THIRTY EXITS, YET HUNDREDS PERISH IN AWFUL BLAST.
Those in greatest danger through proximity to the stage did not throw their weight against the mass ahead. Not many died on the first floor, proof of the contention that some restraint existed in this section of the audience.
Women were trodden under foot near the rear; some were injured. The most at this point, however, were rescued by the determined rush of the policeman at the entrance and of the doorkeeper and his assistants.
The theater had thirty exits. All were opened before the fire reached full headway, but some had to be forced opened. Only one door at the Randolph street entrance was open, the others being locked, according, it appears, to custom.
From within and without these doors were shattered in the first two minutes after the fire broke out—by theater employes, according to one report, by the van of the fleeing multitude and the first of the rescuers from the street, according to another.
The doors to the exits on the alley side, between Randolph and Lake streets, in one or more instances, are declared by those who escaped to have been either frozen or rusted. They opened to assaults, but priceless seconds were lost.
Before this time Foy had run back across the stage and reached the alley. With him fled the members of the aerial ballet, the last of the performers to get out. The aerialistsowed their lives to the boy in charge of the fly elevator. They were aloft, in readiness for their flight above the heads of the audience. The elevator boy ran his cage up even with the line of fire, took them in, and brought them safely down.
As Foy and the group reached the outer doorway the stage loft collapsed and tons of fire poured over the stage.
The lights went out in the theater with this destruction of the switchboard and all stage connections. One column of flame rose and swished along the ceiling of the theater. Then this awful illumination also was swallowed up. None may paint from personal understanding that which took place in that pit of flame lit darkness. None lives to tell it.
To those still caught in the structure the light of life went out when the electric globes grew dark.
In spite of the terrible form of their destruction, it came swiftly enough to shorten pain. This at least was true of those who died in the second balcony, striving to reach the alley exits abreast of them.
Six and seven feet deep they were found, not packed in layers but jumbled and twisted in the struggle with one another.
Opposite the westernmost exit of the balcony—on the alley—was a room in the Northwestern University building (the old Tremont house) where painters were working, wiping out the traces of another fire.
They heard the sound of the detonation of the fuse; they heard the rush of feet toward the exit across the way. Out on the iron stairway came a man, pushed by a power behind, himself crazy with fear. He would have run down the iron fire escape, but flames burst out of the exit beneath and wrapped themselves around the iron ladder.
HORRIBLE SIGHT MET THE FIREMEN UPON ENTERING AUDITORIUM.
The postures in which death was met showed how the end had come to many.
A husband and wife were locked so tightly in one another's arms that the bodies had to be taken out together. A woman had thrown her arms around a child in a vain effort to save her. Both were burned beyond recognition.
The sight of the children's bodies broke down the composure of the most restrained of the rescuers. As little form after form was brought out the tears ran down the faces of policemen, firemen and bystanders. Small hands were clenched before childish faces—fruitless attempts at protection from the scorching blast.
Most of the children could be recognized. Fate allowed that thin shadow of mercy. They fell beneath their taller companions. The flames reached them, but they were face downward, other forms were above them, and generally their features were spared.
The persons crowded off the fire escape platform, and those who jumped voluntarily by their own death saved persons on the lower floor from injury. Scores jumped from the exits at the first balcony, the first to death and injury, the ones behind to comparative safety on the thick cushion of the bodies of those who preceded them and who fell from the balcony above. Other hundreds from the main floor jumped on to the same cushion—an easy distance of six feet—without any injury.
When the firemen came they spread nets, but the nets were black, and in the gloom they could not be seen. They saved few lives—argument for the use of white nets hereafter.
The chain of mishaps surrounding the catastrophe extended to the fire alarm. There was no fire alarm box in front of the theater, as at other theaters. A stage hand ran down the alley to South Water street and by word of mouth turned in a "still" alarm to No. 13. The box alarm did not follow for some precious minutes. At least four minutes were lost in this way.
Of the 900 persons seated in the first and second balconies few if any escaped without serious injury.
So fiercely the fire burned during the short time in which hundreds of lives were sacrificed that the velvet cushions of the balcony seats were burned bare.
The crowds fought so in their efforts to escape that they tore away the iron railings of the balconies, leaping upon the people below.
From 3 o'clock, when the alarm was sent in, to 7:30 o'clock, when the doors of the theater were closed, the charred, torn, and blistered bodies were carried from the building at the rate of four a minute. One hundred were taken out across the plank way.
Many blankets filled with fragments of human bodies were taken from the building.
Hundreds of bodies were taken from the building, their clothing gone, their faces charred beyond recognition. Under pretense of serving as rescuers ghouls gained entrance to the theater and robbed the dead and dying in the midst of the fire.
Men fell on their knees and prayed. Men and women cursed. A rush was made for the Randolph street exits. In their fear the crowds forgot the many side exits, and rushed for the doors at which they had entered the theater. Little boys and girls were thrown to one side by their stronger companions.
Ten baskets of money and jewelry thrown in this manner were picked up from the main floor when the fire was extinguished.
Men and women tore their clothing from them. As the first rush was made for the foyer entrance to the balconies men, women and children were thrown bodily down the steps.
A few score of those nearest the doorways escaped by falling or being thrown down the stairs of the main balcony entrances.
Scores were wedged in the doorways, pinned by the force of those behind them. There in the narrow aisle at the balcony entrances they were suffocated and fell—tons of human weight.
All succeeded in leaving their seats in the first balcony. Climbing over the seats and rushing up the slanting aisles to the level aisles above, they fought their way. Those at the bottom of the mass were burned but little. The top layer of bodies was burned till they never can be identified.
Darkness shrouded the theater with its hundreds of dead when the fire was under control that the building could be entered. The firemen were forced to work in smoky darkness when they started carrying the bodies from the balconies.
THE GALLERY HORROR.
James M. Strong, a Chicago board of trade clerk, the sole survivor of all the occupants of the gallery who tried to escape through the locked door, smashed with his fist a glass transom and climbed through it. Three members of his family, who followed him down the passageway, shared the fate of others. Their bodies since have been discovered, burned almost beyond recognition.
"If the door hadn't been locked hundreds of persons could have saved their lives," said Strong.
The passageway, along which Strong and many now dead ran to supposed safety, led toward the front of the theater, past the top entrance to the gallery. Strong had been unable to secure seats and was standing in the rear of the gallery with his mother, Mrs. B. K. Strong, his wife, and his niece, Vera, 16 years old, of Americus, Ga. When the fire started all ran toward the nearest exit.
"The exit was crowded," said Strong. "We ran on down a passage at the side of it, followed by many others. At the end, down a short flight of steps, was a door. It was locked. In desperation I threw myself against it. I couldn't budge it. Then, standing on the top step of the little stairway, I smashed the glass above with my fist and crawled through the transom.
"When I fell on the outside I heard the screams on the other side, and, scrambling to my feet, I tried again to open the door, but couldn't. The key was not there. I ran down a stairway to the floor below, where I found a carpenter. I asked him to give me something to break down the door, and he got me a short board. I ran back with this and began pounding, but the door was too heavy to be broken.
"I scarcely know what happened afterward. Smoke was pouring over the transom and I felt myself suffocating. Alone, or with the assistance of the carpenter, I at last found myself at the bottom of the stairway opening into the lobby of the theater. From there I pushed my way to the street. Until then I didn't know I was burned."
GIRL'S MIRACULOUS ESCAPE.
The most miraculous escape was that of Winnie Gallagher, an 11-year-old girl, who occupied a seat with her auntalmost directly under the stage. When the panic was started she jumped to her feet and after being thrown about and trampled upon and having her clothing torn from her she managed to climb over the seats and reach the street in safety. What few pieces of wearing apparel she had on at the time were in ribbons and a messenger boy, seeing her predicament, pulled off his overcoat and wrapped it around her. She went to the Central station, where she gave the police her name and asked that someone take her to her home, 4925 Michigan avenue.
AN ACCOUNT FROM THE BOXES.
The first two lower boxes on the left of the stage were occupied by a party of young women who were being entertained by Mrs. Rollin A. Keyes of Evanston, in honor of her young daughter, Miss Catherine Keyes, who was home from school in Washington for the holidays.
"We arrived at the theater shortly after the first act," said Miss Emily Plamondon of Astoria, Ore., a member of the party, in describing the fire. "As far as I could see the house was filled with women and children, who occupied seats on the first floor and in the galleries. It was about a quarter to 3 when one of the young women in the party asked Mrs. Keyes if she did not smell something burning and an instant afterward a great cloud of smoke spread across the stage and into the body of the house. Immediately we realized the danger we were in, as did all around us. Instead of a rush to the doors, the audience gazed for a moment at the stage, and as a whole the people appeared very calm, under the circumstances, and as if contemplating how they would escape.
"Again another cloud of smoke issued from the stage and several stage hands appeared, shouting at the top of theirvoices for the people to sit down. But it was only for an instant that they obeyed, for by that time the smoke had spread through the theater and men, women and children were gasping for breath. Then a mad rush was made for the doors and for the supposed exits, but in vain. Mrs. Pearson and Mrs. Keyes commanded us to keep together by all means and just as we were leaving the boxes the theater became darkened, which, I suppose, was caused by the burning out of the electric light, and thus made our escape the harder. We plodded through the aisles until we came within about ten feet of the main entrance without encountering any violence from the panic-stricken women and children who were fighting for their lives. Then the crush became terrible and the members of our party, Mrs. Rollin A. Keyes, Mrs. Pearson, Misses Charlotte Plamondon, Catherine Keyes, Elmore of Oregon, Amelia Ormsby, Grace Hills, Josephine Eddy and Miss Elizabeth Eddy realized that it would be impossible to get to the street through that door.
"It was only a short time, however, when somebody knocked down two doors, which had been locked, and the majority of the people on the first floor escaped through them without serious injury. Miss Charlotte Plamondon, who was bruised about the face and hands, and I were the only ones in the party who escaped with our wraps. The others had their clothes torn almost from them, as they were hurrying from the burning theater.
"Before we had left the boxes the fire had spread to the first row of seats and the stage hands were endeavoring to lower the asbestos curtain. When it was about half down it became caught and the attempt to drop it was abandoned. A great gush of fire then spread to the draperies over the boxes. The people were wonderfully calm, it seemed to me, for socrucial a moment and it was not until the smoke filled the house that they became frantic and screamed for help. We could hardly breathe and I believe had we been in the theater a few minutes longer we, too, would have been suffocated, as the heat and smoke were becoming unendurable. Had the exits been open and unlocked the loss of life would not have been nearly so great."
"We were seated for half an hour before the fire broke out. Our attention was first attracted by a wreath of flame, which crept slowly along the red velvet curtain. We all noticed it. So did the audience and I could see little girls and boys in the orchestra chairs point upward at the slowly moving line of flame. As the fire spread the people in the balcony and on the first floor arose to their feet as if to rush out of the place. Then Eddie Foy hurried to the front of the stage and commanded the people to be quiet, saying that if they would remain seated the danger would be averted. All the people who were then on the stage maintained remarkable presence of mind and the chorus girls endeavored to divert the attention of their auditors off the fire by going on with their parts.
"I looked over the faces of the audience and remarked how many children were present. I could see their faces filled with interest and their eyes wide open as they watched the burning curtain.
"Then I looked behind me and realized the awful consequence should the people become alarmed. The doors, except for the one through which we entered the theater, were closed and apparently fastened. Up in the balcony I could see people crowding forward in order to obtain a better view. Again the audience arose as if to flee.
"Eddie Foy again rushed on the stage and waved his arms in a gesture for the people to be seated. But just then theshrill cry of a woman caused the women and children to rise to their feet, filled with a sudden and uncontrollable terror.
"'Fire!' I heard her exclaim, and in another instant the eyes of the audience were turned to the exits in the rear. The flames lighted up the stage as the light tinsel stuffs blazed up, and the scene changed from mimicry to tragedy. A confused, rumbling noise filled the theater from the pit to the dome. I knew it was the sound of a thousand people preparing to leave their seats and rush madly from the impending danger. The noise of their footsteps in the balcony was soon deadened by the cries for aid from those who were hemmed in by the struggling mass.
"On the stage the chorus girls, who had exhibited rare presence of mind, turned to flee. Many were overcome before they could stir a step. They fell to the floor and I saw the men in the cast and the stage hands lift them to their feet and carry them to the rear of the stage. By this time the scenery was a mass of flames."
INSPECTION AFTER THE FIRE.
Deputy Building Commissioner Stanhope with three inspectors made a thorough examination of the theater building yesterday.
"I first examined the building with respect to the safety of its walls and found them in perfect condition," said Mr. Stanhope. "They are not out of plumb an inch and are as good as they ever were. The steel structure is not injured except that portion which supported the stage. The heat has twisted some of the supports but they can be replaced at little cost. Except the backs of the seats and the floor of the stage the interior of the auditorium was not injured by the fire. Thecarpets in the gallery, where most of the people were killed, were not even scorched."
A YOUNG HEROINE.
Verma Goss is one of the young heroines of the fire. She attended the theater in a party composed of her mother, Mrs. Joseph Goss; her 5-year-old sister, Helen; Mrs. Greenwald of 536 Byron street and her young son Leroy. In the rush for the door Miss Verma caught her young sister's hand and pulled her out of the crowd and carried the child to safety. She thought her mother was following, but she and her sister were the only ones of the party who escaped.
A NARROW ESCAPE.
Mrs. William Mueller, with her two children, Florence Marie, 5 years of age, and Barbara Belle, 7, occupied a seat in the parquet.
"I was not in the theater auditorium," said Mrs. Mueller. "I was in one of the waiting rooms, but was on my way to our seats. As I entered the doors somebody yelled fire. I looked up and saw the curtain ablaze. Then came the stampede. I picked up my children and ran toward the door. I was caught in the jam and it seemed that I would fail to reach it. Some man saw my plight and jumped to my assistance. He picked up Florence and threw her over the heads of the rushing people. She fell upon the pavement, but was not badly injured."
FINDS WIFE IN HOSPITAL.
The first woman to be rescued over the temporary bridge between the theater and the Northwestern university building was Mrs. Mary Marzein of Elgin, Ill. She was severelyburned and lost consciousness after her rescue. A score or more suffered death on every side as she crept over the ladder. They were thrown aside and knocked down, but she clung to the ladder and escaped. She was taken to the Michael Reese hospital and did not regain consciousness until the following day. Her husband, who is an employe of the Elgin Watch Company, searched all the morgues and was making a tour of the hospitals when he found his wife.
When Mrs. Marzein recovered in the afternoon the first person she inquired for was her husband, who at that moment was being ushered into the room. Their eyes met as she was whispering his name to the nurse, and an affecting scene followed.
A MIRACULOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS ESCAPE.
One of the most miraculous escapes from the fire was that of Miss Winifred Cardona. She was one of a party of four and with her friends occupied seats in the seventh row of the parquet.
"The first intimation I had of the danger was when I saw one of the chorus girls look upward and turn pale. My eyes immediately followed her glance and I saw the telltale sparks shooting about through the flies. The singing continued until the blaze broke out. Then Mr. Foy appeared and asked the audience to keep their seats, assuring them that the theater was thoroughly fireproof. We obeyed, but when we saw the seething mass behind struggling for the door we rushed from our seats. I became separated from the other girls and had not gone far before I stumbled over the prostrate body of a woman who was trampled almost beyond recognition. For an instant I thought it was all over. Then I felt someone lift me and I knew no more until I revived in the street. It wasthe most awful experience I have ever had and I consider my escape nothing short of miraculous."
LITTLE GIRL'S MARVELOUS ESCAPE.
"I'm the most grateful man in all Chicago," said J. R. Thompson, who owns the restaurant. "My sister was in the theater with my two children—John, aged 9, and Ruth, aged 7. Sister got almost to the door with both of them. Then Ruthie disappeared. She told me she knew the child must be safe, but I was like a maniac. It was an hour before we found her. How it happened I didn't know, but she ran back into the theater and out under the stage, out through the stage entrance."
"Where is the little girl now?" I asked him.
"I sent her home to her mother," he said.
Only ten feet away lay the chestnut-haired girl who "was a great one to scamper."
FOUR GENERATIONS REPRESENTED.
Members of four generations of a family were turned into mourners, only one member remaining from a party of nine made up of Benjamin Moore and eight of his relatives, of whom only one, Mrs. W. S. Hanson, Hart, Mich., escaped. Following are the names of the eight victims: Mrs. Joseph Bezenek, 41 years old, West Superior, Wis., daughter of Benjamin Moore; Benjamin Moore, 72 years old, Chicago; Roland Mackay, 6 years old, Chicago, grandson of Mrs. Joseph Bezenek and great grandson of Benjamin Moore; Mrs. Benjamin Moore, 47 years old, wife of Benjamin Moore; Joseph Bezenek, 38 years old, West Superior, Wis., husband of Mrs. Bezenek and son-in-law of Benjamin Moore; Mrs. PerryMoore, 33 years old, Hart, Mich., daughter-in-law of Benjamin Moore; Miss Sibyl Moore, Hart, Mich., 13 years old, daughter of Mrs. Perry Moore and granddaughter of Benjamin Moore; Miss Lucile Bond, 10 years old, daughter of George H. Bond and granddaughter of Benjamin Moore, Chicago.
DAUGHTERS AND GRANDCHILDREN GONE.
Three daughters and two grandchildren, constituting the entire family of Mr. and Mrs. Morris Eger, Chicago, perished in the fire. The daughters were Miss S. Eger, who was a teacher in the Mosely school; Mrs. Marion Rice, wife of A. Rice, and Mrs. Rose Bloom, wife of Max Bloom, and the children were: Erna, the 10-year-old daughter of Mrs. Rice, and her 11-year-old brother, Ernest.
After a long search among the many morgues of the city the bodies were all identified, two of them being found there.
HOW THE NEW YEAR WAS USHERED IN.
The New Year came to Chicago with muffled drums, two days after the calamity that threw the great metropolis into mourning.
Scarcely a sound was heard as 1904 entered.
Jan. 1—day of funerals—was received in silence. Streets were almost deserted, even downtown. Men hurried silently along the sidewalks. There were not half a dozen tin horns in the downtown district where ordinarily the blare of trumpets, screech of steam whistles, volleys of shots and the merriment of late wayfarers make the entrance of a new year a period of deafening pandemonium.
Merrymakers were quiet when in the streets and subdued even in the restaurants. Noise, except in a few scattered districts, was unknown.
It was a remarkable, spontaneous testimony to the prevalent spirit throughout the city. Mayor Harrison had asked, in an official proclamation, that there be no noise, but few of those who desisted from the usual practices of greeting the New Year knew that they had been requested to be silent.
MOURNING IN EVERY STREET.
There were mourning families in every neighborhood; crepe in every street; grief stricken relatives throughout the city; unidentified dead in the morgues, and sufferers in the hospital. The citizens did not need to be requested to be quiet.
Jan. 1, 1904, meant the beginning of funerals and the burial of dead who were to have lived to take part in merrymaking.
A year before in downtown Chicago the din was an ear-splitting racket of horns, whistles, yells, songs, and exploding cannon.
A year before the downtown streets were filled with hundreds of laughing men and women, roystering parties filling the air with the uproar of tin horns and revolvers.
NOISE SEEMS A SACRILEGE.
That night there were a messenger boy in La Salle street blowing a tin horn and a man at Wabash avenue and Harrison street. The other pedestrians looked at them as if they considered the noise a sacrilege. It was with the same feeling that they heard the blowing of the factory whistles in the few cases where the engineers forgot.
A year before the outlying districts were awakened by the firing of cannon and the shouts of people in noisy celebrations. That dread night there was nothing to keep residents awake except grief.
MAYOR ASKS FOR SILENCE.
To insure this condition, as the only fitting one, Mayor Harrison had issued a proclamation in which he said:
"On each recurring New Year's eve annoyance has been caused the sick and infirm by the indulgence of thoughtless persons in noisy celebrations of the passage of the old year. The city authorities have at all times discouraged this practice, but now, when Chicago lies in the shadow of the greatest disaster in her history for a generation, noisemaking, whether by bells, whistles, cannon, horns or any other means, is particularly objectionable.
"As mayor of Chicago I would, therefore, request all persons to refrain from this indulgence, and I would particularly ask all railway officials and all persons in control of factories, boats, and mills to direct their employes not to blow whistles between the hours of 12 and 1 o'clock tonight."
Persons not reached by this proclamation had seen the lines waiting entrance at the morgues. The few peddlers who had tin horns for sale found no buyers. This market, which in other years has been a profitable one, on Dec. 31, 1903, was dead. The venders slunk up to the building walls and, even in trying to sell, made little noise with their wares.
MERRIMENT IS SUBDUED.
In such restaurants as the Auditorium Annex, the Wellington, and Rector's there were gay crowds, but the merriment was subdued. "No music" was the general rule throughout the city. At Rector's the management took down flowers which were to have decorated the restaurant and sent them to the hospitals where the injured theater victims were.
At the Annex and the Wellington the lobbies had been filled with gayly decorated tables, and this space as well as the cafes was entirely occupied. Congress street was filled with carriages and cabs for the guests at the Annex.
CITY OF MOURNING.
Even these gatherings, which were the least affected by the gloom over the city, were ghastly as compared with those of former years. There were exceptions to the general rule, but even in the places which felt the effect the least there was abundant testimony to the fact that Chicago was a city of woe.
The aspect of the downtown district was evidence that therewas scarcely a neighborhood in the city which had not at least one sorrowing family.
Not only was this indicated by the lack of noise on the noisiest night of the year but by the absence of lights. Many electric signs and illuminations which usually lighted up the streets had been closed, and gay, wicked, noisy Chicago was clothed with gloom such as it had never before known.
Dark and solemn as was the opening day of the new year it was no circumstance compared with the day that followed. At the suggestion of the mayor Saturday, Jan. 2, was set apart to bury the dead. The proclamation issued in that connection follows:
"Chicago, Dec. 31.—To the citizens of Chicago: Announcement is hereby made that the city hall will be closed on Saturday, Jan. 2, 1904, on account of the calamity occurring at the Iroquois theater. All business houses throughout the city are respectfully requested to shut down on that day.
"Respectfully,"Carter H. Harrison, Mayor."
The request was generally followed, and on that mournful day the interment of the victims of the holocaust began, filling the streets with processions moving to the grave. From daybreak until evening funeral corteges moved through the streets. Church bells at noon tolled a requiem. The machinery of business was hushed in the downtown district, and long lines of carriages, preceded by hearses or plain black wagons, followed the theater victims to the grave.
In no public place, in no home was the grief of the bereft not felt. Many of the dead were taken directly from the undertaking rooms to the cemeteries and buried with simple ceremony. Before dark nearly 200 victims were borne to thegrave. A score were taken to railroad stations, to be followed by the mourning back to their homes.
BUSINESS WORLD IN MOURNING.
The board of trade closed at 11 o'clock. The doors of the stock exchange were not opened. Few of the downtown mercantile houses and few of the offices were open after noon. There was little business.
It was a day of mourning, and the army of the sorrowful that for days had searched for its dead performed the last rites. At noon bells in all the church towers were rung to the rhythm of "The Dead March in Saul." Those who heard the solemn dirge stood still for the space of five minutes with bared heads. The proclamation of the mayor generally was observed. Everywhere there was gloom and no one could escape from the pall that enshrouded Chicago.
The demand for hearses was so great that the undertakers were compelled to make up schedules in which the different hours of the day were allotted to the grief-stricken.
Flags were at half-mast, while white hearses bearing the bodies of children and black hearses with the bodies of others took their way to the various churches. In some blocks three and four hearses were standing, and at the churches one cortege would wait until another moved away.
The pall seemed to pervade the air itself. Pedestrians halted on the sidewalk, and in the cold stood with bared heads while the funeral processions passed.
Children saw their parents laid away; parents followed the coffins of their child. Students just reaching manhood or womanhood were laid at rest, while relatives and companions mourned. Kindly clergymen wept as they spoke words ofcomfort to those bereft of father, mother, brother, sister, or even of all.
Two double funerals passed through the downtown districts just as the department stores were dismissing their thousands of employes. Sisters were being taken to their last resting place, and this cortege was followed by two white hearses containing the bodies of another brother and sister. Both funeral processions went to the same depot, and all four victims were buried in the same cemetery.
The numerous funeral trains which left Chicago contained in nearly every instance more than one coffin. Hearse after hearse and carriage after carriage arrived in the blinding snow and stopped at the depots, opening an epoch of funerals that continued daily until the last victim was laid to rest.
Thus opened the year 1904 in Chicago, the stricken and desolate.
A SABBATH OF WOE.
A majority of the victims of the fire were laid to rest, however, during the Sabbath succeeding the awful calamity. The main thoroughfares of the benumbed city leading north and west toward the resting places of the dead were crowded with funeral processions, sometimes four and five hearses together showing as white as the snow on the ground, bearing as they did the bodies of children.
As one funeral procession after another passed through the streets the numbers of the sorrowing at the cemeteries increased. A few hundred feet from one freshly made grave there was another and a short distance away still another that told the mourners at one funeral that others were bereaved.
The work of burying the dead began early in the morning and lasted until late in the evening. Sometimes the homes of several of the dead were grouped in a few blocks and in one instance a glance down a single street would reveal the thickly crowded carriages for half a dozen funerals that had thrown an entire neighborhood into mourning. Where hearses could not be furnished they were improvised from other kinds of vehicles and mourners who could not get cabs rode in carriages. As the night closed down on hundreds of mourning homes, in every cemetery in the city the speaking mounds of fresh earth told of the end of families broken and altogether destroyed.
SEVEN TURNER VICTIMS.
More than a thousand turners joined in the services for seven victims who were members of their societies. The Chicago Turnbezirk, the central body of the turners, had charge of the exercises. Representatives of the Aurora Turnverein, Schweitzer Turnverein, Forward Turnverein, Social Turnverein, and other turner organizations joined in the services.
The exercises were held at the Social Turner hall, Belmont avenue and Paulina street. The coffins of the victims were placed in front of the stage at the end of the hall. After the services the coffins were taken by uniformed turners through the hall to black wagons and the march to Graceland cemetery began. Three drum corps, with muffled drums, beat a funeral march.
Women turners, in their gymnasium suits, escorted the bodies of the women victims, and uniformed turners watched the coffins of the men.
Short services were held at the cemetery.
SAD SCENES AT WOLFF HOME.
At the residence of Ludwig Wolff, 1329 Washington boulevard, the bodies of his daughter, Mrs. William M. Garn and her three children, Willie, 11, John, 7, and Harriet, 10 years old, lay. All day long until the time for the funeral services a stream of sympathizing friends poured in. A crowd of more than a thousand surrounded the house and the policemen stationed there were compelled to force a way for the caskets when they were borne to the hearses. The service was read by the Rev. William C. Dewitt of St. Andrew's church. Twelve boys acted as pallbearers for their former playfellows and followed the little white hearses to Graceland. The funeral was one ofthe largest ever seen on the west side of the city, more than one hundred carriages being in the funeral train.
PATHETIC SCENE AT CHURCH.
Far different in all except the grief was the funeral from the little frame church at Congress street and Forty-second avenue. Inside lay the bodies of Mrs. Mary W. Holst and her three children, Allan, 13, Gertrude, 10, and Amy, 8 years. They were in the ill fated second balcony of the theater and met death trying to reach the fire escape. Of the family only the father and a 6 months old son survive. Mrs. Holst was the sister of former Chief of Police Badenoch. Interment was at Forest Home.
The building was still gay with its Christmas decorations and a large motto, "Peace on earth, good will to men," which the Holst children had assisted in making.
BURY CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN.
Another quadruple funeral was that of the daughters and the grandchildren of Jacob and Elizabeth Beder of 697 Ogden avenue. The two women, Mrs. Edyth Vallely, 835 Sawyer avenue, and Mrs. Amy Josephine McKenna of 758 South Kedzie avenue, went to the theater accompanied by their two children, Bernice Vallely, aged 11, and Bernard McKenna, aged 3. The bodies were found after the fire by the husbands of the dead women at the morgues. The services were in charge of Rev. D. F. Fox of the California Avenue Congregational church. Interment was at Forest Home.
FIVE DEAD IN ONE HOUSE.
Memorial services were held in the afternoon for Mrs. Eva Pond, wife of Fred S. Pond, their children, Raymond, 14, Helen, 7, and Miss Grace Tuttle, sister of Mrs. Pond, at thefamily residence, 1272 Lyman avenue. The services were conducted by the Rev. Mr. Bowles of All Saints' Episcopal church.
Miss Tuttle had been for eighteen years a teacher in the Chicago public schools. She attended the performance at the Iroquois with her sister and her sister's children, and none of them emerged alive. Mrs. Pond was the wife of Fred S. Pond, for thirty years cashier of the Deering Harvester Company, who is the only survivor of a once happy family circle. The four bodies were taken to Beloit, Wis., for burial.
ENTIRE FAMILY IS BURIED.
None but friends attended the Beyer funeral service during the afternoon at Sheldon's undertaking rooms, for the entire family, mother, father, and child, were numbered among the Iroquois dead. Otto H. Beyer, his wife Minnie, and their 4 year old daughter Grace, were the victims. The bodies were taken to Elkader, Iowa, for burial. This was perhaps the saddest of all the sad services conducted during the day, as no relatives were present to mourn the dead.
MRS. FOX AND THREE CHILDREN.
Mrs. Emilie Hoyt Fox, daughter of William M. Hoyt, the wholesale grocer; George Sidney Fox, her 15-year-old son; Hoyt Fox, 14 years old, and Emilie Fox, 9 years old, were all buried side by side in Graceland cemetery. The funeral services were held in Graceland chapel and were conducted by Rev. Henry G. Moore of Christ Episcopal church, Winnetka.
MRS. A. E. HULL AND CHILDREN.
Simple and short were the funeral services at Boydston's chapel, Forty-second place and Cottage Grove avenue, over the remains of four members of the Hull family. Mrs. Hull, themother, was the wife of Arthur E. Hull, 244 Oakwood boulevard, and attended the theater with her little daughter, Helen, and two nephews, adopted sons, Donald and Dwight. The services were directed by Rev. J. H. McDonald of the Oakland Methodist Episcopal church and consisted simply of a prayer and the reading of a poem found in the desk of Mrs. Hull, and which had evidently been clipped from some newspaper. At the conclusion of the services the caskets were carried to the Thirty-ninth street station of the Michigan Central railroad, over which they were taken to Troy, N. Y., for burial.
HERBERT AND AGNES LANGE.
"We were four of the happiest mortals in all Chicago until that awful thing blasted our lives forever," sobbed Mrs. Louis Lange of 1632 Barry avenue at the close of the funeral of her only two children, Herbert Lange, 17 years old, and his sister Agnes, 14. The service was held at the Johannes Evangelical Lutheran church at Garfield avenue and Mohawk street.
SWEETHEARTS BURIED AT THE SAME TIME.
While the last rites were being held for Albert Alfson in Chicago, the body of his sweetheart, Miss Margaret Love, was being buried in the cemetery at Woodstock. Two hundred persons, 125 from Woodstock, attended Alfson's funeral at 24 Keith street.
FIVE BURIED IN ONE GRAVE.
The largest funeral at Oakwoods was that of Dr. M. B. Rimes, 6331 Wentworth avenue, his wife and three children, Lloyd, Martin, and Maurice. The five from one family were buried together in one large grave.
BOYS AS PALLBEARERS.
At the home of Ludwig Wolff, 1329 Washington boulevard the body of his daughter, Mrs. William M. Garn, and her three children, Willie, John and Harriet, lay. All day long until the time for the funeral services, a stream of sympathizing friends poured in, bearing many floral tributes to the dead. The impressive service of the Episcopal church was read by the Rev. William C. Dewitt of St. Andrew's church, of which Mrs. Garn was a member. Twelve boys acted as pallbearers to their late playfellows, and followed the little white hearses to Graceland cemetery. The funeral was one of the largest ever seen on the West Side, more than one hundred carriages being in the train.
WINNETKA SADDENED.
A funeral was held which saddened the hearts of all Winnetka. The little north shore suburb lost eight of its residents in the fire, and the funeral of four of the Fox family was held yesterday. The services were conducted by the Rev. Henry G. Moore of Christ Episcopal church, Winnetka.
MOTHER AND DAUGHTERS BURIED TOGETHER.
Three hearses carried away the bodies of Mrs. Louise Ruby and her daughters, Mrs. Ida Weimers and Mrs. Mary Feiser. The services were held at the late home of Mrs. Ruby, 838 Wilson avenue. Father F. N. Perry of the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes celebrated mass for the two daughters, who were members of his parish. The Rev. John G. Kircher of Bethlehem Evangelical church read the service for the mother.
HOLD TRIPLE FUNERAL.
Triple funeral services were held at the residence of Henry M. Shabad, 4041 Indiana avenue, for his two children, Myrtle,aged 14 years, and Theodore, aged 12 years, and little Rose Elkan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. N. Elkan. The three children attended the matinee together and all were killed. Rabbi Jacobson of the Thirty-fifth street synagogue conducted the service and at the conclusion referred to the Iroquois fire as one of the "greatest calamities of the age." The interment took place at Waldheim.
WOMEN FAINT IN CHURCH.
Attended by many grief stricken schoolmates and friends, the funeral of Robert and Archie Hippach, sons of Louis A. and Ida S. Hippach, was held at the Church of the Atonement, Kenmore and Ardmore avenues. They lived at 2928 Kenmore avenue. At the church several women fainted and had to be taken from the church.
LIFE-LONG FRIENDS MEET IN DEATH.
Miss Viola Delee of 7822 Union avenue, and Miss Florence Corrigan of 218 Dearborn avenue, victims of the Iroquois theater fire, whose remains were buried, were life-long friends. They were schoolmates at St. Xavier's College, where both graduated two years ago. On the afternoon of the fire Miss Delee had arranged to meet her friend downtown and attend the matinee. It is thought they secured seats on the main floor about eight rows from the front. Their bodies were found lying some distance apart.
The body of Miss Delee showed marks that must have caused her excruciating pain. Her face was badly burned and disfigured. Miss Corrigan was burned almost beyond recognition. She was not identified until after the identity of Viola's body had been established through a card which she carried in the pocket of her dress.
The funerals of two friends who had perished together in the fire met in Forest Home cemetery when Mrs. Floy Irene Olson of 835 Walnut street and Bessie M. Stafford were buried in graves not thirty feet apart. The two women had been life-long friends and were co-workers in the Warren Avenue Congregational church. Rev. Frank G. Smith conducted the services over each of the bodies.
EDWARD AND MARGARET DEE.
Rev. Father Quinn of St. James' Roman Catholic church, conducted the obsequies for Edward Mansfield and Margaret Louise Dee, the children of William Dee, at the residence, 3133 Wabash avenue. The funeral procession was the largest ever seen on the south side for children, seventy-five carriages following the white hearse that bore the two white caskets.
MISS E. D. MANN AND NIECE.
Miss Emma D. Mann, supervisor of music in the Chicago public schools, and her niece, Olive Squires, 14 years old, were buried at Rosehill after impressive ceremonies at the Centenary Methodist Episcopal church. Miss Mann had been connected with the schools of the city for many years.
ELLA AND EDYTH FRECKLETON.
The funeral services over the remains of Ella and Edyth Freckleton, daughters of William J. Freckleton, 5632 Peoria street, were conducted by Rev. R. Keene Ryan at Boulevard hall, Fifty-fifth and Halsted streets. More than 2,000 persons were in the hall and 500 others stood in the street for hours waiting for the funeral cortege to pass on its way to Oakwoods, where interment was made.
MISS FRANCES LEHMAN.
Hundreds of pupils of the Nash school, Forty-ninth avenue and Ohio street, members of the Ridgeland fire department anda delegation of employes of the Cicero and Proviso Electric Street railway attended the funeral services over the remains of Miss Frances Lehman, at the residence of her parents, 525 North Austin avenue, in the morning. Rev. Clayton Youker, pastor of the Euclid Avenue Methodist Episcopal church, officiating. Many beautiful floral tributes were sent by the teachers and the pupils of the Nash school.
And so during this Sabbath of woe, tragedies of life and death such as these, but far too numerous to be all recorded, were being enacted in all parts of the stricken city. Although nature had bestowed upon the countless mourners a day bright and clear, their spirits were dark with sorrow and for years to come their memories will revert to that time as the saddest of their lives; and those whose dear ones were not among the dead, if their natures were blessed with any sympathy whatever, were oppressed, as never before, with the heavy burden which others must bear.
WHAT OF THE PLAYERS?
Never before in the history of amusements has so excellent an opportunity been afforded to look behind the scenes of the mimic world and study the real life of the actor. To one and all, whether religionist unalterably opposed to the theater and all its ramifications, or the devotee finding life's chiefest pleasures contributed by musician and mummer, the stage looms up a mystic realm, affording more interest and comment than almost any other department of earthly effort.
When Shakespeare wrote "See the players well bestowed" in his immortal masterpiece, "Hamlet," the term player meant something very different from what it does today. In this day and age it is not only the poetic, lofty-minded and learned tragedian who is rightfully accorded the title "actor," but through time-honored custom and common usage the specialty performer, slap-stick comedian and the interesting chorus girl are recognized as members of the "profession"; and be it noted, although a sad commentary on the stage, they far outnumber those of the old, legitimate school.
So it is that in dealing with the player folk, to whom the terrifying Iroquois experience was but an incident in a long career of vicissitudes unknown to those who make up the great commercial, industrial and agricultural world, it is necessary to consider the sleek, well-groomed executive staff, the better-paid and more widely-known stellar lights of the "Mr. Bluebeard" company, the less distinguished principals, both menand women, the struggling chorus boy, the saucy, piquant and greatly envied chorus girl and a small army of unheard-of yet equally important stage mechanics.
Upwards of 150 persons—a little world of their own—made up the company that found its merry-making tour brought to a sudden termination by a blast that came upon them like a visitation from the bottomless pit. What they endured, what conditions the fatal fire imposed upon them, will never be fully known or appreciated. Merry minstrels in name, but homeless, purposeless wanderers in fact, the dead sweep of the elements tore asunder their little universe and left them stranded and more purposeless still, practically penniless and among strangers, overburdened with their own woes.
With such an organization as "Mr. Bluebeard" there are to be found two or three fortunate mortals, whose powers to amuse and whose popularity with the amusement-loving public place their salaries at a figure anywhere between $150 and $300 a week. In this particular company "Eddie Foy," in private life Edward Fitzgerald, stood out preeminently as such a player. Then came more than a score of principals whose salaries will range from $60 to $150 a week, depending entirely upon ability and the extent to which fortune has favored them in casting the various parts, as the characters are known. Next in order are the less important people, who play "bits" (very unimportant parts), and who act as understudies for the principals, ready to replace them in an emergency. They are largely graduates from the chorus or comparative novices in the profession. Their compensation may be from $30 to $50 a week, according to beauty, grace and general usefulness.
All have their railroad fares paid and their baggagetransported at the expense of the management. They are required to furnish their own wardrobe, however, in many instances an item of no small expense.
THE CHORUS GIRL.
And then—the chorus girl! No living creature excites such general curiosity, interest, and perhaps admiration and envy, as this footlight queen. She is popularly supposed to devote her time exclusively to delightful promenades with susceptible "Johnnies" in the millionaire class, automobile rides, after-the-show wine suppers and all manner and form of unconventional and soul-stirring diversions that for her more sedate and useful sister, the ordinary American girl, would mean to be ostracized socially. Hers is generally regarded as a voluptuous life of music, mirth and color, an endless, extravagant pursuit of pleasure.
To the wide, wide world her triumphs and escapades are heralded by newspaper, press agent, and the callow youth of the land, who regard themselves as "real sports" and clamor for an opportunity to provide a supper for one of the chorus at the expense of going without cigarettes for the rest of the month.
Whoever hears of the little, disorderly bunk of a room the chorus girl's salary provides her with at some cheap hotel; of her struggles for existence during the months she is out of employment almost every season; of the glass of beer and nibble of free lunch that is often her only meal during the long weeks of endless rehearsal that precede the opening of the show, when absolutely without income she lives on her scant savings, what she can borrow, and hope and anticipation of what is in store when the tour begins! For three or four weeks she rehearses morning and afternoon while the productionis being put in shape. No salaries are paid during that period, and it is a particularly soft-hearted manager who allows the girl carfare. Most of the day there are marches, dances and evolutions to be gone through with maddening monotony. She must remain on her feet, for chairs are few about stages, and courtesy scant so far as chorus people are concerned.
And at night, when she goes home worn with effort, there are songs to be learned, and then to be repeated over and over again in chorus the next day, to the accompaniment of a battered and expressionless piano shoved into the brightest spot on the gloomy half-dark stage, or, if there be no such thing, placed in the orchestra pit, where the musical director can enjoy the advantage of an electric light.
THE MUSICAL DIRECTOR.
The musical director! What an autocrat he is! His rules are arbitrary and irrevocable. His criticism stings and burns. He is tired, overworked and under the strain of responsibility for the successful development of the aggregation of young men and women who confront him, and who appear to him weighted down with all the stupidity naturally intended for distribution among a vastly larger number of individuals. He swears, raves, coaxes as his moods change. He weeds out one here and engages a new member there. And with every change the difficulties increase. The tunes that seem so inspiring when heard from the comfort of a parquet seat grow dreary to those who are living with them hourly during this period. The "catchy" songs become so much hateful drivel and maddening nonsense, when done over and over again to the inspiring declaration of the half-crazed director that "thewhole bunch ought to go back to the farm, back to the dishpan."
It is a tired, world-worn, weary creature that creeps away after such a rehearsal—a woman who would be hard to recognize as the sprightly, dashing blonde in blue tights, who tosses her head saucily in the third act and sets the hearts of the youth of the one-night-stands aflame a few weeks later.
THE JOY OF THE OPENING.
At last the chaos and confusion end, the great mass of detail is blended into a production and the stage manager begins his term of storming and fussing. The dress rehearsal is called, the shimmering silken costumes are donned and all hands are agreeably surprised to find that there really is a plot to the piece and some rhyme and reason behind the efforts of the few preceding weeks' labor. The opening is at hand.
What joy it brings to all, both those of high and low degree. Brave costumes, light, color and a mellow orchestra, in place of the old tin-pan of a piano, work great changes in their spirits. And best of all—salaries begin. To the chorus girl it means from $18 to $25 a week, and if she be particularly clever perhaps a little more. That is hers, free from all charges for transportation, baggage delivery or the furnishing or maintenance of wardrobe. She must furnish her own "make-up" of paints, powder and cosmetics, to be sure, and of this she uses no small amount; but that is a minor expense.
The opening over, the critics of the press either praise or flay the production—something that means much in determining what its future will be. For a few weeks, possibly a month or two, it remains the attraction at the theater where it had its birth. Conditions become pleasanter, yet a vastamount of rehearsing continues in order to bring about improvement or make changes in the personnel of the company. Every time a girl drops out, voluntarily or otherwise, her successor must be put through the ropes in order to be able to replace her. That means all those in the same scenes must go through the dreary details again. In fact, from the time such a show opens until it closes rehearsals never really cease, the causes necessitating them being almost without number.
SPENDTHRIFT HABITS.
During the "run" in the opening house the chorus girl has a chance to live at comparatively small expense. She may pay off her small debts, if she is troubled with a conscience. What is far more important, she can replenish her threadbare street wardrobe, for it is an unwritten managerial law that all stage people must dress well both on and off the stage. So when the "run" terminates and the road tour begins, nearly all the company are pretty short financially, although they may be even with the world if they are particularly fortunate. All actors are naturally "spenders." Their mode of life compels it. With few family ties, the majority without a home, their every expense is double that of the every-day sort of a man. Their meeting place and their lounging place, whether it be for business or social reasons, is necessarily the hotel or the bar. Under those conditions it would be difficult for the most conservative to cultivate frugality or economy. And actors have never been known to injure themselves in an effort to attain either unless under stress of temporary compulsion.
GAMBLING, PURE AND SIMPLE.
Perhaps the show has made a "hit." Perhaps not. One can never tell in advance, for it is gambling, pure and simple, sothe oldest managers openly assert. If it proves a failure all the capital, labor and trouble has been thrown away like a flash in the pan. The actors arrive some night to find the house dark, the box-office receipts, scenery and properties seized on an attachment, and their salaries and prospects gone. What happens then with weeks, possibly months, of idleness ahead of them, can be better imagined than described. Somehow, the people struggle through and survive and bob up to face the same experience again. It is hard enough on the principals with good salaries and friends purchased through profligate expenditure of their money when all was sunshine and prosperity, but it is a worse blow to the chorus. Yet they pass through seemingly unscathed. They are used to it and know how.
But this is a dreary side of the picture, and all productions are by no means doomed to flunk; those that do not go forth upon the road with a flourish of trumpets, the glitter and glamor of carloads of courts and palaces of canvas, tinsel and papier-mache and with everyone looking forward to the rapid acquirement of a fortune. Verily, your actor is a born optimist. Were it not for ambition, hope, egotism and inherent love of publicity, notoriety and admiration, where would the stage get its recruits?
THE SHOW ON THE ROAD.
After the production has taken to the road it may still prove a "frost"—the theatrical term for failure. Then it is the same grim story, with additional discouragements. There are cold, clammy hotelkeepers whose one anxiety is to see their bills paid, and commercially inclined railroads who will transport none, not even actors, without payment in something more tangible than promises. Then comes the benefitperformance, the appeal to local lodges of orders the actors may be identified with and the mad scramble to induce the railroad to carry the people home "on their trunks." If they can get their baggage out of the hotels the performers usually find it possible to secure transportation by leaving their trunks with the railroads as a pawn to be released when they raise money enough to settle the bill. Surely a pleasant prospect—to go "home" penniless and without personal effects, clothing or even prospects.
And all this time where is the manager? He may have fled in desperation with the few dollars that came into his hands the preceding night, or he may be shut up in his room worse off than his employes. It all depends upon circumstances.
All shows do not meet disaster on the road, however. Yet there is always the distressing possibility to confront the actor. Many go on their glad, successful way, for a time, like "Mr. Bluebeard," piling up profits and bringing joy to the hearts of managers and owners and continued employment to the players. Yet even then all is not as roseate as might be thought from a casual glance taken from the front. There are epidemics, railroad accidents, hotel fires and all manner of emergencies to be considered, not to speak of the one-night stand.
THE ONE-NIGHT STAND.
Of all the terrors the actor faces the one-night stand is the worst. That is the technical name applied to the city or town where the company lights for a single performance as it flits across the continent. It is almost impossible to so route an attraction that its time will be placed exclusively in large cities, so they fall back on the one-night stand. Imagine the joy of leaving Chicago Sunday morning, playing at SouthChicago Sunday afternoon and evening, taking a train after the performance and jogging into Michigan City, Ind., with the early dawn, catching a bit of sleep during the day, playing at night and skipping out for Logansport. With the same programme at Logansport, Fort Wayne, Richmond, and Lima, Mansfield or Dayton, Ohio, the company is within striking distance of Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville or Indianapolis, as its bookings may elect. And that is precisely what they all do. This is a sample week. It is not an uncommon thing for a big attraction to cover two or three weeks of unbroken one-night stands, and those going to and from the Pacific coast are often compelled to play four and five, without the friendly relief of an engagement covering a week.
Truly life under these circumstances is a horror. Train-worn, broken in rest, with scarcely opportunity to unpack to change their linen, such weeks mean to the performer an existence not calculated to tempt recruits to the profession. To the principal, stopping at the best hotels and making use of sleeping cars whenever possible, it is wearing enough and a burden. To the chorus girl, it is a hideous nightmare. Out of her meager salary she must pay during such weeks from $1.25 to $1.75 a day for hotel accommodations that are far from tempting. She is driven to resort to sleepers through self-preservation at an average of $2 a night for long night trips, and her laundry and other incidental expenses mount up into startling figures. Her clothing is ruined by almost ceaseless crushing aboard trains, and unless she be thoroughly broken to such a life she is wrecked physically.