Suftocation.
wills had been serving from five to
seven years from Cuyahoga County for
larceny.
Convicts Are Taken to Blocks.
Before the board of inquiry resumed
its investigation, as many of the con-
VictS as were able to be on their feet
were herded into the fire-swept cell
blocks of companies G and H, where
Monday night they howled for release
while the smoke was rolling about
them.
The purpose of this was to aid in
the identification of the dead, who were
so badly disflgured that they could not
be identified by sight.
The Inflated cell blocks, are still
standing in the shell of the building
that housed them. On the door of
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