Evening Star
- 300 BURIED ALIVE OR KILLED, TOLL OF QUAKE IN ARMENIA
- SCRIVENER SUICIDE THEORY RAISED AS MURDER CLUES FAIL
- HI-BOY IS NAME FOR THE GIRAFFE, AND MILDRED SMITH WINS PRIZE
The Sunday Evening Star of October 24, 1926, set a disaster abroad beside two Washington stories. An Associated Press dispatch from Leninakan reported that a Friday-night earthquake had killed or buried alive more than 300 people, destroyed half the town and left thousands believed injured, and that lighter early tremors had driven residents into the streets before the worst shocks. At home, the paper reported that, with murder clues exhausted, a coroner's jury would have to weigh whether Detective Sergeant Arthur B. Scrivener had died by his own hand. A lighter item announced that the Zoo's giraffe would be called Hi-Boy, with gold-coin prizes for Mildred Smith and the other contest winners.
Translation
300 BURIED ALIVE OR KILLED, TOLL OF QUAKE IN ARMENIA
LENINAKAN, Armenia, October 23.—A terrible earthquake, which shook the whole of the Armenian republic Friday night, killed or buried alive more than 300 persons in and around Leninakan, formerly Alexandropol. Half of the town was destroyed and hardly a building escaped damage. The injured are believed to run into thousands, although in most cases the injuries were comparatively slight. The confusion and terror among the populace were heightened by erroneous reports that Mount Ararat, of biblical renown, was erupting. The death toll undoubtedly would have been far greater had not the principal shocks been preceded by lesser tremors, which drove the residents into the streets. In this way they escaped the worst effect of the later shocks, which continued at intervals until midnight.
SCRIVENER SUICIDE THEORY RAISED AS MURDER CLUES FAIL
The question of whether Detective Sergt. Arthur B. Scrivener came to his death early on the morning of Wednesday, October 13, by the hands of a murderer or by his own hand will be considered by a coroner's jury at an inquest into the death, in the near future. Bizarre and repugnant as a suicide theory appears at first to those who knew and honored Scrivener, the fact remains that the six men who sit on the coroner's jury must consider it. They must face the unassailable fact that a man can die violently only by the hand of another, by an accident or by his own hand. It is the duty of a jury to determine the cause of death.
HI-BOY IS NAME FOR THE GIRAFFE, AND MILDRED SMITH WINS PRIZE
The winners will be awarded $20 in gold for the first prize; $10 in gold for the second prize, and $5 in gold for the third prize. Each of the 10 who won honorable mention will receive a dollar bill. The winner will also have her name put on a plate which will bear the name Hi-Boy and mark the giraffe's home in the Zoo.
Context
How strong was the Leninakan earthquake of October 22, 1926?
The earthquake in the AP dispatch is now catalogued as the 1926 Kars earthquake, also called the Leninakan earthquake. It struck at 21:59 local time on Friday, 22 October, along the border between Soviet Armenia and eastern Turkey, with a surface-wave magnitude of 6.0, a maximum intensity of IX (Violent) on the Mercalli scale and 360 casualties. The Soviet geologist Pyotr Lebedev, whose study appeared in 1927, put the dead in Soviet Armenia at up to 300 and the seriously injured at about the same number. He also found that the shock was felt as far away as Yerevan, Tiflis, Batumi and Sochi, and that aftershocks went on for several days. The Star's figure of more than 300 killed or buried alive, sent the day after the quake, is therefore close to the later Soviet count. Its estimate of injured 'in the thousands' covers a broader group, since the dispatch itself says most injuries were slight, whereas Lebedev counted serious injuries. The dispatch's statement that the shocks continued until midnight describes only the first night; the later study recorded tremors lasting days.
Leninakan in 1926: the Near East Relief orphanage
Leninakan, which the dispatch identifies as the former Alexandropol, was home to what was then the largest orphanage in the world, created in response to the mass orphaning of children in the Armenian Genocide. The American organization Near East Relief concentrated Armenian orphans in Alexandropol because the former Russian barracks and convenient railroad access were available. By 1926 the operation was shrinking: the Soviet Armenian Commissariat of Enlightenment counted 8,234 orphans remaining on January 1, 1926, and Near East Relief, at the urgent request of the military, had handed the Severski barracks back by October 15, 1926, a week before the earthquake. The AP excerpt reports the destruction of half the town but does not mention the orphanage or its children.
How Detective Sergeant Scrivener was found
Arthur B. Scrivener, a detective sergeant of the Washington Metropolitan Police, was supposed to be married on the night of October 13, 1926. In the early hours of that day he was found dead at the mouth of an alley on N Street in Georgetown, with a bullet through his heart and a torn gray necktie in his hand. The case was first treated as murder, and the tie looked like a clue torn from an attacker. The article reproduced here is the Star's front-page story of October 24 that first raised the possibility of suicide. Its careful reasoning, insisting that a jury must consider every way a man can die violently, reflects how unwelcome the idea was to colleagues and admirers of a well-liked detective.
What the coroner's jury and the later grand jury decided
The inquest the article anticipated was held by Coroner J. Ramsay Nevitt on November 16 and 17, 1926, in the board room of the District Building. The jury retired at 1:07 p.m. on November 17 and returned 10 minutes later with a finding of murder, rejecting the suicide theory the Star had aired. The matter did not end there. In 1929 U.S. Attorney Leo A. Rover put the case before a District grand jury from December 2 to December 18, and that grand jury found that Scrivener had shot himself. Two official bodies thus reached opposite conclusions about the death this article discusses, three years apart.
What became of the National Zoo's 1926 giraffes?
The Star's notice offered $20, $10 and $5 in gold to the top three entries, a dollar bill to each of 10 honorable mentions, and a plate with the winner's name and the name Hi-Boy to mark the giraffe's home at the Zoo. That year the National Zoo acquired two Nubian giraffes from Africa, but both died a year later and were not replaced. If Hi-Boy was one of that pair, as the date of the contest suggests, the animal lived at the Zoo for only about a year. Giraffes returned to Washington only after a sea expedition led by Dr. Mann of the zoo, which began on January 12, 1937, brought back four Nubian giraffes, two males and two females.
Original
300 BURIED ALIVE OR KILLED, TOLL OF QUAKE IN ARMENIA
LENINAKAN, Armenia, October 23. - A terrible earthquake, which shook the whole of the Armenian republic Friday night, killed or buried alive more than 300 persons in and around Leninakan, formerly Alexandropol. Half of the town was destroyed and hardly a building escaped damage. The injured are believed to run into thousands, although in most cases the injuries were comparatively slight. The confusion and terror among the populace were heightened by erroneous reports that Mount Ararat, of biblical renown, was erupting. The death toll undoubtedly would have been far greater had not the principal shocks been preceded by lesser tremors, which drove the residents into the streets. In this way they escaped the worst effect of the later shocks, which contrinued at intervals until midnight.
SCRIVENER SUICIDE THEORY RAISED AS MURDER CLUES FAIL
The question of whether Detective Sergt. Arthur B. Scrivener came to his death early on the morning of Wednesday, October 13, by the hands of a murderer or by his own hand will be considered by a coroner's jury at an inquest into the death, n the near future. Bizarre and repugnant as a suicide theory appears at first to those who knew and honored Scrivener, the fact remains that the six men who sit on the coroner's jury must consider it. They must face the unassailable fact that a man can die violently only by the hand of another, by an accident or by his own hand. It is the duty of a jury to determine the cause of death.
HI-BOY IS NAME FOR THE GIRAFFE, AND MILDRED SMITH WINS PRIZE
The winners w'll be awarded $ 20 in gold for the fir [?] t prize; $ 10 in gold for the second prize, and $ 5 in gold for the third prize. Each of the 10 who won honorable mention will receive a dollar bill. The winner will also have her name put on a plate which will bear the name Hi-Boy and mark the giraffe's home in the Zoo.
Source: Holding institution