Two Hundred Lives, One Closed Door: The Pacific Inquiry

Capt. Waterman, in his testimony before the United States inspectors of the steamship Pacific, was called upon to give the causes of the loss of the steamer. It was virtually a trial of the inspectors themselves, and of course the verdict was not guilty. There are people in this town and in Victoria as competent as Capt. Waterman to decide questions of a nautical character, and in one respect they are vastly more competent, as they could give an unprejudiced opinion.

Capt. Waterman dare not say that the Pacific was rotten, although he must have known the fact, because if he did he would condemn himself for giving her a certificate. The only witnesses he possibly could have had were the very men who first testified here. Waterman says the bluff of the Pacific's bow was stove in. O'Henly, the quartermaster, stated to Capt. Stratton at Neah Bay, when he was first rescued by the Wolcott, then again in this town, and again in Victoria, that he was asleep in the forecastle, two bunks from the stem; that when the steamer struck it seemed to start all the wood ends, and a sheet of water rushed into the forecastle the whole height of the stem. Nothing was stated by him at any time here, or to anybody, about a hole being knocked in the bluff of the steamer's bow. O'Henly stated that the water squirted in at the stem like a waterfall, and before he could get out of his berth his jacket, which was on the floor, was so wet that he did not pick it up.

Very significant is a fact sworn to here by the captain, officers and a portion of the crew of the Orpheus — that the morning after the collision the iron warping chock of the Pacific was found entangled in the mizzen chains of the Orpheus, and that in that warping chock were four iron bolts, four feet long, which were as black as if they had been pulled out of dock mud. If that fact does not show that something was rotten in Denmark, it does show that there was rotten wood about the bow of the Pacific.

A recent San Francisco paper says: "The character of the steamship is a main factor in the problem. If she were unfit to go to sea, the government officers whose duty it is to inspect the hulls and boilers are the guilty parties. If they are remiss in relation to the Pacific, they will be equally remiss as to other vessels, and there will be no security for those who take passage on coasting steamers. These functionaries are now conducting an investigation of the disaster with closed doors. They are, in a sense, trying themselves, and doing it in a secret manner. If they do not arrive at conclusions quite different in some respects from those of the Victoria jury, it will be one of the strangest cases on record. Yet the steamer which foundered in a collision with a sailing vessel could not have been a very staunch craft. The general rule in nearly all accidents of such a nature is that the ship which is struck goes down, and not the striking ship. But even if the officers making the investigation were not themselves interested, it would be a very strange thing to have so grave a matter as the loss of two hundred lives made the subject of a private inquiry. The public has a right not only to know all that is known, but to be placed in a position to judge of the good sense and honesty of the process."

We fully agree with the above, that even if Waterman and Billman were not themselves interested, it would be a very strange thing to have so grave a matter as the loss of two hundred lives made the subject of a private inquiry. The verdict of the Victoria jury was in accordance with facts sworn to before them by the same parties who swore to the same facts in this town. We cannot believe that O'Henly and Jelly, the only two survivors of the Pacific, swore to a different statement before the U. S. inspectors; and if they did not, how could Capt. Waterman, as an honest man and a nautical man, have arrived at any different conclusion than that of the experts here and in Victoria, who heard the same witnesses he did and are as competent as he to judge? Capt. Waterman's statement, as made public, is all bosh and the merest twaddle. His own men are the men who should be placed on trial for giving a false certificate, and the public will be justified in demanding that such unworthy officers be removed and their places supplied by competent and honest men.