Delicate Eagle

In deference to readers, The Eagle omits all gruesome details of this disaster.

Readers of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle Beheld this box over the Eagle's frontpage story of Ohio's prison holocaust early last week. The Eagle's account was by the Associated Press. The most gruesome detail (in a description of the deaths of over 300 men by fire) which the Eagle permitted itself to print was this: "Fire and smoke both claimed the lives of the convicts who perished."

"Gruesome details" withheld by the Eagle from its readers, sent by the A. P. to all member-papers, included the following: "The field resembled a field of battle. . . . Groans and feeble cries came from the lips of the victims . . . shrieks of terror from men who were working over them came from the ground. Seared and blackened faces bespoke the futility of pondering over men who were already dead . . . dying men cried for the last rites of the Church. . . ."

Eagle-readers wondered if the Eagle's delicate deference were part of the new policy of Publisher Frank Ernest Gannett who bought the Eagle last year. Inquiry proved otherwise. Managing Editor Harris McCabe Crist said he had made the decision himself at the breakfast table after reading, and begging his wife not to read, first accounts of the catastrophe.

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