Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1915 — WOMEN ARE CALM, MEN IN A PANIC [ARTICLE]

WOMEN ARE CALM, MEN IN A PANIC

Thrilling Stories Told by Those Rescued From Death Trap in Steamer. TRAGIC SCENES ARE ENACTED • Men Fight Madly for Their Lives. Dragging Women From Temporary Places of Safety—Eyewitnesses Tell of Tragedy.

Chicago, July 26.—Stories of joy—a joy which found expression in tears —were told by those rescued from the river or from the death-trap hull of the steamer Eastland. In the crisis the women were the stronger. While men fought madly for their lives the women and girls, after the first panic, quickly recovered. Either they clung patiently to rails and bits of wreckage, or. if trapped in the hull, they waited calmly for rescue or death. Rescued, their thoughts for the most part were for those not so fortunate.

With the men it was different. They dragged the women from places of temporary safety in order that they might be saved. They struggled madly to save life, not for others, but for themselves. And some, when rescued, stood stunned and helpless, watching others at work. RECOGNIZES HIS DAUGHTER.

Fred Swigert, a city fireman, werked three hours lifting bodies from the hold. Then a diver handed him the body of a little girl. Swigert placed the little body on a stretcher ■oand looked closely at the child's features. He gasped and fell unconscious across the body. It was his own daughter.

Not until four o’clock did the divers recover most of the bodies from what was known as the second deck. Until that time they had made no attempts to locate any bodies on the first and cabin decks. “BEST LITTLE FELLOW” GONE. George Maley, office boy In department No. 2136 at tae Western Electric, was everybody’s friend. His cheering smile, his rapid thinking, and his ability to please, even under the most trying circumstances, inspired in all the stenographers and woman clerks of the department a sisterly love and in the men a “big brother" attitude.

In the morning he was among the first aboard the Eastland, distributing programs, smiling a cheering greeting, and making himself the pet of the crowd. During the afternoon - more than fifty women and girls tramped from morgue to hospital and from hospital to information bureau to Inquire as to the fate of George. At the bureau at 216 North Clark street three pretty stenographers gathered around the desk marked “Names from J. to N.” and asked about George Maley. A relative ? one of the clerks asked sympathetically, when no report was found in his index. No. But the best little fellow you ever knew,” answered one, and led the group away. FAT MAN SCARED; TWO DROWN. “I heard her flop over with a crash and a splash,” said William Raphael. I jumped out to the door and saw vhat had happened. I saw two women come bobbing up to the surface not far from the shore piling. I Jumped in to grab them.

Some fat man, his face green with terror, was making for them. too. I got hold of the women and started to pull them out. The fat man held on to the women’s dresses, and I couldn’t swim with the whole load. I yelled at him, treading water as I foughL He wouldn’t let bo

“I licked liim in the face and made him let go. I lost one of the women in the struggle, but I got the other woman to shore safely. “All three of them might have been saved if that fellow hadn’t been scared into a frenzy. lam glad that I saved one. anyway. ALL EXCEPT SON SAVED.

Casper Laline, Sr., of 3718 Ogden avenue, his wife and their daughter Cecilia, thirteen years old, were rescued, but their son, Casper, Jr., eight years old, is believed to have been drowned. The Laline family was in a stateroom when the boat began to list and water began to rush into the room. They climbed upon a table, whence all were pulled through a porthole to the upper side of the overturned boat There the boy Casper disappeared, and it was believed he had slipped off the boat in the confusion and been drowned.

Frank Spencer of 5259 South Robey street saved two woman companions, Mrs. K. Jena and her daughter Anna of 175 S West Fifty-first street. “The instant the hawsers were let go the boat began to tip,” Spencer said. “I suspected* what was coming and lifted Miss Jena up over the rail. Then together we managed to get her mother up, and I scrambled up after them. We all crawled top of the boat as it turned over.” J* POLICEMAN SAW TRAGEDY.

With water dripping from his hair and clothing. Policeman John H. Sesc-her, probably one of the first to go to the rescue of the passengers, stood on the Clark street bridge and gave a detailed description of the accident and of the scenes he witnessed as men, women and cheldren were flung into the water.

He said he had assisted about fifty persons to reach shore. “I was standing on the bridge gazing at the boat,” the policeman began, wiping the water from his eyes and wringing his hair. “I noticed that there was an awful crowd on one side of the boat and that it was leaning out towards the water. I believed there were qbout five hundred men, women and children on that side of the steamer. The promenade decks were lined. Then I noticed the boat suddenly flop -over. It just went over on its side without the slightest warning. “I saw scores of men and women, many holding children, plunged into the water. I rushed down to the river and jumped into a rowboat. I pulled out the drowning as I reached them. I think I got about fifty ashore. Then came the fireboat, tugs and rowboats, and I believe that altogether one hundred or more were taken from the water. We grabbed the nearest first and put them ashore. At one time I had four women in the boat with me. Others I aided by simply lifting them from the water to the landing.” WOMEN PULLED AWAY. Joe Lannon, who was at the soda fountain on the lower deck, said: “When the ship first started to turn over everybody took it as a joke. The dance floor on the lower deck was crowded with men and women, mostly the latter. Then when the boat listed over so far that the people beto slide across the floor the panic began. 'Women and children first?’ Not on your life! I saw men tear women and girls from where they were clinging to rails above the water in order to get positions of temporary safety. There was nothing like chivalry. The stronger dragged down the weaker into the water and usurped their places, and usually the stronger were men and the weaker were girls and women. Oh, if the men had only been as brave as the women, the loss of life would have been much less! I refnember one girl—she was only about sixteen—whom I pulled through the porthole. As she reached safety she fainted dead away. In another case I was lifting a woman out of the water. She was heavy and I could hardly raise her. A man grabbed my foot. I shouted to him that all three of us would'be in the water and lost if he did not go, but he hung on. Finally I raised my foot and kicked at him. The shoe slipped off my foot and he disappeared. I got my own footing again and hauled the woman cuL”