University DAILY KANSAN
STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Thursday, April 17, 1947
44th Year No. 121
Lawrence. Kansas
Texas Blast Toll May Hit 800
1700 Athletes To Compete In Kansas Relays
More than 1,000 high school students will be here Friday to open the 43rd running of the state interscholastic track and field meet. The first events in the revived decathlon, a part of the Kansas Relays, will also be run.
An estimated 700 athletes from 56 universities, colleges, and junior colleges are entered for the relays which begin Saturday.
Elizabeth Esterle, College junior, will reign as Relays Queen. Mary Lilly, College sophomore, and Mary Lou Martin, fine arts freshman, are her attendants.
Activity Book Admits
Admission for University students to the Kansas Relays Interscholastic high school track meet tomorrow will be by activity book. The price of admission for non-student adults is 75 cents and for high school students, 50 cents.
Band Will Take Part In Relays Ceremonies
The University band will take part in the flag raising ceremony and during the running of the Kansas Relays Saturday at Memorial stadium.
Leo Horacek, fine arts senior,
is conducting the band this week
in the absence of Professor
Wiley, who is attending a music
festival in Enid, Okla.
Admission for University students to the college meet Saturday will be by the No. 4 "Extra" slip in the activity book. The price of admission for non-student adults is $1.50, for high school students, 75 cents.
There will be no reserved seats either day. The first event Friday begins at 9:30 a.m. The Friday finals begin at 1:30 p.m.
Preliminaries Begin Saturday
The preliminaries in the college meet Saturday will begin at 10:15 a.m. The first events will be the 120-yard high hurdles, 100-yard dash, the shot put and javelin. The finals and relay events will start at 1:45 p. m.
The decathlon will start Friday at 1:15 p. m. The first decathlon event Saturday will begin at 9 a.m. The ten-event schedule will be completed by 11:30 on Saturday.
ASC Calls Meeting To Discuss Memorial
A special meeting of the All Student council has been called for 5 p.m. tomorrow in the Pine room of the Union.
Five council members, Duane Posttlewhaite, John May, John Waugh, Ondg, Ong, and George Robb, requested that the special meeting be called to discuss putting the War Memorial question on the ballot in spring election.
In the meeting Tuesday, A.S.C. members voted to submit the Oklahoma A. and M. controversy to the students on the general election ballot. Postlethwaite suggested that the students also be allowed to vote on the desirability of the War Memorial.
Relays Queen
ELIZABETH ESTERLE
'Papers Must Lead,' Editor Tells Press Club
One of the best opportunities for journalism graduates is in newspaper promotion work, George W. Marble, president of Kansas Press association, said at a Press club dinner Wednesday night.
"A small-town newspaper's responsibility is to take the leadership in civic projects," he said. "It is good business to encourage community improvements."
Competition from radio, magazines and metropolitan newspapers will force small-town editors to improve their papers. Most editors, he felt, were too occupied in the mechanical details of publishing, to write a good paper.
"I look to the graduates, from journalism schools to bring a big improvement," he said.
Mr. Marble expressed his interest in journalism courses and said that he was "impressed by the K.U. journalism department." He declared that, "I would be putting out a better paper if I had gone to K.U.
Progressives To Ask Reduced Language Hours
A request to eliminate the 10-hour foreign language requirement in the School of Education unless the student plans to teach a language, was added to the Progressive party platform Wednesday night.
. Glen Kappelman, College junior, was appointed chairman of a standing investigations committee, and Rodney Almond, engineering sophomore, will head the social committee.
Members of the investigations committee are John Reese, College junior; Harold Persing, College sophomore; Robert Cox, and Gone Bollings, College freshmen; John Humphreys, engineering sophomore; and Mary Shatzell, Fine Arts freshman.
The first job for this committee is an investigation of veteran's fees. It will be a permanent committee which will handle all of the party questions concerning Universities activities. Any person who brings up a point for investigation will become a member of the investigations committee until the point in question has been either clarified or dropped.
"In this way the men most interested, and most often the man who is best informed on the subject, will have some say about how it is handled." Almond, who introduced the motion, sald.
Members of the social committee are Wendolynne Jones, College junior; Patricia Creech, Mary Sue Kanehl, College freshmen; Bill Adams, Engineering freshman; and Roy Rogers, education junior.
To Investigate Fees
Voting Group To Meet Today
The new campus non-partisan electoral group, the League of Student Voters, will hold a meeting at 5 p.m. today in Green hall.
President Truman today assured Mayor J. C. Trahan of Texas City, that every government agency would cooperate fully in helping the stricken city recover from yesterday's disaster.
A report of the steering committee will be the chief business of the meeting.
At least one airplane was blasted from the sky by the explosion aboard the Grand Camp, and its two occupants killed. Today it was reported that another private plane, also with two aboard, might have gone down in Galveston bay after the blast.
'It'S Worse Than War,' Gen. Wainwright Says
For one thing, he said, many of the dead were blown to pieces. Among them were many migratory workers, registered for work by name only, and it is doubtful whether their own relatives even knew where they were.
Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, hero of Bataan, said today the devastation was "more horrible than anything I've ever seen in war."
As commander of the Fourth army at San Antonio, he came here to direct army disaster relief, including the distribution of 10,000 army blankets, 5,000 gas masks, and large quantities of blood plasma.
A spokesman for the Red Cross, said today that the exact death toll in the Texas City disaster may never be known.
Death and injury came in strange ways. A naval lieutenant who had worked through yesterday and into the night told his men:
As he turned to leave the waterfront, the High Flyer went up, and a piece of steel sheared off his right leg.
"I had better call my wife and tell her I am okay."
Father William A. Roach of St. Mary's Catholic church in Texas City, ignored warnings of workmen and went to the dockside to administer to the dying. An exoskeleton caught him. He died in a Galveston hospital. Funeral services for the dead priest were the first to crystallize from the chaos of the blast-torn area.
A Braniff DC-4, from Dallas winged southward today carrying 3,266 pounds of embalming fluid, chemicals and medical supplies, and 19 morticians to Texas City.
430 Bodies Found; 3,000 Are Injured
Bulletin
Austin, Tex.—(UP)—Gov. Beaufort Jester today issued a summary of Texas City casualties supplied by the Red Cross which showed an estimated 600 to 650 persons dead and 3,000 injured.
Texas City—(UP)—Three new explosions rocked the devastated waterfront of this stricken Texas gulf coast industrial town today.
Two of today's blasts occurred aboard the freighter High Flyer, loaded with thousands of tons of nitrates and sulphur. The second blast disintegrated the ship, throwing chunks of metal for miles, and killing and injuring many who had escaped earlier explosions.
The third explosion occurred as another oil tank blew up.
Authoritative estimates placed the death toll anywhere from 500 to 800. The Red Cross assistant director of disaster in the midwest, placed the dead at 700 to 800.
(By United Press)
The Texas City explosion was the second major disaster in Texas in a week and the third in the United States within 23 days.
Texas City Blast Worst Since'65
Texas has suffered more disasters than any other state. Worst Was In '65
States within the Texas
On April 9 a tornado in the Texas
Oklahoma panhandle killed 132 persons and on March 25 111 miners were killed in the Centralia, ll., explosion.
The worst explosion in the United States, occurred Aug. 24, 1865, when a steamboat carrying union war prisoners, blew up in the Mississippi river near Memphis, killing 1,405 persons.
But 430 bodies had been counted and authorities believed 100 to 250 bodies still lay in the debris of the shattered dock area. Coach guard and Red Cross estimates placed the injured at 3,000 or more.
The next worst explosion was the New London, Tex., school disaster of March 18, 1937, when 293 children were killed.
The greatest natural disaster in U.S. history occurred at Galveston, Sept. 8, 1900, when a tidal wave engulfed the city, drowning 6,000 persons and second was the Johnstown flood May 31, 1889, which took 2,209 lives.
1944-Port of Chicago, Cal., ammunition ship explosion, 321 dead
1944-Hartford circus fire, 168
dead.
1842 - Boston Coconut Grove night-
club, fire. 622 dead.
Other Disasters:
club fire, 492 dead.
1926 - Florida hurricane, 327 dead.
1917 - Ammunition ship explosion
Ullmer harbor, 1,226 dead.
in hailfall harbor, Lazy oad.
1915- U.S.S. Eastland captured in
1006 - San Francisco earthquake.
452 dead
1904 - Steamer Slocum burned in New York's East river, 1,012 dead
1903 - Iroquois Theater fire, Chicago, 575 dead
1871 - Forest fire engulfs Peshtigo,
Wilis, area, 1,152 dead.
WEATHER
Kansas—Generally fair today, to right and Friday. Warmer today and tonight. Low tonight middle 40's.
The Deputy Mayor of the town of 18,000 reported that 99 per cent of homes in Texas City had been damaged, and that half the town's population had fled from the holocaust.
Damage was estimated at 125 million dollars or more as ships, a vast chemical plant, oil refineries, oil tanks and other industrial plants were destroyed.
Inquiries Should Go To Galveston Red Cross
Texas City,. Tex—(UP)—Galveston, not Texas City, is the correct place to seek information concerning relatives or friends in the stricken area, Red Cross public relations chairman Dan Romine said today.
Romine said that all inquiries should be sent to the Red Cross central inquiry service at Galveston chapter house.
He revealed that 6,000 messages were handled during the night.
Two Freighters Destroyed
As thousands of rescue workers toiled into the second day of the tragedy, the major damage included:
The freighters Grand Camp—on which originated the little fire which lead to the disaster—and High Flyer destroyed.
Two smaller ships and several
barges destroyed.
The 19 million dollar Monsanto Chemical company plant blasted to a "hollow shell."
Fifty or more oil storage tanks burned out.
Two oil refineries heavily damaged.
Two oil refineries heavily damaged. Most of the docks, warehouses, and office buildings along the waterfront destroyed. Buildings wrecked as far as two miles away, houses shaken and windows broken over an area of 140 square miles.
Five hundred automobiles parked in the area reduced to twisted wreckage.
Fires Still Rage
At least eight major oil tank fires still raged more than 24 hours after the first blast, Deputy Mayor J. H. Hill told a press conference.
He explained that a north wind was sweeping smoke and noxious fires out into Galveston Bay and restricting possible spread of the fires.
a tank of chlorine gas blew up and
(continued to page eight)