The Past, Reimagined
How The Wall Street Journal of 2014 might have covered the news of July 8, 1889.
By JASON ZWEIG
July 7, 2014 4:43 p.m. ET
Debris from the Johnstown Flood, which killed more than 2,000 people in May Everett Collection
JOHNSTOWN, Pa.—A jury convened by a county coroner to investigate the cause of the Johnstown Flood that swept more than 2,000 people to their death on May 31 found on Saturday evening that the wealthy owners of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club should be held “responsible for the fearful loss of life and property.”
Among the millionaires who are members of the exclusive South Fork club are steel baron Andrew Carnegie, his business partner Henry Clay Frick and eminent Pittsburgh financier Andrew Mellon. A membership is $800, or roughly 25% more than the annual earnings of the average U.S. industrial worker.
According to the coroner’s jury, the club was negligent in its duty to ensure the safety of the dam at the northwest end of Lake Conemaugh, high above the gorge that leads directly into the heart of Johnstown. The six-member jury found that the dam, which is situated on the grounds of the club, wasn’t “constructed sufficiently strong nor of the proper material to withstand the overflow” [of the heavy rains of late May]. “Hence we find that the owners of said dam were culpable in not making it as secure as it should have been,” the jury concluded, “especially in view of the fact that a population of many thousands were in the valley below.”
It wasn’t immediately clear which authority might be able to compel the members of the club to compensate the victims of the disaster and their families, or how much money would be involved.
Messrs. Carnegie, Frick and Mellon, along with other members of the South Fork club, declined to comment. People familiar with the matter say that the Carnegie Co. will give $10,000 toward the relief efforts in Johnstown, while the H.C. Frick Coke Co. will donate $5,000 and the bank of T. Mellon & Sons $1,000. Meanwhile, it is estimated, the townspeople of Pittsburgh have donated nearly $560,000.
Source: The Wall Street Journal