Editing PS General Slocum (section)

=== Aftermath ===
[[File:TAG Slocum Memorial 01.jpg|thumb|upright|The General Slocum Memorial in the Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens, is home to the graves of many victims of the disaster.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Bauman|first=Valerie|date=June 10, 2017|title=1904 steamboat disaster anniversary marked|url=https://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/anniversary-of-1904-general-slocum-steamboat-disaster-marked-1.13727067|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170610171603/http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/anniversary-of-1904-general-slocum-steamboat-disaster-marked-1.13727067|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 10, 2017|access-date=2021-08-20|website=Newsday|language=en}}</ref>]]
{{quote box |align=right |width=25em |text={{pad|0.5em}}The evidence before the Commission establishes the fact that the master made no attempt whatsoever to fight the fire, to examine its condition, or to control, assure, direct, or aid the passengers in any way whatever. ... An essential fact of negligence is the utter failure of the master to fight the fire or aid the passengers. In a less degree the pilots, in the same manner, after beaching the boat, and while there were still many passengers on board, failed in their duty to assist and rescue the said passengers. Very little assistance was given or control exercised by any of the officers or crew on behalf of the passengers. |source=''Slocum'' Report (1904)<ref name=USCI-Slocum/>{{rp|11}}}}
Eight people were indicted by a federal [[grand jury]] after the disaster: the captain, two inspectors, and the president, secretary, treasurer, and commodore of the Knickerbocker Steamship Company.

Most boatmen felt that Van Schaick "was unjustly made a scapegoat for the resulting tragedy, instead of the owners of the steamer or the effectiveness of the life saving and fire fighting equipment then required — and the inspections of it by government inspectors".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.hrmm.org/history-blog/captain-van-schaick-of-the-general-slocum | title=Captain van Schaick of the "General Slocum" }}</ref> He was the only person convicted. He was found guilty on one of three charges: [[criminal negligence]], for failing to maintain proper [[fire drill]]s and [[fire extinguisher]]s. The jury could not reach a verdict on the other two counts of manslaughter.  He was sentenced to 10&nbsp;years imprisonment. He spent three years and six months at [[Sing Sing Correctional Facility|Sing Sing]] prison before he was paroled.  President [[Theodore Roosevelt]] declined to pardon Van Schaick. Van Schaick was finally released when the federal parole board under the [[William Howard Taft]] administration voted to free him on August 26, 1911.<ref name=robinson>Robinson, Eric. [[New-York Historical Society]] Library</ref> He was [[presidential pardon#United States|pardoned]] by President Taft on December 19, 1912; the pardon became effective on Christmas Day.<ref>{{cite news|author=Staff| date=December 20, 1912| title = Van Schaick Pardoned. Captain of the Ill-Fated Slocum Is Restored to Full Citizenship.| work= [[The New York Times]] | url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9902E0DA1E3AE633A25753C2A9649D946396D6CF| access-date=April 13, 2009}}</ref> After his death in 1927, Schaick was buried in [[Oakwood Cemetery (Troy, New York)]].

The Knickerbocker Steamship Company, which owned the ship, paid a relatively small fine despite evidence that they might have falsified inspection records. The disaster motivated federal and state regulation to improve the [[Boat safety#Safety|emergency equipment]] on passenger ships.

The neighborhood of Little Germany, which had been in decline for some time before the disaster as residents moved uptown,<ref name="O'Donnell"/>{{rp|[https://archive.org/details/shipablazetraged00odon/page/25 26–34]}} almost disappeared afterward. With the trauma and arguments that followed the tragedy and the loss of many prominent settlers, most of the Lutheran Germans remaining in the Lower East Side eventually moved uptown. The church whose congregation chartered the ship for the fateful voyage was converted to a synagogue in 1940 after the area was settled by Jewish residents.

The victims were interred in cemeteries around New York, with 58&nbsp;identified victims buried in the [[Cemetery of the Evergreens]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.theevergreenscemetery.com/stories/shirtwaist-fire/the-general-slocum-disaster |title=The General Slocum Disaster |website=The Evergreens Cemetery |access-date=May 28, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171214143757/http://www.theevergreenscemetery.com/stories/shirtwaist-fire/the-general-slocum-disaster/ |archive-date=December 14, 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and 46 identified victims buried in [[Green-Wood Cemetery]],<ref>[https://www.green-wood.com/2015/illustration-of-the-general-slocum-steamship-disaster-le-petit-parisien-july-3-1904/ Illustration of the General Slocum Steamship Disaster, Le Petit Parisien, July 3, 1904] Green-Wood Cemetery</ref> both in Brooklyn. Many victims were buried at Lutheran Cemetery in [[Middle Village, Queens]] (now [[Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery]]) where an annual memorial ceremony is held at the historical marker.<ref>[http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=7177 Slocum Disaster] International Historic Marker Database</ref>

In 1906, a marble memorial fountain was erected in the north central part of [[Tompkins Square Park]] in Manhattan by the Sympathy Society of German Ladies, with the inscription: "They are Earth's purest children, young and fair."<ref name=NY-Library>{{cite web|last=Wingfield|first=Valerie|title=The General Slocum Disaster of June 15, 1904|url=http://www.nypl.org/blog/2011/06/13/great-slocum-disaster-june-15-1904|work=NYC Neighborhoods : Manuscripts and Archives Division|publisher=The New York Public Library|access-date=February 10, 2013|date=June 13, 2011}}</ref>

The sunken remains of ''General Slocum'' were [[Marine salvage|salvaged]] and converted into a 625-[[gross register ton]] [[barge]] named ''Maryland'', which sank in the [[South River, New Jersey|South River]] in 1909<ref>{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=CR19090307.2.10 |title=Old Boat General Slocum Went Under |date=March 7, 1909 |newspaper=Chico Record |via=California Digital Newspaper Collection |access-date=21 May 2021}}</ref> and again in the Atlantic Ocean off the southeast coast of New Jersey near [[Strathmere, New Jersey|Strathmere]] and [[Sea Isle City, New Jersey|Sea Isle City]] during a storm on December 4, 1911, while carrying a cargo of coal. All four people aboard ''Maryland'' survived the sinking.<ref>Anonymous, ''Shipwrecks of the Mid-Atlantic: Maryland, Delaware & Southern New Jersey'' (poster), Sealake Products USA, undated.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://njscuba.net/sites/site_genl_slocum.php |website=New Jersey Scuba Diving |title=General Slocoum / Maryland |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801040916/http://njscuba.net/sites/site_genl_slocum.php |archive-date=August 1, 2020}}</ref><ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3330075&view=1up&seq=430 Department of Commerce and Labor Bureau of Navigation ''Forty-Fourth Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States for the Year Ending June 30, 1912'', Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1912, p. 421.]</ref><!--The preceding source has a typographical error indicating a date of 4 December 1912 instead of the correct 4 December 1911.-->

The victims included one Emily Ziegler, the girlfriend of a saloonkeeper named [[John Schrank|John Flammang Schrank]] who later suffered a mental breakdown culminating in an [[attempted assassination of Theodore Roosevelt]].<ref>Donovan, Robert J. (1962). "The First Pillar". The Assassins. New York: Popular Library. pp. 104</ref>