| Show Boston Fire F I re Deaths Death's Reach 4 80 n Vast V cst Prosecutions Expected in Night NightClub Club Disaster 96 Bodies Remain Unidentified Injured Many Critical Practical Joke Believed Cause h S BOSTON Nov o 30 UP Charles UP-Charles Charles Buck Jones 53 star of t western mo Ies died at a hospital Monda Monday afternoon from irom y burns suffered In the Cocoanut Grove Gro night club fire h By CHARLES SWEENEY S BOSTON N Nov V. V 30 UP UP Sweeping Sweeping prosecutions in connection connection tion ion with the Coconut Grove night club fire appeared possible Monday as the death toll in Saturday nights night's disaster mounted to 5 District Attorney William J. J Foley and State Fire Marshal Stephen Stephen Stephen Ste Ste- phen J. J Garrity conferred at th the Suffolk county courthouse for what Foley termed a complete investigation of ot the matter Of course there will vill be prosecutions prose prose- if the evidence I 1 now now have have haveis is substantiated by Mr Garrity Foley said S The prosecution will be justas lU far reaching as necessary to get getto getto getto to the bottom of this whole case Mr Ir Garrity has made his own inI investigation in in- n I and I expect to confine confine conine con- con fine ine my future activities entirely to o his report and good judgment I am going to give this terrible tragedy my entire attention To Hear Witnesses It was believed both might be bo present resent later Monday at a hearing hearing hear- hear ing ng called by Fire Commissioner William Villiam A A. A Reilly of Boston to hear the he stories of various witnesses of the he disaster Including that of oJ Stanley F. F 16 year old bus boy who said that he innocently Innocently in innocently in- in started the fire Foley declined to name anyone anone against whom charges would be lodged He said that must wait walt until after after his conference nce with t. t h Garrity and perhaps State Police Captain John F. F Stokes acting state public safety safely commissioner The Boston public safety committee committee committee com com- announced that their official official cial tabulation had accounted for 79 dead Assistant Director O. O T. T Gilmore Silmore of the Boston Council of Social Agencies said that of this number were identified tentatively tentatively tenta- tenta ively and nd 96 still were fied fled He lie said that the results of night long tabulations also showed that hat were injured and that many of these were in critical con con- Result of Practical Joke Preliminary Investigation by city and state authorities tended to show that the person indirectly responsible for the blaze was an unidentified practical joker who tho thomay may have paid with his life According to the alleged confession confes sion of he was asked to replace a light bulb In Inthe Inthe inthe the supper clubs club's basement melody lounge that had been removed by bya a guestA guest A man in a mixed party you ou know men and women reached up and turned off a light the youth routh told police pollee I started to screw it back In tn but it fell out of the socket when I touched it I held it in my hand and lit a match to find the socket and started screwing ving the bu bulb 1 b back in Somehow the m match fell out of my hand and I 1 guess It it dropped into an imitation palm that was Wa under the bench I was Wa standing on Board oard of Inquiry An official board bord of inquiry a already al- al ready was at work attempting to to place the ultimate responsibility i for the fire and panic 1 y But what interested the board headed by Mayor Maurice J. J Tobin Tobin To To- bin were the facts that the the- Continued gru on Pu tour ur Column Two Deaths Mount to in n Boston Night Club Fire As City Prepares for Sweeping Prosecutions Continued from Peg Page One On flames swept through the story and a half halt structure by way of Its tinder dry decorations and draperies draperies drape drape- ries rles with frightening speed and that scores were trampled and smothered to death In the Jam Of flailing screaming fighting humanity humanity humanity hu hu- manity that piled up and blocked the four exits The boards board's first finding was that the club had been beeh inspected along with all other night clubs two weeks ago following another fire In which six firemen were killed The results-of results that inspection inspection inspection tion were not revealed One of Worst Disasters It already was among the worst disasters in the nations nation's history and the long list of critically burned and injured In hospitals hospital s Indicated that the entire death t toll ll was not yet reckoned Among those in hospitals was the star of western movies Buck Jones in m in critical condition Only one fire m In American history history his his- tory took a greater toll toU that which h destroyed the Iroquois theater in in 1903 and killed persons Sorrowing relatives of missing persons filed through two morgues all night some of them fainting I others screaming in horror upon 1 recognizing a partly charred corpse Some of the bodies had I been so reduced by flames that I they probably will ill be identified only by the process of elimination a. a a matching of the names of missing miss missing miss miss- ing persons and their sex against remnants of bodies Many lany Women Unidentified Many of the unidentified bodies were those of women and girls They had been dressed in flimsy evening clothes and of course did not have purseS purse of the sort that contain cards and papers which would assist in establishing their I identity Among the identified d dead was Miss Helen Welch 17 daughter of Vincent Welch a vice president of the Equitable Life Assurance society of Port Washington L L. I I. I a student at Radcliffe college Her escort Allan L L. L Kluber 18 of New York a Harvard sophomore died with her They were only two of the several score undergraduates undergraduates undergraduates under under- graduates of the Boston environs' environs many colleges and universities who perished The Boston Saturday night club dub crowds are always ly collegiate and last Saturday night they were even more so because because be be- cause the big football game between between between be be- tween Boston college and HolyCross Holy HolyCross Cross had attracted an enormous crowd and anti Holy Cross' Cross upset victory victory victory vic vic- vic vic- tory had put a l large rge segment of it in a mood for celebrating 1000 Jammed in in Club Well over 1000 were jammed Into the Cocoanut Grove which tho though tho it was founded by the gangster King Kong Solomon is Boston's most fashionable It is entered byone by byone byone one or the other ther of two revolving doors set side by side and giving into a small foyer To the right of the foyer is a bar and its far wall is the entrance to the restaurant restaurant restaurant rant and dance floor where the floor shows are staged Adjoining Adjoining Adjoin Adjoin- ing the restaurant in the diagonally diagonally diagonally ally opposite corner of the bUIlding building building build bUIld- ing from the foyer is a cocktail lounge and in the basement another another another an an- other bar called the melody lounge There is a a. small door from the street into the ground floor cocktail cocktail cock cock- tail l lounge That the the two w revl i I mg ing an any 1 an exit exu from the part of the basement devoted to storage and service and no wider der than the door of a telephone booth were the only exi exits ts Woman oman Screams J Fire ire ireThe The first intimation the persons persons persons per per- sons jammed in the dining room where the floor show was about t to begin under Mast Master of r-of-cere- r monies Mickey Alpert had of approaching approaching approaching ap ap- ap- ap disaster was a girl who staggered out onto the dance floor her hair and dress aflame screaming screaming screamIng scream- scream ing Ing Fire Instantly there was an insane dash for the foyer revolving doors One was locked but it was equipped with a so-called so panic catch intended to free it if enough pressure were applied scores piled against it but the panic catch didn't work and it r re remained re- re remained locked and many died of suffocation there But the jam jam against the other door was almost as intense Four and five and even six persons tried to fit themselves into its revolving compartments Others were trying to make it revolve the wrong way Firemen Prompt Firemen arrived quickly but there was little to do to save lives Jives because most of the victims already al already already al- al ready were dead or horribly in injured n Axes were quickly applied to the glass-brick glass windows set high in the walls of the dining room and firemen piled through them quickly enough to extinguish extinguish extinguish extin extin- the flames enveloping the clothes of a number of guests But these were already so badly burned that they died quickly some before they could be carried out The fire Itself was extinguished within a half hour but for more than two hours firemen policemen policemen police police- men and volunteer workers inCluding including including in in- many soldiers and sailors were carrying out bodies At one onetime onetime time five bodies were being brought out every three minutes Owned by Attorney v The club is owned by Barnet Boston attorney who was attorney for the late gangster Solomon assassinated by a rival racketeer and brother broth broth- er James The latter was at the club Saturday night It was said at his h home me that he was ill and under a doctors doctor's care and could not be Interviewed Barnet Wel Wel- ansky is a patient in the Massa Massa- Massachusetts general hospital recovering recovering recover recover- ing from pneumonia I |
