Life-Saving Service Likely ; to Be Pro
vided, for. by - the Government
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,HT JOHN" F.LPRETH WAT KINS.
OUR army of storm fighters is in the
tix of our army of man fighters,
only in a worse one. Nearly all
over four-fifths of those who filleil its
ranks five years ago are now in other
employments where wages are more pro
portionate to he higher eost of living"
and where work is less hazardous.
Idealizing that continueil discontent
ninong these coast guards must result in
Increased death and destruction along:
our shores, the commerce committees of
' both houses of Congress have just favor
nhty reported bills granting increased
pay of about 10 per cent to superinten
dents, keepers and assistant keepers; giv
ing a ration allowance of 30 cents a day
to all crew members: allowing de
pendents of a man dying from injuries
received on duty to receive his pay in
ll cases for two years after his death.
Hud allowing mothers within the official
raiegory of dependents. Mr. Sumner I.
Kimball, general superintendent of the
life-saving service, worked hard for pen
!ons for his men, their widows, orphans
and dependent mothers, such as was
pranted lately to those of the revenue
cutter service. But the leaders in Con
grrgg are not et iu a humor to grant
this recognition to our only plucky coast
guards, who, of all our fighting men, are.
year in and year out. the hardest worked
and by far this worst exposed to suffering
and danger
Save 14 Lives Out if J 5.
To learn Just what these brave fellows
is to earn their salt I called yesterday
upon Mr. Kimball. He is a Maine Yankee,
wbo was graduated from Bowdoin five
yrs ahead of Tom Heed, and left the
Msina legislature ten years before the
great Speaker entered upon his appren
ticeship there. Mr. Kimball has been in
his present position for 37 years, and
connected 'with the Federal Government
continuously since tAn interesting
man to chat with on any topic one who
could stock a Bancroft with personal
reminiscences of a half century the Na
tion's great, or a Stevenson, with plots
of sea tales enough for a life work he
has a tongue's end ever ready with the
smallest detail of the great system,
which ho has organized and extended
along our four great coast lines. He
showed me in the official records that
since he organised his bureau In 1ST1 his
boys have worked nt nearly 1S.000 wrecks,
imperiling nearly lii.ftX) people and about
SVt. 000.000 worth of property. Fourteen
out of every 15 of these human beings
and over two-thirds of this imperiled
property have been savert. Most people
have the idea that visiting and looking
out for wrecks Is the only work of these
storm flghtrs. Their chief told me that
last year, in addition to saving five dozen
of people who had gotten into the water
from other causes than accidents to
boats would-be suicides, lunatics, care
less bathers, skaters, children who felt
from docks, etc. they had rescued 17
'mm
Dependents Ton Men' in trie
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flood victims, carried 17 sick people to
physicians, given direct medical aid to 10
recovered &I corpses from the water,
cared for 13 others found on beaches, re
covered 14 lost fish nets, saved 100,000 feet
of drifting saw-logs, worked at 31 fires
and rescued from the flames S5 horses
and 110 vehicles. In addition to this they
rescued a number of other persons en
dangered in other ways fallen into sew
ers, gotten caught upon breakwaters,
lost In blizzards, stranded in automobiles,
endangered by runaway horses and one
woman victim of attempted assault. Thus
the life-saving man cdmbines with his
best-known duties those of fireman, po
liceman, salvage man, ambulance sur
geon, hospital steward and morgue
master. Sufferings During Night Duty.
Most of the men disabled in this peril
ous service are victims of exposure dur
ing the night patrol, at which each surf
man must take his turn along the lonely
beach. None of the four night watches
is. ever omitted in a coast precinct, and
wherever there is darkness on our shore,
fair weather or foul, there stretches an
endless chain of men, pacing up and
down, with weather eyes skinned on the
sea. The stormier the night and the
harder the way the more important is
this duty deemed, and failure to reach
the signal box at the end of a patrol is
punishable by dismissal, even when the
way has to be gained by floundering over
the slippery ice banks or the shingle,
stumbling over the driftwood thrown up
by the mad waves or wading waist deep
through beach gullies dug by the storm.
In degree of exposure, peril and exhaust
ing toll there is no duty in any branch
of the Government service comparable to
that of the beach patrol. Besides the
scores of men who have been disabled for
life by this duty, Mr. Kimball could re
call the cases of seven of his men who
have been found dead on their beats.
Two ot these died thus in 1903. He told
me. also, that of his eight district super
intendents who have died in office only
two have passed away at home, and one
of the latter was the victim of pneu
monia, contracted on duty.
, Officers W ho Hare Succumbed.
Two of these officers were drowned.
Superintendent Guthrie of the North
Carolina district met this fate by the
pitch-poling of his surfboat at the fa
mous wreck of the Huron In 1577, while
Superintendent Sawyer of the great
lakes district was drowned during duty
on Lake Huron in 1SS0. Perhaps no case
Illustrates the ordeals of these super
intendents better than that of the death
of Superintendent Eldridge, who suc
ceeded the ill-fated Captain Guthrie of
the South Carolina district. Required by
the regulations to go 46 miles along the
coast, in February. 1893, he started by
schooner, but getting1 stuck in the ice
shipped a pony and cart across the near
est, inlet and proceeded thus until the
pony smashed the cart. With the animal
now hitched to an oxcart, he walked half
7,
THE SUNDAY OREGON IAX, PORTLAND, MARCII 22, 1908.
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of the time to keep from freezing, and
caught by nightfall at a fisherman's de
serted hut, he had to tear one side of the
habitation away for firewood. Lying upon
rushes, which he cut to protect him from
the frozen earth, he was taken with the
premonitary chills and fever of pneu
monia, from which disease he succumbed
after reaching his destination. Another
such case was that of Superintendent
Sparrow of the Massachusetts district,
who, after walking to and from a wreck
for 14 miles through one of New Eng
land's severest snow storms, in Decem
ber, 1S06, shattered his health, nearly lost
his eyesight and entirely lost his mind.
On this trip he waded kneedeep in snow
covered marshes and scrambled on all
fours over sand dunes while the snow
was falling so thickly that it well-nigh
smothered him.
Kntire Crews Drowned.
But the most terrible ordeals of ' our
life savers are suffered while struggling
with the waves in times of shipwreck.
But when death is the wages of valor
here it comes quick and fast, and does
not inflict a lingering sting. The list of
widows and - orphans and helpless
mothers, heart-broken and left dependent
by sudden death met in these heroic mo
ments, is long. The first great tragedy
of this kind occurred at the wreck of the
Italian bark Nuova Ottavia off North
Carolina in lS7ti. The life savers put .out
at night through a heavy surf, beyond
which the bark appeared as a mere mass
of shadow. The progress of the lifeboat
could be traced from shore only by the
glimmer of its lantern. A sudden ex
tinction of this flame, a scream from the
sea and then corpses rolling in through
the surf, followed by the empty boat
tumbling in upside down, were the only
evidences of the catastrophe which
claimed the lives of an entire life-saving
crew. From one of the surviving sailors
of the bark it was afterward learned that
his fellow Italians, becoming panic
stricken when the lifeboat had come
alongside, had all attempted to jump
aboard at once and had swamped the
little craft.
All of the surf men were lost at the
wreck of the J. H. Magruder on Lake
Huron iu 1SS0.- This crew was from the
Point Aux Barques station, Michigan.
The wreck was three miles out, and for
two hours the life boat tried to reach
her through a treacherous surf, which
turned the little craft over time and time
again. Finally she capsized after the
crew had become exhausted by repeated
rightings and bailings. Finally they had
only strength enough left to hold on to
her sides: then they dropped, off. one by
one, to death all save the keeper who
managed to hold fast until washed into
safe water.
Screamed to Aid Heart Action. .
"I was conscious only at brief inter
vals. said the keeper, who was in the
water three and one-half hours. "I was
not suffering, had no pain, had no sense
of feeling in my hands;feit tircti,slecpy
and numb. At times I could scarcely see.
1 remember screeching several times, not
to attract attention, but thought it would
help the circulation of my blood." The
same year the keeper and two surfmen
of the Peaked Hill bar station. Cape Cod,
were drowned while trying to rescue the
crew of the sloop C. B. Trumbull. The
life savers had landed part of the crew,
and having gone back for the remainder,
were alongside the wreck when the lat
ter's boom came down into the water,
then rose again and lifted the lifeboat
bottom up. The life savers righted her,
but before they could turn her bow-on a
big sea capsized her once more, drowning
the three men.
Victims or Australian Wreck.
The Barnegat crew. New Jersey, also
lost three tried men in Winter of 1886
when the Austrian bark Kraljevica struck
on Barnegat shoals .during a night of
thick darkness and dense fog. The
Austrians left the bark in their longboat
and after drifting for hours capsized.
Eight were drowned, but the captain and
five others clung to the boat and gained
the beach. Almost dead from exhaus
tion, they dragged themselves to a gun
ner's hut, well provisioned and supplied
with fuel. The members of the Barnegat
crew at dawn first espied the wreck, and
not knowing that the Austrians had put
off, went out through the ugliest surf
seen in years. They were half way back
when to their horror a towering wave,
so hollow that the lifeboat could not
rise in it, swamped them, killing; one
man by a blow from the gunwale and
drowning two others. The same year the
keeper and two surfmen of the Grand
Point Au Sable crew. Lake Michigan,
were lost at a wreck by the capsizing of
their boat, beneath which one of the men
was smothered. The thermometer stood
at zero, and the survivors of this cata
strophe reached shore with their clothing
frozen as stiff as boards.
Raced to Death Through Snowdrift.
The next year part of a picked crew
from the two stations near Cape Hear;-,
Va., met the same fate at the wreck of
the German ship Elisabeth. Some of
these men had dragged their apparatus
for miles through snowdrifts, often
waist deep. Arriving at the wreck,
they found 22 Germans in a longboat
alongside the sinking ship and had
taken seven of these aboard when an
immense wave suddenly swept around
the rear of the wreck and turned the
two small boats over and over, throw
ing all of the 29 men. including the
seven life savers, into the sea. Keeper
Belanga. as he swam with the men to
ward shore, helped a surfman remove
his boots, and this man was saved,
while the brave keeper himself was
lost. Out of the 29 men only one other
also a surfman escaped. The latter
after reaching shore fell exhausted in
the snow, where he was found by his
wife, who. with - another woman,
dragged him home and nursed him
back to life. This keeper's brother
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and tw-o brothers-in-law died with
him.
The breaking of a defective oar
caused a capsize which drowned four
surfmen of the Cleveland, Ohio, station
who were out at the wreck of a skiff
in 1S93, the remainder of the crew
being rescued by a tug.
Panic among the men taken aboard
the lifeboat caused the last sad catas
trophe of this kind. In 1902, off Shovel
ful shoal, Mass. Keeper Eldridge ana
his men had rescued the crew of a
wreck March 11, and on the 17th were
returning to take oft the wreckers
working thereon. The latter were
safely in when a sea struck the surf
boat. This would have caused no dam
age, but the wreckers became so panic
stricken by the sudden lurchlag of the
craft that they obstructed, stood up,
clung to the surfmen and crowded them
from the thwarts. A second sta cap
sized the party before the life savers
could turn bow-on, and of the 13 in the
little boat 12, including the keeper,
were drowned. The water was cold and
the men clung to. their craft until one
by one they dropped oft exhausted,
save one surfman, the sole survivor,
who managed to bold fast until the up
turned boat drifted into quiet water.
And now let uS see the lif-saving
man in the glory of success. Thua far
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we have been dealing largely with
failures failures unavoidable though
they be. The night of December 14,
1902, the schooner John R. Ndyes struck
three miles off Lakeside, on the New
York shore of Lake Ontario, Keeper
Gray, of the nearest life-saving station,
at Charlotte, 23 miles away, tried to
put off at once in the harbor tug, but
it was frozen fast in the ice. Hasten
ing to the nearest railroad station, in
land, he ordered two flat cars on a sid
ing shoveled clear, hauled his beach
apparatus for two hours through the
snow, lifted it into the cars, chartered
a special locomotive, put out for Lake
side, unloaded hi apparatus on sleds,
and with his men thus hauled it four
miles to the beach through the snow
six" feet deep. When he launched hi
boat he could not see 12 feet ahead
in the blackness of the night which had
fallen upon the wreck, and, although
he and his crew groped about the win
try sea for hours, they did not sight
it till dawn. She had drifted 20 miles
out, and here, after hours of toil at
the oars, he found her, with all on
board nearly dead from exposure. The
wellnigh exhausted crew, while steady,
ing their little craft against the storm
waves, lifted all of th$ imperiled ones
aboard ajid. rowed back over the 20
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miles of wintry sea. But on ncaring
shore, after all of this ceaseless toil,
kept up all night and all day, the crew
found the ice barriers along the brink
too high to let them beach their boat.
Just as the second night of their ad
venture was falling these nearly faint
ing men, their backs bent and aching,
their muscles chilled and knotted,
steadied their little boat once more,
picked up their human burdens, one
by one, and now, wading waist deep
in the chilly waters, now carefully feel
ing their way over the slippery ice, laid
them safely upon the soft snow.
It is the women and children made
dependent, the men themselves dis
abled, by each ordeals as these that
Congress is now asked to give a square
deal. Four out of every five of the
plucky chaps left in the service has a
wife at home, and race suicide is not
a crime to be laid at the doors of salt
water folks. Nearly all of the bach
elors in the service have dependent
mothers. Are not the women and chil
dren of men who slave like this for
others, and for others alone, as worthy
of a Nation's protection as the women
and -children of the soldier and blue
jackets, who fight once in a generation,
or of the revenue cutter sailor, who
seldom smells gunpowder in a lifetime?
The life-saving man is engaged in
ceaseless hand-to-hand combat with a
foe far more relentless, far more hor
rible than the most treacherous human
monster that ever bore arms a foe
which grants no armistice, respects no
flag of truce, allows no quarter to the
prisoner or the maimed.
Washington. D. C, March 14.
Following a Bad Example.
Mr. Smith (after Ill-tempered speech
by Brown) Mr. Chairman and gentlemen,
following the example of Mr. Brown's
luncheon, I shall venture to disagree
with him.
An Old Song In New Form
Philadelphia Press.
There was an old decan
ter, and Its mouth -was
gaolng wide; the
rosy wine had
ebbed a way
and left
' its crys
tal Ridn:
nd the wind
went humming
humming.
up and
down the
pmIs It flew,
and through the
reed-like
hollow neck
the wildest notes
It blew. I placed it in
the window where the
" blast was blowing free, and
fancied that Its pale mouth nan
the queerest strains to me. "Tln-y tclt
me puny conquerors! the Plague ha
slain his ten, and War his hundred thou
sands of the very beet of men; hut J." 'twas
thus the bottle spake, "but I have conquered
more than all your famous conquerors, so
feared and famed of yore. Then come, ye
youths and maidens all. come, drink from
out my cup the beverage that dull th
brain and burns the siirit up; that
puts to shame conquerors that slay
tholr scores below, for this has
deluged millions with the lava
tide of woe. Tho' in the paih
of battle darkest waves oC
blood may roll, yet while
I killed the body I have
damned the very snul.
The cholera, the
plague, the sword,
such ruin never
wrought as I,
- In mirth or malic
on the innocent
have brought. And
still I breath upon them,
and they shrink before my
breath, and year by yar my thou
sands tread the duunal road, of .Death.