Chicago's Awful Theater Horror Part 11

"If you ever saw a field of timothy gra.s.s blown flat by the wind and rain of a summer storm, that was the position of the dead at the exits of the second balcony," said Chief of Police O'Neill.

"In the rush for the stairs they had jammed in the doorway and piled ten deep; lying almost like s.h.i.+ngles. When we got up the stairs in the dark to the front rows of the victims, some of them were alive and struggling, but so pinned down by the great weight of the dead and dying piled upon them that three strong men could not pull the unfortunate ones free.

"It was necessary first to take the dead from the top of the pile, then the rest of the bodies were lifted easily and regularly from their positions, save as their arms had intertwined and clutched.

"Nothing in my experience has ever approached the awfulness of the situation and it may be said that from the point of physical exertion, the police department has never been taxed as it has been taxed tonight. Men have been worn out simply with the carrying out of dead bodies, to say nothing of the awfulness of their burdens."

The strong hand of the chief was called into play when the dead had been removed and when the theater management appeared at the exit of the second balcony, seeking to pa.s.s the uniformed police who guarded the heaps of sealskins, purses, and tangled valuables behind them. A spokesman for the management, backed up by a negro special policeman of the house, stood before the half dozen city police on guard, asking to be admitted that these valuables might be removed to the checkrooms of the theater.

"But these things are the property of the coroner," replied the chief, coming up behind the delegation.

"But the theater management wishes to make sure of the safety of these valuables," insisted the spokesman.

"The department of police is responsible," replied Chief O'Neill.

EXPERIENCE OF CHICAGO UNIVERSITY MEN.

Clyde A. Blair, captain of the University of Chicago track team, and Victor S. Rice, 615 Yale avenue, a member of the team, accompanied Miss Majorie Mason, 5733 Monroe avenue, and Miss Anne Hough, 361 East Fifty-eighth street, to the matinee. They were sitting in the middle of the seventh row from the rear of the first floor. When the first flames broke through from the stage Miss Mason became alarmed. Seizing the girl, and leaving his overcoat and hat, Blair dragged her through the crush toward the door, closely followed by Rice and Miss Hough.

"The crush at the door," said Blair, "was terrific. Half of the double doors opening into the vestibule were fastened. People dashed against the gla.s.s, breaking it and forcing their way through. One woman fell down in the crowd directly in front of me. She looked up and said, 'For G.o.d's sake, don't trample on me.' I stepped around her, unable to help her up, and the crowd forced me past. I could not learn whether she was trampled over or not."

BISHOP BRAVES DANGER IN HEROIC WORK OF RESCUE.

"I was pa.s.sing the theater when the panic began," said Bishop Samuel Fallows of the St. Paul's Reformed Episcopal church. "I heard the cry for volunteers and joined the men who went into the place to carry out the dead and injured. I had no idea of the extent of the disaster until I became actively engaged in the work.

"The sight when I reached the balconies was pitiful beyond description. It grew in horror as I looked over the seats. The bodies were in piles. Women had their hands over their faces as if to s.h.i.+eld off a blow. Children lay crushed beneath their parents, as if they had been hurled to the marble floors.

"I saw the great battlefields of the civil war, but they were as nothing to this. When we began to take out the bodies we found that many of the audience had been unable to get even near the exits. Women were bent over the seats, their fingers clinched on the iron sides so strongly that they were torn and bleeding. Their faces and clothes were burned, and they must have suffered intensely.

"I ministered to all I could and some of them seemed to welcome the presence of a clergyman as it were a gift from G.o.d. There appeared to be little system in the work of rescue, but that was due, I believe, to the intense excitement."

WOMEN AND FOUR CHILDREN SUFFER.

Mrs. Anna B. Milliken, who is staying at Thompson's hotel, had four children in her charge, Felix, Jessie, Tony, and Jennie Guerrier, of 135 North Sangamon street, their ages ranging from 11 to 17 years. She and her charges were in the balcony, standing against the wall, when the fire started.

"Something told me to be calm," said Mrs. Milliken. "I had pa.s.sed through one dreadful experience in the Chicago fire, and, though there was a great deal of confusion, I kept the children together, telling them not to be frightened. Men and women hurried past me, shouting like wild beasts, and if I had joined them the children and I would have been trampled under foot. It was minutes before I could leave with the two younger children.

The two elder are lost. What shall I tell their folks," and the poor woman began to weep. Her face, as she stood in the lobby of the Northwestern building, was blistered and swollen. The back of her dress was burned through.

"What are the names of the missing children?" inquired a physician. "They are in here," and he led the distracted woman into one of the "first aid hospitals." There Mrs. Milliken saw her two charges so swathed in bandages that they could not be recognized.

LEARNS CHILDREN HAVE ESCAPED.

"I'm looking for two little girls--Berien is the name," shouted H. E.

Osborne. "They live in Aurora."

"They've been here," answered Mr. Weisman. "They are all right and have been sent to their home in Aurora."

With a glad shout Osborne ran back to the office of the National Cash Register company, 50 State street, to inform Miss Mary Stevenson, whom the children had been visiting.

The Berien children were among the first to reach the offices of the Hallwood company after the fire broke out. By some chance they had made their way out uninjured. The story of their plight touched a stranger, who took them to a railway station and bought them tickets to their home in Aurora. One was about 14 and the other about 9 years old.

FINDS HIS DAUGHTER.

One young woman, terrified but uninjured, had found her way to this office and was sitting in a frightened stupor, when an elderly man hurried in from the street.

"Have you seen--" he started to ask, and then, catching sight of the forlorn little figure, he stopped. With a glad cry, father and daughter rushed into each other's arms, and the father bore his child away. Their names were not learned.

James Sullivan of Woodstock was probably the last man who got out of the parquet uninjured. With him was George Field, also of Woodstock, and the two fought their way out together.

MR. FIELD'S NARRATIVE.

"We were seated in the twelfth row," said Mr. Field, "when we saw fire at the top of the proscenium arch. At the same time some sparks fell on the stage.

"Eddie Foy came out and told the audience not to be afraid, to avoid a panic, and there would be no trouble. While he was speaking, however, a burning brand fell alongside of him, and then came what looked like a huge globe of fire. The moment it struck the stage fire spread everywhere.

"The panic started at once and everybody rushed for the doors. Sullivan and I were in the rear of the fleeing ma.s.s and made our way out as best we could without getting mixed up in the panic. As long as the women and children were struggling through the straight aisles there was not so much trouble except that some of the fugitives fell to the floor and had to be helped on their feet again. At times the women and children would be lying four deep on the floor of the aisles, and in several instances we had to set them on their feet before we could go further. There was not much smoke and had the aisles been straight to the entrances every one could have got out practically unhurt.

"But when it came to the turns where they focus into the lobby the poor women and children were piled up into indiscriminate heaps. The screams and cries they uttered were something terrible. It was an impossibility to allay the panic and the frightened people simply trampled on those in front of them.

"Some of the people in the orchestra chairs immediately in front of the stage must have been burned by the fire. The fire darted directly among them and the chairs began burning at once. Those on this floor far enough in the rear to escape these flames would have been all right except for the crush of the panic.

"Sullivan, who was with me, was the last man out of the orchestra chairs who was not injured. Whoever was behind us must have been suffocated or burned to death. How many there were I have no means of knowing."

NARROW ESCAPES OF YOUNG AND OLD.

One of the narrow escapes in the first rush for the open air was that of Winnie Gallagher, 11 years old, 4925 Michigan avenue. The child, who was with her mother in the third row, was left behind in the rush for safety.

She climbed to the top of the seat and, stepping from one chair to another, finally reached the door. There she was nearly crushed in the crowd. At the Central police station the child was restored to her mother.

Miss Lila Hazel Coulter, of 4760 Champlain avenue, was sitting with Mr.

Kenneth Collins and Miss Helen d.i.c.kinson, 3637 Michigan avenue, in the eighth row in the parquet. She escaped in safety.

"I was sitting in the fifth seat from the aisle," said Miss Coulter, "but the fire, which was bursting out from both sides of the stage, had such a fascination for me."

D. W. Dimmick, of Apple River, Ill., an old man of 70, with a long, white beard, was standing in the upper gallery when the fire broke out.

"I was with a party of four," said Mr. Dimmick. "I saw small pieces of what looked like burning paper dropping down from above at the left of the curtain. At the same time small puffs of smoke seemed to shoot out into the house. A boy in the gallery near me called 'fire,' but there were plenty of people to stop him.

"'Keep quiet!' I told him. 'If you don't look out, you'll start a panic.'

"Then all of a sudden the whole front of the stage seemed to burst out in one ma.s.s of flame. Then everybody seemed to get up and start to get out of the place at once. From all over the house came shrieks and cries of 'fire,' I started at once, hugging the wall on the outside of the stairway as we went down.

"When we got down to the platform where the first balcony opens it seemed to me that people were stacked up like cordwood. There were men, women, and children in the lot. At the same time there were some people whom I thought must be actors, who came running out from somewhere in the interior of the house, and whose wigs and clothes were on fire. We tried to beat out the flames as we went along. By crowding out to the wall we managed to squeeze past the ma.s.s of people who were writhing on the floor, and practically blocking the entrance so far as the people still in the gallery were concerned.