The Ogden Standard-Examiner from Ogden, Utah • Page 25

I Removing the body of a woman victim from the ghastly wreck the "Charleston" made of the Boston night club J-IE "Charleston," newest and most amazingly strenuous of the modern became literally a dance of death in Boston the other night. Scientists declare that the vigor with which a hundred dancers in a well known night club on the edge of Boston's Chinatown kept time to the "Charleston's" peculiar and strongly accented rhythm was the direct cause of the five- story building's collapse, the killing of nearly fifty persons, and the serious, in. jury of scores of others. "If some far less strenuous'dance had taken the "Charleston's" place, or if the dancers had been less exhilarated by their celebration of the night before the Fourth, the disaster would, science believes, have never occurred. How did the "Charleston" release from the hand of Death a weight that struck this building with a force many times greater than any thunderbolt and crushed it like an egg shell? The explanation, according to physicists and engineers who have given the matter careful study! is a very simple one.

A minute or two before the Pickwick Club collapsed a hundred hilarious men and women had taken the floor to dance the "Charleston." The total pressure on the floor of these fifty couples when standing or sitting quietly was about 15,000 pounds--just what they weighed. But when the music began and their feet started hitting the floor all at once with the unusual vigor the "Charleston" calls for, their pressure on the floor was instantly increased 155 per cent--raised to the tremendous total of nearly 40,000 pounds. As the music grew madder and the dancers more wildly boisterous, their feet hit the floor with ever increasing force. Each time the building swayed little more menacingly. At last came the fatal moment--a beat of music that called for a more vigorous stamping than any that had gone before.

The none too strong building, weakened by the. rapid succession of sledge hammer blows falling with a weight pressure of many tons, not withstand the strain. Down it went into a tangled mass of wreckage that buried nearly 200 men and women. In a report to District Attorney O'Brien, Edward W. Davis, graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and well known consulting engineer, says: "The rhythm of the with its thumping and rhythmic lateral swaying, would have a destructive tendency on any dance floor.

"Both the fox trot and the 'Charleston' have a downward pressure. And the weight of a person exerted on a floor as pressure while dancing, increases 155 per cent over the normal weight while standing still. "Thus, if in'the Pickwick Club at the moment of the fatal collapse, fifty couples--100 persons---were standing' still, each with an average normal weight of 150 pounds, their total weight pressure on the floor would be 15,000 pounds. "But if these couples were dancing, their weight pressure would be increased to a total of 38,250 pounds, or nearly twelve tons above normal. "Soldiers, when crossing a bridge on a march, are always ordered step so that the bridge structure will not collapse them as a result of the heavy rhythmic beat of their tread.

"This same principle applies to a dance floor. When the entire weight of the dancers presses rhythmically upon the same point, the foundations are naturally imperilled. "The with its swaying and. stamping of feet, was un- "doubtddiy Oatef-uVdance--a "veritable dance of death." The "Charleston," as every follower of the modern dances knows, a mixture of leaping and gliding, with very little of the latter. The dancers join hands, jump about and come down heavily on the floor.

There is more kicking, jumping and 'other vigorous action in the "Charleston" than there was in the old-fashioned breakdown. Frank Decker, a singer employed at the ill-fated club and one of the survivors, says that the dance which ended in the tragedy was unusually boisterous. It was nearly dawn. The dancers --were highly exhilarated by the night's gayeties--and the liquor which many of them, had been-consuming. Another singer, John Duffy, who was among the killed, had just finished singing- "West of the Great Divide." After the club "members" and their guests were through applauding him, they noisily demanded another "Charleston." The weary, perspiring musicians picked up their instruments and started "West of the Great Divide" again, this time to a lively dance tempo.

"At least fifty couples crowded on the floor," says Frank Decker, "and they danced like folks gone mad. Before the orchestra had played a dozen notes I could feel the floor swaying. I heard loud cracks but thought they were firecrackers. "As the dance neared its close the orchestra speeded up the tempo and the dancers grew crazier than ever. It seemed as if they couldn't kick high enough or stamp their feet hard enough to satisfy themselves.

"When the orchestra was blaring almost the last note of the piece, there came a deafening roar. The lights went out and, in the twinkling of an eye, the old Club' was no more." Ironically enough the song, that had vied in popularity witty" West of the Great Divide" all through the club's celebration of the night before 1 the Fourth was called "All' Aboard For Heaven." A torn copy sheet music was found clutched in the dead hand of one of the women victims. Near her lay the man with whom she had been dancing when the crash, Science Explains How the Dancers 5 Rhythmic Leaping Across the Ballroom Floor Exerted a Pressure Which Crushed a 5-Story Building Like an Egg Shell and Killed Nearly Fifty Persons "The dancers' normal pressure of 15,000 pounds on the floor was raised to nearly 140,000 pounds the instant they began leaping, about to the rhythm of the lively 'Charleston' music. The madder the dance grew the greater the pressure became. At last one.

particularly, strenuous thump of the dancers' feet the-, hand vf Death a weight tremendous enough to. tend the building crashing down into a tangled mass of Kate Pullman, a professional! exponent of the "Charleston" "It is a scientific, says, "that rhythm exerts: a-far. greater effect, on a building than pressure. "If several men; wish to-break down a door, it'together, with a log or, other 'weapon. The Beside him was an empty half-pint bot- ing blows are.

those -which delivered tie and in his pocket was a half-emptied silver flask. Professor John L. Carver is another of the eminent scientists who think that the concerted "with which, the dancers followed the rhythm of the "Charleston" music' was responsible for the building's collapse. in unison and not in broken and scattered "The Pickwick. Club' might "have collapsed if 'Charleston' had not' been danced.

as was that But'the dance undoubtedly hastened "Even the nir waves set.nin motion by Couirlcht. great other musical install-, merits are. capable producing: -disastrous effects on a. a-building, or other similar same principle-holds "true with music as with dancing. 'The 'pressure- is the-musical-notes are sounded in 'rhythmic -unison; than are sounded in'broken fashion." Pro'fessor Carver calls attention to the Old Testament's dramatic account, of the way the walls of the city', of fell at-the cries the children of Israel." In the:" Bo ok of Joshua we read: "So the people shouted when priests with the trumpets: and it came to pass when the.

people heard the sound of the trumpets, people shouted with- a the wall fell down that'the 'people went -up city, -every man straight before they took city." V. Many scientists think, that the explanation of-this remarkable, incident, is'to be foun3 m'-the vibrations by' the shouting and the trumpet on-the 'city wall. Vibration, the 'physicists. us, is practically-" the of' aU Light' and color- are 'ether Sound is a transmission waves. '6f.

such. substances, as metal, concrete and contributes', to -their WJien, under. the; strain of constant-'" yibration, such reach their elastic limit 'there may be a Features. Inc. the Lewis.Irvine s'o'n', distinguished' architect and; engi- declared--that the collapse, "of the- Knickerbocker-Theater in a-'few! years ago -was result'of 'the vibrations-produced by a 1 by the.

orchestral- selection, that Those 1 rhythmic-' vibrations, Mr. Thompson -believed, aggravated trrrial-structural, defect-in the-roof until the point-of -saturation was-reached and the whole-, the audience, arid costing 'nearly 100 possible wreck' standing 'in its his Thie' rhythm one over anil might produce' reciprocal or'steel whose weakness, 'would' precipitate whole'' structure: the; Easjj'River. knoym -are "pe-'. sensitive; with more eveihriess than HerberirsPayh'e a wjeli; known while stand for generations' under evem more. would-not- staiin of.

a-, drove' of 1 it' day. Miss Dpris Stevens, in the Pickwick Club disaster of-the dogs' trot would, hey says, find its response in part and wreck strongest -bridge ever built. The bridge could not. withstand the Brooklyn Bridge carries daily -a' dead weight' greater- than any other' structure world. if this 'maintained- a synchronous a Sympathy of all elements of traffic--the soon nothing but a 'of steel.

This synchronous-vibration, is of peculiar significance in cities where many large buildings' are devoted themariu- of sewing machines in these- factories, maintained synchronous vibration would be' As a-result'of Club dis-- aster the ofjbhe in public halls. 1 and. several other cities feat.of effect it might Have-on :p.ld."or 1 I i I I I I Hi i Ui 'I M' I li li Ml I I i I.