tv, author michael mccarthy discusses the july 1915 capsizing of the ss eastland in the chicago river. over 800 factory workers died in the tragedy, including 22 entire families. mccarthy examines the faulty ballast system that caused the ship to capsize and he talks about the forgotten legacy of the ss eastland. hosted by the new york public library, this program is about 90 minutes. michael: thank you very much. i really appreciate this turnout. i know it is beautiful outside and the tulips are fantastic. thank you for taking the time to come to this presentation. it is correct.

i spent over a dozen years looking into this story, and i had worked at "the wall street journal" for over 20 years and i had never encountered a story of this magnitude or drama. as i began looking into it what i found was that this has to be one of the most deadly, least known shipwrecks in america. and i uncovered a tale that was so horrible and so surprising i could not let it go. in a a lot of ways the story would not let me go, either. so we're in july 1915, almost exactly 100 years ago. a large steamship. think of the flatiron building on its side. that is virtually the exact size that eastland was. a flatiron building turned on its side quickly capsizes. although it is tied to its dock.

yet, it capsize. 844 people die. within minutes. 844 people. that is more passengers than died on the titanic, much more famous accident. 22 entire families died on the eastland. mothers, aunts, 22 whole family units gone, wiped out in the chicago river. now, i do not know how many of your for really chicago by the chicago river is wide and it winds straight to the city. so, when the eastland went over, it was right in downtown. there were commuters, trains going by. it was only about 19 feet fromshore. this was not likely out in the lake where they had to send rescue boats. , people can see from the street

from bridges, they were looking down at people drowning and they could not get to them quickly enough. i'll explain why later. so, what i found was a lost history of a national tragedy. and so, what i uncovered further is a story of tragedy, neglect and mystery. until now, there has been no reasonable inflammation of what happened. why this happened. but my research showed that the 12 year old ship that prosecutors have found a deadly defect in the machinery deep in the hull. the machinery were supposed to manipulate tons of water. it would bring water in through tanks, 20 and 30 feet long. the water was supposed to be used to maneuver the ship and stabilize it, but because of

inadequate piping and horrible plumbing, the eastland is certain to sink somewhere, sometime. it had to happen. and it almost did previously. once in 1904. and in 1907. by 1915, this is a certainty. this was going to happen. so, it became an session for me. the shipwreck. how it happened, why, why people got away with it. and i had along the way some very honorable research methods, and if i have time to go into it, may be less so in pursuit of the story. so, let's -- can we turn the lights down just to take a look at --? ok, fantastic. so, here we are. the eastland is one year old. it's 1904.

the ship is 275 feet long, almost a football field. like i said, this is the flat iron building tipped down for your visual reference. it's beam 38 feet. pretty wide. this would've been a midsize ship. cargo ships reach 500 feet. for passenger ships, this is a pretty good size. it drew the depth of water was 14 feet at its more comfortable. 14 feet of water would be optimal. but one thing i want you to note is the square doorways toward the water. look up close they are to the water. those are called gangways. we will talk about why that was a problem in a bit. this is eastland in south haven, michigan, the initial port.

at the time it came out it was painted black and white. i love this picture. i think it was very majestic. it was a beautiful ship. coal fired, obviously. we're seeing that smoke is coal. women in their lovely dresses, ankle length dresses. very stately ship. in the national archives, the chicago regional offices of the national archives, i found the original contract for the ship. it cost $235,000 to build in 1902. and the entire contract for that project was five pages. five typewritten pages for a ship that size. 2 1/2 of those pages, the biggest terms on the entire ship had to do with speed. the owners wanted a very fast ship. there thought was a fast ship would be marketable. people would get across the

chicago to their michigan towns and resorts as quickly as possible, and the eastland would be the whip. -- the ship. they asked the designers to make it as fast as possible. they were very specific about what they wanted. they wanted 19 miles per hour. on the lakes they use miles per hour's not knots. that was absolutely the minimum. they had bonuses if they could go higher than that, up to 22 miles per hour which would have been lightning fast on the water. they were so concerned about speed that they had a walk away clause. if the ship after testing did not go 19 miles an hour, they were able to turn the ship away. they did not have to take it. though they ordered it, that absolutely had to have 19 miles per hour. in other words, fast ship or no ship. here we are at cleveland 1909.

i like this photo because it gives a nice sense of scale. notice all the grown-ups are wearing hats, men and women. little girl and the center -- you see her with a bow, big bow here. couple men here reading their newspapers. the ship this day carry 3000 people. 3000 is an important number as we will see very soon. this is the eastland at its home port in south haven. the lighthouse to the right -- i am sorry, to the left -- is the pier head in south haven. we will discuss in a little bit this channel. the black river these two ships are leaving out. the one of the distance is the eastland.

the one close in, the larger one, is the ship that is called the city of southaven. one of the reasons that speed was so important to the eastland owners is because they intended to race the other ship. this was a popular thing. they would race from south haven to chicago. then they'd race back. they would do however times best. it was big bragging rights. they had silly rituals. they would put brooms on the ship of the winner. one of the things that, one of the marketing maneuvers, one of the things they used was ship races. and the federal steamboat inspectors hated this because they were worried about safety. virtually that the eastland is -- at that position where the eastland is, not a half mile

away from the shore, july 18 1904, a little after 6:00 in the evening, there are 2, 270 people on the ship. the side may begin seesawing in the water. it turns one way and hangs that way diagonally. people are sliding down screaming. women and men are grabbing life preservers and putting them on. one of the. inspectors postal inspector shells, captain, turn back. think of the women and children. the crew's response? they took a fire hose and squirted the people. and on they went to chicago. they did straighten it out but the ship almost capsized outside south haven in 1904. it has been written up in the newspapers of the time. now, we cut to july 24, 1915.

this is from the national archives the official customs card of the attendance takers on the ship. these are the people the federal government was in charge of counting passengers on ship so that ship owners to not overcrowd the. this would be a concern. you have too many passengers on a ship, so the government is making the count. at 7:30 a.m., july 24, 2500 passengers. clark street bridge in chicago and so forth. captain harry peterson in command of the ship. the number two officer, the second most powerful man on the ship, is chief engineer joseph ericsson. pay attention to that name. chief engineer joseph erickson in charge of the engine room. there are 2500 passengers on the ship. less than the 3000 we saw before.

not the full capacity for the ship. most of them are factory employees. many of them are immigrants. they are working for the same company. there is a company picnic that western electric. they make telephones. they were the only company in the entire country making telephones. 1915. and they all got a day off to go on this picnic. and it want to redo for my account just how the setup was here. "captain peterson flicked the ashes from his cigar. he had just finished breakfast. the captain expected a foggy day and began to study his charts. he wanted to acquaint himself with the course to michigan city. in indiana, not a usual destination for the eastland. peterson had just passed

ericsson who was hurrying to the mess room. they had a full day in front of them. the busy summer season was half over. it was a saturday. and the eastland set off the dock near the clark street bridge, not their usual one on the chicago river. they were about to board 2500 western electric workers on holiday. they would meet probably at 7:30 on a two hour cruise to their picnic grounds 40 miles away in michigan city. the eastland needed to leave on time. after michigan city, had to get up to st. joseph's, another michigan town, to pick up another load of passengers and return to chicago. then back to michigan city to ferry the western electric picnickers back to chicago. some 400 miles of nearly back-to-back trips in the next day and a half." erickson, our engineer, sipped his coffee unaware that the

eastland would not make any of those ports. within three hours he would be thrown into a jail cell with his watch stopped at 7:33, the exact moment he nearly drowned. so, after that, i begin to describe what happened at the dock in july 1915 with the eastland, and it does a very similar capsizing which i will detail, but understand that the ship is turning to one side and slowly turning to the other, very slowly. but clearly not in control. by 7:27, it was tipping an alarming 25 degrees. the engineers were flustered. why wasn't the water ballast correcting this? what the hell? growing desperate, ericsson dispatched his engineer to order the passengers on the top deck to the starboard side hoping the

shifting crowd would help straighten of the ship. the harbormaster had been watching the seesaw performance for half an hour and wasn't alarmed until just that moment. then mcdonald, a man and a nearby tugboat, saw something he had never seen in all his 31 years. six men on the top deck of the eastland dashed to the top side railing. they decided to make a break and left overboard, grabbing a hold of one of the manila ropes lashed from the bow to the dock. they began crossing the line called a howser, handover hand suspended above the river. inside the tilting ship, the mandolin players and violinists struggle to play and began to dig their heels into the floor

to keep from slipping. the eastland lean further. in the engine room, a chute used to discharge ashes dipped under water. the river began to gush in. some of the smokers and oilers hightailed it up ladders and fled. on the tugboat, mcdonald was alarmed to see water starting to gush into open gangways. the doorways used to load cargo and passengers. before he could even shout a warning, one of the bow lines, pulling and pulling on a massive stake, lifted the piling out of the dock. then the second dock line snapped. "get off! the boat is turning over!" a food cart worker shouted. struck now by the danger captain peterson yelled to a crew member, "open the doors. take people off."

a refrigerator tipped over on a lower deck and bottles crashed. people sitting in chairs on the top deck do not have time to rise and began flying into the air still seated. a dozen passengers try to lead toward the dock but hit the steel hull and careened into the river. children tumbled wi grown-ups down the top deck, sprawling and a mess of milk bottles, lunch baskets, and ship ropes. the last line holding the eastland to the docks had burst like a cracked whip. the six men hanging from it ricochet backwards, arms and legs sprawling, flying back to the air, back towards the doomed ship. the river all twisting of arms.

hundreds of men and women shrieked as panama hats and pair hall -- and carousels and baby carriages bobbed about like corks. men clawed at women. then soul after soul disappeared a tall man in an uncle sam costume flailed in the water. then it rained garbage. workers at warehouse companies along the river through crates and all things wooden into the water but most were swept away by the current. from the deck of the roosevelt the crew tossed like preservers for those who were pleading in the water.t the cries were beautiful for men and women clinging to wreckage

and light for servers and chairs. a young woman was struck me to keep afloat by clutching one of the musician's violins. so, as i say, to demonstrate what the ship was doing, it's sitting at its dock like this. it begins to tip this way. toward the starboard side. passengers are boarding on the side. and so, it is a little uncomfortable. they have to climb a little bit to get on to the ship, but they are doing ok. and using a stabilizing system in the base, the hull, they straighten it up. they straighten the ship up. it begins to turn the other direction toward the port, away from the dock. the engineers work the water ballast system in the hull. they straighten it up.

it then begins to turn to port. and finally, it just goes over. seesawing motion very strange. very hard to describe. and no one had a sense the ship was going to lose control because it tilted. they fixed it. it was a movement that left them off guard as to how bad the situation was going to be. let's look at the scene of -- it looks like. so, we can see here, the white ship toward the right is the eastland. ok? it's turned over and other ships are coming to rescue. note the man standing on the propeller. he's basically grabbed on to something, a propeller, and he

is hanging on there waiting to be rescued. when the ship seemed to be getting out of control, the chief engineer, who is quite astute and have great presence of mine, turned the engines off. turn the propeller is off. he was concerned if it tipped, they would be running -- and that man would be chopped up. and people will be pulling to those propellers. some very fine presence of mind inside the engine room. here's another angle on the shipwreck. again, many rescue vehicles are coming in. look at the long line of people on the side there who appeared to be just walking around, right? what happened was because the ship turned port side, to the left, if you were on the starboard side, you basically were hanging on and you were above the water.

you were still above the water. so if they held onto the railing, they'd be fine. some of these people never even got wet. the problem was for the people who died in the accident, they were in decks below and they got trapped. the river very quickly came inside the hull of the ship and drowned people very quickly. could not get out. now -- they simply could not get out. what happened -- this seems to be an unchaotic scene. but it was chaotic. this was 35 minutes after it happened. for 15 minutes, the -- they are pulling people out to people are drowning. and a lot of children got lost in the chaos. one little girl, martha, her parents survived the rack and it could not find her. they took on a newspaper story

in the chicago tribune the next story and it sounded like a flyer for a lost kitty. "who has little martha?" they had a picture of her. they were trying to reconnect with their girl who they were in the chaos separated from. there were thousands of people lining the docks. the chaos of bodies, children being lost, separated from parents, was enormous. the building across from here -- to the upper left side, is an old warehouse that was quickly pressed into service as a temporary morgue. they began pulling bodies out. they put a number tag on a toe. and carried of them over there and started laying all of these bodies out because the sheer number of bodies they had to contend with was overwhelming. this is probably one of the more

iconic images of the wreck. this is a hard-bitten fireman, chicago fireman holding a young child, drowned, pulled out of the wreck. the policeman is behind looking on. when i look at his eyes. i feel like he sort of, he has the terror of the day in his eyes. there are many grisly pictures from this shipwreck. i do not intend to show you them. i did not include them in my book. there is no reason to shy away from some of the horror. i can certainly show you some that are pretty hard to look at, but i tried to be selective because i am looking at once that captured the devastation, the drama and were artistic and

not necessarily sensational or voyeuristic. this child perished on the ship. little girl. one of the ways they removed bodies from the ship was divers would go in, take a rope around her shoulder, and it was dark and wet. and they often would kick with their feet to find what they could find. when they kicked something that felt like a body, they would feel for arms and wrap a lasso around and signaled to pull up and men would pull up and someone would emerge from a hole in the ship. this particular one was this girl. i like the tenderness of the firemen and the police removing

the lasso. they are trying to keep her from falling over. this photo was one that inspired me a lot as i worked on the story. there were a lot of times over 10 years that you go, is this worth it? and over and over i would look at this photo and say this little girl deserves a full telling of what happened. so, she kept me going. there's an eerie symmetry in the sinking. the river is 19 feet deep. i mentioned the beam is 38 feet, which is exactly the center. so, the ship is bisected down the center when it capsize. it filled up, drop, and just stopped. it is on the bottom of the chicago river. had it been in deeper water, the entire ship would have sunk.

had it been 300 feet out on lake michigan, it would have dropped to the bottom and there would be no way to raise it. it stop to where it was. you can see the warehouse behind there. it is very close. it is sitting right in the city. and they're lucky, all those people walking on the side of the ship, many of them would have died if the ship had not stopped. this was a huge story nationally. in 1915, we did not have radio news. with all newspapers are so here is "a new york times" the day after the eastland sinks. we cannot make out the story. i want to demonstrate the prominence of coverage. everything marked the rectangle to the right is all eastland stories. at the time they had a wrong

count, 1700. but this is very, medic of what the coverage was like all over the country. every newspaper look like this. in fact, the coverage continued all summer long as they found more bodies. as they began charging officers and looking for answers. the story was huge. and was something that a generation of people knew. when they heard the eastland, it was a thing that struck terror in their hearts all over the country. here's the ship being raised a month later. here is the ship being raised about a month later. we are in august and it is in good shape. it tipped and sank. they were able to raise it and get it back up. when they did, one of the bodies

missed was in the wreckage. we had a man who made $12 at a factory and left a widow. they never knew where he was until they raised the ship. 844 people is a lot to take in. how could this happen? how? i can show you a reason. this is a reproduction of a photograph that was published in the chicago tribune. there was a grand stairwell in the eastland. it connected the middle that's of the ship. decks of the ship. after this photo -- this photo was taken after they raised the ship and the photographer showed what they found. what we have to imagine is that they stairwell, when the

accident happened, it turned 90 degrees. we are now turned. here you are. i am on the ship and i need to get out here, right? how do i maneuver? all the stairs are going down. people are trying to get up and out. everyone bunches up. no one can get out. this becomes a chokepoint, impossible for anyone to escape. they found, when they recovered most of the bodies at the stairwell, that people had torn away the wooden walls with their hands, trying to find a way out. when they got to cabin partitions, they got to steel

and scratch their fingers bloody trying to escape. this little girl, eleanor, was the only survivor of her entire family. her entire family was killed. there were many orphans on the eastland. for me, as i say, the photo of the little girl was one that drove me. i am touched by the number of children, orphans, and eastland children who are here. this is one, in 2001, when i was initially starting the research, i was fortunate to meet someone who had been on the eastland. iowa's had wanted to and there was a woman -- i had always wanted to and there was a woman

who was nearly 100 and 2001 -- in 2001. she was going to recollect being on the eastland. she was 10 and survived. i went to the talk, like this gathering, and i had hoped to interview her. i was in research and, what a great source to have. when i went to the talk, she was not talking and was not lucid enough to speak. she stood by the podium and they played an audio recording of when she was more lucid. in a nutshell, she was on the starboard side and dropped into the water. somebody, she does not even know who, pushed her up and over the side railing. she never knew who saved her. she told the store the rest of

her life. when i met her, she was not able to speak and i was not able to interview. it was important to me to connect with the story as much as possible and to touch it. i wanted to touch the living history. i went and i told her that i was sorry for whole ordeal -- her ordeal and i reached out to shake her hand. she had the littlest, bony hand. i took it and i shook it. i thought, "i touched someone who was on the eastland." it was inspiring. a big help to me. i thought about the desire to touch the living history. we believe the last survivor of the eastland just died three months ago.

libby would have been -- you know, there are only a handful and they are all little children at this point. that brings me to a less respectable anecdote i have. i was in a maritime research museum. i was researching eastland captains. i was making some copies at the copy machine and i looked over at the file cabinet and there was a sturdy-looking antique chair. i was drawn to it. right there, there was a sign that said, "a deck chair from the eastland." i said, "this is a cool thing to see, as someone researching this." as i was reflecting on how close i was to it. the library and leaves and the only other researcher leaves.

i am alone with the chair. i want to be clear -- there is no sign that says, "do not sit on the historical artifact." i realized the coast is clear. i'm a never get this chance again. -- i may never get this chance again. i say, no, i am a respecter of historical preservation. next thing i know, i graze the chair with the seat of my pants and stand up. i never applied any full body pressure. i think if it more of a dusting of the chair. i chalk it up to the author's zeal.

i was in my early 40's. i have matured. i have matured. i was in chicago a few years ago and they had an exhibit with the ship wheel and a few state room keys and baggage. they had another eastland chair. i saw the chair and did not come into contact with the chair. i left it alone. it was folded up and fixed to the wall. it was behind glass. i think, somehow, they knew. ok. we need to get back to the river. as i said, the number of bodies left chicago overwhelmed. there was no way to deal with the bodies.

so, i mentioned earlier, the tags with numbers on the feet. they began doing an inventory. a woman appeared to be such and such an age wearing this color dress and these issues. sometimes, there was a monogrammed handkerchief and they had letters. often, not. this is before cards. no one had a drivers. they do not know who is who. they were pulling the bodies out and they had to have a number and some details on them. this one, 396, captivated the city. it was almost one week later

700 bodies had been tagged with a little description of this. family members came and described the family members. there were 14 bodies left and this was one of this. the newspaper started writing stories. where is the family? why are they not claiming him? it seemed inhuman, a body with a number and no name. the authorities were able to figure out it was william navotny. he was on the eastland and they got up.

they never went home. that is why no one identified him. everyone who knew him died right there. this is one of the families. he became the face of the eastland. his funeral was a civic event. there were 13,000 people who showed up for the funeral. all four of the novotnys went through a long parade in the streets. 13 people showed up and the mayor presided over the ceremony. at the end, he tells the crowd after a long discussion, how much of a travesty there had been and he closed by saying three words, "the city mourns."

ok. have to talk about what happened. how did this happen? we have not known. there have been a couple of books that did not do a good job describing it. they did not come up with anything plausible. it took more research and digging into national archives and a criminal transcript to find out what happened. let's talk about the ballast system. i talked about inside the ship the machinery used to stabilize it and when improperly used, it can cause a seesaw. the reason for this is, the incredible natural thing of man out doing nature and nature reminding us who is in charge. this is the harbor in michigan. the ship was built in a michigan town and the shipyard was on the black river.

the homeport was the black river. there are ominous geographical elements. if you look to the bottom-left i am looking at a nautical chart. it is what sailors use. what they do is, going back to mark twain and earlier, they figure out how far the water is until you hit the bottom of the lake or the river. whatever it is. they need to know where they will run into ground. when they hit the ground, it stops. it is called running aground. you need to know where it is shallow and where it is deep. if you look out here, it goes 13 feet. the eastland is so large that it normally and routinely is

immersed 14 feet in the water. a ship with 12.5 feet of clearance will get stuck and it is dangerous. if you get stuck and tip and sink, like it did. when the eastland owners, the men who wanted to order the ship -- remember i talked about the contracts where they had many terms. they cautioned the architect that, in the home harbor, it is a sand bar at the mouth of the harbor that is only about 11-12 feet and only allows 11-12 feet of clearance. so, you need to figure out some ways for the ship to rise up get over the sand bar, and come back down to a more comfortable and safer level.

it is an obstacle. so -- and, by the way, this is the first passenger ship ever designed by a young architect and the only passenger ship he ever made, and it was terrible. abysmal design. the problem is, he developed these tanks, ballast systems. they can be solid or water. in this case, water. how does it work? you put a hole in the ship, you unscrew the whole, and water comes in. you are below the waterline and you put a hole in the ship and you pipe it. you have some tanks on the left and right side of the ships. you fill them up. if you want to tip them, you

move the water from one side to the other. if you want to make it over a sand bar, you pump the water out as quickly as possible and then open it back up. it is a very clever use of water to do partial-sinking and pump it back out. it was used on the atlantic for years. the problem was, among other things, in the eastland, they used one water seacock. it is a little wheel that opens and in comes the rushing water from the lake. they probably needed two, one to allow water to come in quickly and to pump the water out. they built a system that let

them let water in and did not allow them to move it around very well. and, so, what i think about, to describe it to you, is, imagine having a lasagna tray full of water and you start walking with it. all of a sudden, it starts tipping too one-sided site and you tip it the other way. this is -- starts tipping to one side and you tip it the other way. this is what happened to the eastland. luckily, we have a hero in the story. this is joseph erickson. he is 32 years old in 1915.

he is a norwegian immigrant. he is the hero of the story. and, why that was interesting for me is, because all of coverage and previous writings of the book, he was a scapegoat. he was the bad guy. it was not true. it was not true. i will explain why. he was newly-hired on the eastland. he came by the army corps of engineers and was a very skillful, adept, chief engineer. sensing the danger on the eastland, he turned the engines and propellers off. it would have been awful if the propellers had still been turning in the water and people were spilling into it. it was one of basic was of things he did. he only worked eight weeks on the eastland.

he was a skillful mariner. he knew what he was doing and knew his way around and engineering. he did the best he could to control this. he had never encountered one in his 10-plus years where he was certified as a specialist as a top officer in an engine room that requires federal licensing. i mean, these guys are tested hard for more than one week. the eastland was not responding to what he needed it to do. here is an important thing to know about him. when the ship capsized, a lot of the crew jumped up, ran up ladders, and got out as quickly as they could. they left the passengers behind. it is really rotten behavior.

erickson did not do that. he stayed in the engine room. as the water is rising to his hips, his chest, his neck, only when it reached his mouth, and he got out. why? there was something important that he needed to do. sailors know how to get out of a sinking ship, no matter which way it turns, no matter the obstacles, they know how to get out and they do. he did not. he stayed. the reason is because there are large ovens in the hall of the ship -- hull of the ship that power the engines. they use of steam and they power the ship. the boilers and had a history on many ships of blowing up. there was an incident on the

mississippi river where cold water hit the boilers and they explode catastrophically. they find body parts miles away after this. erickson stayed on the ship. he injected water into the engine to cool it down. if and when the river water in it the engine, they would not blow up. he saved hundreds of lives. there is more. there is more. this is where the >> of my book comes from. the day after the accident, the sunday, july 25, 1915, noon, just of erickson is dragged from jail. they arrested deckhands and everyone. they interviewed and

interrogated. they pulled erickson from jail and he is sitting with the chief of police, charles. he was amount to policeman. -- a mounted policeman who worked his way up to the top by being a skillful interrogator and knew how to question witnesses well. charles had erickson in his office and he knew that erickson was in charge of the engine room and that erickson knows what happened. they have five witnesses. how do i know? i have a copy of the interview of the interrogation. it was signed by joseph erickson and the five witnesses. they talked for about an hour. in the course of the conversation, joseph erickson tells the police chief something stunning -- he says, two months

before, in may, the eastland sinks in july. in may, joseph erickson is working on the engine and he is testing them and running them, getting them ready for the sailing season, when a top executive shows up and asked some questions about maintenance on the ship. walter is a young man about erickson's age. these are 230-year-old men talking about the ship. walter steele says, we want to make modifications to the ballast system. what if we added another seacock? i told you that was a problem. he said, what if we changed the way water shifted? if we made the changes, what would that entail?

erickson tells them, we could do that. it is costly and it will take time. we will not be able to sail the ship during the time. walter steele starts scratching his head and says, we are going into sailing season and i do not want to lose all that. he decides to do it after the sailing season. yeah. he decides to postpone a work that would have made the eastland stable. he asked erickson about what can be done. erickson says, yes. they decide to wait. for me, that was the death sentence for the victims. there was no way. here he is. i like this photo.

this is about one month after the capsizing. all the victims are out. there is one corpse inside. see the big pinky ring, the big nugget. very well to do. . he -- he -- his father was a food company executive. most of the money that walter used to buy the eastland came from his dad, a wealthy food executive in chicago. he was key in deciding to wait on the repair work and not doing it just yet. here he is, walking way from the overturned ship, literally walking way from the disaster he caused.

talking about despicable behavior, what happens on the day of the capsizing? he is in a town and news reaches him that the ship has sunk. he goes into town and there are the housings of people around the shipwrecked area, families try to get in to see if their loved ones are alive, dead whatever. rescuers are trying to get into the chaotic scene. walter steele does not go to c what shape the ship is in or help any of the children who are drowning. he goes to a luncheon with his father at the chicago athletic association. it is one of the ritziest restaurants in town.

he and his dad sit and have a nice lunch while mayhem is unfolding that was his doing. the menu for the chicago athletic club has things like oysters, devil crab, filet ladyfingers, and they had a nice lunch. they mapped out how to defend themselves legally and how they would get out of this mess. since erickson, the chief engineer, who risked his neck to save as many people as he could. after erickson nearly drowned and snaked his way through a porthole, -- he was a diminutive

man. they nicked named him -- nicknamed him, "slim." he got rope and saved five children who were drowning and hanging onto things. honorable, admirable guy in trying circumstances. not so with walter steele. he has this nice lunch with his dad and begins to map out a legal defense, i best lawyers in chicago -- hiring the best lawyers in chicago and defends the captain, but not erickson. erickson is left to fend for himself.

he knew that erickson had told the authorities that steele had postponed the work. he left them no legal representation. when things went wrong, he let him go. erickson does not make much money. he is newly married. what does he do? desperate and underdog, he does an amazing thing. he goes to clarence darrow, the legal legend, a chicago attorney.

darrow loves underdogs and hates corporations. he says, why don't i try clarence darrow. clarence darrow is in a street -- on a street in washington at a remarkable low point of his career. beat charges of bribing jurors. his reputation was in tatters. he was taking ridiculous cases. petit theft, forgery, murder just smalltime crime. he had been paid $50,000 a case for his legal worked in the early 1900s. because of the bribery charges he has no career left. he thought about quitting law. he likes writing and fancied

himself a writer. he thought he would be a speaker. understand that, in 10 years, he will represent a tennessee high school teacher who tried to teach -- who tried to teach evolution to his students, which becomes the scopes monkey trial. he is at a valley of his career and looking for a substantial case. in walks joseph erickson. he agrees to defend him. largely because he wanted to keep the owners for making erickson a scapegoat. the remaining third of my book is the trial. the attempt by the federal

authorities and federal prosecutors to try to get at these guys who did this terrible thing. these children, the ropes, the morgue, someone should be responsible, and they were there to press the case. it is winter of 1916. the captain will weep on the stand. the prosecutors and defense teams bring in competing way models and try to argue why it tipped over. darrow hires divers to saw off suspicious looking columns. the prosecutors argue over everything, including whether the chicago river, the huge