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The Daily Worker
Chicago, Cook County, Illinois
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Explosion on the steamboat Observation in New York killed at least 43 workers due to a leaking boiler and rotten hull, despite official inspections claiming safety. Firemen testified to known defects and failed repairs.
Merged-components note: Image spatially overlaps with and illustrates the steamboat disaster story, including reference to John Wolf in the text.
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John Wolf, lying in Lincoln Hospital as his wife keeps a vigil at his bedside.
Wolf was burned about the head and body in the explosion aboard the rotten old steamboat "Observation" Friday, in which 42 workers were killed.
'OBSERVATION'S BOILER LEAKED
Firemen Declare It Constant Menace
NEW YORK.—The death list in the Observation wreck has grown. Officially it is now 43, with 20 still missing.
There seems little doubt that these 20 are killed, and their bodies lost in the river, so that the list is really 63.
All were workers except for the captain's father.
Dickerson N. Hoover, assistant chief of the Bureau of Navigation and Steamboat Inspection Saturday testified that the Observation's hull and boiler were regularly inspected every four months and were "in perfect condition."
But yesterday Walter S. Larson and Victor Michaelson, former firemen testified that the boiler leaked so that it flooded the boiler room, that on August 12 the chief engineer tried to patch it with concrete, that the water gauge was showing a full boiler one minute and one inch of water the next, that in June electric welders called in to put a patch on the port water leg of the boiler stated the material was so thin the patch could not be made to stick.
The hull, part of which was raised from the bottom of the East River Saturday, proved to be so rotten the planks would crumble in the hand.
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Location
New York, East River, Lincoln Hospital
Event Date
Friday
Story Details
Explosion on steamboat Observation due to leaking boiler and rotten hull killed 42 workers, with death toll rising to 43 officially and likely 63. Inspections claimed perfect condition, but firemen testified to severe leaks, failed patches, and crumbling hull.