After the first great impact had hurled the overflow of the fire-escape gallery into the alley yawning far below, the crush of humanity swept onward, downward to where safety beckoned. When the advance guard had all but reached the precious goal, with only a few feet of iron gallery and one more stairway to traverse, the crowning horror of the day unfolded itself. Right in the path of the advancing horde a steel window shutter flew back, impelled by the terrific energy of an immeasurable volume of pent up superheated air.
The clang of the steel shutter swinging back on its hinges against the brick wall sounded the death knell of another host of victims, for in its wake came a huge tongue of lurid flame,leaping on high in the ecstasy of release from its stifling furnace. Fiercely in the faces of the refugees beat this agency of death. Before its withering blast the victims fell like prairie grass before an autumn blaze. Those further back waited for no more, but precipitated themselves headlong into the alley rather than face the fiery furnace that loomed up barring the way to hope.
It would be well to draw the curtain upon this awful scene of suffering and death in the gloomy alley were it not for one circumstance that stands forth a glorious example of the heights that may be attained by the modest hero who moves about unsuspected in his daily life until calamity affords opportunity to show the stuff he is made of. High up in the building occupied by the law, dental and pharmacy schools of the Northwestern University, directly across the alley from the burning theater, a number of such men were at work. They were horny handed sons of toil—painters, paper hangers and cleaners repairing minor damage caused by an insignificant fire in the university building a few weeks before. One glance at the seething vortex of death below transformed them into heroes whose deeds would put many a man to shame whose memory is kept alive by stately column or flattering memorial tablet.
Trailing heavy planks used by them in the erection of working scaffolds, they rushed to a window in the lecture room of the law school directly opposite the exit and fire escape platform leading from the topmost balcony of the theater. By almost superhuman effort and ingenuity they raised aloft the planks, scarce long enough to span the abyss, and dropped them. The prayers of thousands below and a multitude stifling in the aperture opposite were raised that the planks might fall true. All eyes followed their course as they poised inmid-air, then descended. Slow seemed their fall, a veritable period of torture, and awed silence reigned as they dropped.
Then there arose a glad cry. With a crash the great planks landed true, the free ends squarely upon the edge of the platform of the useless fire escape, the others resting firmly upon the narrow window ledge where the painters stood defying flame, smoke and torrents of burning embers and blazing sparks hurled upon them as from the crater of a volcano.
Death alley had been bridged! Across the narrow span came a volume of bedraggled humanity as though shot from a gun. A mad, screaming stream, pushed on by those behind, simply whirled across the frail support, direct from the very jaws of death, the blistering gates of hell.
Only for a moment, a brief second it seemed, the wild procession moved. Yet in that limited period scores, perhaps hundreds, poured from the seething inferno—practically all that escaped from the lofty balcony that was a moment later transformed into the death chamber of helpless hundreds. Then the wave of flame, previously described, swept over the interior of the theater, greedily searching every nook and corner as though hungry for the last victim within reach.
The last refugees to cross the narrow span, the dizzy line sharply drawn between life and death in its most terrifying aspect, staggered over with their clothing in flames, gasping, fainting with pain and terror. The workmen, students and policemen who had rushed to their assistance dashed across into the heat and smoke and dragged forth many more who had reached the platform only to fall before the deadly blast. Then the rescuers were beaten back and the fire fiend was left to claim its own.
And claim them it did, searching them out with ruminating tongues of flame. Over every inch of paint and decoration,every tapestry, curtain and seat top it licked its way with insinuating eagerness. It pursued its victims beyond the confines of the theater walls, grasping in its deadly embrace those who lay across windows or prostrate on galleries and platforms. Thousands gazed on in helpless horror, watching the flames bestow a fatal caress upon many who had crept far, far from the blaze and almost into a zone of safety. With a gliding, caressing movement that made beholders' blood run cold it crept upon such victims, hovered a moment and glided on with sinuous motion and what approached a suggestion of intelligence in searching out those who fled before it. A shriek, a spasmodic movement and the victims lay still, their earthly troubles over forever.
A few minutes later, possibly not more than half an hour after the discovery of the fire, when the firemen had beaten back the flames to the raging stage another procession moved across that same plank again. It moved in silence, for it was a procession of death. The great tragedy began and ended in fifteen minutes. Its echoes may roll down as many centuries, compelling the proper safeguarding of all places of amusement, in America at least. If so, the Iroquois victims did not give up their lives in vain.
When the removal of the victims across the improvised bridge over death alley ended the tireless official in charge of that work, James Markham, secretary to Chief of Police O'Neill, had checked off 102 corpses. No attempt was made to keep count of the dead as they were removed from other portions of the theater and by other exits. The counting was done when the patrol wagons, ambulances, trucks and delivery wagons used in removing the dead deposited their ghastly loads at the morgues.
The instance cited was not an isolated example of heroism,but rather merely a striking instance among scores. Police, firemen and citizens vied with each other in the work of humanity. Merchants drove out customers and threw open their business houses as temporary hospitals and morgues. Others donated great wagon loads of blankets and supplies of all kinds and the municipal government was embarrassed by the unsolicited relief funds that poured in. All manner of vehicles were given freely for the removal of dead and injured. So informal was the removal of the latter that many may have reached their homes unreported. For that reason a complete list of the injured may never be secured.
An illustration of the possibilities in that direction is found in the case of one man who wrapped the dead body of his wife in his overcoat and carried it to Evanston, many miles away, where the circumstances became known days later when a burial permit was sought. Another is the case of an injured man who revived on a dead wagon en route to a morgue and was removed by friends.
All these and other details are elaborated upon elsewhere, together with the touching story of the scores of young women employed in the production, "Mr. Bluebeard," who would have been stranded penniless in a strange city a thousand miles from home but for the prompt and noble relief afforded by Mrs. Ogden Armour.
FIRST AID TO THE INJURED AND CARE FOR THE DEAD.
On the heels of the firemen came the police, intent on the work of rescue. Chief O'Neill and Assistant Chief Schuettler ordered captains from a dozen stations to bring their men, and then they rushed to the theater and led the police up the stairs to the landing outside the east entrance to the first balcony.
The firemen, rushing blindly up the stairs in the dense pall of smoke, had found their path suddenly blocked by a wall of dead eight or ten feet high. They discovered many persons alive and carried them to safety. Other firemen crawled over the mass of dead and dragged their hose into the theater to fight back the flames that seemed to be crawling nearer to turn the fatal landing into a funeral pyre.
O'Neill and Schuettler immediately began carrying the dead from the balcony, while other policemen went to the gallery to begin the work there.
In the great mass of dead at the entrance to the first balcony the bodies were so terribly interwoven that it was impossible at first to take any one out.
"Look out for the living!" shouted the chief to his men. "Try to find those who are alive."
From somewhere came a faint moaning cry.
"Some one alive there, boys," came the cry. "Lively, now!"
The firemen and police long struggled in vain to move the bodies.
The raging tide of humanity pouring out of the east entrance of the balcony during the panic had met the fighting, struggling crowd coming down the stairs from the third balcony at right angles. The two streams formed a whirlpool which ceased its onward progress and remained there on the landing where people stamped each other under foot in that mad circle of death.
In a short time the blockade in the fatal angle must have been complete. Then into this awful heap still plunged the contrary tides of humanity from each direction. Many tried to crawl over the top of the heap, but were drawn down to the grinding mill of death underneath. The smoke was heavy at the fatal angle, for the majority of those taken out at that point bore no marks of bruises.
Many, and especially the children, were trampled to death, but others were held as in a vise until the smoke had choked the life from their bodies.
It was toward this that the firemen directed O'Neill and Schuettler as they rushed into the theater. The smoke was still heavy and the great gilded marble foyer of the "handsomest theater in America" was somber and dark and still as a tomb, except for the whistling of the engines outside and now and then the shouting of the firemen. Water was dripping everywhere and stood inches deep on the floor and stairs.
Two flickering lanterns shed the only light by which the policemen worked, and this very fact, perhaps, made their task more horrible and gruesome, if such a thing were possible.
GREAT PILE OF CHARRED BODIES FOUND EVERYWHERE IN THEATER.
All through the gallery the bodies were found. Some were those of persons who had decided to stay in their seats and not to join in the mad rush for the doors and run the risk of being trampled to death. Many of them no doubt had trusted to the cries, "There is no danger; keep your seats!"
They had stuck to their seats until, choked by the heavy smoke, they had been unable to move.
Some bodies were in a sitting position, while others had fallen forward, with the head resting on the seat in front, as though in prayer. Almost all were terribly burned.
In the aisles lay women and children who had staid in their seats until they finally were convinced that the danger was real. Then they had attempted to get to the door.
The smoke was so heavy the firemen worked with difficulty, but finally it cleared and workmen who were hastily sent by the Edison company equipped forty arc lights, which shone bravely through the smoke. With this help the firemen searched to better effect, and found bodies that in the blackness they had missed.
"Give that girl to some one else and get back there," shouted Chief Musham to a fireman. The fireman never answered but kept on with his burden.
"Hand that girl to some one else," shouted the battalion chief.
The fireman looked up. Even in the flickering light of the lantern the chief carried one could see the tears coming from the red eyes and falling down the man's blackened cheeks.
"Chief," said the fireman, "I've got a girl like this at home. I want to carry this one out."
"Go ahead," said the chief. The little group working at the head of the stairs broke apart while the fireman, holding the body tightly, made his way slowly down the stairs.
One by one the dead were taken from the pile in the angle. The majority of them were women. On some faces was an expression of terrible agony, but on others was a look of calmness and serenity, and firemen sometimes found it hard to believe they were dead. Three firemen carried the body of a young woman down the stairs in a rubber blanket. She appeared alive. Her hands were clasped and held flowers. Her eyes were closed and she seemed almost to smile. She looked as though she was asleep, but it was the sleep of death.
In the dark and smoke, with the dripping water and the dead piled in heaps everywhere, the Iroquois theater had been turned into a tomb by the time the rescue parties had begun their work.
MOAN INSPIRES WORKERS IN MAD EFFORT TO SAVE.
The moan that the frantic workers heard as they struggled to untangle the mass of bodies gave the police hope that many in the heap might be alive.
"We can't do it, chief," shouted one of the policemen. "We can't untangle them."
"We must take these bodies out of the way to get down to those who are alive," replied the chief. "This man here is dead; lay hold, now, boys, and pull him out."
Two big firemen caught the body by the shoulders and struggled and pulled until they had it free. Then another body was taken out, and then again the workers seemed unable to unloose the dead. Again came that terrible moan through the mass.
"For God's sake, get down to that one who's alive," implored O'Neill, almost in despair.
The policemen pulled off their heavy overcoats and worked frantically at the heap. Often a body could not be moved except when the firemen and police dragged with a "yo, heave," like sailors hauling on a rope. As fast as the bodies were freed one policeman, or sometimes two or three, would stagger down the stairs with their burdens.
Over the heap of bodies crawled a fireman carrying something in his arms.
"Out of the way, men, let me out! The kid's alive."
The workers fell back and the fireman crawled over the heap and was helped out. He ran down the stairs three steps at a time to get the child to a place where help might be given before it was too late. Then other firemen from inside the theater passed out more bodies, which were handed from one policeman to another until some on the outside of the heap could take the dead and carry them downstairs.
Suddenly a policeman pulling at the heap gave a shout.
"I've got her, chief!" he said. "She's alive, all right!"
"Easy there, men, easy," cried Schuettler; "but hurry and get that woman to a doctor!"
A girl, apparently 18 years old, was moaning faintly. The policeman released her from the tangled heap, and a big fireman, lifting her tenderly in his arms, hurried with her to the outside of the building.
"There must be more alive," said the chief. "Work hard, boys."
There was hardly any need to ask the men to work harder, for they were pulling and hauling as though their own lives depended on their efforts. Everybody worked.
The reporters, the only ones in the theater besides the policeand firemen, laid aside their pencils and note books and struggled down the wet, slippery stairs, carrying the dead. Newspaper artists threw their sketch books on the floor to jump forward and pick up the feet or head of a body that a fireman or policeman found too heavy to carry alone. Constantly now a stream of workers was passing slowly down the stairs. Usually two men supported each body, but often some giant policeman or fireman strode along with a body swung over his shoulders. Coming down the stairs was a fireman with a girl of 16 clasped in his arms.
"Isn't that girl alive?" asked the chief.
"No," shouted two or three men, who had jumped to see. "She's dead, poor thing, rest her soul," said the fireman reverently, and then he picked his way down the stairs. Half-way down the marble steps two arms suddenly clasped the fireman's neck.
He started so he missed his footing and would have fallen had not a policeman steadied him.
"She's alive, she's alive!" shouted the fireman. "Git out of the way, there, out of the way, men," and he went dashing headlong out into the open air and through the crowd to a drug store.
One child after another was taken from the heap and passed out to be carried downstairs. Some were little boys in new suits, sadly torn, and with their poor little faces wreathed in agony. On their foreheads was the seal of death.
A big fireman came crawling from the heavy smoke of the inner balcony. He carried a girl of 10 years in his arms. Her long, flaxen hair half covered the pure white face.
A gray haired man with a gash on his head apparently had fallen down the stairs. A woman's face bore the mark of a boot heel. A woman with a little boy clasped tight in herarms was wedged into a corner. Her clothes were almost torn from her, and her face was bruised. The child was unmarked, as she had thrown her own body over his to protect him.
Out of the mass of bodies when the police began their work protruded one slender little white hand, clinching a pair of pearl opera glasses, which the little owner had tried to save, in spite of the fact that her own life was being crushed out of her. Watches, pocketbooks and chatelaine bags were scattered all through the pile. One man was detailed to make a bag out of a rubber coat and take care of the property that was handed to him.
While the police were working so desperately at the fatal angle, another detail of police and firemen were working on the third floor. At the main entrance of the gallery lay another heap of bodies, and there was still another at the angle of the head of the stairs leading to the floor below. Here the sight was even worse than the terrible scene presented at the landing of the first balcony.
The bodies on the landing were not burned. A jam had come there, and many had been stamped under foot and either killed outright or left to suffocate. Many of the bodies were almost stripped of clothing and bore the marks of remorseless heels.
After these had been carried out, the firemen returned again and again from the pitchy blackness of the smoke-filled galleries, dragging bodies, burned sometimes beyond recognition.
NONE LEFT ALIVE IN GALLERY.
While now and then some one had been found alive in the other fatal angle, no one was rescued by searchers in the top gallery. The bodies had to be laid along the hall until themerchants in State street began sending over blankets. Men from the streets came rushing up the stairs, bending under the weight of the blankets they carried on their shoulders. Soon they went back to the street again, this time carrying their blankets weighed down with a charred body.
DEAD AND DYING CARRIED INTO NEARBY RESTAURANT BY SCORES.
The scenes in John R. Thompson's restaurant in Randolph street, adjoining the theater, were ghastly beyond words.
Few half hours in battle bring more of horror than the half hour that turned the cafe into a charnel house, with its tumbled heaps of corpses, its shrieks of agony from the dying, and the confusion of doctors and nurses working madly over bodies all about as they strove to bring back the spark of life.
Bodies were everywhere—piled along the walls, laid across tables, and flung down here and there—some charred beyond recognition, some only scorched, and others black from suffocation; some crushed in the rush of the panic, others but the poor, broken remains of those who leaped into death. And most of them—almost all of them—were the forms of women and children. It is estimated that more than 150 bodies were accounted for in Thompson's alone.
The continuous tramp of the detachments of police bearing in more bodies, the efforts of the doctors to restore life, and the madness of those who surged in through the police lines to ransack piles of bodies for relatives and friends, made up a scene of pandemonium of which it is hard to form a conception. There was organization of the fifty physicians and nurses who fought back death in the dying; there was organization of the police and firemen; but still the restaurant was a chaos that left the head bewildered and the heart sick.
The work was too much for even the big force of doctors that had flocked there to volunteer their services. Everybody in which there was the slightest semblance of life was given over to the physicians, who with oxygen tanks and resuscitative movements sought to revive the heart beats. As soon as death was certain the body was drawn from the table and laid beneath, to give place to another. But systematic as was this effort, heaps of bodies remained which the doctors had not touched.
In a dozen instances, even when the end of the work was in sight, a hand or foot was seen to move in this or that heap. Instantly three or four doctors were bending over rolling away the dead bodies to drag forth one still warm with life. In a thrice the body was on a table and the oxygen turned on while the doctors worked with might and main to force respiration. Almost always it was in vain—life went out. Two or three were resuscitated, though it is uncertain with what chances of ultimate recovery. One of these was a Mrs. Harbaugh, who had been brought in for dead and her body tossed among the lifeless forms that ranged the walls.
When the first rush of people from the theater gave notice of the fire to persons in the street there were less than a score of patrons in the restaurant. These rushed into the street, too, while a panic spread among the waitresses and kitchen force. By this time fire company 13 was on the ground in the alley side of the theater and the police were at the front attempting to lead the audience from its peril with some semblance of order. In another minute women and children with blistered faces were dashing screaming into the street, taking refuge in the first doorways at hand.
Another minute, and every policeman knew in his heart the horror that was at hand. A patrolman dashed into Thompson'sand ordered the tables cleared and arranged to care for the injured. Captain Gibbons dispatched another policeman to issue a general call for physicians and a detachment to take charge of the restaurant and the first aid to be administered there. Within five minutes the first of the injured were being laid on the marble topped dining tables where the police ambulance corps were getting at work.
These steps scarcely had been taken when word came from the burning theater that the fire was under control, but that the loss of life would be appalling. Chief O'Neill hurried to the scene, sending back word as he ran that Secretary James Markham should summon doctors and ambulances from every place available. The west side district of the medical schools and hospitals was called upon to send all the volunteers possible, together with hospital equipment. One hundred students from Rush Medical College were soon on their way by street car and patrol wagon to the scene.
TERRIBLE REALITY COMES TO AWESTRICKEN CROWD.
It was only fifteen minutes after the first tongue of flame shot out from behind the scenes that a lull came in the awful drama of death within the theater. The firemen had quenched the fire and all the living had escaped. All that remained were dead. But now the scenes within the improvised hospital and morgue rose to the height of their horror.
But for a narrow lane the length of the cafe the floor was covered with bodies or the tumbled bundles of clothing that told where a body was concealed. And over the scene of the dead rose the groans of the tortured beings who writhed upon the tables in the throes of their passing. And over the cries of the suffering rose the shouts of command of the Red Crosscorps—now the directions of Dr. Lydston as to attempts at resuscitation, now the megaphone shouts of Senator Clark ordering the disposition of bodies and the organization of the constantly arriving volunteer nurses.
In the narrow lane of the dead surged the policemen, bringing ever more and more forms to cord up beneath the tables. Then came the press of people, who, frantic with anxiety, had beaten back the police guard to look for loved ones in the charnel house. There was Louis Wolff, Jr., searching for two nephews and his sister. There was Postmaster Coyne, who had hurried from a meeting of the crime committee to lend his aid. There were Aldermen Minwegen and Alderman Badenoch, and besides them scores of men and women anxiously looking and looking, and nerving themselves to fear the worst.
"Have you found Miss Helen McCaughan?" shrieked a hysterical woman. "She's from the Yale apartments, and——"
"I'm looking for a Miss Errett—she's a nurse," cried another.
"My little boy—Charles Hennings—have you found him, doctor?" came from another.
From every side came the heartrending appeals, while the din was so great that no single plaint rose above the volume of sounds. And all the time the doorway was a place of frightful sights.
"O, please go back for my little girl," gasped a woman whose face and hands were a blister and whose clothing was burned to the skin. She staggered across the threshold and fell prone. Her last breath had gone out of her when two policemen snatched up the body and bore it to an operating table.
"O, where's my Annie?" screamed another woman, horribly burned, whom two policemen supported between them into therestaurant. But at the word she collapsed, and, though three physicians worked over her for ten minutes, she never breathed again.
ONE LIFE BROUGHT BACK FROM DEATH.
Of a sudden Dr. E. E. Vaughan saw a finger move in a mass of the dead against the far wall of the restaurant.
"Men, there's a live one in there," he cried, and, while others came running, the physician flung aside the bodies till he had uncovered a woman of middle age, terribly burned about the face, and with her outer garments a mass of charred shreds.
In a second the woman was undergoing resuscitative treatment on a table, while the oxygen streamed into her lungs. Two doctors worked her arms like pumps, while a nurse manipulated the region of the heart. At length there was a flutter of a respiration, while a doctor bending over with his stethoscope announced a heart beat just perceptible. Another minute passed and the eyelids moved, while a groan escaped the lips.
"She lives!" simply said Dr. Vaughan, as he ordered the oxygen tube removed and brandy forced between the lips. In five minutes the woman was saved from immediate death, at least, though suffering terribly from burns. She was just able to murmur that her name was Mrs. Harbaugh, but that was all that could be learned of her identity before she was taken away to a hospital.
ONE HUNDRED FEET IN AIR, POLICE CARRY INJURED ACROSS ALLEY.
Over a narrow, ice covered bridge made of scaffold planks, more than 100 feet above the ground the police carried more than 100 bodies from the rear stage and balcony exits of the Iroquois theater to the Northwestern University building,formerly the Tremont house. The planks rested on the fire escape of the theater and on the ledge of a window in the Tremont building.
Two men who first ventured on this dangerous passageway in their efforts to reach safety, blinded by the fire and smoke, lost their footing and fell to the alley below. They were dead when picked up.
The bridge led directly into the dental school of the university, and at one time there were more than a score of charred bodies lying under blankets in the room. The dead were carried from the pile of bodies at the theater exits faster than the police could take them away in the ambulances and patrol wagons.
As soon as the police began to take the injured into the university building the classrooms were drawn upon for physicians, and in a few minutes professors and dental students gathered in the offices and stores to lend their assistance. Wounds were dressed, and in cases of less serious injury the unfortunates were sent to their homes. In other cases they were sent to hospitals.
When the smoke had cleared away the rescuers first realized the extent of the horror. From the bridge could be seen the rows of balcony and gallery seats, many occupied by a human form. Incited by the sight, the police redoubled their efforts, and heedless of the dangers of the narrow, slippery bridge, pressed close to each other as they worked.
While a dozen policemen were removing the dead from the theater, twice as many were engaged in carrying them to the patrol wagons and ambulances at the doors of the university building. All the afternoon the elevators carried down police in twos and fours carrying their burdens of dead in blankets. So fast were they carried down that many of thepatrol wagons held five and more bodies when they were driven away.
CROWDS OF ANXIOUS FRIENDS.
Behind the lines of police that guarded the passage of the dead, hundreds of anxious men and women crowded with eager questions. The rotunda of the building between 3 and 7 p. m. was thronged by those seeking knowledge of friend or relative who had been in the play. Some made their way to the third floor and looked hopelessly at the charred bodies lying there. In one corner lay the bodies of husband and wife, clasped in each other's arms. From under one sheltering blanket protruded the dainty high heeled shoes of some woman, and from the next blanket the rubber boots of a newsboy.
A Roman Catholic priest made his way into the room. He was looking for a little girl, the daughter of a parishioner.
"Have you the name of Lillian Doerr in your list?" he asked James Markham, Chief O'Neill's secretary, who was in charge of the police. Markham shook his head.
"She and another little girl named Weiskopp were with three other girls," continued the priest. "Three of the girls in the party have got home, but Lillian and the Weiskopp girl are missing. I suppose we must wait until all the bodies are identified before we can find her."
The priest's mission and its futile results were duplicated scores of times by anxious inquirers.
BALCONY AND GALLERY CLEARED.
The rescue work went on until the balcony and gallery had been cleared of the dead, and then the police were called away. The exits were barred and the hotel building cleared ofvisitors. While the work of rescue was going on inside the building, the streets about the entrances were thronged with thousands of curious spectators. As soon as an ambulance backed up to the entrance the crowd pressed forward to get a view of the bundles placed in the wagon. Even after this work had ended the crowds remained in the cold and darkness.
Many of the small shops and offices in the University building threw open their doors to the injured and those who had been separated from their friends. When those who had escaped by the alley exits reached Dearborn street they found the doors of the Hallwood Cash Register offices, 41 Dearborn street, open to them. L. A. Weismann, Harry Snow, Harry Dewitt, and C. J. Burnett of the office force at once prepared to care for the injured. More than fifty persons were cared for.
While these men were caring for strangers they themselves were haunted by the dread that Manager H. Ludwig of the company with his wife and two daughters were among the dead. The Ludwig family lives in Norwood Park, and the father had left the office with them early in the afternoon. At 6 o'clock he had not returned for his overcoat.
FINANCE COMMITTEE OF CITY COUNCIL ACTS PROMPTLY.
"Spare no expense," was the order given by the finance committee of the council which was in session when the extent of the disaster became known at the city hall. First to grasp the import of the news was Ald. Raynier, whose wife and four children had left him at noon to attend the matinee. With a gasp he hurried from the room to go to the scene.
"You are instructed," said Chairman Mavor to Acting Mayor McGann, "to direct the fire marshal, the chief ofpolice, and the commissioner of public works to proceed in this emergency without any restrictions as to expense. Do everything needful, spend all the money needed, and look to the council for your warrant. We will be your authority."
A telegram at once was sent to Mayor Harrison informing him of the fire and the executive returned from Oklahoma on the first train.
Acting Commissioner of Public Works Brennan sent word to Chief O'Neill and Fire Marshal Musham that the public works department was at their service.
"We want men and lanterns," Chief Musham answered.
Supt. Solon was sent to a store near the theater with an order for as many lanterns as might be needed. Supt. Doherty assembled 150 men in Randolph street and seventy wagons employed on First ward streets. They were placed at the disposal of the two chiefs.
Chief O'Neill was in the council chamber when the news arrived, hearing charges against a police officer. Lieut. Beaubien came from his office and whispered to him. The chief hurried to the fire. The trial board continued its work.
On the ground floor of the city hall the fire trial board was in executive session trying six firemen on a charge of carrying tales to insurance men against the chief.
At 3:33 o'clock the alarm rang. Chief, assistant chiefs, and accused firemen listened. Then the news of the magnitude of the fire reached headquarters. The board hurriedly adjourned and Chief Musham led accusers and accused to fight the fire.
TAKING AWAY AND IDENTIFYING THE DEAD.
In drays and delivery wagons they carried the dead away from the Iroquois theater ruins. The sidewalk in front of the playhouse and Thompson's restaurant was completely filled with dead bodies, when it was realized that the patrol wagons and ambulances could not remove the bodies.
Then Chief O'Neill and Coroner Traeger sent out men to stop drays and press them into service. Transfer companies were called up on telephone and asked to send wagons. Retail stores in State street sent delivery wagons.
Into these drays and wagons were piled the bodies. They lay outstretched on the sidewalk, covered with blankets. Much care in the handling was impossible. As soon as a space on the walk was made by the removal of a body two were brought down to fill it.
One of the wagons of the Dixon Transfer Company was so heavily loaded with the dead that the two big horses drawing it were unable to start the truck. Policemen and spectators put their shoulders to the wheels.
When the drays were filled and started there was a struggle to get them through the crowds, densely packed, even within the fire lines which the police had established across Randolph street at State and Dearborn streets.
Policemen with clubs preceded many of the wagons. Thecrowds through which they forced their way were composed mostly of men who had sent wives and children to the theater and had reason to believe that one of the drays might carry members of their own families.
Eight and ten wagons at a time, half of them trucks and delivery wagons, were backed up to the curb waiting for their loads of dead.
Two policemen would seize a blanket at the corners and swing it, with its contents, up to two other men in the wagon. This would be continued until a wagonload of bodies had been handled. Then the police forced a way through the crowd and another wagon took the place.
Occasionally a body would be identified, and then efforts were made to remove it direct to the residence. Coroner Traeger discovered the wife of Patrick P. O'Donnell, president of the O'Donnell & Duer Brewing Company.
"Telephone to some undertaking establishment and have them take Mrs. O'Donnell's body home," he ordered one of his assistants. It was taken to the residence, at 4629 Woodlawn avenue.
Friends of another woman who were positive they identified the body among the dead in Thompson's were allowed by the coroner to remove it to Ford's undertaking establishment, in Thirty-fifth street.
HEARTRENDING SCENES WITNESSED AT THE UNDERTAKING ESTABLISHMENTS.
The bodies of the fire victims were distributed among the undertaking rooms and morgues most convenient. By 8:30 o'clock 135 bodies lay on the floors in the establishment of C. H. Jordan, 14-16 East Madison street, and in the temporary annex across the alley. The first were brought in ambulancesand in police patrol wagons. Later all sorts of conveyances were pressed into service, and during more than two hours there was a procession of two-horse trucks, delivery wagons, and cabs, all bringing dead. It soon became evident that the capacity of the place would be exhausted and the men, who sat drinking and talking at the tables in the big ante-room in a saloon across the alley were driven out, and this also was arranged for use as a temporary morgue.
Two policemen were in charge of each load of the dead, and as soon as the first few bodies were received, they began searching for possible marks of identification. All jewelry and valuables, as well as letters, cards, and other papers were put in sealed envelopes, marked with a number corresponding with that on the tag attached to the body. When this work was completed all the envelopes were sent to police headquarters, and all inquirers after missing friends and relatives were referred to the city hall to inspect the envelopes.
The scenes in the two long rooms of the morgue in the saloon annex across the alley were so overpowering that they appeared to lose their effect. Many of the bodies last brought from the theater were sadly burned and disfigured and almost all of the faces were discolored and the clothing rumpled and wet.
The condition of many of the bodies evidenced a vain battle for life. Almost all of them were women or children, and the majority had been well dressed. Among them were several old women. The men were few. In many cases the hands were torn, as if violent efforts had been made to wrench away some obstruction.
As quickly as the work of searching the bodies was completed, the attendants stretched strips of muslin over the forms, partly hiding the pitiful horror of the sight.
Persons were slow in coming to the undertakers in search of friends. Many had their first suspicion of the catastrophe when members of theater parties failed to return at the usual hour.
Among the first to arrive at Jordan's were George E. McCaughan, attorney for the Chicago & Rock Island railroad, 6565 Yale avenue, who came in search of his daughter, Helen, who had attended a theater party with other young women. A friend had been in Dearborn street when the fire started and soon after had discovered in Thompson's restaurant the body of Miss McCaughan. He attached a card bearing her name to the body, and, leaving it in the custody of a physician, went to the telephone to notify the father. When he returned to the restaurant the body already had been removed and the friend and the father searched last night without finding it.
As it grew later the crowd around the doors increased, but almost every one was turned away. It would have been impossible for persons to have passed through the long rooms for the purpose of inspecting the bodies, they were so close together. Women came weeping to the doors of the undertaking shop and beat upon the glass, only to be referred to the city hall or told "to come back in the morning."
Later it was learned that physicians would be admitted for the purpose of inspecting and identifying the dead, and many persons came accompanied by their family doctors for that purpose. Two women, who pressed by the officer at the door, sank half fainting into chairs in the outer office. They were looking for Miss Hazel J. Brown, of 94 Thirty-first street, and Miss Eloise G. Swayze, of Fifty-sixth street and Normal avenue. A single glance at the long lines of bodies stretched on the floor was enough to satisfy them. They were told toreturn in the morning or to send their family physician to make the identification.
"The poor girls had come from the convent to spend the holiday vacation," sobbed one of the women.
During the evening the telephone bell constantly was ringing, and persons whose relatives had failed to return on time were asked for information.
"Have you found a small heart-shaped locket set with a blue stone?" would come a call over the wire, and the answer would be, "We can tell nothing about that until morning."
At Rolston's undertaking rooms were 182 bodies, lying four rows deep in the rear of 18 Adams street and three rows deep in the rear of 22 Adams street.
On the floors, tagged with the numerals of the coroner's scheme for identification, were bodies of men, women, and children awaiting identification. One was that of a little girl with yellow hair in a tangle of curls around her face. She appeared as if she slept. A silk dress of blue was spread over her and the sash of white ribbon scarcely was soiled.
Over the long lines of the dead the police hovered in the search for identifying marks and for valuables. Most of the bodies were partly covered with blankets.
Outside a big crowd surged and struggled with the police. Not till 10 o'clock were the doors opened. Then Coroner Traeger arrived, and in groups of twelve or fifteen the crowd was permitted to pass through the doors.
There was a pathetic scene at Rolston's morgue when the body of John Van Ingen, 18 years old, of Kenosha, Wis., was identified. Friends of the Van Ingen family had spent the entire evening searching at the request of Mr. and Mrs. Van Ingen, who were injured. At midnight four of the Van Ingen children, who were believed to have perished in the fire, had notbeen accounted for. They were: Grace, 2 years old; Dottie, 5 years old; Mary, 13 years old; and Edward, 20 years old.
In the undertaking rooms of J. C. Gavin, 226 North Clark street, and Carroll Bros., 203 Wells street, forty-five bodies swathed in blankets were awaiting identification at midnight. Of the fifty-four brought to these places only nine had been identified by the hundreds of relatives and friends who filed through the rooms, and in several cases the recognition was doubtful.
An atmosphere of awe appeared to pervade the places, and no hysterical scenes followed the pointing out of the bodies. The morbid crowds usually attendant on a smaller calamity were absent, and few except those seeking missing relatives sought admission. Only one of the men, James D. Maloney, wept as he stood over the body of his dead wife.
"I can't go any further," he said. "Her sister, Tennie Peterson, who lived in Fargo, N. D., was with her, and her body probably is there," motioning to the row of blanket-covered forms, "but I can't look. I must go back to the little ones at home, now motherless."
In Inspector Campbell's office at the Chicago avenue station Sergeant Finn monotonously repeated the descriptions, as the scores of frantic seekers filled and refilled the little office. Several times he was interrupted by hysterical shrieks of women or the broken voices of men.
"Read it again, please," would be the call, and, as the description again was read off, the number of the body was taken and the relatives hurried to the undertaking rooms. The bodies of Walter B. Zeisler, 12 years old, Lee Haviland and Walter A. Austrian were partly identified from the police descriptions.
The list of hospital patients also was posted in the station and aided friends in the search for injured.
Sheldon's undertaking rooms at 230 West Madison street were the scene of pathetic incidents. Forty-seven bodies, some of them with the clothing entirely burned away, and with few exceptions with features charred beyond recognition, had been taken there. Late in the night only four had been identified. The first body recognized was that of Mrs. Brindsley, of 909 Jackson boulevard, who had attended the matinee with Miss Edna Torney, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. P. Torney, 1292 Adams street. Mr. Torney could find no trace of the young woman.
Of the forty-seven bodies thirty-six were of matured women and five of men. There were bodies of six children, three boys and three girls.
Dr. J. H. Bates, of 3256 South Park avenue, was searching for the bodies of Myrtle Shabad and Ruth Elken, numbered among the missing.
There were similar scenes at all of the undertaking rooms to which bodies were taken.
"When the fire broke out I was taking tickets at the door," said E. Lovett, one of the ushers. "The crowd began to move toward the exits on the ground floor, and I rushed to the big entrance doors and threw three of them open. From there I hurried to the cigar store and called up the police and fire departments.
"When I returned I tried to get more of the doors open, but was shoved aside and told that I was crazy. The crowd acted in a most frenzied manner and no one could have held them in check. Conditions on the balconies must have been appalling. They were well filled, but the exits, had they been opened, would have proved ample for all."
Michael Ohle, who was ushering on the first balcony, noticed the fire shortly after it started. He hurried to the entrances and cleared the way for the people to get out. Then, he says, he started downstairs to find out how serious the fire was. Before he could return the panic was on and he fled to the street for safety.
"Mrs. Phillipson, Phillipson—is Mrs. Phillipson here?"
That cry sounded in drug stores, cigar stores, and hotels until three little girls, Adeline, Frances, and Teresa, had found their mother, from whom they were separated in the panic. At last at the Continental hotel the call was weakly answered by a woman who lay upon a couch, more frightened than hurt. In another moment three little girls were sobbing in their mother's lap.
FRIENDS AND RELATIVES EAGERLY SEARCH FOR LOVED ONES MISSING AFTER THEATER HOLOCAUST.
Friends sought for information of friends; husbands asked for word of wives; fathers and mothers sought news of sons and daughters; men and women begged to be told if there was any knowledge of their sweethearts; parents asked for children; and children fearfully told the names of missing playmates.
The early hours of the evening were marked by many sad scenes. Men would rush to the desk where the names of the missing were being compiled and asked if anything had been heard of some member of their families, then turn away and hurry out, barely waiting to be told that there would be no definite news until nearly midnight.
"Just think!" said one gray headed man, leaning on the arm of a younger man who was leading him down the stairs,"I bought the matinee tickets for the children as a treat, and insisted that they take their little cousin with them."
"Have you heard anything of my daughter?" asked a woman.
"What was her name?"
"Lily. She had seats in the first balcony with some girl friends. You would know her by her brown hair. She wore a white silk shirt waist and a diamond ring I gave her for Christmas. I went to the theater, but I couldn't get near it, and they said they were still carrying out bodies."
"And her name? Who was she?"
"She was my daughter—my only one!"
The woman walked away, weeping, without giving the name, and the only response she would make to questions from those who followed her was:
"My daughter!"
Two men, with two little boys, came in. "Our wives," they said, "came to the matinee with some neighbors. They have not yet come home."
Before they could give their names a third man ran up and cried:
"I just got word the folks have been taken home in ambulances. They are alive."
The men gave a shout and were gone in an instant.
Men with children in their arms came to ask for others of the family who had become separated from them in the panic at the theater. Women, tears dampening their cheeks, hushed the chatter of their little ones while they gave the names of husbands and brothers, or told of other children who had been lost.
One man yielded to his fears at the last minute and wentaway without asking for information or giving any name. He said:
"I went to the theater with my wife. We have only been married a year. When the rush came I was torn away from her, and the last thing I remember is of hearing her call my name. Then I was lifted off my feet and can recall nothing more except that I found myself in the street. I have been to all the hospitals and morgues, and now I am going back to the theater again."
So it went until the last dreaded news began coming in. Identifications were being made and hearts were being broken. After that time the inquiries were not for information; they were pleas to be told that a mistake had been made or that one was possible.
SCENE OF HORROR AS VIEWED FROM THE STAGE.
All but one of the 348 members of the "Bluebeard" company escaped, although many had close calls for their lives. Some of the chorus girls displayed great coolness in the face of grave peril. Eddie Foy, who had a thrilling experience, said:
"I was up in my dressing room preparing to come on for my turn in the middle of the second act when I heard an unusual commotion on the stage that I knew could not be caused by anything that was a part of the show. I hurried out of my dressing room, and as I looked I saw that the big drop curtain was on fire.
"The fire had caught from the calcium and the paint and muslin on the drop caused the flames to travel with great rapidity Everything was excitement. Everybody was running from the stage. My 6 year old son, Bryan, stood in the first entrance to the stage and my first thought naturally was to get him out. They would not let me go out over the footlights, so I picked up the boy and gave him to a man and told him to rush the boy out into the alley.
"I then rushed out to the footlights and called out to the audience, 'Keep very quiet. It is all right. Don't get excited and don't stampede. It is all right.'
"I then shouted an order into the flies, 'Drop the curtain,' and called out to the leader of the orchestra to 'play anoverture. Some of the musicians had left, but those that remained began to play. The leader sat there, white as a ghost, but beating his baton in the air.
"As the music started I shouted out to the audience, 'Go out slowly. Leave the theater slowly.' The audience had not yet become panic stricken, and as I shouted to them they applauded me. The next minute the whole stage seemed to be afire, and what wood there was began to crackle with a sound like a series of explosions.
"When I first came out to the footlights about 300 persons had left the theater or were leaving it. They were those who were nearest the door. Then the policemen came rushing in and tried to stem the tide towards the door.
"All this happened in fifteen seconds. Up in the flies were the young women who compose the aerial ballet. They were up there waiting to do their turn, and as I stood at the front of the stage they came rushing out. I think they all got out safely.
"The fire seemed to spread with a series of explosions. The paint on the curtains and scenery came in touch with the flames and in a second the scenery was sputtering and blazing up on all sides. The smoke was fearful and it was a case of run quickly or be smothered."
Stage Director William Carleton, who was one of the last to leave the stage when the flames and smoke drove the members of the company out, said:
"I was on the stage when the flames shot out from the switchboard on the left side. It seemed that some part of the scenery must have touched the sparks and set the fire. Soon the octette which was singing "In the Pale Moonlight," discovered the fire over their heads and in a few moments we had the curtain run down. It would not go down the fulllength, however, leaving an opening of about five feet from the floor. Then the crowd out in front began to stampede and the lights went out. Eddie Foy, who was in his dressing room, heard the commotion, and, rushing to the front of the stage, shouted to the spectators to be calm. The warning was useless and the panic was under way before any one realized what was going on.
"Only sixteen members of the company were on the stage at the time. They remained until the flames were all about them and several had their hair singed and faces burned. Almost every one of these went out through the stage entrance on Dearborn street. In the meantime all of those who were in the dressing room had been warned and rushed out through the front entrance on Randolph street. There was no panic among the members of the company, every one seeming to know that care would result in the saving of life. Most of the members were preparing for the next number in their dressing rooms when the fire broke out, and they hurriedly secured what wraps they could and all dashed up to the stage, making their exit in safety.
"The elevator which has been used for the members of the company, in going from the upper dressing rooms to the stage, was one of the first things to go wrong, and attempts to use it were futile.
"It seems that the panic could not be averted, as the great crowd which filled the theater was unable to control itself. Two of the women fainted."
"When the fire broke out," said Lou Shean, a member of the chorus, "I was in the dressing room underneath the stage. When I reached the top of the stairs the scenery nearby was all in flames and the heat was so fierce that I could not reach the stage door leading toward Dearborn street. I returnedto the basement and ran down the long corridor leading toward the engine room, near which doors led to the smoking room and buffet. Both doors were locked. I began to break down the doors, assisted by other members of the company, while about seventy or eighty other members crowded against us. I succeeded in bursting open the door to the smoking room, when all made a wild rush. I was knocked down and trampled on and received painful bruises all over my body."
"I was just straightening up things in our dressing room upstairs," said Harry Meehan, a member of the chorus, who also acted as dresser for Eddie Foy and Harry Gilfoil, "when the fire started. Both Mr. Foy and Mr. Gilfoil were on the stage at the time. I opened Mr. Foy's trunk and took out his watch and chain and rushed out, leaving my own clothes behind. I was so scantily dressed that I had to borrow clothes to get back to the hotel. Mr. Gilfoil saved nothing but his overcoat."
Herbert Cawthorn, the Irish comedian who took the part of Pat Shaw in the play "Bluebeard," assisted many of the chorus girls from the stage exits in the panic.
"While the stage fireman was working in an endeavor to use the chemicals the flames suddenly swooped down and out, Eddie Foy shouted something about the asbestos curtain and the fireman attempted to use it, and the stage hands ran to his assistance, but the curtain refused to work.
"In my opinion the stage fireman might have averted the whole terrible affair if he had not become so excited. The chorus girls and everybody, to my mind, were less excited than he. There were at least 500 people behind the scenes when the fire started. I assisted many of the chorus girls from the theater."
Said C. W. Northrop, who took the part of one ofBluebeard's old wives: "Many of us certainly had narrow escapes. Those who were in the dressing rooms underneath the stage at the time had more difficulty in getting out. I was in the dressing room under the stage when the fire broke out, and when I found that I could not reach the stage I tried to get out through the door connecting the extreme north end of the C shaped corridor with the smoking room. I joined other members of the company in their rush for safety, but when we reached the door we found it closed. Some of the members crawled out through a coal hole, while others broke down the locked door, through which the others made their way out."
Lolla Quinlan, one of Bluebeard's eight dancers, saved the life of one of her companions, Violet Sidney, at the peril of her own. The two girls, with five others, were in a dressing room on the fifth floor when the alarm was raised. In their haste Miss Sidney caught her foot and sank to the floor with a cry of pain. She had sprained her ankle. The others, with the exception of Miss Quinlan, fled down the stairs.
Grasping her companion around the waist Miss Quinlan dragged her down the stairs to the stage and crossed the boards during a rain of fiery brands. These two were the last to leave the stage. Miss Quinlan's right arm and hand were painfully burned and her face was scorched. Miss Sidney's face was slightly burned. Both were taken to the Continental hotel.
Herbert Dillon, musical director, at the height of the panic broke through the stage door from the orchestra side, hastily cleared away obstructions with an ax, and assisted in the escape of about eighty chorus girls who occupied ten dressing rooms under the stage.
"We were getting ready for the honey and fan scene," saidMiss Nina Wood, "talking and laughing, and not thinking of danger. We were so far back of the orchestra that we did not hear sounds of the panic for several moments. Then the tramping of feet came to our ears. We made our way through the smoking room and one of the narrow exits of the theater."
Miss Adele Rafter, a member of the company, was in her dressing room when the fire broke out.
"I did not wait an instant," said Miss Rafter. "I caught up a muff and boa and rushed down the stairs in my stage costume and was the first of the company to get out the back entrance. Some man kindly loaned me his overcoat and I hurried to my apartments at the Sherman house. Several of the girls followed, and we had a good crying spell together."
Miss Rafter's mother called at the hotel and spent the evening with her. Telegrams were sent to her father, who is rector of a church at Dunkirk, N. Y.
Edwin H. Price, manager of the "Mr. Bluebeard" company, was not in the building when the fire started. He said:
"I stepped out of the theater for a minute, and when I got back I saw the people rushing out and knew the stage was on fire. I helped some of the girls out of the rear entrance. With but one or two exceptions all left in stage costume.
"One young woman in the chorus, Miss McDonald, displayed unusual coolness. She remained in her dressing room and donned her entire street costume, and also carried out as much of her stage clothing as she could carry."
Quite a number of the chorus girls live in Chicago, and Mr. Price furnished cabs and sent them all to their homes.
Through some mistake it was reported that Miss Anabel Whitford, the fairy queen of the company, was dying at one of the hospitals. She was not even injured, having safely made her way out through the stage door.
Miss Nellie Reed, the principal of the flying ballet, which was in place for its appearance near the top part of the stage, was so badly burned by the flames before she was able to escape that she afterward died at the county hospital. The other members of the flying ballet were not injured.
Robert Evans, one of the principals of the Bluebeard company, was in his dressing room on the fourth floor. He dived through a mass of flame and landed three stairways below. He helped a number of chorus girls to escape through the lower basement. His hands and face are burned severely. He lost all his wardrobe and personal effects.
STORY OF HOW A SMALL BLAZE TERMINATED IN TERRIBLE LOSS.
The fire started while the double octet was singing "In the Pale Moonlight." Eddie Foy, off the stage, was making up for his "elephant" specialty.
On the audience's left—the stage right—a line of fire flashed straight up. It was followed by a noise as of an explosion. According to nearly all accounts, however, there was no real explosion, the sound being that of the fuse of the "spot" light, the light which is turned on a pivot to follow and illuminate the progress of the star across the stage.
This light caused the fire. On this all reports of the stage folk agree. As to manner, accounts differ widely. R. M. Cummings, the boy in charge of the light, said that it was short circuited.
Stage hands, as they fled from the scene, however, were heard to question one another, "Who kicked over the light?" The light belonged to the "Bluebeard" company.
The beginning of the disaster was leisurely. The stage hands had been fighting the line of wavering flame along themuslin fly border for some seconds before the audience knew anything was the matter.
The fly border, made of muslin and saturated with paint, was tinder to the flames.
The stage hands grasped the long sticks used in their work. They forgot the hand grenades that are supposed to be on every stage.
"Hit it with the sticks!" was the cry. "Beat it out!" "Beat it out!"
The men struck savagely. A few yards of the border fell upon the stage and was stamped to charred fragments.
That sight was the first warning the audience had. For a second there was a hush. The singers halted in their lines; the musicians ceased to play.
Then a murmur of fear ran through the audience. There were cries from a few, followed by the breaking, rumbling sound of the first step toward the flight of panic.
At that moment a strange, grotesque figure appeared upon the stage. It wore tights, a loose upper garment, and the face was one-half made up. The man was Eddie Foy, chief comedian of the company, the clown, but the only man who kept his head.
Before he reached the center of the stage he had called out to a stage hand: "Take my boy, Bryan, there! Get him out! There by the stage way!"
The stage hand grabbed the little chap. Foy saw him dart with him to safety as he turned his head.
Freed of parental anxiety, he faced the audience.
"Keep quiet!" he shouted. "Quiet."
"Go out in order!" he shouted. "Don't get excited!"
Between exclamations he bent over toward the orchestra leader.
ORCHESTRA PLAYS IN FACE OF DEATH.
"Start an overture!" he commanded. "Start anything. For God's sake play, play, play, and keep on playing."
The brave words were as bravely answered. Gillea raised his wand, and the musicians began to play. Better than any one in the theater they knew their peril. They could look slantingly up and see that the 300 sets of the "Bluebeard" scenery all were ablaze. Their faces were white, their hands trembled, but they played, and played.
Foy still stood there, alternately urging the frightened people to avoid a panic and spurring the orchestra on. One by one the musicians dropped fiddle, horn, and other instruments and stole away.
"CLOWN" PROVES A HERO.
Finally the leader and Foy were left alone. Foy gave one glance upward and saw the scenery all aflame. Dropping brands fell around him, and then he fled—just in time to save his own life. The "clown" had proved himself a hero.
The curtain started to come down. It stopped, it swayed as from a heavy wind, and then it "buckled" near the center.
ALL HOPE LOST FOR GALLERY.
From that moment no power short of omnipotent could have saved the occupants of the upper gallery.
The coolness of Foy, of the orchestra leader and of other players, who begged the audience to hold itself in check, however, probably saved many lives on the parquet floor. Tumultuous panic prevailed, but the maddest of it—save in the doomed gallery—was at the outskirts of the ground floor crowd.