The Blue Collar Titanic That Killed Over 800 | Eastland: The Shipwreck That Shook America | Timeline

[Music] here's this massive loss of life right here downtown Chicago in the middle of the city and nobody I know knows about it such a horrific part of Chicago's history there are people who are born here that have never heard about it it was the blue collar Titanic safety was just utterly disregarded the owners knew that they had an unstable ship look how she's tipping 844 bodies he dove into that water people started calling him the human frog there was no Iceberg no torpedo someone surely did something wrong and yet somehow graft [Music] corruption it's Chicago you know somebody got [Music] paid in the summer of 1915 a disturbing newsreel opened in theaters worldwide it showed images of lifeless bodies recovered from a capsized passenger ship hundreds of women and children who drowned in the Chicago river that ran through the cities downtown but audiences in Chicago never saw any of it local sensors banned the city's theaters from showing any newsreel of this disaster over time copies of the film were presumed lost and the disaster faded from memory only recently have these scenes been found and the shameful truth has resurfaced by 1915 nearly half of the people living in New York Chicago and Boston were recent immigrants from Europe the US was immersed in a wave of new arrivals they were polish they were Bohemian they were Italian they were Irish they were Swedish they were Germans they were you and me they were everybody they were the people who built Chicago they were on their first rung of the ladder on the way up 70% of the immigrants were coming from Southern and Eastern Europe many of the 9 million immigrants admitted through Ellis Island in just 10 years traveled West in drones and double Chicago's population making it the fourth largest city in the world much of it due to an influx of Eastern Europeans they lived kind of Unto themselves in a little Enclave in the western part of the city these workers were mostly Bohemians they were called at the time which were cchs and they had come to the promised land and in the Chicago suburb of Hawthorne later known as Cicero thousands of workers at the huge Western Electric Factory were bringing vacuum cleaners washing machines and telephones into the electrical home of the 20th century it was called the Hawthorne works it had developed into practically a city within a city it was the Silicon Valley of its day mostly because in this enormous Factory they were making the housings and winding the cables for this new technology the factory that provided telephones and cables for a voice Highway across the US opened in 1905 with 2,000 employees in 10 years the workforce grew to 20,000 making it Chicago's largest private employer though employees jokingly called their workplace the Bohemian bastile they bonded through Social Clubs enjoyed noontime concerts that attracted large crowds and competed on athletic teams of all kinds they worked side by side in a facility with its own fire brigade and a building and Loan Association that financed construction of a dozen new homes each month for employees and their families on July 24th 1915 Chicago's deadliest day began with a picnic planned at a huge park across Lake Michigan at least 7,000 people had tickets to get there by steamship and when they had an opportunity to go to this celebratory event especially the single people they dressed to the nines they wore their Sunday B families were especially encouraged to bring their children to the picnic I was 10 years old I was with my brother-in-law who worked at the Western and my sister and I the three of us our grandmother borill uh who everyone called Bobby was 13 she was with her younger sister solv who was nine they were with their mother Maryanne and her brother Olaf everyone is out on the streets taking the sidewalks walking in the street standing and waiting for the elevated train or the street cars because they want to be the first to the dock they want to be on the first boat the first steamship boarding passengers was the Eastland I can only imagine the excitement that Bobby and little solig must have felt as they approached the dock and saw this huge ship this was very very thrilling for everybody that was the first time that they would have been that close to a boat that size which was massive the Eastland was one of five steamships that lined the dock that morning all of them chartered by a Western Electric employee group called the Hawthorne Club Bobby anad could hardly wait to explore the Eastland with her little sister Bobby was just an amazing energetic spirited young girl's to the K of the bo e land when on land it is hot there's a cool greasy spot on the boat East land across the lake practically all 15,000 towns people in Michigan City Indiana prepared their magnificent park for the grand picnic Michigan city was becoming a tourist Hub the crowds were huge you could have up to 10,000 people down here at the lakefront On Any Given weekend had uh amusement park we had Electric Carousel we had a roller coaster we had a little steam engine train that would take you through the park you could Bowl you could dance there would be contests it'd be athletic events the Western Electric band would March over with the Franken Street Bridge there were a lot of ladies working at Western Electric at the time women's suffer Jets were becoming extremely popular and towering over a line of railroad box cars stood the Park's tallest attraction we also had a large uh sandom called hoer slide there was a dune about 200t high and you could for 3 cents rent a piece of burlap and walk up and slide down families old people babies and arms pouring onto this ship to the point where it filled up almost immediately something like between 50 and 100 people a minute the ticket takers they weren't even counting babies and small children they just wanted to load the boat as fast as possible few noticed a steady stream of ballast water being pumped out the Eastlands Captain Harry Pon wanted to raise the extremely low entrances into the ship so passengers could board more easily across the gang plank but ordering chief engineer Joseph Erikson to pump out all of the ballast set the Eastland precariously high in the water when Bobby and her family first boarded she saw a lot of people a lot of people so then they went inside the boat and went down into the cabin level this is where they encountered the beautiful burnished autra mons of the middle part of this ship it was just a gorgeous boat especially to a a 13-year-old Norwegian immigrant girl once they boarded the ship and found seating on a middle deck our great grandmother maranne had said that she didn't like the feel of the ship Maryanne sensed something was wrong immediately down in the engine room Erikson who managed the steadiness of the Eastland watched a plumbob device called an inclinometer swing toward the [Music] dock he ordered a valve open to fill ballast tanks on the side facing the river to level the ship the Misty morning turned into a light rid the weather wasn't a picnic weather it was kind of drizzling so to get out of the drizzle they went below decks where it got very crowded so crowded that inside the east's narrow dark corridors passengers had no idea how packed the ship became nor the potential dangers that surrounded them this photograph taken just 6 days before the picnic shows more lifeboats and life rafts recently piled on the top deck than she'd ever carried that summer and the owners had added even even more weight 50 tons of concrete poured over a rotting upper deck a few months before together the weight of the lifeboats and concrete increased the chance that the ship would capsize it was a disaster waiting to happen within the next minute the Eastland would be underway with more tons of lifeboats concrete and Humanity than she'd ever carried before 2500 people were on board that ship now the guys with their little clickers said that's it this boat is filled to capacity they pulled the gang planks now the ship is ready to put out but then something strange started to happen the ship started listing the other way toward the river but they were so in a festive mood that many of the people started to make fun of the listing that the boat would lean out toward the port side and they would go woo and then it would lean back and more people would go wo and then they clap that's how oblivious they were to their Doom the captain coming he says well I don't think we should leave yet we've got to straighten this boat out my grandfather knew that the ship was in trouble took my grandmother over to a stable uh ladder and said no matter what happens hang on to this now Ericson started to fill ballast tanks on the dock side and the ship began straightening up in the Pilot House Captain pon signaled standby to the engine room alerting Erikson that the ship was about to leave the dock Pon hoped that the Eastland would become more stable once she got underway was like a two- wheel bicycle the two wheel bicycle is a little wobbly until you start to get to a certain speed and then it's solid as a rock with bow line still tied the stern lines were thrown off but the Eastland continued to seesaw I heard look out she's tipping the world toppled sideways absolute Pandemonium the floor literally became the wall the port holes became skylights water gushed in it was a torture chamber at that moment there was an immediate survival Instinct going on especially for the unot her mother is screaming Olaf is clawing to help svig and Bobby kept it together Bobby was taught to swim by a childhood friend Ernie Carlson and the thing he taught her which is so poignant is he taught her how to tread water and she's doing it like a champ Uncle Olaf saw a great grandmother being pulled under by someone trying to clamor their way up a lot of men were pulling women under to try and save themselves but not all men were cowards discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and AdFree podcasts presented by world-renowned historians all from history hit watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device download the app now to explore everything from the wonders of ancient Pompei and the Mystery of the princes in the tower to the life of Anne Balin and D-Day sign up via the link in the description my grandfather was one of hundreds of Heroes that day when the boat tipped over I went down and I saved three girls he found this one woman found another woman went back a third time found another woman brought her to safety I remember those three girls gave me a gold presented to John Peterson from the Grateful survivors of the Eastland wreck Anna Burns Alice Nelson and Selma Peterson Bobby said that there was great relief being able to look up through that port hole and see the sky and I think that gave her inspiration and hope they were trapped in this inner compartment for quite a few hours through the day and finally pulled to safety by rope through the port hole passengers on the starboard side closest to the dock were the luckiest they walked across a makeshift Bridge of tugboats scarcely getting their feet wet there was a fellow there was stuck with a cane he couldn't get over and we pushed him over once he got over onto the hull of the ship why you were safe something prompted me to put my arm up and somebody back of me pushed me over that railing I didn't look down down into the pork hole and I could see the hands they were grasping something that frightened me bystanders knew they had to do something so they just looked around and started grabbing things to throw into the water wooden crates and barrels they were striking people as well knocking them unconscious or Worse many of the immigrants never learned how to swim because it wasn't in their culture to take swimming lessons this was a huge factor in the death toll of the Eastland disaster [Music] people were struggling in the water clutching at anything they could reach pulling each other down and screaming the screaming was the most horrible of all Helen repa Helen repa worked for Western Electric as a nurse she was a force of nature talk about a badass this woman hopped on the back of an ambulance rode down to the river just clicked into nurse mode I started working to resuscitate those who were unconscious but a crowd of willing but ignorant volunteers kept getting in the way she knew they needed a place to be able to attend to the people who still had a chance they needed a field Hospital Helen repa convinced warehouse workers across the river to open their doors for victims repa then went to the nearest hospital underst staffed with just two nurses and there are people everywhere they're drenched they're in shock and there are no blankets left so Helen said to one of the nurses call Marshall Fields we need 500 blankets right away and build that to Western Electric then Rea flag down anyone with a car to take the less injured home no one turned her away she's this young woman who doesn't wait around for somebody to tell her what to do the newspaper reporters found her she had collapsed at the end of the day she was so exhausted helping people when I started out in the morning I had on a white uniform and white shoes by noon but with dressing wounds and kneeling on the dock I was covered with blood stains and caked with mud from head to [Music] foot miles from the scene a young man was repairing a motorcycle Charles Reginald Elias BS but he went by regy unless of course he was going by Daredevil Rex re e g g i e pronounced with the hard G and he lived his life with a hard G this was a young kid who was a rascal he was in trouble all the time and he had the heart of a hero he was Fearless there must have been a big human and cry that went out over the city well he wanted in on the action he wanted to be immortalized in his heroics and he was a good swimmer so regy uh jumped on a motorcycle and raced down through the streets of Chicago the police had cordoned it off and wouldn't let him through so he punched the cup and busted through the line I don't imagine that the cops took kindly to being punched and they were probably in Pursuit so so quick thinking as he was when he got down to the water he dove into the river and started finding Pathways into the ship to look for air pockets and look for survivors reggy BS could hold his breath for three and a half minutes during this time Harry Houdini was popular and a superstar and he was known to be able to hold his breath for four minutes and that was considered inhumanly long what riy described to me was that he was looking for survivors he's bringing them to the surface and handing them up to the respon responders and Diving back down and finding some more it's one thing to recover people and bring them up who are who may still be alive and presumably that's his initial impulse but after a certain amount of time he spends much of that day diving in and just recovering bodies that have already expired they tried to stop him at some point because they were afraid he was obviously going to get ill or collaps and he just was so fervently determined to keep going on he could bring as many people up as possible police had to literally drag reggae out of the water and they had to take him into custody just for his own protection and it was sometime around this point when people started calling him the human frog reggy never referred to himself as the human frog he said he was a very good swimmer but I think that he was a little bit embarrassed about it but hundreds of those below decks were trapped many of them crushed to death under the weight of their fellow passengers divers each one wearing nearly 200 lb of lead boots weight belts and a helmet searched for victims in near total darkness deep inside the ship the Eastland rolled over within blocks of Seven Chicago Daily newspapers including the Chicago heral had published 14 editions some just 1 hour apart with new developments this early version of social media brought the world and Citywide events to everyone's doorstep radio would not come to Chicago for another 6 years that morning the editor of the Chicago Evening Post couldn't find his only photographer 26-year-old June fueta who'd been at the paper for less than a year calling him at his house was an answering uh frantic U turns out June was already there and immediately started capturing pictures June fito was was the first Japanese photojournalist in Chicago and he had the the big heavy camera clearly he was anticipating where he needed to be to take the right picture at the right time he literally got photographs of the inside of the ship the divers the faces the pain there's the the photograph of of the firemen holding the lifeless body of a young child and the the moment of horror in the in the face of the eyes you can't escape the look clearly he identified with the victims of the Eastland I think as immigrants they shared a common story of coming over looking for something in America and here he is himself witnessing an opportunity ending for the victims of the Eastland a reporter asked him if he knew anyone who drowned in the disaster and June replied no I didn't know anyone who drowned but I do all of them the poet Carl sanberg who had described Chicago the year before as hog butcher for the world and city of the big shoulders was working as a reporter that day he described the ship on its side like a dead jungle monster shot through the [Music] heart more than a dozen Chicago newspapers serving the Polish Czech and other communi brought details of the disaster to those most directly affected large headlines told the rest of the world so did personal letters dear sister-in-law and family I slipped and went down but managed to clutch something when rescued with a rope they found Anna about 5:00 Hazel and Clifford about 9:30 a.m. the next day and Kora about 2:30 that afternoon John and I were the only ones saved Edward Stan others told stories of how they just missed boarding the easeland my father got on the boat and realized that he didn't have any cigars and so he got off the darn boat and got the cigars and he turned around saw the boat begin to go over and the thing that he always reminded us was that smoking was good for you because it had saved his life and long before George H founded the Chicago Bears and National Football League halice was a skinny 20-year-old summer hire at Western Electric his brother Frank was helping him gain weight to play college football he asked my grandfather to get on the scale before he left to get on board the Eastland and the delay ended up saving my grandfather's life Captain Harry Pon remained calm Pon had been a captain for 15 years but most of his experience had been aboard cargo ships and Yachts the Eastland was his first large passenger ship he was steady right up until things got dicey and then Harry Peterson revealed other sides of himself welders nearby were told people are dying inside this overturned Hall my grandfather he was working about a block away uh he was an iron worker he ran with another fellow worker to the scene with his equipment and was able to get on the side of the ship and then started cutting holes at that point Pon who's watching all this rushed in and physically physically tried to take these welders and pull them away because he believed they were going to ruin his ship and the crowd saw this and it began what could have ended up as a riot so at that point the chief of police realizes I have to step in and the police surround Pon and they say we're going to have to bring you in for your own protection and Pon proceeds to say these words which are in the historic record and say a lot about what is about to happen he says I will not be the goat I think what peton meant by that is that there were those who deserve blame for this and it's not him and he's not going to protect them peton knew what the owners had done all in the name of profit it was strange how many of them drowned hanging tight to some object below water I'd F around in the water until my bike hook something I got so I could tell it was a body I get the pie cooked in their clothing fetch them up my mate would tie a rope around them and pull them out Harry Miller eastand Dean my Uncle Frank never forgot the sight of all those babies floating in the the water Chicago city workers reduced the current of the Chicago River and hung Nets in the water despite these precautions a body was found 5 days later 3 mil Downstream all the bodies carried past were so rigid that poles to carry them seemed Superfluous Gretchen cron Chicago Gretchen cron had just graduated from the unity Unity of Illinois her emotional account of what she saw was published in the New York Times and syndicated Nationwide an unusual accomplishment for women reporters often relegated to fashion and Society reviews everything oozed moisture the rain ran down the rubber coats of The Rescuers the policemen carrying the stretchers had no free hands to wipe away the perspiration that streamed down their Crimson faces a lot of people came down to the site of the Eastland disaster to look at the Carnage just out of sheer morbid curiosity policemen were trying to hold these crowds back with rope lines even using their own bodies to keep people out of the rescue and Recovery efforts an office janitor on North lasal Street draped a sandwich board over his shoulders it read see them take the bodies from the Eastland from this building sixth floor a large number of gawkers paid him 10 cents for a spot on the roof until police officers chased them away Josephine sindelar's watch stopped at 7:31 Rescuers found it around her neck at the bottom of the Eastland grand staircase newspaperman called the death stairs when the ship tipped over these stairs became a deadly bottleneck at the bottom of those death stairs there was an entire family together crushed in an Embrace they were the sylars the father George the mother Josephine and five children they came to represent the 22 entire families who had died in the disaster the temporary morg set up in a grocery warehouse across the river was run out of space coffins to handle the Overflow sat in a tent outside the bodies of the sindelar and hundreds more were brought to the second Illinois regiment Armory 15 blocks away it was here at Josephine sindelar's watch gave relatives the confirmation they feared it was recovered from her body when they pulled her out of the water this watch is our reminder of where we came from our family story Coming to America the Bohemian side on the great drill floor over 700 bodies were laid out outside a great crowd packed the streets for two blocks in each Direction sometimes the screams and sobbing of those waiting outside the Armory penetrated to the interior of the building in spite of the solid brick walls the New York Times they laid the bodies out in rows of 85 over there think about being the Widow who's home with the children having to come and look for your husband in row after row after row of bodies survivors who cheated death once now had to stare it down again in the faces of loved ones but even in the morg Chicago's Sinister side slipped in with the MERS one of the more shocking aspects was the petty crime that was going on there there were pickpockets sneaking into the morg and stealing valuables off of the victims the thievery and disruptions led the coroner to close the Armory with five bodies still unidentified one of them a little boy known only as number 396 for all the victims which were numbered number 396 was the saddest story of them all number 396 they came to call Little Feller he had not been identified the boy was dressed in a new brown suit a distraught grandmother brought the suit's second pair of identical brown pants to morticians and she said to them if the boy is wearing these pants it's Willie the pants matched Willie nney had just turned seven and the reason nobody came to claim him is because his whole family sorry perished Willie nney became an icon of Sorrow they had a Citywide funeral the governor came the Statewide Regiment of Boy Scouts marched in this funeral for little Feller for Willie nney and it really encapsulates the true tragedy of the Eastland disaster more than 5,000 people attended Willie neat's funeral in including Chicago's mayor William Big Bill Thompson 13,000 followed the procession to the cemetery Chicago felt empty cisero was all but wiped out I mean nobody was able to go to work there wasn't anybody to go to work it wasn't just cisero it was Berwin it was the west side of Chicago but the Solace Chicago sought did not last long as coverage of the tragedy turned from somber to Sensational within a week lurid scenes of the disaster appeared in theater newsreels advertisements promised Vivid and terribly realistic close-up views revolting scenes but Chicago mayor William Thompson barred public showings of the news reels despite theater owners who insisted that ticket sales would raise relief funds for families of victims [Music] the city was not prepared for 844 funerals at once the Staggering number overwhelmed local morticians in 1915 there were no big funeral homes there may have been like one Undertaker for each of the ethnic groups The Undertaker went to church with with them the Undertaker belonged to the same Lodge that they went to so you chose the Undertaker whom you knew and you trusted the Bohemian Community trusted Otto Mna he went to the site and moved the bodies for the coroner to the Armory then prepare them for services he worked his horses into such a lather that they broke down and he kept working until he could barely move just a lot of work I mean it had to be done rapidly well laying these bodies out in their caskets until the city of 2 and A2 million people ran out of caskets but on West Jackson Street there wasn't enough room for a funeral at the sindelar home seven caskets crisscrossed on an open car were brought to the Masonic temple on South Oakley Boulevard it's just devastating to see that picture the kids you know you're not supposed to bury your children children certainly aren't supposed to be buried with their parents all at the same time it's just it's just the saddest thing on the day 700 victims were laid to rest funeral processions passed One Another Western Electric along with Department Store Marshall Fields and other businesses donated cars and trucks as herses at St Mary's of chest aova serving Hawthorne's large Polish [Music] Community 21 priests read scripture before 29 caskets that rested across the pews it would be known as black [Music] Wednesday life among the living stopped also the Western Electric Plant was silent at kamsky Park the Chicago white sock coaches and players cancelled their double header with the New York Yankees across the lake in Michigan City every shred of the planed picnic was destroyed after they heard the tragic news uh they took the decorations down to the beach and they burned them so that there would not be any morbid [Music] souvenirs [Music] public grief soon turned to anger reflected in Daily newspapers many believed that the Eastland had been overloaded with too many people in the name of greed immediately seven investigations began from local police to the US Commerce Department ship owners took the offensive claiming that the crowd of passengers had rushed to one side causing the Eastland to tip there was no Grand Rush of passengers to one side or the other the idea that passengers were rushing to one side was actually Advanced initially by the company by the Eastland owners their thought was we'll pin the blame on the passengers not on the ship it was an easier way to deal with the guilt to pretend that it was someone else's fault the rumor was false refuted by passengers just 2 days afterward who said such action would have been impossible we were packed on board too closely to budge prosecutors claimed that it wasn't the added weight on top instead they argued that the hidden truth beneath the Eastland seawing would be found at the bottom of the ship where the ballast tanks had been emptied [Music] completely the Eastland had been designed by 30-year-old Sydney jenx he' built cargo ships but had never designed a passenger ship before the difference would be deadly Sydney Jens designed a ship that was effectively a cargo ship when he was asked specifically by contract to make a passenger ship jenx designed Eastland with only one water ballast valve to control stability adequate for crates of cargo that stayed in place below decks but incapable of keeping up with passengers moving about this is not a Nimble system it is not designed for the Dynamics of passengers constantly moving between decks one side to the other any of that with more passengers boarding quicker than ever crewman and the ballor system were overwhelmed the ship had loaded so fast it was beyond the capacity of them to to balance the ship there was a mariner who's reflecting on the Eastland and he said you know ships will tip the Eastland leaned and I think that's a big difference because what a ship will do it will naturally roll it will tip to one side and it'll come back and it'll tip and it'll come back theand leaned and sat [Music] there it took Salvage crws with a powerful tug 2 weeks to lift the Eastland off its side the job cost nearly the total value of the wrecked ship once the salvage company and large creditors took their shares small creditors were left holding unpaid receipts victim's families got nothing from the Eastlands owners families appealed to Western Electric but the company absolved itself of liability claiming that the steamer had been chartered by employees themselves through a group called the Hawthorne Club not Western Electric court documents reveal how strongly the company fought litigation Western Electric denies that it provided the steamer Eastland for carriage and den ized that it invited them to board claims of nearly $9 million 10,000 for each human life we [Music] dismissed according to victim's families female employees said supervisors forced them to buy tickets to attend the picnic threatening to fire them if they refused they said I have to go I have no choice I'll lose my job if I don't go that's why there were so many women on the Eastland because there was a big Beauty parade that was going to be held first thing they knew that they would be counted when they got there none of that was adequately presented to the court to the public so that there could be an attending public outcry about how they're walking away from a responsibility Western Electric denied any coercion but top Executives of the the company that manufactured nearly all of the nation's telephones had an underlying reason why they wanted a big turnout at the picnic Western Electric hired the motion picture people to come out and to film this entire event and that it could be in the news reels in all the different theaters across the country instead the news reels captured Chicago's deadliest day Western Electric in modern times would be on the hook for this when someone is being pressured to attend an event that's extorting participation but frankly I think the lawyers for the victims dropped the ball in the company newsletter the next month Western Electric's president HB ther's full- page expression of sympathy about the disaster included that none of it could be blamed on anyone at Western Electric we cannot see how those who made the arrangements left anything undone which should have been done or that that there was anything which they could have done better I think Western Electric is responsible for those 844 people who died that day they are the ones that encouraged everyone to go not even encouraged but forced or coerced them to go and then they want to just say well it wasn't us it was this club it was their responsibility not ours [Music] unconscionable people were following news of the Eastland disaster very closely for days and even weeks after the event had occurred and they were expecting a trial in Chicago but it never happened while Federal and Illinois prosecutors fought over who would bring the Eastlands owners to Justice the owners and Captain Pon fled to safety to their homes in Michigan and unlike today prosecutors could not force them back the law at that time really didn't have an effective enforcement tool for making them return it couldn't send the US Marshals or police up there to get them instead of facing Chicago's federal judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis whose early career was known for fighting corporate corruption prosecutors were forced to take their case to Grand Rapids Michigan before a federal judge nearest the defendants homes that judge was Clarence sessions whose reputation was far more lenient toward business he cided in favor of many other corporations in previous decisions we're talking the difference between the hammer and the pillow fight there was no jury it was all up to sessions people were outraged by the fact that this went to Michigan people in this community wanted scalps the Eastlands owners Captain chief engineer and government inspectors got another break the charge that they faced conspiracy to operate an unsafe ship more difficult to prove proed than manslaughter the charge State prosecutors wanted the conspiracy came about I think because there were so many players there were people who knew that this ship was unsafe but it's very difficult to establish lawyers for the defendants included famous attorney Clarence Darrow who just beaten an indictment for bribing jurors in Los Angeles Darrow was looking for work Walter steel and William Hall were some of the most inexperienced ship owners ever they knew nothing it's remarkable that they were named steel and Hull and this is a steel hold ship it's you can't make that irony up but they were complete incompetence as ship owners in 1914 William Hull and Walter steel bought the Eastland at a 50% discount and ran her into the ground under their management the Eastland lost money 2 years straight daily passenger loads rarely topped a few dozen people the owners of the Eastland only had $36 and change left in their budget we know this from their financial statements but owners saw an opportunity to fix their desperate financial situation by fing as many passengers as possible to the Western Electric Picnic they knew that this was our big chance that they were going to make some of that money back and and get break even if they could they appealed to inspector Robert Reed who boosted the maximum number of people the Eastland could carry just 3 weeks before the picnic why would he pass a boat that he knew was cranky in waterways and he knew it had problems with stability why would he pass it Reed had raised the east's capacity before despite three near capsizing since her launch but this was an ERA when owners paid inspectors to examine their ships I think it's very possible in that day and age there could have been money that exchanged hands or deal deal s made suspicion of an underthe table deal grew stronger when Eastland Captain Harry Pon admitted to investigators I was told to go to Robert Reed that it was all fixed up ship owner William Hall denied knowing anything of the Eastland past and placed all of the blame on chief engineer Joseph Ericson and Captain Harry Pon Eastland Treasurer and majority investor Walter steel tries to distance himself even more I didn't know much about the boat except that we got it at a bargain all I do is sign blank checks but steel didn't reveal all that he knew the owners knew that the ship was unstable months before it actually capsized Walter steel met on the ship with chief engineer Joseph Ericson and they had a conversation about very specific repairs to be made to the ship including adding another Seacock which would have made the ship more stable unfortunately for the eam victims those repairs were postponed darl summed up Joseph Ericson's damaging conversation with Walter steel about fixing the Eastland balla system in two penciled words scrolled in his notes owners knew Daryl writing owners new in the margin of Ericson's testimony meant that the owners of the boat were responsible for operating an unsafe boat they knew that the boat was unsafe it took federal judge Clarence sessions 12 days to reach his decision after 50 Witnesses and more than 1,500 pages of testimony the evidence in this matter fails to establish these defendants guilty of any crime charged CW sessions US District Judge the Eastlands owners crew and government inspectors were acquitted of conspiracy sessions found that there had been no collusion many Chicagoans thought it was a complete whitewash I don't feel there was any justice no one was truly held accountable the prosecutors had such strong evidence 844 people died horrifically there was no Iceberg no torpedo no active God someone surely did something wrong and yet somehow they blew it you can't explain the outcome here without having some belief that the fix was in and someone got away with it the Detroit Free Press called it a fiasco this is David and Goliath it's the battle between the moneyed and Powerful interests versus the little guy the best chance at Justice was lost more than a century later it's difficult to pinpoint one cause for the disaster a combination of fact actors converged one terrible morning a poorly designed poorly handled passenger ship operated by inexperienced owners who risked safety for greed and inspectors blind to what they should have seen when one examines the story of the Eastland they're repeatedly confronted by the silence surrounding the story there's something pervasively embarrassing about the Eastland that this story is not told the island disaster was forgotten for so long because the people were immigrants within the Immigrant Community it was common to not share traumatic experiences beyond the family unit and so it would makees sense in some ways that their deaths would correspondingly be a little bit invisible you can't wipe the Slate clean and and say this never happened those stories are worth remembering those stories are worth preserving and [Music] sharing the demolished steamer got a second chance the Illinois naval Reserve claimed the remains and transformed the Eastland into a US Navy gunship renamed the willm in what was jokingly called The Battle of Lake Michigan recruits took the training ship a few miles off the Chicago Shoreline to sink a German uboat captured in World War I and by 1944 a former Excursion ship that had killed hundreds was considered safe enough to take president Rosevelt to a meeting where he planned war strategies crewman kept the ballast tanks filled throughout the trip after the war she was sold for scrap and melted in the South Chicago blast furnaces Bobby Anto who survived by treading water for hours made the most of per second chance she did not fear the water after this um we've got beautiful pictures of her as a a teen a few years after this tragedy on one of the beaches in Chicago with her friends and she's laughing and having so much fun she did not let it ruin her life 60 years after she was pulled to safety a hand reached out to Bobby anad again this time with letter she received a card in the mail from Ernie Carlson the young boy who taught her how to swim she always said it was because of him that she survived that tragedy Bobby replied to Ernie's letter and Ernie flew into Chicago so they could meet they hit it off beautifully and then they get married for 7 years and had a ball together and she said those were the best seven years of her life June Vegeta gathered together all the photographs that he took of the Eastland disaster and he put them in an album it's not something that he did with anything else God pity those today who are heartbroken but of what Avail is the pity of God against human carelessness Clarence Darrow became a champion of underdogs defending a science teacher prosecuted for teaching the theory of evolution reggy BS the Daredevil motorcyclist who dove into the Chicago River repeatedly became an army pilot in World War I they were they were training him to uh fly a two-seater plane but his Landings were so hard they decided to put him in a one-seater plane because that way if he kills somebody it was only going to be himself but within a year of his exposure to the polluted Chicago River reggy Bus contracted tuberculosis and typhoid I think that the Eastland was a significantly traumatic event that robbed him of his Vitality for the rest of his life William Hull and Walter steel left the steamship business completely Harry Patterson never Captain to ship again Joseph Ericson helped transport soldiers to Europe in World War I but died shortly afterward Robert Reed the inspector who raised the Eastland passenger load just before the picnic resumed inspecting steamships all of them walked free paid no fines nor damages to victim's families the people who were going on that boat were from all the various countries in Europe and whatever reason had made them move here it was coming to fruition for them and then in half an hour they were gone all that hope had just disappeared into the water of the river it took years for the community to recover more immigrants moved in drawn by by the promise of abundant jobs in manufacturing this was a place where they were wanted their laborers were needed they were the hardworking people from the factory who made Chicago the great City that it is today this is an American story of perseverance and character they were the real people of Chicago [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 52,020

Keywords: Timeline World History, Timeline, Full Length Documentary, History Documentary, World History, learn history, history facts, eastland, titanic, shipwreck, chicago, disaster, 1920s, 1900s

Id: 5ISfAYUWIF4

Length: 54min 24sec (3264 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2024