Coroner James T. Heffran has promised to conduct a thorough investigation into the catastrophe at the Canonsburg Opera House Saturday night, when twenty-six people lost their lives and many others sustained more or less serious injury.
John C. Delaney, Chief Factory inspector of Pennsylvania, has announced that the state will take action if it is found that any of the laws have been violated.
If these promises are kept the cause of the disaster will be determined, and if the responsibility rests upon any one., or if it is proven that the state laws have been violated, it is reasonable to expect that justice will be done and punishment meted out, if punishment is deserved.
Whatever may be said of the management of the Opera House, it seems certain that a different manner of handling the crowds, especially on Saturday nights, when the attendance was usually the largest, should have been adopted. It seems to have been the custom to close the doors until one performance was ended, then to open them to admit a crowd which had, meanwhile, collected and jammed the stairway end halls leading to the Opera House on the second floor of the building. The crowd leaving the hall and the crowd awaiting admission jammed and crowded the hall and stairway.
By all means a policeman in the employ of the Opera House should have been on duty at all times on the stairway, whenever the crowds assumed such proportions as it did last Saturday night. It was poor economy, indeed.
The Canonsburg Catastrophe differs from those at Collingwood, Ohio, and Boyertown, Pennsylvania, in that there was no fire here. But fire was not necessary; all that was needed to start a panic was something to frighten the people, and this occurred when someone gave a false cry of “fire.” Had there actually been a fire and the room become filled with smoke, the loss of life would probably have been many times greater.
The disaster has its bright as well as its ### or two young men ### have lost their lives### effort to save others. We have it from Holy Writ that “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.” The best in the human heart was brought out, and men did everything in their power to rescue the unfortunate people. And the sympathy of the entire community goes to the stricken homes whose members mourn the loss of dear ones.
All public halls constructed as the one in Canonsburg are dangerous liable to prove death traps. All that is needed to bring about something like that of Saturday night is a scare – not necessarily a fire – and nothing under heaven can prevent a disaster. One Pittsburg paper, commenting this morning on the catastrophe said it might have occurred in any one of a thousand small towns. That is unfair to the small towns. We have only to go back to the closing days of 1903 – not very long ago – to find that it might occur in a large city. The Iroquois theater disaster did not occur in a small town, but in the second largest city on the North American continent.
But this community and every community should profit by Saturday night’s fatality. Collingwood probably had its effect in making safer public school buildings. The experience of Boyertown may have improved public-hall conditions in many communities. And we trust that Canonsburg’s costly experience will not go unheeded anywhere. The people must have places of amusement, but these should be conducted in buildings constructed on different plans than the Canonsburg Opera House. It is difficult to imagine any place really more dangerous, except in the case of a building constructed on similar plans of
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the state has a duty to perform wood over brick.
It should taker every means of having such places as the Canonsburg Opera House made safe. Human life is too precious to be trifled with in this manner. If the borough hasn’t the power, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania has, and it should compel theaters, opera houses and public halls to be so constructed, or reconstructed, that in case of fire, or panic with or without fire, the people will have a chance to escape.
And in conclusion we will say that no more high school commencements will be held at the Canonsburg Opera House.