into a blind hallway. Here again, stand the dead bodies of unfortunate
beings who died fighting for life against invincible odds.
Scattered about in the aisles between the balcony rail and the death
trap “exits”--oh, the mockery of the word!--lay bodies burned to a
cinder. Among them lay the body of a noble youth, the son of one of my
friends, whose life was so full of promise, so replete with possible
future usefulness, so suggestive of future greatness even, that I do
not wonder the father was crushed to the earth. I loved the lad, and
if, deep down, my friend’s grief were tinged with resentment against
the ordering of things, I could understand and sympathize.
What foolishness have I attempted here? Describe that scene within
the Iroquois? Never was quill wrought, that could do the subject
justice! Do you, those curious ones, who idly stood in crowds about
the building, watching the poor victims who sprang from the windows
in the upper galleries or attempted to pass on a frail ladder to the
building across the alley, only to be hurled to the ground and mangled
to death or permanent disability, think you could picture it? If so,
your storm centers of emotion have no more potential energy than a
babbling brook--no more dynamic capacity than the breeze that ripples
a mill pond. Do you, my friend, who stood with gaping mouth, watching
the charred, blackened forms brought forth from the maw of hell by the
firemen, think you could depict the fearful sight? If so, I can only
say: “You did not see.”
Within the restaurant, the doctors worked like beavers. They did not
always work systematically--that was impossible, in that confused mass
of people. Confusion? Ye Gods! Was there ever such another scene?
Distracted friends and relatives in search of their loved ones,
nurses, doctors, firemen, policemen, and others who were trying to
lend a helping hand, all contributed to the seething crowd of excited
humanity that packed the place. Then there were the vulgar, bestial
ones who stood and gaped sensually at the nudity of the fire victims
who were being partially stripped by the doctors in their efforts to
save. Yes, such were there, and they were numerous enough to make one
blush for humanity. These cursed blots upon the face of nature, these
moral monstrosities, and the other morbidly curious beings were alike
obstructive. The first might not be killed without process of law, and
there was so much to do that time could not be spared to throw the
latter out upon the street. Once I very nearly forgot my surroundings.
I asked a man who stood near to help me lift some dead bodies from a
table to the floor, to make room for others in which there might still
be life. He refused and moved away, saying, “You can do your own dirty
work.” It was then I so nearly forgot, and said sundry sulphurous
things. Had there been time, perhaps I should have entirely forgotten.
But I fancy the cur was frightened, for after our brief and forceful
interview he started for the door and I did not see him again.
Meanwhile, in the midst of the closely packed throng the stalwart
firemen and policemen pushed their way as best they could, bearing
the bodies of the dead. The work of rescue was going on very slowly.
Even the doctors were not using their skill to the best advantage. In
some instances a veritable throng of them were working, or attempting
to work, simultaneously upon one body. A clear headed layman grasped
the situation and, with the assistance of some of the physicians,
evolved order out of chaos. Three doctors were assigned to each table;
the police cleared out many of the drones in the crowd, and things
began to move more swiftly. The police in general did excellent work.
A glaring exception was a certain well-known captain. Noticing his
insignia of office, I asked him to clear away the people who were
obstructing the passage of the men who were carrying in the bodies. He
replied, “I’ve got no time for you. Hunt up the man who has charge of
the police detail.” And then the heartless brute went on gaping and
getting in the way along with the rest of the morbidly curious.
I wonder if many realize what it means to see dead bodies so numerous
that they might be estimated by the cord. Those who do, may perhaps
picture to themselves the harrowing scenes about those tables where
the physicians worked. As soon as a body was pronounced dead, it was
hurriedly laid aside to make room for a possibly hopeful case. Cases
in which resuscitation was accomplished were carried to the waiting
ambulances and taken to the hospitals. But, alas! these cases were few.
The bodies were brought to us in a seemingly endless stream. As body
after body was pronounced lifeless and laid aside, the piles of dead
upon the tables grew higher and higher, grew until, as I have said,
they could only be compared to piles of cord wood.
And what a difference in those bodies! Some were so seared, so
blistered and blackened from the fire and smoke, that in the handling
of them the skin, and even the flesh, came off in one’s hands in
great shreds and rolls. A far greater number were so free from mar or
discoloration, and their faces were so calm and peaceful that it was
hard to believe them dead. Indeed, it was difficult to believe even
that animation was suspended. They apparently had just fallen asleep.
And these last were to me the most awful sight of all. The
others--well, they were better dead than living disfigured and maimed,
and besides, there had at no time been hope for them. But these, ah,
these! If only they had not lain so long. A little stimulant for the
heart, a few compressions and relaxations of the chest, and the life
giving oxygen would have entered their lungs and blood. They would have
been saved.
What pathetic incidents there were in that restaurant.
A doctor friend of mine, a big hearted, broad shouldered Nature’s
nobleman, was pushing his way here and there through the crowd. I
noted him towering above those about him as he jostled the people
about, and called to him, “Will you take a table?” But he did not
answer. He did not seem to see or hear. He went on through the crowd
from table to table and finally disappeared. I marvelled then, for I
did not know. Poor fellow, his two daughters, beautiful young women,
had gone to the Iroquois that day. He was looking, and looking,--for
that which was bound to crush him, and hoping,--ah! hoping against
hope, as the sequence proved. His light had gone out--and it has stayed
out.
And I have just an inkling of what it all meant to the bereaved ones. I
had not yet had time to ascertain whether my own wife and children had
chanced to go to the Iroquois that afternoon. I recalled however, that
I had taken them to see the same play a few days before, and concluded
that they were not likely to attend it again soon, but still--
The horrible doubt had just begun to befog my mind, when a new subject
was laid upon the table where I was working. It was the body of a young
girl. As I took the first hasty glance at this latest unfortunate, I
was almost stunned. The resemblance to my younger daughter was so
startling that I was all but sure it was she. It was but a fleeting
moment before I knew, but that ephemeral space of time was enough. And
then I understood, oh, so well.
“A father’s heart should not be deceived, even for a moment,” I fancy I
hear some one say. Perhaps not, yet there was one unhappy man in that
frantic throng of those who were seeking their beloved ones, whom I
beheld, thrice in succession, identifying a strange child as his own.
And that father had a heart of hearts, as I have occasion to know.
Lying beneath one of the tables lay the body of a beautiful little
girl of about twelve years of age. Fair was she, with golden hair and
cheeks still red. A doctor saw her lying there and paused, wondering to
himself whether his brethren had worked quite long enough. She surely
did not look as if she were dead.
As the doctor stood wondering thus, a group of young lads approached
him from the other side of the table. One of them cried appealingly:
“Oh, doctor, won’t you please try once more to save that little girl.
We know her, and know her folks, and it will kill them if she dies.”
Another physician who was passing by, overhearing said, “No use, old
man. We worked over her for forty minutes before we gave her up,” and
he hurried on to another table.
“Oh, but doctor,” said one of the boys appealingly, “I just saw her
eyes quiver.”
“Yes,” said another, “and one of her fingers just moved.”
“Dear, optimistic little liars,” said the doctor afterward, “I just
couldn’t stand it. I pulled the body off the pile on which it lay, put
it on the table, and worked like a horse over it for thirty minutes.
And when the poor little chest made a few pitifully gasping sounds
under my efforts, the expression of joy and hope on the faces of those
lads was wonderful to see.
“And when through sheer fatigue I at last gave up the self imposed task
that I knew was hopeless at the beginning, one of the boys approached
me and tearfully whispered, ‘Please, doctor, won’t you tell me your
name? We want to see that you get paid for trying to save our little
friend. You did just the best you could.’
“And,” said the doctor, “I couldn’t answer him as I would have done
had he been grown up. The poor boy would not have understood. I just
choked up and sputtered, ‘See you again, by and by, my boy, I’m in a
hurry now.’
“Just think,” concluded the doctor, “here was a _rara avis_--a dead
person’s friend who thought a doctor should be rewarded for doing the
best he could.”
And when I heard the story I said, “Old fellow, that boy’s sentiments
were awfully out of place, but who shall say that they were out of
tune?”
There are many book-made heroes, but few of real flesh and blood. There
was one among the injured ones who were brought in unconscious and laid
upon the tables at that restaurant. He was a boy of some twelve or
fourteen years of age. He remained unconscious for fully half an hour.
Just as the doctors were about to give him up as hopeless, he began to
revive, and was soon out of danger. Several policemen approached him.
“What’s your name, sonny?” asked one of the officers.
“I won’t tell you my name,” replied the boy.
“Yes, but you _must_ tell me your name.”
“But I won’t do it, so there now,” and the boy set his teeth defiantly.
Curious to know why the boy objected to telling who he was, I motioned
the officers aside and asked quietly,
“Why don’t you give the policemen your name, my boy?”
“’Cause,” replied the boy, “if I do, my pa and my ma’ll hear about my
bein’ hurt an’ it’ll scare ’em most to death.”
And the boy would not be cajoled until I told him the only way to
prevent shock to his parents was to notify them that he was safe.
He grasped the situation and smiled happily as he gave his name and
started for the ambulance.
Ah, Jimmy Kerwin, you are a thoroughbred, if ever there was one.
But why recall all the details of that frightful disaster--the most
awful experience I have ever met with. Have I not told enough to
justify the indignation that filled me when I saw the Death’s head and
read those heartless legends?
* * * * *
The new Music Hall opened last evening as per schedule. I was not
surprised to read in the papers this morning that the opening night
was a brilliant success. Every seat was sold. The audience was as
enthusiastic as it was large. This was well--a smaller audience would
not have been a fitting crown to Chicago’s shame and humanity’s
disgrace. Humanity has glossed itself over with a veneer of what it
pleases to term civilization, but primitive man peeps out from beneath
its edges and obtrudes itself whenever and wherever the veneer is
cracked ever so little. And so, a large audience was to have been
expected. The managers of the place well knew human nature.
The applause of that audience was the apotheosis of poor old Rip Van
Winkle’s lament, “How soon we are forgot.” Things inanimate revolted
at the sight and sound of it. A drop curtain caught, precisely as
that cheap, flimsy asbestos fraud did on that memorable day at the
Iroquois. And then the insensate human things remembered--remembered
that they were not fire proof. They remembered, not the dead, but that
other caught curtain, the flame, the gas, the trampling, crushing,
tearing rush of madmen fighting for life, and the farcical exits. They
remembered themselves only, and were startled, affrighted, ripe for a
panic for a moment, and then--they laughed again!
Human beings seeking gay diversion in a crypt of death, splitting the
air of a charnel house with vociferous applause, startling the ghosts
that people the place by boisterous laughter--faugh!
The performance over, the callous ones filed slowly out of the hall,
chatting like magpies and discussing the merits of the various features
of the performance. They traversed the same road over which the ghastly
forms of that other audience were carried. And as the pleasure seekers
gaily tripped along, they passed between and over scores and scores
of recumbent ghosts. Had the forms of these poor wraiths been more
substantial there would have been brushings against them, stumblings
over them.
Over the door the Death’s head still grinned. Chicago’s shame was
complete. Her burnt offerings on the altar of Mammon were forgotten.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors and missing or unbalanced quotation marks
were silently corrected by Transcriber.
Page 156: “step was bring him nearer” was printed that way.