Bangor, Maine Destroyed by Fire

A great travesty struck Bangor, Maine yesterday as a fast-moving fire swept through the Business district and last night swept through a residential district on the town's north side. At least three people have been killed according to this evening's edition of the Washington Times and scores injured by the intense flames that were kicked up by high winds in the region. This morning's Washington Herald counts the dead at two. This latest fiery tragedy comes on the heels of a number of deadly conflagrations experienced this year, including Triangle Waistshirt Factory fire that killed nearly 150, a fire that destroyed the New York State Capitol, and another that destroyed Nationals Park where the Washington Nationals play baseball.

The fire started at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon in a hay shed at the corner of Broad and Union Streets, near the junction of the Panobscot River and Kenduskeag Creek, and was pushed into the rest of the business district, containing a number of government buildings, by high winds. The fire spread north flamed by a southerly breeze, and destroyed a number of prominent buildings, including the Morse-Oliver building where firefighter John Wiltshire was struck by a falling wall. While he recovered and was seen at a third-story window, the floor collapsed. The two identified dead, according to the Washington Times were George Abbott of Brewer, Maine, who was killed by a falling chimney, and firefighter John Scribner who was killed in the Morse-Oliver Building, The public library, several buildings of Bangor High School, the Post Office, the depot of the Maine Central, the Bangor News building, Norumbega Hall, the Fairbanks & Co. plant, and the Windsor Hotel were all destroyed by the fire.

Washington newspapers today estimate the cost of the damages from the fire to be around $10,000,000 and more than 3,000 people are homeless today as a result. A great number of firefighters and state militia were called in overnight to aid the overstretched city services in order to combat the fire and potential looting.

Firefighters attempted to control the blaze by dynamiting a block near Hammond and Central Streets but this failed to contain the fire as the fire also spread more to the south, pushed by winds of its own creation.

The Washington Herald reported that a light rain began to fall overnight, and that helped to contain the fire early this morning, according to the Washington Times.

Link: Three Dead and Millions Lost in Bangor Fire [The Washington Times]
Link: Bangor is Swept by Fire causing $6,000,000 Loss [The Washington Herald]

Triangle Tragedy . . . Continued

Yesterday, according to the Bisbee Daily Review, the two owners of the Triangle Waist  Company were charged with 2 separate counts of manslaughter. While I applaud the grand jury for recognizing the complicity of these men, I am appalled that they were not charged with 154 counts, one for every person who died in that great tragedy! Moreover, I rebuke the manslaughter charges and assert they should be charged with murder!

These two men were well aware of the dangers of their factory. They set up the facility, they knew what could go wrong, yet they chose not to fix it. They chose to place profit over the safety of their workers. In my mind this is far more than causing death through reckless action, this is out and out murder. They made conscious choices that resulted in the death of 154 people. Moreover the fact that they were only charged with 2 counts instead of the full 154 just goes to show how much the State doesn't want to charge these men with anything. If the state wanted to solve the problem, they would have charged the men for all the counts.

They were even released on bail yesterday. $25,000 purchased these men's freedom. That is the price for killing 154 individuals! The existence of bail in our so-called "justice system" just further shows the influence of the Capitalists on the state. For a price, criminals can be freed. For a price, they can avoid justice for a little longer. For a price, they can be above the laws they craft.

The bigger issue here, however, is how this tragedy is being dealt with. Instead of having workers coming together and fixing the problems themselves, via direct action, they are waiting, content for the crumbs the Capitalist State will feed them. Comrades, waiting is not how this problem will get fixed! Until we all are directly involved; until the capitalists are removed and all property socialized; until the state removed so they can't reassert hegemony, we will suffer these tragedies again and again. It is not a matter of if, but when! Only by removing the hierarchy supporting the capitalists, by casting out the capitalists, and by eradicating the concept of property, can we fix these problems. Only then can we all be not only free, but also safe from the greed of the few. Anarchy and Equality, comrades!

Factory Owners Are Charged With Crime Of Manslaughter [Bisbee Daily Review]

Yet Another Textile Factory Fire

In Baltimore today, there was yet another fire at a textile factory. Surprise, surprise, the primary employees at the Hopkins Tailoring Company and the surrounding business were women. While the 25 women in the building that was set ablaze did manage to escape without serious harm, several were forced to crawl along a ledge to safety. Unfortunately, the 200-plus women from the surrounding business panicked and fled into the street, where they greatly impeded the work of the firefighters with their sheer numbers. Coming just days after the deadly blaze in New York, this rash of textile fires is greatly imperiling working class women.

Even more disturbing is the public response, however. The article reporting this in the Washington Times seemed much more concerned that the chief of the Fire Department has to go home ill than that 25 women's lives were put in jeopardy. As if the lives of 25 women are completely unimportant when compared to the exertion of a statist dog. This cannot stand! We as a society are responsible for the lives of our workers, be they men or women, and must work to protect them. We must demand serious action be taken, to stop these sorts of accidents and prevent any more lives from being threatened. We must act to remind the Capitalists we are people too and that we won't lay down our lives for their profit.

A failure to respond to this developing string of conflagrations of women's workplaces will just serve to embolden the Capitalists already exploiting these women. They will attempt to get by with the minimum safety features necessary, as money spent on safety doesn't go into their pocket books. Thus, a decisive response is necessary to remind Management they need us, and if we aren't happy, nothing will be made. To that end we must speak out, and organize committees to inform our individual employers of our demands for safer working environments. If we don't, I fear this will just keep on happening, possibly with dire consequences. To that end, talk with your coworkers, comrades, decide what needs done and do it as a cohesive unit. Together we have the power and can prevent this type of tragedy. Together we can build a better tomorrow. Together we can be truly free. No Gods, No Masters!

Girls In Factory Creep On Ledges To Escape Flames [The Washington Times]

Fire Devastates New York State Capitol

In what is becoming a rather sad trend here, it is time to cover yet another devastating fire.  This time, a massive fire occurred yesterday morning at the New York State Capitol in Albany.  The cost of the damages in the fire is thought to exceed $5,000,000.  In comparison, the whole building has a relative cost of $27,000,000.  This does not include the immeasurable cost of the loss of important records, papers, and books consumed by the fire.

The fire began shortly after 2 a.m. yesterday morning on the northwest side of the building in the Assembly library and quickly spread across the capitol's west side, devastating the State Library.  The New York Tribune stated that more than 600,000 volumes were archived in the library that occupied the heavily hit third and fourth floors.  The assembly chamber itself was only lightly affected by flames but smoke and water damage was high.  A large brass and crystal chandelier in the Assembly chamber was destroyed when it crashed to the floor, demolishing many Assemblymen's desks as a result.  The Senate chamber suffered light smoke and water damage.

The state legislature will be meeting in the Albany city hall until the capitol can be repaired to the point that it can be reoccupied.

The fire and water, in addition to damaging a number of offices of New York state officials (like the lieutenant Governor, the State Lunacy Commission, and the State Treasurer), caused significant structural damage.  In particular, the large tower on the building's heavily damaged southwest corner caved in.

Governor John Dix released a statement yesterday on the disaster:

It is an appalling disaster.  I consider the destruction of the state library a national loss.  Fortunately the copies of Abraham Lincoln's emancipation proclamation and General Washington's farewell address were removed not long ago from the library to the safe in Commissioner Draper's office.

Repair work is expected to begin as soon as the Legislature approves making plans and contracts, according to the State Architect Franklin Ware.  Work began on the construction of the capitol in 1867 but the legislature didn't use the building until 1879.  Ultimately, the building cost two and half times the Capitol building in Washington.

The only known victim of the fire is night watchman Samuel Abbott, a Civil War veteran, who is still missing.

Early speculation as to the cause of the fire is centered around "defective insulation of an electric light wire near a book case in the Assembly library", according to Dwight Goewey, a 17 year old proofreader who discovered the fire.

Link: Capitol at Albany Swept By Flames [The New York Tribune]
Link: $5,000,000 Fire Damages New York Capitol [The Bisbee Daily Review]

Terror and Heroism as 142 die in NYC Factory Fire

Horror struck New York City just before closing time yesterday as a fire broke out on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the Asch Building, home to the Triangle Waist Company.  According to one of its owners, Max Blanck, in a statement to the press this morning, 750 people were employed by the company, two-thirds of them women between the ages of eighteen and thirty.  Of those, 142 were confirmed dead by Coroner Weston at the Charities Department dock on East 26th Street.  Of the 100 or so bodies that had arrived at the morgue by 10pm, 33 remain unidentified.  The Triangle Waist Company produced shirtwaists, a popular type of buttoned down, women's blouse.

The horrific tragedy, the worst fire disaster since the Slocum steamboat burned on the east river on June 15, 1904, began at 4:40pm yesterday afternoon as the factory began to file past the cashiers to pick up their pay.  The fire broke out on the eighth floor of the building and, thanks to the many flammable materials in the factory, quickly spread to the ninth and tenth floors.  Due to a horrible oversight and potentially gross negligence, only one fire escape to an interior courtyard was available to those in the factory and that was made less than adequate by poor design and the fact that the windows to the fire escape were barred.  Many of the workers, most of them Jewish or Italian immigrants, escaped via two elevators.

However, these escapes provided too little relief to the raging inferno that ingulfed the factory.  Many victims died clawing their way to these meager escapes and at least 50 resorted to another means of relief, the windows facing Washington Place.  At least one woman, Bertha Weintrup, survived the fall from a 10th floor window, however the rest were not so lucky.  On-lookers in Washington Place were gripped by the horror of watching woman after woman, many with clothes ripped off during the mad scramble to escape the flames, some even on fire, fall to their deaths.  In one case, a woman who escaped via the elevators was struck and killed by a falling body as she left the burning building.  Some women who tried to flee the flames via the windows managed to climb out on to a ledge at the base of the windows, but ultimately lost their grip or were accidentally pushed by the throng on panic-stricken women behind them.

The lone fire escape in the interior of the building was not much comfort.  Due to poor design, the escapes stairs ended at the buildings second floor.  Worse still was the fact that every window facing the fire escape from the eighth floor down as closed.  The mass of men and women who tried to use the escape forced many to either leap of 25 feet from the base of the escape or use a series of wires at the second floor level to crawl over to one of the open windows to safety.  Unfortunately, only six or seven of the 50 or so people who tried this method of the escape succeeded.  Many fell to the courtyard below where some either drowned in the six feet of water that quick filled the airshaft or impaled themselves on metal spikes that topped a concrete dividing wall.  The crush of humanity on the fire escape forced many to make life or death decision before it could be properly thought out.

Amidst the tragedy and horror of the fire, heroes did rise up.  A group of law students in an adjacent building managed to carry ladders up the School of Law and Commerce of the New York University in Washington Square.  They, along with firemen, used the ladders to bridge the gap between the two buildings, allowing at least 50 women to escape the flames.  Many others lost their lives as well as the crush of people trying to save themselves knocked them off the ladder, landing in the flooded courtyard below.  The effort had to be suspended after flames reached the university building.  More ladders were found in the building and these allowed women on the roof of the Asch Building to be rescued.  In another case of heroism, a man only identified as Gregory took control of an elevator abandoned on the ground floor by its operator and made at least ten trips to the tenth floor, carry 30 women on each trip.  Gregory slipped back into the crowd surrounding the building before he could be interviewed by the press. In another case, a patrolman managed to catch a small boy who had lept from an eighth floor window.

While victims continue to be identified in the East 26th Street morgue, authorities are promising a thorough investigation both into the cause of the fire and into why so many people died in the fire or trying to escape it.  While the former has not be speculated on, both Fire Chief Croker and borough president George McAneny stated that the lack of proper fire escapes and sprinkler systems contributed to the massive loss of life.   Coroner Holtzhauser told the New York Tribune:

I am going to find out who is responsible for this carnage and put the blame where it belongs.  It is awful to think that these poor girls went to work this morning, being carried up the elevators, only to finish their work by being taken from the building dead and mutilated.

Borough President McAneny stated that he would look into whether any complaints had been made about inadequate fire escapes for the building.  "If this structure where a fireproof loft building, as I have been told, fire escapes were not compulsory.  If, however, it was a factory building, then to comply with the law there should have been fire escapes."  Fire Chief Croker was more adamant about fire safety violations inside the building:

This calamity is just what I have been predicting.  There were no outside fire escapes on this building.  I have been advocating and agitating that fire escapes be put on building just such as this.  This large loss of life is due to this neglect.

The building did have one other means of escape, a stairwell in back of the building.  Chief Croker stated that the door to the stairway was closed.  A pile of bodies six feet high was found on the other side.  He believes that if this stairwell had been used by those trying escape the fire, the death toll would not have been nearly as high.

The owners of the company that was destroyed by the fire, the Triangle Waist Co.'s Max Blanck and Issac Harris in a statement issued to the press this morning, stated that they were still missing several relatives due to the fire, like Blanck's brother-in-law Jacob Bernstein and cousin William Selzer and Harris's niece Esther.

Veronica Stirnitzke should provide an opinion piece on the fire tomorrow.

Link: More than 140 Die as Flames Sweep Through Three Stories of Factory Building in Washington Place [The New York Tribune]
Link: Thousands Fight to Claim Fire Victims [The Washington Times]
Link: 150 Perish in Most Sickening Holocaust [The Bisbee Daily Review]
Link: 142 Die when Shirtwaist Factory Burns [The Washington Herald]

National Park, Home of Baseball's Washington Nationals, Destroyed in Fire

The home of the American League's Washington Nationals, National Park, was destroyed in a fire yesterday morning.  The fire started at 11:30 am local, reducing the grand stands and other associated building to debris and ashes and spreading to a nearby lumber yard owned by the Eisinger Bros. company.  The fire comes just three weeks before the Nationals are expected to start their season at home against the Boston Red Sox.  The cost of the damage to the two properties is estimated at $25,000.

A few hours after the disaster, Thomas Noyes, the president of the Washington Nationals, announced that a new, steel structures would be constructed as soon as possible to replace the destroyed, wooden bleachers.  "Without a moment's delay, we formulated a course of action," Noyes told the Washington Herald.  "Speed was imperative, for, with a game for April 12 [opening day against Boston], and with Washington fandom depending upon us, we realized that not a moment was to be lost."

The team has hired a crew to begin work this morning to clear out the debris left by the fire.  A group of structural steel engineers from the Osborn Steel Company of Cleveland, Ohio will begin working on plans today for building new, steel grandstands and bleachers.  Actual construction work should begin within two weeks.  By opening day on April 12, it is hoped that the construction will be far enough along that temporary seats can be put in place to allow spectators to see their Washington Nationals take on the Red Sox.  American League president Ban Johnson is expected in Washington tomorrow to discuss the team's plans to quickly replace the damaged stadium.  When completed, the new stadium should be able to seat 15,000 spectators, twice the capacity of the old, wooden stadium.

While construction is underway, the Nationals, after returning from training camp in Atlanta, will likely play their exhibition games at either Union League Park, Fifteenth and H Streets northeast, or on the White Lot.  Nationals Manager Jimmy McAleer told reporters at Nationals training camp in Atlanta that he would be opposed to playing at Union League Park if the new National Park is not ready by opening day.  Instead, he would support changing the team's home games in April to road games, start the season at Boston.  He then suggested starting home games in June.  We will certainly have to see if the new stadium can be constructed in time.

Link: Steel Stands to be Erected at Ball Park [The Washington Herald]
Link: Grandstands and Bleachers Go in Mysterious Fire at Ball Grounds [The Washington Times]
Link: Big Fire at Baseball Park is Talk of Nationals' Training Camp [The Washington Herald]