Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1907 — CARNAGE OP THE 4TH [ARTICLE]

CARNAGE OP THE 4TH

MANY KILLED AND HURT CELE. BRATING THE ‘-GLORIOUS." —, ■ - . . Misguided Patriotism Makes a Long Death Roll—Deadly Lock Jaw Is Next and Many of the Injared Aw Sore to Succumb.

Lists of killed and wounded published the day after the Fourth tell only part of the story of slaughter. The dreadful after effects of hurts slight in themselves, but harboring the tetanus germ and resulting in lockjaw and death, are still to add horrors to the grisly Stray bullets did the usual amount of killing. Fools with cannon crackers and other deadly weapons used them where they would 1 do the most damage. The premature explosion was much in evidence. So the hospitals were crowded and the procession to the cemeteries began. From returns compiled on the sth the roster of dead throughout the country held 78 victims of misguided patriotism. The lists of the injured were swelled largely when final inventories of the wounded were taken, and the totals received show that more than 2,900 persons spent the sth in sorrow and tribulation. The totals are far from complete, for nearly every remote hamlet In the country has its martyrs, and months will elapse before the final statistics are gathered. The experi- | ence of former years has demonstrated that the full death toll of the “glo’rl’’ous” Is never completed until several weeks have passed. Many Killed and Hart. Pittsburg heads the list of cities for loss of life, fifteen deaths being reported. In Philadelphia there was only one death, but the wounded numbered hundreds. In the hospitals of the , birthplace of independence G4B persons i were treated for injuries during the ’day. Late reports from Los Angeles ‘ show that four deaths occurred in that ’city as the direct result of the noisy celebration.

In Chicago the death roll reached seven. Several victims were claimed in post-Fourth celebrations. With fireworks marked down, Young America, and in many cases Old America os well, simply couldn’t resist the temptation to buy, and The sth of July pyrotechnics added a large number to the already large list of injured, dead, and dying. At Peoria, Therrold Rogers, 18 years old, tried to bore out the muzzle of a cannon which happened to be loaded. When the steel bit struck the powder the young man was hurled thirty feet and seriously injured. In Beloit, Wis, an Italian, who had been in the country only fifteen days, was shot in the head by a boy who supposed he had only a toy pistol. The man is expected to die. Reports from Cincinnati were to the effect that the entire business section of the town of Moscow, Ohio, was wiped out on the Fourth by a blaze that started from the explosion of a torpedo near a 200-gallon tank of gasoline, The tap of which was running. Early in thfe morning a fire started at Decatur City, lowa, that burned eleven business houses and other buildings. The loss is $27,000 and the fire is attributed to smoldering cracker stubs.

Many Fires Are Caused. In many cities there were other blazes as the outcome of the fireworks! In Pittsburg the O’Neil Building, at 806 Fifth avenue, burned and several persons were rescued only by spectacular heroism on the part of the firefighters. In a race riot in New York during the final hours of the celebration Policeman Edward Conrad was probably fatally injured. The trouble started when the oflieer seized a negro who was discharging a pistol on the street At once hundreds of negro celebrants rushed up, and, seizing the policeman, slashed him with razors. A riot call brought succor, aud the fight that ensued lasted half an hour. Lower Salem, Ohio, was the scene of a pitched battle between two whole villages during a celebration of the Fourth. A picnic had been arranged at Salem, and the whole masculine pop. illation of Elba turned out. Unfriend* ly rivalry between the two towns started a row, the town man&al was unable to preserve the peace and the melee ceased only when the participants sank from exhaustion. Hundreds were hurt Another “joker” appeared at Gladden, Pa. He gave a pound of black powder to seven small children for a plaything. They are in the hospital. Dangerous fireworks are made to be exploded. If their manufacture were prohibited under penalty, if their sale were made a serious offense, if harmless substitutes for deadly toys were generally used by sensible persons, the Fourth of July soon would take on an air of sanity and th£ pleasures of the day would be multiplied. Public opinion must deal firmly with this matter. The slaughterous holiday must be reformed.

The noises of the Fourth drove Mrs. Johanna Evert to insanity, and after frightening her neighbors she hanged herself from a bedpost in her home in Jersey City. At Waukegan, Ill* Henry Meyers, 11 years old, met death while returning from a Fourth of July picnic. The little boy stood on the tracks of the St Paul Railroad within 500 feet of his home watching an exhibition of fireworks; when an express train bora down upon him, kliHng him Instantly.