Meet the Colonel

Yesterday, I posted the first three panels of the premiere episode of A.E. Hayward's "Colonel Corn." I don't want to keep anybody in suspense over the Colonel's budding interest in crime fighting, so here's the whole Sunday comic from October 24, 1915:

"Colonel Corn" by A.E. Hayward, October 24, 1915

100 Years Ago Today: the Eastland

100 years ago today, the tourist steamship Eastland capsized and sank in the Chicago River, killing 844 passengers and four members of the crew.

Originally designed in 1903 to hold 650 passengers, the ship was retrofitted in 1913 with the aim of increasing its capacity to 2,500. It had a history of listing due to its top-heavy design, dating back to its first year.

On the morning of July 24, 1915, some 7,300 employees of Western Electric Company gathered at the dock between LaSalle and Clark streets to be carried out to an annual company picnic in Michigan City, Indiana by the Eastland and four other steamers. Some reports suggest that more than 2,500 people boarded the Eastland; there are also stories that the crowd tipped the boat off balance by gathering on the port side of the boat to pose for a photographer. What is known as fact is that engineer Joseph Erikson opened one of the ballast tanks, releasing water within the boat meant to stabilize the ship. The Eastland capsized moments after leaving the dock.

Ironically, the weight of the lifeboats added to the Eastland as a result of the U.S. Seaman's Act, passed after the Titanic disaster three years earlier, contributed to the instability of the ship.

A nearby vessel, the Kenosha, came alongside the hull to allow those stranded on the capsized vessel to leap to safety. But hundreds were trapped below decks, some crushed by pianos, bookcases, and other furniture. Many of the dead would be taken to the 2nd Regiment Armory (there are stories that they continue to haunt the building, later used as Harpo Studios by the Oprah Winfrey Show, but I've never heard that any of them made an on-camera appearance). 

The Eastland itself would be salvaged, renamed The Wilmette, and put into military service as a gunboat in World War I. It was scrapped after World War II.

The last known survivor of the capsizing was Marion Eicholz, who died on November 24, 2014, at the age of 102.

Chicago Tribune accounts, photographs, and a couple John T. McCutcheon cartoons are on the Chicagology page here.

May 9, 1915

For Saunterback Saturday this week, a follow-up to Thursday's Chicago Daily News headline. Two days later, The New York American trumpeted the death toll from the sinking of the Lusitania and Germany's official statement.

The sinking of the Lusitania is often credited as pushing the U.S. into World War I. Certainly it was a factor, but you have to consider that Woodrow Wilson campaigned in 1916 that "He Kept Us Out of War." The November election was just as far away then as the election of Hillary Clinton is now.

Wilson insisted that "America is too proud to fight," yet succeeded in getting Germany to suspend submarine warfare until January, 1917. The final straw was actually the "Zimmerman telegram" of 1917, intercepted by Great Britain and passed along to the U.S. government, in which the German foreign minister invited Mexico to declare war on the U.S. with the promise of receiving Texas, Arizona and New Mexico after the war. The U.S. entered the war in April, 1917.

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Rollin Kirby cartoon  in the New York World
showing Kaiser Wilhelm applauding
William Jennings Bryan.

For the past two Saturdays, I've been posting cartoons of William Jennings Bryan's unsuccessful run for the White House in 1900, and it's worth noting here that Bryan was Secretary of State in the first Wilson administration.

He had made serious attempts to negotiate treaties with the belligerent nations of Europe, failing in his efforts with Germany. He foresaw that the European powers were more likely to wear themselves out than to achieve total victory, "and if either side does win such a victory it will probably mean preparation for another war."

After Germany sunk the Lusitania, Bryan objected to the Wilson administration's increasing tilt toward the Allied powers -- Wilson's insistence that Germany stop u-boat attacks was not balanced by any demand that Great Britain lift its naval blockade against Germany. In June, Bryan resigned from the cabinet, sniffing, "[W]hy be so shocked by the drowning of a few people, if there is to be no objection to starving a nation?"

On the Newsstands 100 Years Ago Today

On this day in 1915, a German u-boat sank the British luxury liner Lusitania, en route from New York to London. The British Navy had equipped the Cunard liner with guns and used it to import munitions under the cover of being a passenger ship.

Germany had placed advertisements in New York newspapers warning against ocean travel into the war zone that was Europe, but folks generally scoffed at the idea that someone would deliberately torpedo a ship conveying the rich and famous in such high fashion.

In the precious little time they had, passengers frantically worked to get themselves off the ship. In a futile attempt to save infants, life jackets were tied to wicker “Moses baskets.” The rising water carried these baskets and their infant occupants into the water, but none survived the turbulence. Many of the lifeboats, not properly prepped, took on water and sank.
A mere 18 minutes after being struck by the torpedo, the Lusitania was gone. Of the 1,949 passengers and crew, over 1,200 drowned, including 124 Americans and 94 children