EXCITING EXPERIENCES IN THE FIRE.
"If you ever saw a field of timothy grass 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 shingles. 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 pass 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
glass, 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 God'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 passing 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 shield 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 God. 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 passed 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 mass 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 Dickinson, 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 mass 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 mass of people who were writhing on the floor,
and practically blocking the entrance so far as the people still in the
gallery were concerned.
PULLS WOMEN FROM MASS ON FLOOR.
"As we got by the mass on the floor I turned and caught hold of the arms
of a woman who was lying near the bottom pinned down by the weight resting
on her feet. I managed to pull her out, and I think she got down in
safety. One of the men with me also pulled out another woman from the
heap. I tried to rescue a man who was also caught by the feet, but,
although I braced myself against the stairs, I was unable to move him.
"I came in from Apple River to see the sights in Chicago, and I have seen
all I can stand."
Six little girls from Evanston, in a party occupying seats in the parquet,
escaped by the side entrance. In the crush they lost most of their
clothing. Four of the children stayed together, the other two being for
the time lost in the street. The four were Hannah Gregg, 12 years old,
1038 Sheridan road; Florence and May Lang, 14 and 13 years old, Buena
Park; Beatrice Moore, 12 years old, Buena Park.