|
An organization of family members of Iroquois
Theater fire victims was founded the afternoon of
January 10, 1904, less than two weeks after the
fire. An estimated one hundred and twenty-five
people met at the Monadnock Block building in the
offices of the Western Society of engineers. Attendees included a hundred people who had lost close
relatives in the fire.
They were invited to the gathering by
Arthur E. Hull,
an insurance agent who had lost his wife and three
children in the fire. Attorneys
Thomas D. Knight and William J. Lacey led the meeting. Knight was Hull's
attorney. Hull was elected chairman and realtor
Edward T. Noble (1862–1911) secretary. Noble had
begun running classified ads in the Personals column
of the Chicago Tribune beginning a week after the
fire, January 6, 1904, presumably to attract
would-be members, but since his advertisement did
not state how people were to contact him, his
connection to the fire or even that forming an
organization was his purpose, word-of-mouth must
have played a role in bringing the group together.
At the first meeting, Hull and Knight described
their goal as punishing the guilty and claiming
reparations for survivors, defining the guilty as
Iroquois owners, including
Klaw & Erlanger and
Chicago authorities. Elizabeth Haley, sister of
Margaret Haley of the Chicago Teachers Federation,
spoke to remind the gathering that serious fire
hazards in Chicago schools were repeatedly ignored
by Chicago officials, including aldermen and mayor
Harrison, and that prevention of future fires was
also a worthy objective for the organization. She
was cheered by the audience. Hull wanted money and vengeance but Haley spoke for a majority of the attendees who wanted to protect future families from experience their grief and agony.
Hull appointed an executive committee to meet in
three days to incorporate the organization.
Committee members:
John L. McKenna,
Henry M. Shabad,
James J. Reynolds,
Edward S. Frazier and
Morris Schaffner.
|
The idea of an
Iroquois Memorial Hospital
was discussed as early as January 21, 1904. The
association briefly lobbied for it to be
located in the Iroquois Theater building. By
mid-March officers were elected for the
Iroquois Memorial Emergency Hospital
corporation: Richard T. Crane Jr., Charles
Dickinson, Frederick W. Crosby, A. A.
Sprague Jr., and Dr. Emil G. Hirsch.
|
Over the next thirteen days came a shift in the
group's focus. Two hundred relatives of Iroquois
victims met on January 23, 1904, to elect officers
and accept a constitutional charter for the
organization. The election reflected a disagreement
over the association's goals. Arthur Hull may have
brought the group together, but his
retribution-oriented objectives were out of
alignment with the membership, and he was not
granted the presidency. Elected:
|
|
A motion to open association membership to anyone in
the theater at the time of the fire was rejected;
membership was restricted to persons closely related
to fire fatalities. The purpose of the organization,
as stated in its charter, was to erect a memorial to
the victims and offer financial assistance to
families who lost income providers in the fire.
Contrary to the goals expressed by Hull and his
attorney at the first meeting, the association's
constitution contained a clause prohibiting the
association's participation in Iroquois fire
lawsuits. A month later, one partisan Chicago
newspaper, the Inter Ocean, claimed founder Hull lost leadership of the group in
a coup led by Reynolds. Reynolds denied the
accusation, and since other members did not speak
out to support Hull, it is equally probable that a
majority of members were at a different stage in
grieving than Hull. Anger and vengeance was his #1
response, almost immediately after the fire; theirs was sadness and a sense of
vulnerability. Restricting membership to those who
shared the pain of losing a direct family member
reflects a wagon-circling attempt to protect the
group from agenda-driven people — such as
newspapers, opportunistic attorneys or retribution
mavericks like Hull. On February 24, 1904, four days after the grand
jury verdict of February 10, 1904 failed
to condemn the deep-pocketed Theater Syndicate or
Chicago's mayor, association co-founder Arthur E.
Hull resigned from the association, announcing that
he was leaving Chicago. He hung around for nearly a
year, long enough to remarry to a wealthy heiress,
then was off to California to build a fortune.
Association president James J. Reynolds assured the
public that the group would continue its goal of
erecting a monument to Iroquois victims. The Inter
Ocean newspaper reported that a month earlier Reynolds, a democrat,
had wrested the organization from Hull, a
republican, during a disagreement over the group's
direction. The Inter Ocean speculated
that Hull's departure would split the association
into two separate groups. It didn't.
A committee was formed in March 1904 to raise funds
and erect a memorial to Iroquois Theater fire
victims. Committee members: Elbridge G. Keitch,
Byron L. Smith, John J. Mitchell, James B. Forgan,
Frederick W. Crosby, James H. Eckels, Dr. Emil G.
Hirsch, A. C. Bartlett, Charles Dickinson, John V.
Clarke, A. A. Sprague Jr., Honore Palmer, Stanley
McCormick, B. S. Cable, and Richard T. Crane jr.
On June 12, 1904
the body of the one Iroquois victim who had never been
identified was buried in
Montrose Cemetery on N. Pulaski northwest of
Chicago. An estimated 12,000 attended the service.
The association by then had raised $25,000 for its
memorial and planned to erect a stone listing all
the dead. Five years later, the Iroquois Memorial
Association erected a marker to honor their loved
ones.
"Sacred to the memory of 600 people who perished in
the Iroquois Theater Fire Dec. 30, 1903.
Erected by the Iroquois Memorial Association 1908."
In later years
A thousand people attended the Iroquois Memorial
Association's first annual gathering. By 1933, thirty years later, the number of attendees had
dwindled to twenty, of which fewer than half had attended the ill-fated Mr.
Bluebeard matinee
on December 30, 1903.
|
