Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 128, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1903 — MANY STUDENTS DIE. [ARTICLE]

MANY STUDENTS DIE.

Fifteen Football Players and Friends Perish in Wreck. — — r- * ’ 'I- - Fifty of 1,200 from Purdue University Are Badly Injured. Special Lafayette Train Strikes Coal Cars Entering Indianapolis. Coaches Holding CoHege Boys Are Smashed and Hurled Down a Steep Bank.

Fifteen students of Purdue University, among them several members of the football team, were killed and fifty or more others in a total of 1,200 players or “rooters'’ on a special train were Injured in a terrific collision on the Big Four Railway while entering Indianapolis Saturday morning. The students’ special from Lafayette ran into a coal at Riverside Park, crushing to splinters a coach containing seventy stu- * dents and friends, telescoping a second coacli and hurling it down a 15-foot embankment with its 100 occupants, and upsetting and smashing the third coach. In the tangled, masses of twisted iron nnd broken wood the victims were mangled, beheaded ? or held prisoner till rescuers could chop them out. As fast as the willing boys and men extricated the corpses the unconscious and less seriously injured, and carried them to adjacent grass plots, the girls and women among the excursionists lent their aid in ministering to the sufferers. Holiday dresses were stained with blood, but no one thought of them. Agonizing groans filled the nir and these came no less from the injured than from the more fortunate, for all were close friends. The collision took place at 10,:20 o’clock, while the- students were entering the city for the football game between Purdue and Indiana universities for the State championship. A switch engine was backing a cut of coal cars on the main track at a gravel pit, where a deep cut the track ahead «of each engineer. Blame for the disastrous collision has not yet been placed. “VVe had no orders to vacate the track,” said Lon Akers, conductor of the freight train. “The fault, if there Is any, cannot fall on our shoulders. We have orders to get out of the way of regular trains. No orders wero given us that a special was coming in.” ( Names of the Dead. Following is the list oi the dead; Coats, J. 0., Berwin, Pa. Drollingcr, Gabriel S., Lafayette, Ind., substitute; beheaded. * x Furr, Charles, Veedersburg, Ind., guard. Grube, Charles, Butljsr, Ind., substitute player. Hamilton, W. D., Lafayette, center rush. Hamilton, Jay, Huntington, Ind., substitute. Howard, N. R., Lafayette, president of the Indiana Laundrymen’s Association. McClnir, Patrick, Chicago, trainer. Powell, R. J., Corpus Christ!, Texas, end player. Trice, Bert. Spencer, Ind.. substitute. Robertson, E. C., Indianapolis, assistant conch and captain of team two years

ago. •Itoush, Walter L., Fittsburg, Pa., substitute. Shaw, G. I/., Lafayette, Ind. Squibb, Samuel, La’wrenceburg, Ind., substitute. Truitt, Samuel, Noblesville, Ind., substitute. Details of the Collision. The special train boro the Purdue football team —professors, students and “rooters” —numbering altogether nearly 1,200. It consisted of twelve coaches and was running ns the first section at high speed. In the first coach back of the engine were the Purdue football team, substitute players and managers. Three players, the assistant coach, trainer and seven substitute players of the university team were killed and eVery one of the fifty-three other persons in the car were either fatally or seriously iujured. From the twelve coaches were coming the •joyous cries of 1,200 rooters for Furdue clad In gala dress, with colors streaming, while In the front coach sat twenty great muscular fellows, on whom the hopes of a brilliant victory on the gridiron was confidently placed. Around n curve at the Eighteenth street cut Engineer W. H. Schama ker found directly in front of him the freight engine and coal cars moving slowly from ■ switch lending out of the! gravel pit He reversed his engine and jumped. The crash hurled the passenger engine and three front roaches against the steel freight cars loaded with coal thnt plowed their way through and buried under a pile of wreckage weighing many tons fully sixty college boys. The first car, in which were the players, was completely dcimdished, the roof being toni away and lanofcg across a car of coal, while the body of the car was reduced to kindling wood against the side of the steel freight car. The second coach, containing the band musicians, was partly telescoped, while thfe third conch was overturned and hurled down the 15-foot ombnnkment. The other coaches did not leave the track. • President Stoue of the university, with his family, was In the fifth coach and was not injured.

Immediately after the shock the pas> sengers, men and women, began the frantic work of tearing away the wreckage ahd pulling out deadend dying classmates and fraternity brothers. Tha young women, dressed in bright colors for the holiday, performed heroic work. Thongh the bodies were in several ltfi stances horribly mangled, one completely and one partly beheaded, the girls took upon their laps the heads of the dying and injured and soothed their sufferings as best they could until the surgeons arrived! Their bloodstained" and grimy garments were gloomy witnesses of their heroism. » ; A general alarm was sounded: and every assistance the city could afford was rushed to the wreck, which was three miles from the business center. Surgeons dashed up in automobiles, fire wagons, ambulances, express wagons, undertakers’ vehicles, private conveyances and even delivery wagons were sent to carry away the dead and injured. While these were being carried to the morgues ahd hospitals the work of tearing away the Wreck and rescuing those pinned beneath on. Big, muscular students cried aloud as they stood‘over the bodies of their dead friends and fellow workers or gazed helpless upon the sufferings of their college mates writhing in pain. To add to the horror the wreckage caught fire, but the flames were extinguished by .the students after a hard fight The condition of some of the dead was frightful. One body was entirely beheaded. Others were terribly mutilated In other ways. The Purdue football team played against the Chicago University jeleven on Marshall field a few weeks ago and made a good showing against the Maroons. They were to have played in Indianapolis Saturday with the University of Indiana team, and the game was to settle the State championship. Purdue is a member of the “big nine" college conference and the team, while not counted in the race"for the championship of the West, is a contender for secondary honors. Purdue University’s officials have announced that the institution will engage in no more football games this yenr.