There are several possible conspiracy scenarios, as follows.  These are recommended to ambitious screen writers and dramatists—and the Great Lakes needs screen writers and dramatists! 1.  The Criminal Conspiracy.  The original court proceeding, U.S. v Hull, et al, included a count of conspiracy to send to sea an unsafe ship.  This charge was shot down by the Grand Rapids judge who ruled that a ship one mile up the Chicago River could not be considered to be at sea. 2. The letter from Major John Devereaux York that claimed that he had warned the Chicago harbormaster about the danger of the Eastland two years before the capsize.  But in fact, two years earlier, the happy ship had been rolling on Lake Erie.  York was hired as a naval architect by the Tribune, although his stationery stated simply architect.  York was promoting a lubberly design for an uncapsizable ship.  The architect's handiwork fooled Professor George Hilton in his Eastland— Legacy of the Titanic. 3. The Conspiracy of Good News.  The Lords of the Press ganged up on the Lords of Entertainment to hold benefits for "the Eastland sufferers."  This is according to the memoirs of a contemporary publicist in the Chicago Public Library who said that the media actually conspired together on this action in order to head off Workmen's Compensation legislation. 4. The Conspiracy of Silence.  There is a weird disappearance of Eastland news after the removal of the hulk away from Loop view.  It seems as if the papers conspired to kill the subject for well over twenty years, according to this researcher's microfilm study.   5. The Coe Conspiracy.  This detailed letter accused the police of ignoring drowning people and then stamping on the diver's hoses.  Mr. Coe could not have seen these events from State Street, and the letter is likely an anarchist forgery. AND THEN there was the legend that the passengers sank their own ship—started by the Indiana Transportation Company—with no evidence for this stampede.  See George Hilton's putdown of this cautionary tale. There was the diver's great yarn of the love letter that dissolved as he read it There is the persistent Michigan legend of the treacherous Chicago dock.  This was based upon Attorney Clarence Darrow's theory of the ship resting upon sunken pilings.  But George Hilton convincingly scotched this line. These are just a few of the persistent notions of that summer of chaos that still float up to muddy the waters.  But there is one troubling letter that deserves scholarly study—Inspector Ecliff's "Dear friend" letter in the Chicago Tribune that warns Eastland engineer Erickson of tampering.  Who would do such a thing?  There are many possible groups, starting with the failing Indiana Transportation Company.   Then there was the labor problem, or the Chicago gamblers, or wartime influences.   In fact, the true cause of the disaster is hidden somewhere in the octopus inboard pipes that controlled the ballast water, now all scrap metal.  Add to this the lost mathematical calculations that Sidney Jenks' shipyard used in the construction of the death ship.  Plus the lost blueprints with Jenks' draconian alterations.  Against all these possible causes George Hilton's theory of the addition of a few more empty lifeboats fails to convince.  Never sail on a steamship captained by George Hilton!