NEW YORK, March 27, 1911 (UP) -- The counting and identifying of the dead in the Washington Square fire of Saturday evening, causing a death total that has now amounted to 143, still continued today as investigation to fix the blame for the holocaust and plans to prevent a repetition of it got under way.
Though nearly 48 hours have passed since the burst of flames signaled a rain of bodies from the top floors of the 10-story building in which the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. had its lofts, many of the dead are as yet unidentified. There is little left, about the shriveled corpses, to serve as means of identification.
The fire started just as quitting time, in a corner of the eighth floor. Various causes have been ascribed-an explosion, an overheated pulley, a cigarette thrown into a pile of filmy shirtwaist clippings and ravelings.
Whatever the cause in less than half an hour 100 panic-stricken girls, some of them with their dresses already blazing so that they looked like falling torches, had leaped eight, nine or ten stories to squash into silent masses on the stone sidewalks.
Of the hundred far over half were dead when doctors reached them.
Fifty had perished, burned to a crisp, on the ninth floor, in a death trap, behind steel doors, opening inward and blocking their flight to the stairway that was their only pathway to safety.
Over 200 employees, almost all women and girls, had been carried to safety by the elevators, which flashed, jammed, up and down 12 times. Others had been led to safety over adjoining buildings.
In half an hour the fire had taken its full toll. In an hour it was out.
That any of the 750 employees of the waist company escaped unscathed was declared by veteran firemen this afternoon to have been miraculous.
These men, who attended in the office of Fire Marshal Beers the first of half a dozen official inquiries, united in saying that the narrow, dark stairways, doors which opened inward and which were blocked by the frantic workers, a useless "inside" fire escape, wooden window casings and tons of inflammable materials piled in the factory all united to hold the workers in a trap after the fire started.
Marshal Beers had before him the owners of the factory, employees of the burned building, inspectors of the building department, firemen and police first on the scene, and a number of the persons who managed to escape.
While the fire marshal was doing this, Dist. Atty. Whitman and Coroner Holzhauser conferred and decided on the plans for their investigations. The district attorney, his assistants and the coroner went to the building today, accompanied by architects and had blue prints drawn showing just how every exit was arranged, how the elevators were placed, the stairways constructed and the manner in which the exit doors were hung.
Up to 1 o'clock this afternoon there were still 39 unidentified bodies in the morgue, most of which were simply charred forms bearing no resemblance to human beings. The present official police record of 143 deaths will be increased by the deaths of injured in hospitals.
At noon on Monday the line of those seeking admission to the temporary morgue extended over five blocks. The police would only permit half a dozen in the building at a time.
The authorities today say there are not less than 150 loft buildings in Manhattan alone which are veritable firetraps, and that a horror exceeding that of Saturday afternoons is possible at any time. It seems certain, however, that the fault was not alone negligence of individuals, but laxity in the laws, and that it will be necessary to appeal to the legislature.
District Attorney Whitman today assigned assistant district attorneys Bostwick, Manley and Rubin to conduct an inquiry. He intimated the inspection of the office and factory buildings of the city has been criminally lax. The provisions of the law demanding standpipes, three separate stairways, sprinklers, automatic fire alarms, etc. have not been compiled with in more than one-third of the big buildings in the city.
Whitman is already convinced that had there been an automatic fire alarm in the building in which the Triangle company's plant is located, 15 minutes would have been saved by the firemen in reaching the scene. That time would have enabled them to reach the upper floors. The firemen might have led many of those who lost their lives to safety by means of the roof and adjoining structures.
Whitman said that fire commissioner Waldo and chief Croker had cited many instances where the city building department had hampered the work of the fire department. He said he was in favor of asking the legislature to give the fire department the same control over factory and office buildings that is now held over theaters.
Whitman's inspection of the building has shown criminal negligence on somebody's part.
The big doors leading to the stairways were reinforced with iron and opened inward so that those who tried to open them were penned against them.
Chief Croker and deputy Chief Bians reported to the district attorney that they found charred bodies piled in front of the doors on the ninth floor, showing that dozens of girls had rushed straight for the doors. The first comers failed to get the doors back, and immediately the pressure from behind made it an impossibility to get the exit open.
The law specifically states that such doors shall open outwardly "wherever practicable," and the fire department officials unite in saying that these doors could easily have been arranged to open that way as inwardly.
The law also says that factory doors and exits must be left unlocked during work hours, but the survivors of the horror unite in asserting that it was the rule of the proprietors of the Triangle factory to have all of the doors securely locked.
As an excuse they say this was necessary, as employees would report for work and then leave without letting anyone know, only returning to report off duty.
The single "inside" fire escape in the building has been photographed for use in the grand jury investigation. It is so narrow that only one person could descend at a time, and of the kind characterized by the firemen as utterly useless.
So called fireproof buildings, in which category the Asch building was, are required to install fire escapes in the "discretion" of the city building department. The officials never compelled the installation of any of this structure.
The district attorney and his assistants are today examining 50 persons who had knowledge of conditions in the burned building. These include the proprietors of the factories on the lower floors; Joseph G. Ash, owner of the structure, who arrived from Florida late yesterday, and a number of the survivors of the horror.
That it was the habit of many of the workers to smoke cigarettes and pipes, despite the inflammable material they handled, has already established by the fire marshal.
It is unlikely, however, that the real cause will ever be positively known. The proprietors of the factory say they think it came from a heated jammed pulley, while other survivors say an explosion took place just as the fire broke out.
That the actual responsibility rests with the state department of labor was the statement of Dist. Atty. Whitman after he had looked over the burned structure and inspected laws. He said the department Feb. 4 of this year "Ok'd" the structure, despite the narrow stairways and dangerous exits.
The district attorney held a consultation with Judge O'Sullivan of the court of general sessions, and the latter told him he would order a grand jury investigation forthwith. One of the grand juries now sitting will be assigned to this work and will continue in office until the investigation is continued.
Fire Marshal Beers this afternoon adopted the theory that either a match or a lighted cigarette, carelessly thrown under a cutting table, beneath which were a large number of scraps of light materials used for summer shirtwaists, caused the fire.
The fire marshal also found that there was a period of 15 minutes between the breaking out of the fire and the sending in of an alarm because the men on the eighth floor tried to distinguish it themselves.
Fire Marshal Beers' inquiry was the first to get underway. He had under subpena 50 persons employed in the building, including the owners of the Triangle Waist Co., the superintendent of the structure and all of the elevator men.
Albany dispatches say legislation providing adequate protection to employees of factory buildings is expected to make its appearance in the legislature tonight. Several of the New York city members, including Assemblymen Cuvillier and Friedman, are now at work on bills which will give the fir department authority over the equipment of all buildings with safety appliances.
It was the lower side of Manhatten, between Second-av and Avenue C, almost the exact location that furnished a majority of the victims of the destruction of the steamer Gen. Sicoum, that suffered most by Saturday' s holocaust. Some one seems to have been lost in every street in this quarter.
While preparations for fixing the responsibility for the horror went on today the various charitable organizations and civic bodies started out to care for the destitute dependents of the victims and to bury the dead. Mayor Gaynor headed a subscription list to be distributed through the Red Cross committee of the New York charity organization society.
Various newspapers also started to raise funds, as did the ladies waist and dressmakers union, with which a number of the dead were affiliated. This latter organization also prepared to bury the unidentified dead.
A large lot has been secured in the plot of the workman's circle, a Jewish sick and death benefit organization in Mt. Sinai, to burry those unidentified and others whose friends are unable to pay the undertaker.
The union has ordered that all members refrain from working tomorrow, when it is planned to hold most of the funerals, and to participate in a monster funeral procession. Other labor organizations are ordered to join, and the whole is to be made a united protest against the lax laws which made the horror possible.
All through the night the old covered charities pier had been besieged by persons whose loved ones were missing, but most of the remaining bodies are so terribly charred that identification seems impossible. A heavy rain that began to fall soon after dark last night drove the mere curiosity seekers away, but those who were seeking relatives or friends stood in line, although in many instances wet to the skin, until they were permitted to enter.
With daylight the line began to grow again and before 9 a.m. Monday there were more than a thousand people waiting to get inside. The police and nurses on duty permitted the people to enter a few at a time in order that confusion might be prevented.
All of the bodies had been placed in roughly painted pine boxes and, where it was possible, the head had been elevated so that recognition might be facilitated. As quickly as identification was made the lids were clamped on the coffins and they were placed at the rear of the pier to await transfer by undertakers to the sorrowing homes.
Over at the Mercer-st police station the police have half a hundred women's hats and furs, as well as other articles of wearing apparel and valuables, arranged around the floor of the reserve squad room. These belonged to the dead and were being held for the relatives to identify and claim. There are also in the captain's safe a number of pay envelopes and pieces of jewelry picked up in the street after the victims jumped.
There were 14 injured victims of the fire still in St. Vincent's, the New York and Bellevue hospital today. Of these it was said five at least are so terribly hurt that they cannot recover.
