Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1909 — MINE TO REMAIN SHUT 3 MONTHS [ARTICLE]

MINE TO REMAIN SHUT 3 MONTHS

Qlalm Made Sealing of Shalt Has Doomed Living Men. SALOONS IN CHERRY REOPEN Officials of St. Paul Company and Mayor of the Town Are Putting the Temper of the Population to the Teat—Troop* on Guard at Mouth of Pit to See That Steel Beams and Concrete Are Not Removed by Force. Cherry, 111., Nov. 26. —Not since the recovery of the first bodies from the depths of the fire wrecked St. Paul mine have such scenes been witnessed as the heartrending pictures at the sealed mouth of the mine today. Hundreds of grief stricken women with worn faces and fatherless children clinging in fear to their dresses gathered in groups about the Bhaft of the mine, sobbing and moaning. Their sacred dead are lost forever. The realization of the horrible end of the great disaster has aroused a frantic grief. Women fell on their knees, dragging their children with them and sobbing out their cries of despair. Many still believe that the sealing of the shaft has doomed to death men who are fighting for their lives in the bowels of the earth. Mine experts scout the idea and state that such is an impossibility. The nineteen saloons in Cherry have baen flung wide open. The mine officials requested this and Mayor Chnnelly permitted it to test the temper of the mining population regarding th 6 dosing of the mine. The shaft, sealed by steel cross beams and a concrete layer and covered by sand, was closely guarded by troops. Anxious to alleviate the sufferings of the mine population and to create a Thanksgiving spirit in a town that is burdened with grief, twenty church women from Spring Valley came to Cherry bearing dainty dinners to the suffering women. It was declared today that it would take three months to smother the flames and that the mine would he closed for that period.