Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1904 — JURY FIXES BLAME, [ARTICLE]

JURY FIXES BLAME,

BLOCUM OFFICERS AND DIRECTOIfs HELD. Those Criminally Responsible Have Been Placed Under Arrest —Action ot Mate Flanagan Styled Cowardly and Inspector Cited for Federal Inquiry. After a full Investigation the New York coroner's jury found a verdict holding every person directly concerned in the Gen. Slocum disaster criminally responsible for tlie loss of the lives of the excursionists who perished on Juno 15. Those directly blamed by the jury were Frank A. Barnaby, president of the Knickerbocker Steamboat Company; J. K. Atkinson, secretary of the company; nil of the directors, Capt. William 11. Van Sclmick, Mate Edward Flanagan, and Henry Lundberg, assistant United States steamboat inspector, who approved the fire fighting apparatus of tlie bout before it was placed in commission in May. Flanagan was denounced for cowardice and for failure to perform his duty. Lundberg was held to have been Incompetent, careless and Indifferent. The jury found that the existing system of steamboat inspection is inefficient and recommended a radical change by the Department of Commerce and Labor. Coroner Berry Issued warrants for the arrest of the directors and officials o* the Knickerbocker Steamboat Company. Inspector Lundberg mid Mate Flanagan have been held in $3,000 bail each.

The charge in each case was manslaughter in the second degree. Bail was fixed by the coroner in amounts varying from SI,OOO to $5,000. Bail was fixed at $5,000 each for President Barnaby and Secretary Atkinson and bonds were furnished at once. Capt. Van Schaick is a prisoner In the Lebanon hospital. over 1,000 persons perished In tlie burning of the excursion steamer General Slocum is now certain. According to an exhaustive report made by Police Inspector Sclimittberger, on the number of dead, missing, injured and uninjured in the disaster, it appears that 938 bodies have been recovered and that 93 persons absolutely known to have been aboard tiie vessel are still unaccounted for, bringing the total mortality of the disaster up to 1,631. Those injured numbering 179 and of the throng of fully 1,500 who embarked on the excursion of St. Mark’s Church, but 236 escaped without, injury. The report is the result of a minute inquiry made by a corps of 300 patrolmen under the direction of tlie inspector. In the course of the inquiry much valuable information was secured from survivors which will be used in the investigation by the District Attorney to fix the responsibility for the disaster. A’ thorough examination of the hull by Coroners O’Gorman and Berry and Inspector Albertson resulted in the discovery in the locker in which the fire started of a number of barrels which , had contained kerosene and lubricating oil. The investigation prosecuted by the coroner seems to make it clear that the Slocum had been nothing better than a death trap for years. The steamboat company admitted that since 1895 not a single new life preserver had been purchased for the Sloeum. Gen. Dumont, head of the United States steamboat inspection service for the harbor of New York, asserts that the life of the average good life preserver is six years. President Barnaby was accused of bad faith and of trying to deceive the coroner’s jury as to the life preservers by his testimony on the first day of the inquest. Capt. John A. Pease, supervising captain of the company, who put the boat into commission, bluntly admitted that it was impossible to purchase a proper fire hose for 16 cents a foot. That was the price of the cottoh fire hose that was in use ou the Slocum. All testimony went to show clearly that none of the officers or members of the crew of the Slocum had made the least effort to save lives on the day of the disaster. It was shown also that the only member of the crew (to drown, Michael McGann, the steward, had put on one of the worthless lifepreservers.