II. Immediate Aftermath
The scene of utter chaos went from the boat, to the
water, and then the wharf. The Chicago
River at this time was an oily mix of sewage, runoff, horse dung, and factory
waste. The river was not a place someone
would want to be swimming. The Sunday best
that every passenger was wearing turned out to be another drawback. The wool suits that
many men were wearing and the dresses and many layers that the women were
wearing turned into anchors.
Back on land, onlookers froze,
unsure what to do; many were in shock and just stood motionless on the
pier. This happened to Mike Psaris, a
veteran photographer for the Chicago
Tribune. Psaris had his camera fixed on the site but did not take pictures
immediately; it took him almost eight minutes
to start taking pictures of the scene.
Onlookers were throwing anything into the water that would float items
such as life jackets, oars, boxes, planks, among other things.
Conversely, no lifeboats were
launched or life jackets handed out on the Eastland,
because by the time the crew realized the ship was doomed, the time had
passed to be able to undertake such a feat.
Other ships began dropping lifeboats and rafts in order to help save
many in the water. The other ships
around the Eastland started gathering
coal dust to put on the hull of the ship.[1] Coal dust would help
rescuers from slipping off the ship, as the side of the Eastland would be slippery, from being in the water.
Back on land mortified by witnessing the Eastland capsize in front of them,
police on the scene turned their attention to holding the crowd back, not
allowing them to rush to the water.
Which was a double-edged sword, the police were smart to hold back the
frantic family members, but the police also held back people who were going
to attempt to and rescue the victims. Many believe that the police did more to
obstruct the rescue attempts then they did to help the efforts. One who did disagree with the police
was A.D. Coe, who was a welder summoned to the scene
by F.G. Hubbard. Hubbard was a master
mechanic for the Western Electric Company; he understood that the only way to
get the people trapped between the decks out alive was to cut holes in the
hull. Coe stated to the Chicago Tribune, “I saw at least twenty
expert swimmers whom I know personally take off their coats and beg the police
to let them dive in the river to rescue struggling men and women…” He continued, “The Police obdurately refused but did nothing themselves
to help.” The police also held Coe back;
he would later explain to the Tribune
“We had five burners one of them the largest in the United States. But the police wouldn’t let us through.”[2] The police were letting seconds slip by,
these were seconds that the police should not have let be wasted. These seconds would cost many lives that were
still battling to stay alive in the river and trapped in the boat. However, despite their efforts the police
were unable to stop everyone from helping.
One man the police failed to stop was A.W. Perkins, who had just gotten
off work and was on his way to the beach.
Perkins stripped down to his bathing suit, jumped in, and saved three
women. Edward Atkin found a boat under
the Clark Street Bridge and according to the New York Times “rescued twenty
persons.”[3]
The
first wave of rescuers, which had not witnessed the capsizing of the Eastland were the Chicago Fire
Department from the 209 North Dearborn Street firehouse, just a few blocks from
the disaster.
The Fire Department arrived at around 7:30 AM, about the same time that
the Eastland came to a rest in the
muddy bed of the Chicago River. The
Coast Guard arrived right behind the Fire Department, who had also received a
call about the pending disaster. The
Fire Department arrived on the scene and immediately jumped on board the hull
to try to save people. The Chicago
Police Department was next on the scene with rescuers; the police already had a
small presence on scene to control the crowd and help with the boarding of
passengers. However, as stated
above the police did more to hinder the rescue efforts than help. Some onlookers grabbed ropes to pull people
to safety; Charles Smith was one whom grabbed a rope to help. Smith was working during the time of the disaster for the William Rooted Company and
would tell the New York Times:
When the Eastland started to
turn over I was with my team on the north side of the river, near La Salle
Street. I grabbed the rope I always carry on the
wagon and yelled to three other teamsters who followed me with their
ropes. We ran across the Wells Street
Bridge and started pulling people out of the water between the bottom of the
boat and the dock working east toward the prow of the boat. We got seven or eight of them out, but they
kept yelling for us to come to the tug, which had come up the front end.
The cries of the people in the
boat were pitiful to hear, and we could have saved them a lot more of them, but
the policemen would not let us on. We
begged them to let us on the boat, and showed them our ropes, but they must
have been afraid the boilers would blow up, because they kept us standing there
for more than five minutes while the people in the cabin were yelling for
help. We asked them six or seven times
and were refused.
None of the policemen were on
the boat then, but there were some firemen, who were doing good work. I pulled up three women myself after they
finally let us back on and commenced to work on them, but it was too late. If I had not been delayed by the police I
could have saved them. If the police had
gone on the sunken boat right away instead of stalling they could have saves
twenty-five or fifty more people.
I didn’t see any policemen
working on the boat for fully half an hour after the accident. I was on the front end. There might have been some policemen on the
stern end. There were eight or ten
policemen standing around on the tug when I went on the boat.[4]
The police seemed to do more to delay the rescue effort more than any other group on scene. They were not trained to deal with
such a disaster but were the slowest and more fearful of what could happen
next, than what was unfolding in front of them.
Eyewitnesses
believe that the police were afarid that the boilers
were going to blow and that’s why the police held back. The fireboat Graeme
Stewart, just a few blocks west of the site of the Eastland disaster when it happened, was also slow to react. Once the Graeme
Stewart started heading towards the Eastland,
the fireboat sat just west of the Wells Street Bridge for ten minutes. Captain Patrick Lyons would later claim that
there were too many bodies in the water for him to get any closer to the Eastland.
Back
in the water, the women were starting to get a stronger nerve then the
men. Men continued to fight madly for
their lives whereas the women and girls recovered quickly from the panic of the
crisis. The women were patiently clinging to the items that were in the water and
were listening to and obeying the commands of rescuers, even women in the hull
were waiting calmly. In contrast, the
men were a completely different story; men were dragging women from
places of safety even after the man’s own safety was assured. Many men also stood
around, after being saved, without offering help.[5]
Meanwhile
the American Red Cross was alerted to what was unfolding in the Chicago
River. The Red Cross dispatched local
director John. J. O’Connor. O’Connor was on the scene within a half hour
and was formulating plans for relief.
First step was to gather up the survivors and give them medical
attention. Luckily, Reid-Murdoch, a
wholesale grocery firm was having a company picnic that same day, so there was
an empty building right across the river from the disaster. Reid-Murdoch allowed the Red Cross to have
any food that was on the shelves in the building. However, this was not the only company to
help. The Sherman and LaSalle hotels
sent sandwiches, as did the Weeghman and the Thompson food chains. [6]
Next, the
Red Cross set up a central morgue at the Second Regiment Armory at the
intersection of Washington Boulevard and Curtis Street, which is the
present day location of the Oprah Winfrey
studios. The bodies were laid out in
rows of eighty-five and bodies that were not immediately identified were given
numbers. The possessions were placed in
large envelopes marked with the number from the body. Around midnight, the Red Cross started to let
people in to identify the bodies. This
process was slow due to the fact that the Red Cross was only allowing twenty
people in at a time.
Back at the sight of the disaster, the police
decided it was time to cut holes in the side of the boat to try to save more
people. However, Captain Pedersen and
First Mate Del Fisher did not agree with cutting holes through the hull of the
ship. Later, Pederson disbelievers said
that he refused to have holes cut in the hull of the Eastland because he did not want to ruin the integrity of the
ship. Pederson claims he said this
because the police wanted to cut where the boiler was and he suggested they cut above the soda counter on the ‘tween
decks.[7] The police proceeded with the cut and saved
roughly forty people through the opening that Pederson adamantly defined.
According to E. Nelson, a welder who left work to help with the rescue,
Pederson stopped Nelson from cutting a hole in the hull and ordered Nelson to
leave the ship. Nelson stated to the New
York Times, “I told [Pederson] I was instructed to [burn a hole in the hull] by
the police but [Pederson] told me he was running things and that I would have
to stop.”[8] As a result of the
episode, Pedersen and fourteen others from the management staff to crewmembers
were arrested for interfering with rescue effort. On Pedersen way to city hall, a man broke
through the line of police escorting and punched him in the face. The belief that Pedersen’s behavior had been
negligent had spread through the city like a
wild fire.[9]
[1] Michael Schumache. The Eastland disaster. Directed by Mark Gumbinger.
Produced by Mark Gumbinger. Performed by Paul Kern. 1999.
[2] Chicago Tribune July 27, 1915, pg
10. Cited in Bonansinga, pg 91.
[3] New York Times, “Work of Heroes Saved Hundreds; Man Who Had
Gone to the River to Commit Suicide Plunged In and
Rescued Nine. Boy Died Aiding Women Four
Children Owe Lives to a Frail Girl -- Only Two of 17 in the Bar Got Out Alive. July 25, 1915,
pg 1.
[4] New York Times, July 25, 1915, pg 1.
[5] New
York Times, July 25, 1915. pg 1.
[6] Hilton, Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic, pg 124.
[7] “The Eastland, Pride of the City Toppled over One Year Ago Today: Delwin
Fisher Tells of Disaster,” St. Joseph Daily Press, July 24, 1916. Cited in Hilton, Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic, pg 126.
[8] New York Times, “Captain all But
Lynched.; Menaced by Angry Crowd When His Orders Hinder Rescue Work.”, July 25,
1915, pg 2.
[9] Hilton, Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic, pg 126-127.
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