| Show IT IS GETTING WARM Proceedings in the Devina Case Become Interesting WAS ABSENT FROM FIRES THE CHIEF SPENT MUCH TIME IX LOBBYING When Absent from headquarters He Left Word that He Could Ee Called Up by Telephone at P I Luiimuis Residence Judge Jutlrts Vigorous Methods The hearing of Chief Devine was re sumed last night before a full attendance attend-ance of the police and fire board The prosecution evidently believes in the maxim once well done twice done for the progress was very slow and it will require one more session at least for the prosecution to finish its case The developments at last nights hearing were a substantiation of the charges that the chief did not attend several fires during the present two months The specification charging habitual absence from the headquarters headquar-ters where he properly belongs was not more than taken up but the prosecution prose-cution promised to furnish abundant proof that Mr Devine would rather be in consultation with politicians than attend to his duties The case is warming up and from the vigorous and frequent objections by the chiefs counsel i is evident the testimony so far given is far from what the defense had expected The I prosecution is equally persistent and has been allowed considerable scope for its examination the commission I evidently toeing bent on getting down to the root of the whole affair ACTING CHIEF DONOVAN When the hearing was resumed last night Acting Chief Donovan was placed on the stand Before proceeding proceed-ing with the taking of testimony however I how-ever Judge Judd made a sort of opening open-ing statement in which he outlined I what he expected to prove I was I the intention he said when they got to charge No5 that of being habitually habitu-ally absent from the department between be-tween January 7 and February 13 for the purpose of influencing the legislators legisla-tors on the fire and police bill to not only touch on the chiefs habits during that time but go back over his career for years in the department and show what his habits have been The charges were not specific but he contended that and would announce then that the purpose was to cover the ground in a general way Mr Stephens dbjected to any further statement in this direction at this time tme and the commission concurreu with him himThe The hearing then went on upon the charge of absence from a fire in a two story brick residence at 735 Third street o January 10 this year Mr Donovan testified that he responded to the fire but the fire was extinguished I before the department arrived on the scene Witness did not see Chief De vine either at the fire or at the station ton P J SULLIVAN P J Sullivan a fireman of No 2 station responded to headquarters when the alarm was turned in about oclock in the afternoon Sullivan stayed at headquarters for nearly an hour while Assistant Chief Donovan was to the fore but did not in all that headquarters time see the chief himself around 11 W EARL M W Earl driver of the chiefs buggy did not know where the chief I was when the alarm came in He saw I the chief about twenty or thirty ain utes before the fire when he drove off I in his buggy Mr Stephens objected at this point I saying it was immaterial what the chief had done previously I was charged that the chief was not present at the fire and what he had done previously did not matter Judd But I intend to show thatthe chief was absent from headquarters the greater part of the day The objection was overruled and thee the-e ± proceeded Mr Earl said Assistant Chief Donovan came over from No 2 and < the witness jumped into Donovans buggy and went to the fire the chiefs buggy being away Witness could not recollect whether the chief was present at headquarters when the boys returned from the fire CHARLES T VAIL Charles T Vail another fireman corroborated the preceding witness relative rel-ative to Earl going with Donovan to the fire after the latter was told the chief was not present Witnes said the chief returned to headquarters about 5 oclock that afternoon G W MQUEEN G W McQueen was in the hal when the alarm came in Did not see Chief Devine around The alarm was turned in at 320 oclock and the boys did not return from the fire until 430 Witness could not remember whether he saw the chief at all or not although he remained re-mained at headquarters until the department de-partment came back from the blaze SPECIFICATION 3 Specification No 3 was then taken up that of the chief failing to respond re-spond to the fire at the Lincoln school building Mr Stephens objected to any testi mony on this charge for the reason the district was within the limits of No2 Judge Judd maintained that the chief should be at l fires no matter in which district The commission decided that the rules provided in a general way that the chief should be present and so the objections were again overruled Assistant Chief Donovan was again placed on the stand He responded to the fire alarm from box 342 on January 13 and found the blaze had been in the school building Judge Judd began to ask how many school children were about the premises Stephens objected Judd contended that the evidence was necessary to show that the negleot of duty would be greater in the case of a school house than I an ash barrel bar-rel had been on fire Chairman Varftan sustained the objections ob-jections but Judd persisted saying l had been his Intention to call the superintendent su-perintendent of that school to show how many rooms there were in the building etc The ruling of the chair however was sustained by the other members of the board Mr Donovan then stated that the fire had been put out by the Janitor before the department arrived He also stated that as the fire was within the district of department No2 it was the rule to signal the chief in such cases which was not done in this case DEFENSE ADMITS IT E P Morris was called and said Chief Devine was not at the Lincoln school fire Well admit that the chief was not at that fire broke in Mr Stephens Oh well then we will pass on to spocificaition No 4 that Devine was absent from the fire It 227 South Main street v GOLDEN RULE BAZAR FIRE Assistant Chief Donovan took the stand again and said that he responded to the cl He found the chemical and r j c the aerial truck there when he arrived ar-rived This fite was in the Golden Rule Bar Witness had charge of the fire and did not see Chief Devine until after the fire was put out about thirtyfive minutes after the alarm was sent in The chief came around and stayed a few minutes and after remarking to one of the men thalt it must have been a hot fire went away Witness saw the chief in company with Wines Crief Pratt and the two remained but a few moments The loss of the fire aggregated 2000 Cross examined by Stephens witness said hfe saw the chief come into the building at about five minutes of a oclock Witness however was in the oclock Witess lowever basement and so he could not iay positively when the chief first arrived on the scene E J McDonald a pipeman attended the fire arriving there about S20 oclock He saw Chief Devine come up Main street about half an hour I after the fire broke out The chief I came driving un Main street in company com-pany with some other firemen After looking at the fire the chief drove off down Main street again in company with Chief Pratt Joe V Smith the driver of the chiefs buggy said he went down to the joint bugg city and county building in company with Fireman Bywater The latter went into the building and got the I chief Then they drove up to the fire looked at the the ohief left the buggy fire and then was driven back to the county building again The witness did not see the chief at headquarters that night although he remained up until 10 oclock Varian How did you come to go down to the joint building Witness Mr Bywater said we had better go down and get the chief beter Mowers said that the chief did not come around until after the fire was over On crossexamination witness said he worked in the basement and saw the chief there OutsIde of that he did not know when the chief came around A R Frasure said it was about 45 minutes probably an hour before the chief showed up at the fire The orders to roll up the hose had been given when the chief came on the scene I Captain Sullivan did not see Chief Davine when witness arrived at the fire but saw the chief enter the front door after the fire was out The chief met witness in the door and the former asked What is it Witness informed him it was a fire in the rear Witness then came out in front and ordered the hose rolled up p WAS WITH THE LEGISLATORS W H Bywater engineer at No1 said Devine was not at the headquarters headquar-ters when the alarm came in Witness had not seen the chief around headquarters head-quarters since supper time Lieutenant Lieuten-ant McCarthy told witness the chief was at the joint building and witness went down in the chiefs buggy in company with M Smith and found the chief in the house o representatives representa-tives He called him out and drove hm UD to the fire Chief Devine was dressed in citizens clothes On crossexamination it developed that the chiefs uniform was always I carried in the buggy and on that particular par-ticular occasion he put his uniform ongoing on-going to the fire Witness said it took about 12 minutes in all from tie time they started from headquarters until i i they got the chief up to the fire This was somewhat in conflict with the I statement of other witnesses that it was forty minutes or so before the I chief arrived J J Clark said the chief arrived on the scene forty minutes after the fire broke out The chief looked at the ruins for about five minutes then said to Chief Pratt something about going back and the two drove down the street together Mr Stevens asked if it was not a fact that on March 5 witness went into the office and said that Chief Devine was going to be removed and that the boys should testify against him Witness replied with an emphatic No that he had not tried to intimidate intimi-date witnesses in the cases Captain Sullivan was recalled and stated he was off duty that night When the alarm came in he went to the j fire After the fire was over he > re1 mained around the city for about twenty twen-ty or thirty minutes then went down to the joint building and found the chief at the legislative rooms at a committee meeting where both of them stayed until I un-til nearly 12 oclock that night At this juncture Mr Stephens asked to put one of the witnesses for the defense de-fense on the stand as he was going to Mercur in the morning and L L Birmingham Bir-mingham was called He testified in regard to the fire at 54 South Ninth East street which occurred on inauguration inaug-uration day Mr Birmingham said fully half an hour elapsed from the time he discovered the fire until he could find same one to turn the alarm in All the people were away probably downtown down-town seeing the parade but after trying try-ing eight houses finally found someone some-one and the alarm was given When the department arrived on the scene the house was almost consumed Mr Varian took the witness In hand and subjected him to a close examination examina-tion in regard to his business to which he replied that he had none WAS AT MR LANNANS Specification or charge No 5 was then taken up This accuses the chief of being habitually absent from the department de-partment during the period between January 7 and February 13 for the purpose pur-pose of lobbying This charge not being be-ing of a very specific nature allowed a wide scope for the questioning and some interesting developments followed though the time for adjourning cat short what promises to develop into the most interesting part of the whole trial Charles T Vail said it was the habit of Chief Devine to stay away a great deal between January 7 and February 13 When the chief went away he would leave a note on the office table Instructing Instruct-ing anyone wanting the chief to ring up telephone No 360 four rings that being P H Lannans private phone at the Tribune office Crossexamined he said it was a frequent fre-quent occurrence for the chief to be away during the day as well as even ingStephens Stephens Did it excite your curios itv that he should be at telephone No 360 Witness No I dont know as it did QUITE NATURAL Judge Judd You thought it rathe J natural didnt you Witness Yes sir MEMBER OF THE THIRD HOUSE j J J Clark was next called He had been at the legislature a good many times when the fire and police bill was up for discussion and would always see Chief Devine down there One day particularly the chief stayed there from 2 oclock in the afternoon until dark That was on the day Senator Jones made his famous speech on the Sutherland Suther-land bill Witness said it was usual for the chief to be around headquarters headquar-ters in the morning about 8 oclock then he would drop out of sight until noon then drop out of sight until evening even-ing and would again be gone in the night until 10 or 11 oclock Mr Stephens crossexamined the witness wit-ness at great length about his knowledge knowl-edge of Chief Devines return in the night Mr Clark said he knew the chiefs steps and thus could always tell when he came home while at times the chief would show up at the office before he went up stairs and to bed Stephens You are the one thats working UD this matter against the chief Witness No sir Stephens You dont harbor any good I feeling toward the chief Witness You know my position Mr Stephens Judd What do you mean by that answer an-swer Witness mean this judge I have been brought before this board on several sev-eral occasions on account of Chief De vine Judd Well do you mean to say that 1 there Is not a harmonious feeling ex j isting between the chief and his men Mr Stephens interposed a vigorous objection and Judge Judd began to argue ar-gue his right to go nto these matters when the board by common consent agreed to adjourn until Thursday night at 730 oclock STRAINED RELATIONS Judge Judd will then argue his right to so into the condition of affairs ex isting between the chief and his subor dinates I am going to prove he said to the board that there are strained relations existing between the chief and his men and if that js so he has no business in the department |
