**Proceedings**

###### The President's Conference on

**FIRE**

**PREVENTION**

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May 6-8, 1947 . Departmental Auditorium

Washington, D.C.

> **THE WHITE HOUSE\
> WASHINGTON**
>
> JANUARY 3, 1947.
>
> DEAR GENERAL:
>
> The serious losses in life and property resulting annually from fires
> cause me deep concern. I am sure that such unnecessary waste can be
> reduced. The substantial progress made in the science of fire
> prevention and fire protection in this country during the past forty
> years convinces me that the means are available for limiting this
> unnecessary destruction.
>
> Accordingly, I am calling a national conference on fire prevention to
> be held in Washington within the next few months to bring the
> ever-present danger from fire to the attention of all our people and
> to devise additional methods to intensify the work of fire prevention
> in every community in the Nation.
>
> I would like to have you, as Administrator of the Federal Works
> Agency, head up this conference and I suggest, as a first step in the
> program, that you call into consultation in the near future
> appropriate representatives of the interested involved, both private
> and public, with a view to laying the ground work and preparing the
> agenda for the conference.
>
> Very sincerely yours,
>
> ![](media/image2.png){width="3.06875in" height="0.93125in"}
>
> Major General Philip B. Fleming,
>
> Administrator,
>
> Federal Works Agency,
>
> Washington 25, D.C.

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height="8.381944444444445in"}

**Table of Contents**

**Tuesday Morning Session, May 6, 1947.**

**PAGE**

**Invocation by the Right Reverend Monsignor John J. Russell 1**

**Address of Welcome by Hon. Russell Young 3**

**Address by the President of the United States 4**

**Remarks by the General Chairman 7**

**Roll Call of States 11**

**Introduction of Committee Chairmen 12**

**Wednesday Morning Session, May 7, 1947.**

**Invocation by the Reverend Fredrick Brown Harris 16**

**Address by Mr. Arch N. Booth 17**

**Address by Hon. Robert E. Dinnen 21**

**Address by Hon. Tom C. Clark 24**

**Address, "The Schools and Fire Prevention," by Dr. Frank W. Cyr 27**

**Address by Dr. E. B. Norton 30**

**Report of Committee on Fire Prevention Education by Dr. H. C. Byrd
32**

**Address by Mr. Sherman K. Ives 34**

**Address by Mr. Percy Bugbee 37**

**Address, "The Architect and Fire Safety," by Mr. Walter A. Taylor 39**

**Report of Committee on Building Construction, Operation, 41**

**and Protection by Alfred C. Fuller**

**Wednesday Afternoon Session, May 7, 1947.**

**PAGE**

**Address by Mr. Charles A. Delaney 44**

**Address, "the Firefighter of Today," by Mr. George J. Richardson 46**

**Address by Maj. Gen. Harold R. Bull 49**

**Address by Mr. Lyle F. Watts 52**

**Report of Committee on the Firefighting Services by Horatio Bond 55**

**Address, "The Red Cross Role in Fire Prevention," 57**

**by Mr. James T. Nicholson**

**Address, "What an Opportunity," by Mr. W. E. Mallalieu 60**

**Address by Mr. O. J. Arnold 63**

**Report of Committee on Research, Discussion by Mr. S. H. Ingberg 65**

**Thursday Morning Session, May 8, 1947.**

**Invocation by Rabbi Norman Gerstenfeld 69**

**Address, "Enforcement of Fire Prevention Laws," by Mr. John H. Craig
70**

**Address by Mr. Herman C. Wilson 72**

**Address by Hon. George Neuner 74**

**Report of Committee on Laws and Law Enforcement 76**

**by Hon. John C. Knox**

**Address by Mrs. Oswald Bates Lord 78**

**Report of Committee on Organized Public Support 81**

**by W. Walter Williams**

**Cooperation of Tobacco Companies by Howard Welty, Birthday**

**Greetings to the President of the United States by Leroy Gates 85**

**Presentation of Action Program by Hon. Louis Johnson 87**

**Address by Hon. George W. Welsh 88**

**Address by Hon. Clarence W. Meadows 92**

Tuesday Morning Session

*May 6, 1947*

THE President's Conference on Fire Prevention convened at 10:30 o'clock
at the Departmental Auditorium, Washington, D.C., Maj. Gen. Philip B.
Fleming, General Chairman, presiding.

Chairman Fleming. Will the meeting please come to order?

I shall ask the Right Reverend Monsignor John J. Russell, Pastor of St.
Patrick's Church of Washington, to offer the invocation. Monsignor
Russell!

Rt. Rev. Monsignor John J. Russell. O Lord God, our Creator, Who gave to
mankind the element of fire to afford light and heat on the earth, give
us the grace to use this precious gift with care and caution, lest it
wreak destruction and cause misery, suffering, and death. Let us
remember that this element is spoken of in sacred Scriptures both as a
symbol of Thy holiness and justice and also as a symbol of Thy wrath.

O heavenly Father, from Whom comes every good and perfect gift, let us
use all Thy gifts according to Thy will so that Thy justice will not
require that we suffer from Thy wrath. We beg Thy divine blessing on all
who are here gathered on the call of our Chief Executive to consider
ways and means to prevent suffering and loss from fire. We beg Thy
divine wisdom to direct their deliberations, that their plans and
purposes prove fruitful and beneficial to all the people of our nation.

Grant that we who humbly call upon Thy aid may so live as to have a
claim upon Thy fatherly care and understanding mercy. Let our claim upon
Thy mercy be the fact that we try to live as Thy creatures, observant of
Thy laws, obedient to Thy commands, submissive to Thy will.

We ask Thy blessing upon this first session and those that are to
follow. In the name of our divine Saviour, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen

Chairman Fleming. Thank you, Monsignor Russell.

We benighted citizens of the Nation's Capital, as you doubtless know,
like convicted criminals, lunatics, and imbeciles elsewhere, are denied
the right to vote. Our city ordinances are enacted by a city council up
on the Hill, which is elected by everybody in the United States but
ourselves and governed, very efficiently, I might say, by a Board of
Commissioners appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

So, while we have no mayor, we have something just as good in the person
of the President of that Board, and I dare say that if, like the rest of
you, we could actually vote, the gentleman would be overwhelmingly
elected to head the District Government by those of us who are

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neither crooks, idiots, or imbeciles. It is not any person we object to,
but the principle of the thing.

I have the honor to present the Honorable John Russell Young.
\[*Applause.*\]

Hon. John Russell Young. The way General Fleming worded his introduction
sounded like he was opening a political convention here instead of
opening a fire conference.

General Fleming and distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen, as
the President of the Board of District Commissioners, it gives me real
honor and pleasure to welcome you to the Capital city. The stated
objectives of your Conference are to emphasize to the public the
ever-present danger of fire to human life and material resources and to
intensify the work of fire safety in every community. To these I
subscribe most heartily, and I wish your Conference every success.

We in your Nation's Capital share with the President of the United
States his deep concern over the fact that America's fire losses are
increasing. The death toll is mounting steadily, and according to fire
experts, if losses follow the same trend as they did after World War I,
the destruction will reach, I am informed, at least \$1,000,000,000 a
year by 1953.

I might say that we in Washington have spent considerable time amending
our fire laws regarding office and public buildings and theaters, and
they have not yet been promulgated. They have been studied by citizens'
committees, representative citizens' organizations, and real estate
authorities, as well as our experts in fire safety, the police and fire
departments.

For the 12-month period, April 1, 1946, to March 31, 1947, the District
of Columbia had a reduction in fire loss of 35.9 percent over the
previous 12 months, whereas the country as a whole had approximately a
40 percent increase over the same period. We are very proud of those
figures; not only do we feel proud of our own fire department, but we
cannot take all the credit, because I really believe that the early
fathers of this National Capital had vision enough to give us wide
streets and sprinkled around enough reservations throughout the city to
give what we call fire breaks and to keep down the size of the
buildings. So we think that the physical layout of the city has had a
great deal to do with our good luck and good fortune regarding fire
losses.

This Conference which our President has called is the first organized
national effort to combat the great scourge of fire. We, in Washington,
took particular pains to improve conditions following the Boston fire
and the recent Atlanta fire, as I imagine all other cities have done. We
hope that the lesson learned in those tragedies will serve us well.

Your delegates are experts in their fields. Their experience and
background will enable the Conference to proceed with the highest degree
of accuracy, and its decisions and recommendations will be forged in the
minds of your trained experts. I know that I speak not only for the
District of Columbia but for every section of the Nation when I say that
it is the fervent prayer of every American citizen that the results of
your deliberations and the final answer of your Conference will prove
beneficial to our nation in protecting the lives and property of its
citizens from the devastation of fire.

Ladies and gentlemen, again, on behalf of the Commissioners of the
District of Columbia, I wish you success in your vital undertaking and
assure you cooperation and hospitality during your stay in Washington.

So, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, it has been a pleasure to have
addressed you and welcomed you to our city. \[*Applause.*\]

Chairman Fleming. Thank you, Commissioner Young.

The President will be here to speak to us at 11 o'clock. I will ask you
to remain seated until then, and I think maybe the Marine Band will give
us a little entertainment while we are waiting.

{*The Marine Band played an interlude of selection*}

Chairman Fleming. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United
States! \[*Applause.*\]

{*The President entered and was photographed*}

The PRESIDENT. It is a pleasure for me to have the privilege to come
over here and discuss with you this morning some things in which I am
intensely interested.

The Nation has been shocked by a long series of spectacular fires in the
last few years -- particularly in the last few months -- which have
resulted in such great loss of life and such widespread misery. Just the
other day, the Texas City disaster drove home anew the lesson that we
must find ways and means to combat the ever-present danger of fire and
explosion. The great hotel fires of last year again showed that we
cannot afford to entrust our citizens' lives to unsafe buildings.

But these fires which make the headlines are only a small fraction of
the total. Thousands of lives are lost annually and tens of thousands of
people are injured in the many less spectacular fires which occur hour
after hour, day after day, throughout the year.

This Conference brings together for the first time the highest officials
of municipalities, States, the Federal Government and national groups
interested in fire prevention and in saving lives from fires. We are
approaching the fire problem on a truly national basis.

Our first concern is for the lives of our people, especially those of
young people. Fire strikes hardest at youth. Two thousand children, on
the average, die every year from burns, and thousands of others are
scarred and injured for life. This toll must be reduced.

Next in importance is the fact that we as a nation cannot continue to
ignore the staggering destruction of goods, natural resources, buildings
and other property by fire. During the last 12 months fires destroyed
more than \$560,000,000 worth of our wealth. The loss for 1947 will be
more than three-fourth of a billion dollars unless we can reduce the
present fire rate.

No dollar value can ever be put on the irreplaceable things which fire
destroys. Who can account the value of a human life destroyed by fire?
Who can say what a fire costs when it destroys thousands of tons of food
sorely needed here and abroad? What is the value of a house, the burning
of which makes a family homeless during this housing shortage? Who can
put a dollar value on a burning forest?

The fire loss, in lives and in property, which occurs annually in our
forests and rural areas makes up a highly important part of the annual
toll. Such destruction of our precious natural resources is of concern
to each of us.

Who can say what fire costs the Nation when a single fire in one factory
can result in lost jobs and lost wages for hundreds of workmen, reduced
savings, and reduced volume of trade throughout a community?

These are some of the tragic consequences of more than 830,000 fires
that occur annually in the United States. It is for this Conference to
determine the causes of this destruction and map out a program of
preventive action. We must use all our experience, knowledge, and
organizational facilities to solve our fire problems.

Great advance has been made in the technical methods of prevention and
protection. The concerted effort of all our people is needed in order to
make effective the known methods of preventing fires and preventing
large losses where fire occurs.

A contributing factor to our fire death toll is our legacy of old
construction. Also, we have a complexity of building laws and codes in
some communities, and too few in others. In many communities, these laws
are outdated, and the responsibility for safety from fire is not clearly
defined.

We have wide areas in the Nation with inadequate fire protection. Our
forests need to be safeguarded against the thousands of fires - most of
them set by human carelessness -- that sweep over millions of acres
annually. Our rural areas must have improved and better coordinated
protection.

We also have entered upon a new era of scientific and industrial
development, with the accompanying special hazards of new chemicals and
industrial processes. Many of these hazards are not yet widely
understood. For the protection of our industrial plants, we must see
that fire prevention keeps pace with scientific research.

The recent war showed us that we had grave shortages of experienced
firefighters both in our armed forces and in our civilian life. The
question of using some of the training methods developed during the war
and the National Guard facilities for the training of firemen is
certainly to be considered if we are to provide our cities and our armed
forces with the skilled firemen we need.

I want to pay a tribute to our firemen. Were is not for their bravery
and their willingness to sacrifice, our death toll would be much higher
and our losses even more appalling than they are today. I hope that this
conference will help to produce conditions that will make our firemen's
dangerous work less necessary, and their services, when needed, of even
greater effectiveness.

There is also to be considered the matter of personal responsibility for
fires. This is not a new problem, for it is recorded in the Book of
Exodus more than 3,000 years ago:

> "If a fire break out and catch in thorns so the stacks of corn, or the
> standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith, he that kindled
> the fire shall surely make restitution."

The conference might well consider the strengthening of the present laws
having to do with negligence.

These are but a few of the problems that face us. I know that you will
try to find practical solutions that will save lives and resources.

Safety from fire should not be a topic for discussion during only one or
two weeks of the year. It is definitely a year-round public
responsibility. I believe that the highest State and municipal officials
must assume greater responsibility for leadership in this field. We in
the Federal government can give aid within the framework of existing
agencies. But the impetus must come from the States and from every
community and every individual in the land.

Your public officials at homes are going to need the expert help which
you in attendance at this Conference can give them. And you must provide
part of the leadership in your own communities for any public support to
be given to your local officials and fire departments.

Just a year ago, I called a similar national conference to consider the
shocking toll of highway traffic accidents and to work out an effective
program to meet that problem. General Fleming was also Chairman of that
Conference. Since then we have seen a reduction in deaths and injuries
from traffic accidents that has more than justified all our efforts. We
can fight the fire problem in exactly the same way.

I deeply appreciate your acceptance of my invitation to come here. In
working out a plan which will reduce the fire menace and cut down the
toll of death and destruction, you will be making a most valuable
contribution to the welfare of our Nation. You may have my pledge of
help, during the period of this Conference, and in the days to come.

I would like to call your attention further to just a few things in
which you should be vitally interested. We have an appalling situation
in this country, brought about by negligence and carelessness for the
most part. There are 23 million people in this country who have been
physically injured in some manner, either in automobile wrecks, in
fires, in the home, or in other places, and most of these people were
unnecessarily injured.

Now, we are trying to start at the source to see if we can't cut down
the immense toll which negligence and accidents take from the citizens
of this country. Imagine 23 million people with eyes out, arms off, legs
off. It is terrible. We are rehabilitating our soldiers who were injured
in the war. We are teaching those without legs how to walk, and we have
legs invented that are almost equal to the natural article. Nothing is
ever equal to that, but these are almost. They have artificial arms for
those men.

But the 23 million are the cares of the local communities. They are the
cares of their families. You can help prevent that, you can help cure
that awful situation. As the result of the conference on automobile
accidents last year, we estimate we have saved 6,000 lives in this past
year. It was well worth the effort, but it still isn't enough.
\[*Applause.*\]

I sincerely hope that you will earnestly go to work on this other phase,
this unnecessary loss of life by fire, and will make a contribution at
least equal to the one that was made by the effort to stop automobile
accidents. Lots of these things are absolutely unnecessary, in fact most
of them are. Most of them are due to carelessness. Most of them are due
to the fact that people are ignorant of what to do in an emergency.
Let's teach them. Let's cure this situation.

With this organization, and with the one we have been working with on
the automobile situation, and with others which we intend to call in, I
think we can cut that 23 million down, instead of increasing it. I want
to see all of these people rehabilitated and given their places back in
society. We can do that too, and that is partly up to you.

I am immensely interested in the health and welfare of the people of
this country, and you will find that this all fits in a pattern which is
covered in the health message which I sent to the Congress last year,
and which fits in with these meetings to prevent accidents which we have
been having. I appreciate very much, more than I can tell you, your
interest and your help in trying to get this awful situation cured.
Thank you very much. \[*Applause.*\]

{*The President left the room.*}

Chairman Fleming. Ladies and gentlemen, that was a very inspiring
message from our President. I am sure you will all take it to heart.

On Thursday of this week it will have been exactly a year since there
assembled in this auditorium some 2,000 men and women representing ever
State in the Union, who had been called together by the President of the
United States. That gathering was not quite as handsome as this one, but
I am sure it was no less zealous. It was an assembly called to devise
ways and means to cut down the enormous loss of life in traffic
accidents, which at that time was rising sharply.

The most tragic year in the history of motoring was 1941, when the death
toll exceeded 37,500. During the war, largely because of gasoline
rationing, traffic fatalities declined, but just as soon as gasoline
rationing was terminated with the surrender of Japan, the death curve
started up again. By the end of 1945 people were being killed at such a
rate that it was apparent that the toll of 1941 would be exceeded in
1946 unless heroic steps were taken in time.

> ![](media/image5.png){width="6.0in" height="8.16388888888889in"}

The President was appalled. He realized that there was very little the
Federal Government could do to check the loss of life except, perhaps,
to provide some needed leadership. The problem, though it has its
national aspects, was a local one. The people were being killed in the
cities and towns and on the rural roads, and it was obvious that the
remedy, if any were possible, would have to be applied in the local
communities.

So the President called a Nationwide conference, bringing together the
best minds in the highway safety field, to meet just at this time of
year at the start of the touring season, when the danger would be
greatest.

In advance of the Conference, committees were appointed to consider
specific aspects of the problem. For example, there was the problem of
the licensing of automobile drivers. These regulations were most
diverse, varying from State to State, so that a man denied a license to
drive in one State as totally unfit usually had no trouble getting a
license in some other State.

There was the problem of traffic laws and regulations, which also were
most diverse. Some of them has been adopted back in the horse-and-buggy
days and never revised to meet the necessities of an automotive age.

There was also the problem of traffic law enforcement, the problem of
education for safety in the schools, the problem of engineering. Many of
our highways developed from old Indian trails and will have to be
rebuilt to make them capable of moving today's vastly greater volume of
traffic at requisite speeds and do it in safety.

The various committees brought in their recommendations, which were
considered by the conference and adopted with some minor modifications.
The recommendations were then consolidated into an action program, which
each of the delegates took home with a resolution to apply it in his own
State and in his home community.

Within a month the effects of the program were beginning to be felt. As
one community after another mobilized its police forces, its courts, its
schools, its lawmakers, its civic groups, the traffic death toll began
to go down all over the country, and when the year ended, six thousand
men, women, and children, who would have perished if the fatality rate
of the early months had persisted, were still alive. We will do even
better this year, as more and more communities put the action program
into effect.

But while we were making these very respectable gains with respect to
traffic fatalities, deaths by fire, unquestionably the most horrible of
all deaths, continued unabated. Last year more than 10,000 persons were
killed by fire in the United States, to say nothing of a property loss
of more than half a billion dollars. The alarming thing is that these
losses have been increasing year by year for more than a decade.

The other evening in a radio broadcast I tried to lift those figures
from the realm of cold statistics and drape them with their moving
significance. I pointed out that the lives lost by fire in 1946 were 20
times as many as were snuffed out in the Texas City disaster, which
stunned the Nation less than a month ago. Statistically, the 1946 fire
toll was equivalent to the destruction of such a city as Jamestown,
N.Y., and the loss of every man, woman, and child in it, or as great as
though an atomic bomb had wiped out a city the size of Shelbyville, Ind.

Or take that \$560,000,000 property loss. That is a lot of money. It is
enough to build for 56,000 of our war veterans and their families a
\$10,000 home apiece.

Incidentally, while we worry about the housing shortage, we stand
complacently aside while tens of thousands of existing homes go up in
smoke every year. It is a sum that would go far toward equalizing
educational opportunities for all the children of America. If equally
apportioned, it would be enough to give every teacher in the country a
\$500 raise. It would pay the entire bill for our assistance to Greece
and Turkey, with enough left over to feed 1,000,000 hungry people for 2
years. In the first few months this year the loss has been running above
even the record-breaking destruction that occurred in the early months
of last year.

The results of his Highway Safety Conference were such as to encourage
the President to believe that a similar attack on the fire menace would
yield corresponding benefits, and he called this Conference into being.

In the attack upon traffic accidents we found that there are three "E's"
that seem to hold the keys to success. They are Education, Enforcement,
and Engineering: Education of the motorists and the pedestrians to a
point where each will accept the full consequences of his actions;
Enforcement of existing traffic rules and regulations without fear or
favor; better Engineering of our motor vehicles and of our highways.

We shall, I think, fine the three "E's" of Education, Enforcement, and
Engineering pointing the way to success in the fire prevention field
also: Education of the people and especially of the children with
respect to the best methods of fire prevention and control, better
Enforcement of fire-safety rules and regulations, and better Engineering
of our buildings.

In the latter connection we are going to have to review our existing
building codes. The only purpose that any building code can serve is to
safeguard the public health and safety. Yet existing codes are most
diverse, varying among the States from the unnecessarily rigid to the
criminally lax. Most of the codes are at least a quarter of a century
old, and few have been revised to take account of new materials and
construction techniques.

I have no doubt that the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta conformed to the code
requirements at the time it was built. But the procession moved on, and
the Winecoff did not.

We have learned a great deal in the last twenty-five years about fire
prevention, and all over the country we face the problem of bringing
thousands of older buildings -- hotels, hospitals, theaters, apartments
and rooming houses -- up to the standards of safety we now know to be
essential if we are not to have more and more Winecoff disasters as time
goes on.

The President has given us our instruction, and we know the nature and
importance of the job ahead of us. We have assembled here from all parts
of the country, and although many of us came as strangers to one
another, I am sure that we shall leave here on Thursday as fast friends,
linked together in a great humanitarian undertaking.

I wish time permitted me to introduce every one of you to the Conference
individually. Since that is manifestly impossible, I am going to de the
next best thing; I am going to call the names of the States in
alphabetical order, and when the name of your State is called, will you
please stand up so that we can get a good look at you and express our
appreciation for your presence?

{*Chairman Fleming called the roll of the States.*}

Chairman Fleming. You will observe that in planning the present
Conference we have followed rather closely the same pattern that was
used for the President's Conference on Highway Safety last year. Just as
the traffic problem naturally divided itself into separate, but still
related, phases of education, engineering, law enforcement, and so on,
the fire prevention problem also called for expert study in the fields
of law enforcement, building construction, firefighting services,
education, research, and organized public support. The various
committees that have jurisdiction over these matters have long been at
work, and it is our hope that before the Conference ends they will have
completed their deliberations and will be ready to report their
recommendations to us.

Up here on the platform you see a few of us who happen to be identified
with the Federal Government in one way or another, but I hope you will
not be misled on that account into thinking that this is a United States
Government Conference. In reality it is your Conference, the people's
Conference, and we are here only to be of such assistance as we can in
your deliberation.

If fire could be prevented by presidential fiat or by an act of
Congress, that would have been done long ago. They can only be prevented
by coordinated effort of all the people acting through the various
agencies of State and local governments. We realize, therefore, that any
program we adopt here will be of little avail unless the people of the
country take it to heart and apply it in their own communities. When we
have done our work, we shall have to turn to our legislators, city
councilmen, mayors, police and fire chiefs, and civic leaders to carry
on from there.

We are using about the same pattern for this Conference as we did for
last year's, because we have found it convenient and expeditious and
also, I think, because the problem of preventing automobile accidents
and the problem of preventing fires have much in common. Both fire and
traffic accidents are due in the first analysis either to human
carelessness or to ignorance of the means by which they may be
prevented; both involve the matter of effective legislation and
intensive law enforcement; both must be combated by education, and
neither can be eliminated without broad public support.

The chairmen of our committee are the real mainsprings of the
Conference; it is they who make it tick.

The Committee on Laws and Law Enforcement has been exploring the
question of State laws that will provide minimum standards for fire
safety and which will facilitate the adoption of municipal ordinances to
augment such minimum standards. The legality of so-called retroactive
features of laws and ordinances pertaining to fire safety has also been
carefully considered. In other words, how can we require the owner of a
building, which conformed to the building code in existence at the time
it was erected, make such alterations as are necessary to meet the
higher code requirements of today.

The chairman of this important committee is a native of Pennsylvania,
who was graduated from Waynesburg College in 1902, studied law at the
University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. He served as
assistant United States District Attorney for the Southern District of
New York from 1913 to 1918 and has been Judge of the United States
District Court of the Southern District of New York since 1918.

He is widely known in the legal profession as a writer and lecturer on
legal ethics and medical jurisprudence, and is the author of; "A Judge
Comes of Age" and "Order in the Court." The Honorable John Clark Cox.
\[*Applause.*\]

{*Judge Knox stood and acknowledged the introduction.*}

Chairman Fleming. When I was a boy, I was taught, both at home and in
school, that it can be very dangerous to play with fire, and I think
that in a great many schools today some instructions is still given in
fire prevention with more or less regularity. I do not know how
widespread such instructions is or how effective it is. It would seem
that if it were as effective over the last 25 or 30 years as it ought to
have been, we would not today be witnessing the roasting to a crisp of
some 10,000 of our fellow citizens every year.

In any event, the exploration of the facilities in our schools in our
schools and colleges for teaching fire prevention is the province of
your Committee on Fire Prevention Education.

The chairman of the Committee is a native Free Stater, a graduate of the
University of Maryland, an outstanding athlete, and a football coach of
considerable attainments, as I discovered when I was at West Point. He
has been a professor of history, holds honorary degrees from Washington
College, Dickinson College, and Western Maryland College. He is a member
of various learned societies, too numerous to mention, and of various
fraternities. Since 1936 he has been president of the University of
Maryland.

Dr. Harry Clifton Byrd. \[*Applause.*\]

Appropriately enough, the chairman of the Committee on the Firefighting
Services is a fighter himself from 'way back. A native of Buffalo, a
lawyer by profession, once United States District Attorney for the
Western District of New York, candidate for Governor of New York in
1932, former Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Chief of
Staff of the Twenty-seventh Division in the First World War, he holds
the Congressional Medal of Honor for valorous conduct in action, the
Distinguished Service Medal, the Decoration of the Legion of Honor, and
the Croix de Guerre with palm and silver star. In the Second World War
he served as Director of the Office of Strategic Services, whose
contribution to victory is one of the most amazing and stirring chapters
in our military annals.

Maj. Gen. William Joseph Donovan, unfortunately cannot be here this
morning. He was here yesterday but was called unexpectedly to Rochester,
but will be back later this afternoon and certainly will be here for
tomorrow's sessions. \[*Applause.*\]

Research has an important part to play in any attack upon the fire
menace. We need research not only into the fire-resistant qualities of
various materials and into the safest possible construction techniques,
but we also need research into the problem of why human beings behave as
they so often do when a fire breaks out. We are all familiar with the
story of the absent-minded professor who, when his house caught fire,
threw his wife into the wastepaper basket and saved a bottle of ink
instead.

We shall never know how many people dashed themselves to death on the
pavement below because of the sudden wave of hysteria that swept through
the Winecoff Hotel with even greater speed than the flames themselves,
but we know of a number who owe their lives to the fact that they kept
their heads and used the precautions dictated by ordinary common sense.

The chairman of our Committee on Research is an outstanding banker, and
if this fire prevention problem has been researched with as much
cautious care as bankers use in researching your resources when you go
to apply for a loan, we may be sure that the job has been thoroughly
done. The fact that he comes from my own native State of Iowa is not the
least of his recommendations.

Born at Dallas Center, Iowa, he is a graduate of Iowa State College;
former president of Iowa-Des Moines National Bank & Trust Co.; at
present president of Brenton Brothers, Inc.; a director of eight Iowa
banks; president, treasurer, and director of Wood Brothers Thresher Co.;
and trustee of Grinnell College.

Mr. Woodward Harold Brenton. \[*Applause.*\]

Our Committee on Building Construction, Operation and Protection was
assigned a task with which we in the Federal Works Agency have had some
experience. Our Public Building Administration has constructed and it
maintains and operates thousands of buildings for the United States
Government, so I think we can claim to be the world's biggest landlord.

I might say in passing that we have not had a really destructive fire in
any of our Government buildings within my recollection, nor has a single
life been lost due to fire for many years. We profess to be good
housekeepers. We do not clutter up our basements with waste paper, and
we do not leave oil-soaked rags lying around in the furnace room. But
while we very modestly think we are pretty good, we know that we shall
pick up some useful ideas from the Committee on Building Operation,
Construction, and Protection.

The chairman of the Committee is known to all of us by name, and our
wives and daughters have made the pleasant acquaintance of his
representatives at our front doors from time to time, and it has been a
mutually profitable acquaintanceship, I understand.

![](media/image6.png){width="6.0in" height="8.095833333333333in"}

He was born in Kings County, Nova Scotia, and has been a citizen of the
United States since 1918. He established the Fuller Brush Co. at
Somerville, Mass., in 1906 and is now its president and chairman of the
board. He is a director of the National Better Business Bureau, a member
of the board of trustees of the Committee on Economic Development, and a
member of the American Society of Sales Executives.

Mr. Alfred Carl Fuller. \[*Applause.*\]

I have already emphasized the importance of public support for our
activities. I believe it is true to say that any success we may attain
in cutting down the national fire loss will be due to the kind of
support we get from the press, the radio, from civic groups, and other
representatives of the public. A poor plan of fire prevention might
succeed if it were given adequate public support; even a perfect plan
will fail if the public is not solidly behind it.

The Chairman of our Committee on Organized public Support is Mr. W.
Walter Williams. He is en route to Washington and will arrive tomorrow
morning. He regrets, as I am sure we all do, that he was not able to be
here for this opening session. Mr. Williams is known throughout the West
as "the first citizen of the State of Washington."

He is a graduate of the University of Washington and is president of
Continental, Inc., of Seattle. That is probably important, but it is
rather in the field of public service that he has won outstanding
distinction.

Mr. Williams is a member of the board of trustees of the Committee on
Economic Development, has been president of the Seattle Chamber of
Commerce and of the Rotary Club, was chairman of the Washington State
Defense Council, headed the Washington State Branch of the National
Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, was president of the Washington
State War Fund Organization, and is a past president of the Mortgage
Bankers Association of America.

Now, Mr. Bielaski, I believe you have a couple of announcements to make.

{*Announcements.*}

Chairman Fleming. Thank you, Mr. Bielaski.

The Conference stands adjourned, then, until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning
in this room.

{*The Conference adjourned at 11:45 A.M.*}

Wednesday Morning Session

*May 7, 1947*

THE Conference reconvened at 10:05 A.M., Chairman Fleming presiding.

Chairman Fleming. The Conference will please come to order. I will ask
the Reverend Fredrick Brown Harris, pastor of the Foundry Methodist
Episcopal Church of Washington, to lead us in prayer.

The Reverend Fredrick Brown Harris. Our Father, God, Who hath made and
preserved us a Nation, our fathers trusted in Thee and were not
confounded; in Thee we trust. Thou hast taught us to love truth and
beauty and goodness. May Thy truth make us free, free from littleness
and pettiness and from pride and prejudice and from all the ugly sins of
disposition. Lift us, we pray Thee, above the modern storm of material
things into the holiness of Thy beauty so that even the common task and
the trifling round may be edged with crimson and gold. Lead us in the
paths of righteousness for Thy name's sake.

Enrich us, we pray Thee, with those durable satisfactions of life so
that the multiplying years many not find us bankrupt in those things
that matter most, the golden currency of faith and hope and love. And in
these crucial and creative days help us, we pray Thee, to give the best
that is in us against the wrong that needs resistance and for the rights
that need assistance and for the future in the distance and the good
that we may do. In Thy name we ask it. Amen.

Chairman Fleming. Thank you, Dr. Harris.

We have a rather crowded program this morning, and there are a good many
gentlemen who have much to contribute to our deliberations and from whom
we wish to hear. I shall ask, therefore, that our speakers limit
themselves to about 10 minutes. I am sure that will be easy for them,
for they are all busy men, who are accustomed to make their words count.

I believe there is a kind of truism, among the clergy anyway, that few
souls are saved after the first fifteen minutes of exhortation. There is
an old story about Mark Twain, who for the first 5 minutes of a sermon
was so powerfully moved that he decided to put a \$5 bill on the
collection plate. After the first 15 minutes he began to feel that
perhaps a \$1 contribution would be sufficient. After 20 minutes he had
cut down the size of his offering to a half dollar, and when the
minister had spoken 45 minutes and the collection plate came around,
instead of putting in his half dollar, Mark took out a dime.
\[*Laughter.*\]

We are not going to pass any collection plate here, but we will
appreciate brevity.

The Chamber of Commerce of the United States has a vital interest in
fire prevention. Fire is one of the greatest potential enemies of any
business enterprise. I am told that more than 50 percent of any business
concerns that suffer a fire loss of \$1,000 or more are entirely out of
business in a year. Man-hour loss because of a fire is a terrific drain
upon production, and in these days we very badly need production.

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I have the honor to introduce Mr. Arch N. Booth, manager of the Chamber
of Commerce of the United States. Mr. Booth is a native of Wichita,
Kans., and has been active in the Chamber of Commerce work for 17 years.

Mr. Booth. \[*Applause.*\]

Mr. Arch N. Booth. General Fleming, ladies and gentlemen, what can we
say this morning to rededicate ourselves to this important
responsibility and to stimulate ourselves to greater vigilance and
better efforts in every community in America.

Perhaps I could win your interest and come to the crux of the subject
with a picture. The "Picture of the Week" in last week's Life Magazine
dramatizes the wretched story of human carelessness and of preventable
fires. It was a picture of what was left of the luxurious French liner,
*Normandie*. Standing at the foot of West Forty-sixth Street in New York
-- one of the largest and most palatial ships ever built flounders in
the mud of the North River. The wreckage has stood there since that
grievous day 5 years ago when this great ship became the victim of one
man's careless disregard for elementary fire hazards.

Today the *Normandie's* insides are bared as wreckers hack her to pieces
for scrap. A life span of almost inestimable value was brought to a
quick and tragic end by a man with a blowtorch. A \$55,000,000 loss is
represented in this great hulk -- a loss made inestimably more costly
because it deprived this Nation of troop transportation facilities
throughout the war, and because of the countless hundreds of thousands
of man hours of labor diverted from critical war jobs, wasted, trying to
salvage and rehabilitate her. All caused by the astounding carelessness
of one man using an acetylene torch in the presence of inflammables
after he had temporarily discarded an asbestos protective curtain.

The story of the *Normandie* is a tragedy compounded out of sheer human
perversity. It portrays graphically the problem that we have met to
reduce.

Man's early discovery that fire generated by a lightning bolt could be
used for human comfort started the human race on its way to civilized
living. Man soon discovered, too, that fire has its destructive as well
as its constructive uses. We are here today to talk about means to
checkmate this modern Moloch which devours our people and devastates our
property.

For more than 25 years the Chamber of Commerce of the United States has
taken an active part in promoting fire prevention in the cities, towns,
and countryside of America. Our meeting today had its predecessor 25
years ago. The forerunner of this conference which you are here
attending was the decision of the National Conference of Governors at
that time to enlist the support of local business leaders in a
Nationwide fire prevention effort.

Do you remember the situation at war time? Many of you in this audience
will recall that following the close of World War I, fire losses
throughout the country were mounting rapidly. The rise was quite
comparable to that which has taken place in the last several years, and
by 1922 it had passed the \$500,000,000 mark. The governors of the
various States, the Mayors, the State Fire Marshals, the Fire Chiefs,
and other State and City Officials were alarmed. What could be done
about it?

The Conference of Governors studied preventive measures, but in all
their plans two basic weaknesses stood out. First, was the rapid
turnover in the official life of public officials. Second, was the
difficulty of obtaining general public support for the needed
far-reaching measures, such as the amendments to building codes, the
financing on increased firefighting facilities, the extension of fire
prevention education, and other similar projects.

After careful study and consideration of what could be done, the
Governors' Conference asked the President of the United States Chamber
of Commerce to call a meeting of all national organizations which had a
direct interest in fire prevention work and were willing to join with
businessmen in implementing a program. The national chamber was asked to
try to persuade every local chamber of commerce to set up a permanent
fire prevention committee to carry out a year-around campaign to reduce
fire losses.

So a new organization was set up. Thirty-six national organizations
joined with the national chamber in forming the National Fire Waste
Council.

The national chamber does not endeavor to originate technical knowledge
or to establish standards of fire safety. Those functions are supplied
by its cooperating organizations which are joined with it the National
Fire Waste Council. The chamber's job is an organizing, stimulating job
to put this vast store of technical information into use.

The businessmen's organization in each community is the local chamber of
commerce. In the local chambers throughout the country the businessmen
concentrate their interest in the broad projects for the good of the
community. Fire prevention is an important one of these. More than 2,100
local chambers of commerce are banded together in the Chamber of
Commerce of the United States. It was to these local chambers,
therefore, that the national chamber turned in 1922 to put into effect
plans started by the Governors' Conference.

Twenty-five years is a long time in a rapidly growing country. Let's see
what's happened during that time: First of all, the population of the
United States grew from 109,000,000 to 142,656,000.

Secondly, the number of cities having more than 50,000 population grew
from 144 to well over 200.

Third, the cities having more than 100,000 population grew from 68 to
well over 100.

The Census figures for 1947 are not available. During that period the
number of local chambers in the local membership of the United States
Chamber more than doubled. This is only a bird's eye view of what has
happened but it illustrates how the problem of fire prevention has grown
as the country has grown.

Fire prevention is not a theoretical idea. On the contrary, it is
intensely practical. The experience of community after community
demonstrates that the application of certain well-established techniques
will sharply reduce the number and severity of fires.

The cooperation of municipal authorities, particularly fire department
officials, is, of course, a prime requisite. But in my experience that
has been the easiest part of the job. There are good public officials
and bad ones in this country. The good ones are cooperative,
responsible, dependable, and easy to work with because of their deep
sense of public responsibility. There have been some woefully bad
examples of the handling of public responsibilities with respect to the
preventing of fires. There is only one way to handle public officials
who are faithless to their trust; namely -- get rid of them, and
rapidly.

More then 1,300 of these local chambers of commerce have fire prevention
committees and are carrying out year-around fire prevention programs. As
a further stimulant, as well as to encourage and reward meritorious
effort on the part of the local chamber committees, the National Fire
Waste Council conducts an Annual Inter-chamber Fire Waste Contest.

Only last week at the annual meeting of the United States Chamber,
awards were made to the winners in last year's contest. The winners were
Chicago, Cincinnati; Tulsa, Okla.; Newton, Mass.; Mansfield, Ohio; and
Beatrice, Nebr. The grand award for the best all-year-around local fire
prevention program put on by any city was won by Mansfield, Ohio.

I would like to point out that Mansfield, Ohio, reduced its fire losses
from \$4 for each resident to about 80 cents per capita. This reduction
was made by businessmen and city officials working together in the
chamber of commerce.

The improvement of building codes and their administration is one fire
prevention field in which the national chamber has been active. The
control of building construction to protect the public safety is
traditionally a local function. It is amazing how many different paths
have been followed by municipal officials in attempting to reach a
common goal. A building code is a complex instrument, and the amount of
time and expense involved in revising it has a distinct tendency to
discourage its frequent modernization. Efforts to promote greater
uniformity and flexibility among building codes have been carried on for
many years. Progress has been made, but much still remains to be done.

Last November the national chamber was host to a meeting of the
Construction Industry Advisory Council made up of over 100 national
trade and professional organizations with a direct interest in
construction. The discussion at the meeting disclosed that any attempt
to evolve a single model code applicable and acceptable to all parts of
the country is difficult.

Nevertheless, we believe that the effort to bring about more uniformity
will get results, and the national chamber now has a continuing
committee working along these lines.

I have given you something of the background, objectives, and methods of
operation of the national chamber's fire prevention activities. After 25
years in this work the results in individual cities, where a
conscientious effort has been put forth, have been most encouraging. It
proves to us quite conclusively that where public interest is aroused
and where a definite program is carried out under competent leadership
and backed up by broad public support, the number of fires can be
reduced.

We in the Chamber of Commerce of the United States are heartened by the
interest which the President of the United States has shown in this
critical national problem. We were glad to see him call this national
conference with its committees to review again our standards of fire
protection and fire prevention and the machinery through which they are
being made effective. It is my understanding that this conference is not
to create any new organization or to try to bring the existing ones
under control of the Federal Government, but rather to assist them to
get better results.

The national chamber and the National Fire Waste Council will continue,
in fact will give renewed impetus to their efforts in this direction. I
want to assure you of our deep interest and our very sympathetic
cooperation. Fires, like certain diseases that plague the human race,
can never be entirely prevented. But that does not mean that we are to
accept them with complacency. We must fight them as Churchill said
England would fight the dictator enemies -- wherever they appear and as
long as they persist. Thanks you. \[*Applause.*\]

Chairman Fleming. That you, Mr. Booth.

Chairman Fleming. Yesterday, when I was calling the roll, I neglected to
call our neighbor from the North. We have a delegation here from Canada
headed by Mr. Claremont, who is the Fire Commissioner of the Dominion of
Canada. I am going to ask, if they are here, if they will please arise.
\[*Applause.*\]

{*The delegation from Canada stood.*}

Chairman Fleming. A wise man takes out insurance on his home or
business, but only a foolish man would boast that such a policy alone
had completely protected him against fire. There is no sure protection
against fire, except to see that fire does not start in the first place.
For most of us fire prevention is something that we only occasionally
think about, but I am sure it must be uppermost in the minds of our
State Insurance Commissioners at all times.

I have the honor to present the Honorable Robert E. Dineen, president of
the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Mr. Dineen.
\[*Applause.*\]

Hon. Robert E. Dineen. General Fleming and ladies and gentlemen, as the
representative at this Conference of the National Association of
Insurance Commissioners, I should like to tell you something about the
interest which the members of our association have in fire prevention.

In our official contacts with the public the after effects of fire are
brought to our notice in compelling ways. The loss of life and human
suffering which are so often present make demands upon our life,
accident, and workmen's compensation insurance companies. We are made
aware of the further loss which the public sustains by fire directly
through the waste of its wealth and indirectly through loss of services
which the destroyed property has rendered to the community.

In our official capacity as supervisors of insurance in our respective
States many of us are required by statute to pass upon the rates charged
for fire insurance. We do so, of course, as the representative of the
public, and we must measure fire insurance rates against standards
established by law. The standards of the individual States are
essentially the same in intent but vary in form.

In my own State of New York the rates may not be inadequate, excessive,
unfairly discriminatory, or otherwise unreasonable. This responsibility
makes us, as administrators, keenly aware of the steadily increasing
loss from fire which must be spread over all policyholders. I wonder
whether policyholders are equally aware that every loss by fire
inevitably is reflected in the rate structure, increased by the expense
required to transact the fire insurance business.

The most graphic description of insurance is that it spreads the losses
of the few among the many. Fire insurance companies are not equipped, as
so many think, with magical power to absorb the losses of others. Common
sense tells us that they are simply a means by which private enterprise,
by paying a premium, is relieved of the individual risk of economic
destruction by fire. That premium represents the policyholder's share of
the aggregate fire loss and the cost of carrying on the business of
insurance. Just as surely as every loss tends to raise the cost of fire
insurance, every fire prevented tends to reduce the cost.

> ![](media/image8.png){width="5.273611111111111in"
> height="4.260416666666667in"}

The logic of this statement is deeply impressed upon Insurance
Commissioners, who must see that justice is served in distributing
losses among insurers. It must be equally impressed upon the insured,
who pays the bill and will most benefit from loss prevention.

The opportunity to save money on fire insurance premiums by taking steps
to prevent or minimize fire losses has long been directly extended to
industry. Practically all business properties are rated according to the
particular hazards of the operations performed, the construction of the
building, its exposure to other structures, the quality of house keeping
in the plant, and other factors which increase or reduce the hazard.

Insurance agents and brokers in cooperation with their policyholders
have for scores of years made great efforts to improve the physical
characteristics of their risks, recognizing that in so doing they were
making direct savings in insurance premiums while reducing the
possibility of a destructive fire.

The widespread installation of automatic sprinkler systems is an
illustration of an improvement which has come about, it seems, as much
because of the sizable savings in insurance premiums as through
recognition of its effectiveness in preventing small fires from becoming
big ones.

The granting of an economic reward for fire prevention measures and good
experience is today as implicit in the regulation of fire insurance
rates as it is in rate making. This reward cannot be achieved by
horizontal rate increases or decreases.

Over 30 years ago the late Mr. Justice Brandies in a railroad rate case,
commenting on a horizontal increase therein sought, described the method
of revising rates horizontally as "unsound, largely illegal, and
undesirable." Speaking for the New York Insurance Department, it is our
philosophy that rate structures should be responsive, flexible, and
geared to the extent possible to the classified loss experience. There
is general acceptance of this principle, I believe, among State
insurance departments.

The horizontal rate change does not and cannot do justice to the
individual loss experience of the separate classes. We know that as a
rule rate levels follow broad general trends, but the suggestion that
all classes rise and fall comparably is unfounded. Tying the rates
directly to the losses serves as a continuing reminder to the public
that they pay the bill.

The system makes certain demands on the fire insurance industry in the
keeping of detailed statistical records and in the periodic readjustment
of rate manuals. The industry has willingly undertaken these tasks in
the interest of placing a proper share of the load on each class.

It should be noted that the important classification of occupancy
hazards on which fire insurance loss statistics are based has been
completely revised within the last year as a result of parallel studies
by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and the industry.
There are projects under way with the purpose, in part, of effecting a
further improvement of rate structures, including the establishment of
uniform accounting classifications of expenses, improvements of the
statement form, and a reconsideration of the formula for determining
underwriting profit.

Many States have already had extensive experience in the supervision of
fire insurance rates, and the impetus given to the enactment of rate
regulatory bills for the last two years will add to the already large
number of Insurance Commissioners who have this responsibility. Congress
itself has taken action in this direction in connection with its ward in
the District of Columbia, having enacted in 1944 Public Law 327 of the
Seventy-eight Congress, which calls for the regulation of fire insurance
and related rates in the District of Columbia.

The public is entitled to the most scientific approach to the spreading
of fire insurance costs that can be devised. It continues to be the
function of Insurance Commissioners to represent the public in rating
matters and to be moved only by the highest considerations of equity and
fair dealing. It is my sincere hope that the painstaking effort put into
this Conference by those who have planned and participated in it will
stimulate the process of education by which the public is informed as to
the rewards in lives and money saved which will flow from fire
prevention.

The value of impressing upon the public the benefit of fire prevention
has long been understood by the fire insurance industry. The principle
has been accepted by our legislatures in the enactment of wise
rate-regulatory laws which make possible the rewarding of loss
prevention and by the States in their administration of these laws. It
is in the continuation and development of our educational efforts, I
believe, that the public will best be served, and this Conference should
contribute notably to that endeavor. Thank you. \[*Applause.*\]

Chairman Fleming. Thank you, Mr. Dineen. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my
privilege to present the Honorable, the Attorney General of the United
States. \[*Applause.*\]

Hon. Tom C. Clark. General Fleming, ladies and gentlemen, I do not know
whether I was introduced or not. I just had a meeting with the
Commissioner here. He and I are old friends, and I had not seen him for
some time.

When I started over here this morning, I was told a very fine series of
speeches had been prepared for me and for you by my office. I looked
over the front page of one and it started out about Mrs. O'Leary's cow.
\[*Laughter.*\]

Bruce Bielaski, who by the way is a fraternity brother of mine, is here
and I notice another fraternity brother, in fact, he is the vice
president of my college fraternity. So it is sort of old home week here
for me today.

In one speech the writer mentioned Mrs. O'Leary's cow being responsible
for the Chicago fire. It was prepared by a graduate from the University
of Chicago. As I read it a little further, I though perhaps we had made
quite an advancement since Mrs. O'Leary's day, but we have not
progressed too much with reference to fire prevention. We have not held
enough conferences and meetings; therefore the national spotlight has
not been trained on fire prevention as it has on health and other safety
measures.

Then there is another speech that was prepared by a Californian, and he
started out with the San Francisco fire. I suppose that if I had a
writer from Texas, he would have started with the Texas catastrophe last
month.

But after chatting with Bruce and seeing Brother Brenton here and
hearing Mr. Dineen, I preferred to talk with you informally this
morning. If any of you want to read these speeches, come up after the
meeting and I will leave them here with Bruce. \[*Laughter.*\] I will
assure you that they are pretty dry. I read one of them while riding
over in the car.

Seriously, I think that the President in calling the first National
Conference on Fire Prevention has rendered a great service to our
country. We have much talk with reference to the holocaust of war. We
hear about World War I, and we hear about World War II, but we do not
hear so much about the battles of the fire and smoke and of the
catastrophes that strike us every day in these United States.

Oh, we read about them possibly in the local newspaper. If a disaster
reaches such proportions as the one that hit Texas City last month,
then, we read about it throughout the United States. But we never think
of the 10,000 souls who lost their lives last year by reason of this
battle, although we think very often of the Battle of the Bulge, or of
Guadalcanal, and we think of the other battles around the world. We
think not enough of the battles of the firemen and the others who have
done all they can and are doing all they can each day trying to prevent
this enormous loss of life occurring in America by reason of the
negligence of its citizens.

We hear little of those who are maimed or are injured in fires. The
reason is that we have never given the problem our attention on a
national basis. For example, one drives down the street and has had a
drink or two and he is a little tipsy -- nearly every State in the
United States has a law that he may be prosecuted under, not only for
driving while intoxicated, but if he were to hit someone and it would
result in the latter's death, he may be prosecuted for negligent
homicide.

Under the Federal Fugitive Felon Act anyone charged with the crime of
arson within a State would not be subject to that act, as that
particular crime is not mentioned or spelled out in that law. As to
whether it should be spelled out, is a matter for the Congress to
decide. I think that you ladies and gentlemen who are most familiar with
this subject and who have evidenced such interest in it by coming here
should give this your very serious consideration.

I well remember, when I was civil District Attorney in Dallas, Tex., I
though a very fine plan to prevent fires was inaugurated there. An
Assistant District Attorney was assigned to the fire

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> height="4.343055555555556in"}

department. He was a young, energetic, unmarried man, and he lived at
the central fire station. Whenever an alarm sounded, Owen George was
very often on the fire truck going out, and he was one of the first to
arrive at the scene of the fire. He was able in the case of arson to see
personally what the condition of those burned premises were. He was
able, perhaps, to contact someone who might have been connected with the
fire, or contact witnesses who lived in an adjoining building or who
were passing by at the time.

We found that through Owen George's activities in Dallas, arson was
practically obliterated in the county. The reason was that he was there
on the spot almost when such an offense was committed, and by piecing
together the evidence he was able to secure convictions. Potential
arsonists feared the law.

Perhaps that method is used in other sections of the country. If not, I
think that it would serve as a very fine practice throughout the United
States, particularly in the larger cities, because you will find that if
you have someone who really is on the job with reference to this type of
crime, you can bring those to justice who violate that law. There is no
better way tp prevent such operations than through strict enforcement of
the law.

As you well know, it is difficult to win an arson case. It is hard to
win it because most of the evidence is burned up. But if you had someone
there on the job who had that specific task to perform, I think you
would find that it would be most helpful.

As Attorney General, I think that you should also turn toward securing
stricter laws with reference to fires -- laws that may deal with those
who are negligent in causing fires, because most fires, I am sure, are
caused by the negligence of some person. If you could devote your
attention to educational campaigns to point out the enormous loss that
is occasioned by reason of fires, it would be most helpful.

I am told that every man, woman, and child in the United States lost \$4
last year by reason of damages in fires. In December every man, woman,
and child lost 40 cents in that month by reason of fires. I am sure that
last month it must have been heavier than that by reason of the
unfortunate catastrophe in Texas City.

If we could avert these disasters, it would not only be a great saving
in money, but it would be a great saving in lives and a great saving in
the physical handicaps that follow. And so this morning I wish to
concentrate on three things:

One. Education: If you could educate the public, educate the children in
the schools -- there is no better place in all America to focus the
attention on this problem than in the school systems of America.

Two. The tightening up of State and local laws. Fire prevention is a
community problem. If you could, through the Council of State
Governments, bring about a strengthening of State laws and municipal
ordinances with reference to fire prevention, it would help immensely.

Three. Give study to that aid the Federal Government might render by
reason of the Fugitive Felon law or any other Federal statute.

Let me say that the office of the Attorney General stands ready to
assist you in any way possible. Of course, we handle only Federal laws.
However, we would be happy to talk with your representatives at any time
with a view to trying to help in this great undertaking started here
yesterday by the President of the United States.

Let me say that I am glad to be here to lend my support to this very
worthy cause. I wish you well, and I do hope that if I can serve, or if
the Department of Justice can serve, you will call upon me without any
hesitation. Bless your hearts and goodbye. \[*Applause.*\]

Chairman Fleming. We are greatly indebted, I am sure, to the Attorney
General for that inspiring talk, and I think we are all glad that he
threw away those two speeches and made his own.

A particularly tragic aspect of our staggering national fire loss is the
large number of persons burned to death in rural areas, especially the
children who have died in flames. Rural schools present a particularly
difficult problem. They are usually situated beyond the reach of the
organized firefighting forces, and all too many of them are structurally
so unsafe as to be a menace in themselves.

Our next speaker is a native of Nebraska and has been a county school
superintendent; now professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia
University, he is internationally recognized as authority on rural
education.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Frank W. Cyr. \[*Applause.*\]

Dr. Frank W. Cyr. General Fleming and members of the President's Fire
Prevention Conference, I feel particularly favored this morning in
talking to you about fire prevention in the schools immediately
following the emphasis of the Attorney General of the United States on
the importance of education in the schools in solving this problem of
fire prevention, and on the importance of fire prevention in rural
areas.

We have a long way from the time when men fist discovered fire. At first
it must have been considered an almost supernatural power, to be used
with care and yet to be preserved at all costs. Uncontrolled fire was a
brutal force, but we learned to control it, and it became a servant of
mankind.

A servant? Yes -- but one that assumes many new and varied forms. New
inventions, new chemicals, new technical processes, even new types of
clothing and house furnishings, have often amazed us by their capacity
in turning a docile servant into a roaring maniac. It takes greater
alertness, deeper understanding, and wiser precautions to live in the
modern world. The human qualities of alertness and understanding, the
sentinels of safety, can be developed and improved through education.

If one were to take the title of my talk, "The Schools and Fire
Prevention," at face value, he would probably get the impression that I
am advocating a campaign for preventing school fires, but this is not my
purpose. Although several destructive fire tragedies in this country
have involved schools, nearly all the major school fires occurred years
ago.

Most of the loss of life from these fires was caused by the poor
structural or even freakish designs of the school buildings themselves.
Believe it or not, those early school buildings often had several
stairways leading down to a single central hall or doors and exits were
hinged to open inward instead of outward. Of all the fires that occur in
the United States each year, less than 1 percent are public school
fires. This fine record not only means saving lives but can also mean
substantial saving of public funds in fire losses and in insurance
costs.

This safety record of the schools is no accident. The supervision of
State departments of education over the construction of school buildings
and the professional progress of school architects, who year after year
have produced designs that have improved school buildings both in
simplicity and safety, have played important parts in achieving this
record. Also, there has been excellent cooperation between school
authorities and fire departments for the elimination of fire hazards.

Improved training of teachers and administrators has resulted in a
recognition of the importance of fire drills and of teaching children
how to behave in case of a panic. In fact, practically all of the formal
training that any of us here today has ever received in how to evacuate
a building was given to us through school fire drills. It is because of
the public schools' excellent record that I speak today on the Schools
and Fire Prevention.

In what better place could we give the youth of today a program of fire
prevention education than in the relative safety of the school
environment. In view of the importance of public school education in
Nationwide fire prevention, what are the major responsibilities of the
schools in the years ahead?

First, the public must join with school administrators and boards of
education in providing the funds necessary to put our present school
buildings in first-class condition. During the war years it was
necessary to postpone many repairs and replacements, which hastened
deterioration of many school buildings. These conditions must be
corrected, and soon.

Second, educators, architects, builders, and fire departments should
continue to cooperate toward the end that every new school building will
be constructed in accordance with the best practices foe safety and fire
prevention. If new building materials or methods of construction are to
be used, they should be thoroughly tested in advance so that schools
will not be serving as guinea pigs. The place to test materials is in
the testing laboratory and not in the construction of school buildings.
It is equally important that school custodians be trained to keep these
new buildings free from fire hazards.

Third, the schools, all schools, must undertake a program of teaching
children and youth about fire prevention and fire protection. This
instruction should not be in terms of the school environment alone but
should deal with lifelike situations in homes, factories, and public
places. The crowded conditions in many of our fast-growing suburban
areas have placed thousands of people in housing situations in which
they need and should have a practical knowledge of fire prevention and
the ability to behave wisely under panic conditions.

On the other hand, the great losses from forest fires in sparsely
populated areas demonstrate another need for fire prevention education.
Forest fires in the United States burn over an area nearly as large as
the State of New York every year, destroying timber and property,
watersheds and water supplies, ranges and wildlife, and scenic and
recreation areas. Of the 210,000 forest fires annually, 9 out of 10 are
caused by man. This is but one illustration of the fact that the
education of people in essential to the prevention of fires.

Fourth, the organized teaching profession has a responsibility through
such organizations as the National Commission on Safety Education of the
National Educational Association to bring together the best materials,
thought, and practice in fire prevention education and to make these
materials available to teachers in communities the country over.
Particular effort should be made to reach teachers in rural communities
who lack means to develop their own materials. There are several types
of national organizations, official and unofficial, which have active
working programs and materials on fire prevention education available to
teachers.

Fifth, the schools can built community understanding and appreciation of
fire hazards and preventive measures. Schools are the logical community
centers where citizens may convene to discuss the local needs for
firefighting equipment and services, procedures in enforcing sound
building codes, and the development of public understanding and support
needed for sound fire prevention measures.

Many of you are primarily interested in the technical phases of fire
prevention and fire protection. You have a responsibility to assist
educators in developing the most effective programs. It is principally
the job of the educator to decide how fire prevention should be taught
as part of the school program, but he needs your technical assistance
and support.

It is equally important that you seek the assistance of educators in
planning and organizing your own fire prevention programs on the State
and local levels. Today, as never before, the cooperation of all groups
concerned is essential to the successful solution of our problems.

What all citizens need to gain through education is the down-to-earth
working knowledge of the techniques and procedures of effective fire
prevention. We need to gain the necessary skills, habits, and attitudes
to enable us to control the innumerable fire hazards in modern life.

In the area of firefighting services the training or education of
firefighting personnel has made tremendous strides forward. Perhaps in
many communities the school laboratories and other facilities could be
used in advancing still further the technical skill and knowledge of the
public firefighter. In building construction and operation and
protection education plays a strategic part in training the trained
personnel needed for these specialized activities.

The development of sound fire prevention laws and the enforcement of
these laws depend almost entirely for their effectiveness on an informed
public. Here, again, education will be a dominant factor in enlightening
the public. The role of education in fire prevention is indeed a major
one demanding the serious attention of school teachers, administrators,
and the public. What the school teaches us will in many instances be
carried into the home by the pupils. The day-in and day-out education of
our children, 25 million of them, in school about 6 hours daily can be
depended upon to create in the American public an acute awareness of
essential facts about fire prevention.

Through no single group can the whole job be done. To reduce our
national fire losses substantially will require the combined efforts of
all. In these combined efforts the public schools can and should play a
major part, both in the education of each generation of children and in
the education of our adult population.

I wish to make a special plea for the needs of that half of our school
children who live in rural America. Too often our national programs
neglect consideration of rural life. In these areas where building codes
and firefighting services are less well developed, and often absent, the
need for fire prevention education is greatest, and I was delighted
yesterday with the emphasis on the importance of this problem in rural
areas in the speech of the President of the United States.

It is because of the desperate need in rural areas for educational
services of all kinds that many of us are fighting for adequate Federal
aid for education which will equalize educational opportunities for all
American children.

Only through education, and lots of it, in the years ahead, will we be
able to raise human knowledge and understanding to a level equal to that
of our incredible technological advance. \[*Applause.*\]

Chairman Fleming. Thank you very much, Dr. Cyr.

Now we shall continue on this subject of education from another point of
view by hearing from Dr. E. B, Norton, Deputy Commissioner of the United
States Office of Education. Dr. Norton. \[*Applause.*\]

Dr. E. B. Norton. General Fleming, members of the Conference, while
experiencing the most critical shortage of materials, manpower, and
housing facilities of all kinds, we learned that our fire losses in 1946
topped the record of recent years and that of 1947 moves rapidly toward
the tragic prospects of exceeding 1946 in losses from fire. Careless
people cause destructive fires! People can learn to be careful!

The implication for education are unmistakable and inescapable. Without
delay widespread, concerted, intelligent, and vigorous effort must be
put into programs of instruction that will develop fire hazard
consciousness, fire prevention habits, firefighting skills, and fire
safety knowledge and practices.

To those who hold that the primary function of the school is to teach
the so-called fundamentals -- reading, writing, and arithmetic -- and
who fear the schools will neglect these essential subjects by paying too
much attention to the study of such problems as fire prevention, let me
say that I , too, believe that there must be no neglect, but rather than
an ever-increasing efficiency in teaching the fundamentals and in their
mastery by students.

I know of no better way, however, to teach reading, writing, and
arithmetic than by a frontal attack problems of significance to the
individual learner and of the importance of his family, community, and
Nation. To an alert teacher, who really wants to teach her pupils to
read and to write and to calculate, an unsolved important problem is a
godsend. Able, imaginative, resourceful teachers use personal, family,
and community problems to motivate the learning process and make it
purposeful. Let us give our children something about which to read and
write and calculate with a purpose. Fire prevention education offers a
dramatic opportunity to that end.

I shall not take the time here to describe or even to enumerate the very
many ways in which the United States Office of Education is rendering
technical service in this field of education. Its valuable services are
channeled through State education agencies to the local school systems
of the Nation. They are provided without any attempt to control or
prescribe the educational program, which is a State and local
responsibility and must remain so.

The Office of Education is definitely opposed to any idea of Federal
control of education. We are concerned with assistance in the vocational
training of firemen and other public service employees, who aid in the
planning of safe school plants and equipment, with improved plans for
maintenance and operation of school facilities, with increasing degrees
of safety, and with consultative services to those who are responsible
for the development of adequate courses of study.

Today this Conference will receive an excellent report from its
Committee on Fire Prevention Education. That report is challenging in
its point of view, replete with suggestions, and forthright in
recommendations for action at all levels of education in all kinds of
schools, school systems, and educational institutions.

This Conference will undoubtedly conclude and state in strong and
definite terms that education is a vital factor in the solution of this
national problem of fire prevention. Education is recognized as a vital
factor in the solution of every problem that is of such magnitude and
national significance as to justify the calling of a President's
Conference for its consideration.

That leads me to say that if education is to function effectively as a
vital factor in the solution of this and other vexing national problems
of this complex age, national financial support must become a vital
factor in the development of the kind of education demanded by these
times.

In the area of excess population and little taxable wealth in this
country thousands upon thousands of children are out of school, and
thousands upon other thousands of them are taught by inadequately paid,
poorly trained, and generally unqualified teachers with little equipment
in buildings that are themselves hazardous firetraps.

Moved by economic pressures as destructive fire is driven by the wind,
people from these areas of excess population and meager educational
opportunity migrate throughout the Nation. Here, also, the implications
are unmistakable and inescapable. Let's recognize our national stake in
education.

Our World War II enemies demonstrated the tremendous power of the
educative process misdirected to evil purposes. Long before they could
threaten the security of the world with their

mechanized might, they had to condition the thinking of generations of
their youth. By a system of education lavishly supported, effectively
organized and misdirected to evil purposes, they regimented the minds,
militarized the spirit, warped the purposes, fixed the ideals, and
determined the loyalties of whole generations of their youth toward ill
will and hatred and aggression and warfare. They distorted the facts of
history and geography and biology to teach false ideals of racial
superiority and to teach their idea of their divine mission to conquer
and rule the world.

Thus it was largely by the process of education that they came to
threaten the security and freedom of the free peoples of the world. When
we rose in our might to check the aggressor and to win a military
victory, we had to depend largely upon the education of our people for
national security. Our armed forces became primarily training forces. We
were inclined to think of them largely as fighting forces, but, I
repeat, they were primarily training forces, millions of men women
undergoing hour after hour, week after week, month upon month of
intensive and often grueling educational experiences to train themselves
for a relatively few hours of combat duty.

Without counting the cost, during the war we made all of the financial
investments necessary to a successful total war effort. The national
stake was survival. That investment involved pouring increased millions
upon millions of dollars into an intensive educational program designed
to achieve military victory, victory that would have been impossible
without a full utilization of the power of the educative process.

This Nation has never yet tried the full power of the educative process
in the achievement of the countless nonmilitary peace-time victories
that are essential to the preservation of a virile democracy. Are we
concerned with education for the prevention of disastrous fires? Of
course, we are; and for the prevention of juvenile delinquency and for
the prevention of disease epidemics and for the prevention of crime and
for the prevention of poverty and ignorance.

Then let us enlist in another prevention program, the prevention of the
threatened breakdown of our public school system due to inadequate
financial support. \[*Applause.*\]

Chairman Fleming. Now that we have these two excellent talks from
eminent educators, this seems to be a particular good point on the
program to hear the report of the Committee on Fire Prevention
Education. With that purpose I introduce Dr. H. C. Byrd, chairman of the
committee, and president of the University of Maryland. Dr. Byrd.
\[*Applause.*\]

Dr. H. C. Byrd. Mr. Chairman, members of the Conference, it, of course,
is manifestly impossible to read this entire report. Copies of it were
sent to members of the committee sometimes ago, and copies of it were
distributed yesterday to members of the Conference.

> ![](media/image10.png){width="5.519444444444445in"
> height="3.204861111111111in"}

When this committee was organized, it was first broken into
subcommittees. Each of these subcommittees had a certain job to do.
After these subcommittees had prepared their reports, after days and
weeks of intensive study, we called a general meeting of the committee.
That committee met 2 or 3 weeks ago and for the better part of the whole
day tried to coordinate and brief as much as possible the report of the
subcommittees.

Yesterday, another meeting of the committee was called to go over the
work of the previous meeting of the committee. Yesterday, in addition to
members of the committee, about 140 members of this Conference attended
that meeting. The report was thrown open to general discussion. I
suppose that the great majority of those present made talks. We did not
change materially the report as it was presented to you in writing
yesterday. We did, however, amplify some of the expressions in the
report of a more or less inconsequential nature.

For instance, where it said "heating systems," we changed that to read
"heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems." Where it says, for
instance, that "thousands of farms go up in smoke every year," we
thought it was a little difficult to understand how a farm could go up
in smoke, and we changed that to read "farm buildings and produce go up
in smoke every year."

There were three emphases placed in the report yesterday that were not
present before to the extent that the committee felt, and all those
others present felt, should be. We emphasized in a sentence or two, and
by making another paragraph, the need for the schools to keep the
closest kind of liaison with the firefighting agencies or fire
protection agencies in their communities.

We emphasized further that the school systems of the States and the
counties and the schools individually should make every endeavor
possible to ally themselves with all of those organizations: the fire
chiefs, the insurance educational organizations, the educational
organizations connected with industry, and all sources which prepare
materials of this nature of an educational value.

We emphasized further the need for adult education, how to reach out
into industry, how to reach out to the people out of the country, to
acquaint them with these facts.

Then, after that motion was made for the adoption of the report, the 175
or 180 or so men and women who were present and who took part in the
discussion yesterday unanimously passed the report and adopted it.

Now, Mr. Chairman , on that basis I move you, sir, that this Conference
adopt the report of the Committee on Fire Prevention Education.
\[*Applause.*\]

MR. Clarence J. Muth (Milwaukee Association of Commerce). Mr. Chairman,
in offering a second to that motion may I also express the confidence of
this Conference in Dr. Byrd and his excellent committee for its very
fine support.

{*The question was put to a vote and was carried unanimously.*}

Chairman Fleming. We have had some discussion of the rural scene from
the educational standpoint, and we shall continue by hearing from
another authority on rural life, Mr. Sherman K. Ives of the National
Grange.

Mr. Ives comes to us from Thomaston, Conn. He is a member of the board
of directors of the National Grange Monthly, a member of the executive
committee of the Connecticut State Grange, and secretary-treasurer of
the National Federation of Grangers Insurance Companies. Mr. Ives.
\[*Applause.*\]

Mr. Sherman K. Ives. General Fleming, ladies and gentlemen it is indeed
an honor and a privilege to speak a few minutes to you today on behalf
of the National Grange, America's oldest farm organization, as well as
being one of the largest and most active of such organizations.

The Grange was founded a little over 80 years ago, and one of the
objectives, as stated in its declaration of purposes, is buying
together, selling together, and in general acting together for the
mutual benefit and protection of its members.

One of the first things that the Grangers started acting together on was
in fire insurance. We have today 36 State Grange organizations, as well
as members in other States and Alaska. In those 36 States we have 65
Grange-operated fire insurance companies. It is, therefore, a subject,
this matter of fire prevention, that is of vital interest to our
organization, and we are very glad to participate in this Conference and
contribute anything we can from our experience.

A few years ago I was listening to the radio, and Eddie Cantor and Jimmy
Wallington were discussing fire insurance. Eddie said, "If I had a house
worth \$5,000 and I inured it today for \$10,000 and it burned up
tomorrow, what would I get?" Jimmy Wallington said, "You would get about
10 year." \[*Laughter.*\]

The matter of arson has already been spoken of, and it is probably more
successful in rural areas, due to the lack of fire protection, than in
other areas. However, we do have in most States pretty good laws on
arson and also laws that no one can collect more than the actual value
of his property, and for these reasons arson is not a frequent cause of
fire losses.

One of the frequent causes of fire losses in rural areas is lightning.
There is an old saying, which you have all heard, that lightning never
strikes twice in the same place. I have good personal reason to know
that that saying is not true and never was.

My father and mother operated a dairy farm at Goshen, Conn., for 30
years, where I was born and raised, and during those 30 years lightning
struck the buildings on that farm seven times. On one of those occasions
it struck and burned the main barn at 3 o'clock in the morning. I was
only 4 years old at the time, but it made an impression on me that I
shall never forget, because it was only by the feverish activity of a
bucket brigade of neighbors that our home was saved from burning also,
as it caught on fire several times before the barn fell. And I wish to
say, if you want to know how fast fire works, that it was just 20
minutes from the time lightning struck until the frame of the main barn
fell.

Fortunately, there is something we can do about lightning losses.
Twenty-five years ago, when I was a student at the University of
Connecticut, our farm engineering professor used to say that lightning
rod properly constructed and properly installed were 95 percent
efficient. I think that may have been improved now. Only last week I
talked with a man who has been in the business of installing lightning
rods for many years, and he made this statement -- I do not vouch for
it, only he told me so, and I know he believed it -- that right now
Connecticut is the first and only State where all the fire insurance
companies writing insurance in that State insist on approved lightning
rods being installed before they will grant a premium reduction in
insurance and where all companies writing insurance grant a uniform
reduction for such installations.

When I speak of approved installations, I mean installations which bear
the master label number of the New England Fire Insurance Rating
Association, which number is on file with that association, which
certifies to the insurance companies that those rods were properly
constructed and were properly installed.

He further stated that so far the records do not disclose a single
instance of a lightning loss where such installations were in existence.
I do know that in our own fire insurance company in over 20 years we
have had no record of a lightning loss where such rods are on the
buildings.

The evidence seems clear that lightning losses can be practically
eliminated by properly constructed and properly installed lightning
rods. There is still one item that has to be worked out, and that is
some method of periodic re-inspection of these installations, for in
time they do become defective.

The most frequent losses, however, even in rural areas, are not
lightning. The National Board of Fire Underwriters have stated that loss
generally can be put into four classes, and that these four causes
constitute 76 percent of all fire losses, and this is true in rural
areas as well as anywhere else. I am not using their words, but these
four causes are mainly carelessness with matches and when smoking; poor
installation or care of cooking and heating equipment; carelessness with
inflammables; and poor installation or care of electrical wiring and
equipment.

How can we correct these items? Some of our companies have attacked the
problem by hiring specially trained men to go to the individual farm and
try to find these hazards and point them out to the owners and,
diplomatically or otherwise, try to have them correct them I know we
have one company in Connecticut that has several men so employed. I know
the Grange company of Kansas and one in the State of Washington have
done considerable work along this line, and it has prevented a great
many fires.

But even this has its limitations. First, the cost of getting the type
of man necessary to do this kind of work is heavy. Also, the item of
travel in rural areas costs a great deal; and third, and not least
important, is the mental attitude of the insured, who in this case are
mostly farmers.

The farmers of America have gone along for a long time without being
subject too much to building codes or regulations regarding their
equipment. They do not take kindly to any uninvited outsider coming onto
their place and telling them how their buildings should be constructed
or cared for or what equipment they should have or how it should be
handled.

Is there any better way, any more effective way, that this work can be
done? I believe that there is, and it certainly fits in very well with
this report on education. In New York State a few years ago several of
the insurance companies, the majority of them Grange companies, decided
to try something new there in the way of fire prevention, and I am going
to speak to Niagara County, where the most extensive work was done. This
information was given to me by R. M. Stanton of Albany, N. Y., who is
the secretary of the New York Central Organization of Cooperative
Insurance of New York State.

They enlisted there the aid of the schools, 4-H clubs, and various
organizations, and they put up prizes for contests. I understand that
each child had to inspect at least three farms, and many inspected a lot
more. They were given an inspection blank, which listed a great many of
the hazards they were to look for, and after they had completed these
inspections they had to write an essay telling what they found, what was
done to correct them, and what they had learned about fire hazards.

I understand that about 15,000 inspections were made in that county that
year. Many of them were duplications, but it was estimated that at least
10,000 different places were inspected.

The insurance companies put up the money for the prizes and printing the
inspection blanks, and so forth, and in all, I think, about \$2,500 was
spent. But to me this is the most impressive. That year in Niagara
County the fire losses were over 35 percent less than they had been the
year before; whereas in neighboring counties, where none of this work
was carried on, that same year the fire losses increased 2 percent over
the year before.

To me this indicates a proven method of fire prevention. I attended the
committee meeting yesterday afternoon on fire prevention education and
was very much interested in the remarks that were made. Several people
indicated that they were in favor of this education of fire prevention
in the schools but wondered just how it was going to be done. Here is
one way that it can be done.

I also was impressed with one man who was afraid that if you did not use
the radio and the moving pictures in this program, all your effort was
going to be lost. I am not in disagreement with him; I think we should
use those methods of disseminating this information all we can. But you
will lose a lot of effectiveness if you do not have these actual
inspections, and you will also lose a very important factor in
cooperation of both the children and the adults if you do not have this
matter of a contest.

All America loves a contest. We need this fire prevention medicine,
although the medicine does not have to be bitter to be good. The contest
is a sugar coating, if you please. My recommendation is simply that we
do everything possible to learn the details of these proven methods of
fire prevention, which I have been telling you about, and try to get
them to the areas of this country which do not now enjoy them.
\[*Applause.*\]

Chairman Fleming. Thank you very much, Mr. Ives.

I now have the pleasure of introducing a man who began working for fire
prevention when some of us here were still in short pants or pigtails.
For many years he has traveled throughout the United States and Canada,
organizing local fire prevention committees and lecturing and writing on
fire prevention. He served as consultant on fire education to the
International City Managers' Association, is a member of the executive
committee of the International Fire Waste Council, is an honorary life
member of seven fire chief organizations. Mr. Percy Bugbee, general
manager of the National Fire Protection Association. \[*Applause.*\]

Mr. Percy Bugbee. The National Fire Protection Association is grateful
to the President of the United States for his recognition of the
seriousness of the loss of life and destruction of property by fire and
his action in calling public attention to the importance of fire
prevention by creating this National Conference.

Fires, like epidemics of disease or crime, can be stamped out
successfully only through the collective will and action of society as a
whole. The failure of society to prevent fires has been due to the fact
that up to now the average American citizen has not appreciated that
nearly all fires are due to simple, easily understood acts of
carelessness or neglect. Once every man, woman, and child realizes and
accepts in daily life the responsibility for simple fire prevention
measures, death, injury, and destruction by fire will be substantially
reduced. It is worth emphasizing that the failure of society to prevent
fires is not due to any mysterious and unknown action of fire. There is
hardly any field of scientific investigation where more work has been
done than in the field of fire protection and fire prevention. The
knowledge as to the causes of fires and how to prevent them and protect
against them is available.

Let me pay tribute here to the remarkable accomplishments that have been
registered over the years by fire protection engineers and fire
preventionists throughout industry, throughout the fire insurance
business, in many of our municipal fire departments, and in numerous
Federal and State agencies. The work of these men is not spectacular and
seldom reaches the public consciousness. Big fires are front page, but a
fire prevented is not news.

While it is the worth-while purpose of this Conference to focus
attention upon the need for more fire prevention interest and activity,
we should recognize and applaud the work that has been done and we
should realize that while we are in a period of rising fire losses, the
losses have not actually risen in proportion to the tremendous increase
in values of burnable goods created during the recent war period.
Perhaps the most practical evidence of the effectiveness of the
long-range attack upon the fire waste is the steady downward trend in
the over-all cost of fire insurance which has been in evidence for the
past five decades. We of the National Fire Protection Association feel
that a vast amount of constructive fire prevention effort has already
been accomplished and we stand ready to increase and intensify our
efforts and to cooperate with all other agencies in carrying out the
action program developed here in this Conference.

I have two specific proposals to make to this Conference that in my
opinion would result in substantial reduction of fire losses. If we
examine the record, we find that there are approximately from 700,000 to
800,000 fires a year in the United States and that nearly half of these
occur in homes. The majority of deaths and injuries in fires occurs in
homes. If every home in the United States could be subjected to a
periodical inspection for common fire hazards, these home fires could be
cut in half in a year's time. It has been demonstrated over and over
again that when home inspections are made by fire departments a very
substantial reduction in home fires is secured. Such home inspections
can be carried out at no extra cost whatsoever to the taxpayers, and the
fire departments that have carried on home inspections have found that
they not only reduce the fire losses in homes in their city but that
they bring a tremendous amount of good will to their departments. Home
inspections by firemen work in large cities and in small ones, and in
every city where there is an organized fire department such home
inspection procedures, if carried out, would cut this measured source of
fire.

Experience also has clearly demonstrated that simple inspections of
homes for fire hazards by school children, by Boy Scouts, by Girl
Scouts, and by 4-H Club boys and girls, are effective in reducing home
fires. Here again there is nothing difficult, expensive, or mysterious
to be done. Whenever boys, and girls have been asked to undertake this
sort of work, there has been no evidence of reluctance on their part.
Why not utilize the spirit and effort of the young people in this great
campaign that we are talking about at this Conference? Every boy and
girl should be given this opportunity. A concentrated campaign of home
inspections along the lines indicated above will reduce home fires, and
home fires are our greatest number of fires.

What is the principal cause of fires? Of the 590,000 fires of known
cause, on the average we find that 120,000 of them are due to careless
smoking. People burning to death because of smoking in bed has become
all too prevalent. Every hotel owner will testify to his fire experience
with the careless smoker. The evidence clearly indicates that the
disastrous LaSalle and Winecoff Hotel fires and the Texas City holocaust
of last year were started by the careless disposal of cigarettes.

Up to now we have not attacked successfully this principal cause of
fires. The cigarette companies spend tremendous sums of money on radio
programs, on magazine and newspaper advertising, on billboard
advertising, and the like. Have you ever seen in any of this advertising
any words of advice or caution as to the safe disposal of lighted
matches and cigarettes? I for one feel that the cigarette companies have
an obligation and a public responsibility to help educate smokers in
careful action. I believe that an educational campaign on fire
prevention by the cigarette companies would substantially reduce fires
and deaths by fires without hurting the sale of their product. Last year
President Truman sponsored a National Conference on Highway Safety. The
great automobile companies have supported with their interest and with
their money that campaign. I suggest that this Conference take action to
induce the cigarette manufacturers to accept some responsibility for the
education of the public in careful smoking habits so that this principal
cause of fires may be reduced.

Chairman Fleming. Thank you, Mr. Bugbee.

More than we commonly realize, our health, even our very lives, depends
upon the kind of buildings in which we live and work and seek our
recreation. Once we thought of the architect as the man whose business
it was to design buildings that would be pretty to look at, but he was
not always too successful, even in that endeavor, as amply illustrated
by some of the older buildings around Washington. Take the old State,
War, and Navy Building, for instance.

We now recognize in the architect one whose job it is to build for us
structures that will not only be pleasing to look at, but in which we
can live and work in comfort and safety.

At this point I must note a slight change in our program. James R.
Edmunds, Jr., of Baltimore, until just recently president of the
American Institute of Architects, who was to have addressed us this
morning, was unfortunately not able to be present. The paper he would
give if he were here will instead be read by Mr. Walter A. Taylor,
director of the Department of Education and Research of the American
Institute of Architects, whom we are very happy to have with us. Mr.
Taylor. \[*Applause.*\]

Mr. Taylor (representing Mr. James R. Edmunds, Jr., past president, the
American Institute of Architects). The American Institute of Architects
welcomes the opportunity to support and participate in the President's
fire prevention campaign.

The American Institute of Architects has collaborated for many years
with a number of the technical agencies here represented, Mr. Bugbee's
organization and others, in the study and development of standards and
codes for fire prevention and safety.

Since the inception of this campaign, our organization has urged the
broadest scope and interpretation and an emphasis upon safety for human
life as the ultimate criterion of codes and actions.

Everyone is of course concerned, at least indirectly, about human
casualties and loss of life due to fires. However, it would seem that
many codes and proposed standards have been framed primarily to preserve
buildings and their contents, rather than human lives. The architect
shares fully the concern of the owners, the technicians, and economists
over the stupendous financial losses due to fires.

But the architects, among the technicians and design professions, in his
approach to any problem, usually gives greater weight to the direct
effect upon human beings.

Even with perfectly incombustible structures, we shall probably always
have some inflammable contents. Even if the spread of fire could be
controlled, unless additional precautions are taken there would still be
the danger of loss of life by panic and suffocation, which cause many
more casualties and deaths than does actual contact with fire.

Therefore, in our efforts to aid and abet this most necessary and
commendable campaign, we shall include and stress all precautions toward
prevention of loss of life due to fires. Buildings and contents may be
called expendable and may be recoverable; human life is not expendable
and not recoverable. The architect, as coordinator of the work of many
technicians and specialists, has responsibilities in all technical and
design phases of fire safety.

Among the many complex requirements of modern building which he must
completely coordinate and specify in advance of construction, he must
include fire safety considerations in plan, structure, construction,
escapes, alarms, fire proofness or fire-resistance, controls for fire,
smoke and gas, built-in firefighting equipment, and so forth.

There is no lack of technical data, as Mr. Bugbee has indicated.
Architects and practitioners of some of the other design professions may
know quite well what should be done, but these precautions cost the
owners money, due either to large dimensions, or better quality of
building, or additional equipment.

If, in buildings for competitive use, such as hotels and restaurants,
the precautions are not legally required, or are not strictly enforced,
the urgings of the architects, or even the conscience of the owner, may
not prevail, and the hazards will get by for the reasons of economy.

This is obvious, and it is therefore also obvious that the importance
and potential success of this campaign lies in the participation of many
large and influential groups outside the architectural and engineering
professions, whose interests are solely humanitarian and civic.

![](media/image11.png){width="5.258333333333334in"
height="3.178472222222222in"}

Government agencies which are guiding and setting standards for various
types of buildings can do a great deal to improve fire safety by
strengthening and emphasizing their requirements.

The officers, directors, and staff of the American Institute of
Architects pledge their best efforts to the continuing support of the
President's campaign. Individual architects, as citizens and in their
professional practice, may be relied upon to use their skill and
persuasion in the interest of fire safety; but in many large and
important public and semipublic buildings we shall be powerless unless
by united effort of all who are here represented, public opinion is
aroused to a demand for clarification, enactment, and enforcement of
codes which are ready and available in the form of standards and
recommendations, awaiting your moral support and legal implementation.
\[*Applause.*\]

Chairman Fleming. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. I think that excellent
presentation has put us in a receptive mood to hear the report of the
Committee on Building Construction, Operation, and Protection, which
will be presented by Alfred C. Fuller. Mr. Fuller! \[*Applause.*\]

Mr. Alfred C. Fuller. General Fleming and ladies and gentlemen of the
Conference, the report which this committee is presenting today is the
product of three subcommittees which were commissioned to deal with
different phases of the subject. The membership of these subcommittees
was scattered throughout the country. The time available for the work
was short, and the opportunities for getting together in committee
meetings were few. Nevertheless, the work was carried forward with great
energy and enthusiasm.

Much credit is due the subcommittee section whose job it was to assemble
and digest a large number of suggestions and draft the report. I have
reason to be particularly thankful to Mr. George Thompson of the Bureau
of Standards, the secretary of this committee.

After the subcommittee made its report, received the approval, it was
all combined into one report, which was submitted to the full committee
for final action. At a meeting held yesterday afternoon, which was
attended by about 150 of the committee and others attending this
Conference, a critical review of the report was made, and some final
touches were added. It now comes before you for final approval of the
work of the committee.

I might say further that there were certain suggestions for editorial
refinements and changes and additions, some of which were left to the
committee for further work after a stenographer had taken notes of the
various changes and suggestions made.

In brief, the committee recommends that greater attention be given by
designers of buildings to the recognized standards of construction and
strict compliance to established codes and regulations; that
governmental officials review the adequacy and extent of existing
regulations; that owners and managers of buildings adhere to safe
practices and observe standard rules of fire safety; that aggressive
action be taken to accelerate the installation of automatic fire
protection in new and existing buildings, particularly where safety to
life is a compelling factor; that designers, owners, public officials,
and the public in general assume their full obligation for the
elimination of fire hazards.

In reaching these conclusions, which are supported by further detailed
recommendations giving specific measures to be applied, the committee
has investigated the part that building design, provisions for fire
extinguishment, and arrangement for good housekeeping can play in
reducing fire hazards. It has recognized that the problem may be quite
different in the case of a new building and an existing one. In the case
of the new building it emphasizes that the mistakes of the past should
not be allowed to be repeated. In the case of existing ones it points
out that measures should be taken to correct major deficiencies, even
though they were not recognized as such and were even permitted by law
when the structure was originally erected.

Throughout the report emphasis is placed upon the increased sense of
responsibility that should be felt by everyone. Needless waste of human
life and property values would be stopped. This responsibility rests
with designers with owners and managers of premises, with governmental
authorities charged with the enforcement of building regulations, and
with the public itself.

It is pointed out that there are well-developed standards of
construction which, if properly applied, would go far toward cutting
down losses. Effective firefighting appliances are available for use.
Safe methods of handling building contents, even those of a hazardous
nature, are being developed. Thus the means for providing adequate
safety are at hand but indifference and carelessness still exist. It is
in this field that much remains to be done if we are to have real
progress in fire protection.

The committee does not confine its report to generalities. It singles
out specific points in building construction that have contributed in
the past to fire losses and which will continue to be a menace unless
corrected. These include unprotected open stairways and elevator shafts,
concealed places, the lack of adequate barriers to spreading a fire in
the form of fire-resistive walls and partitions.

In the matter of provisions for fire protection and extinguishment it is
equally specific. Special emphasis is placed upon the advantages of
automatic sprinklers as a means of dealing with fire before it has a
chance to assume serious proportions. The usefulness in old buildings is
made evident. Certain fundamentals in operation and maintenance of
buildings from the standpoint of fire safety are stressed. These include
supervision, organization, education, and training of personnel; good
housekeeping; precautions against smoking; care and restrictions in the
use of inflammable liquids, open flames, and lights; and the maintenance
of building service, equipment, and fire protection appliances. All
these things must be done if we are to make progress, but the report
comes back again and again to the principle of individual
responsibility. If this principle can be fostered, and if the will is
created to use the means for fire safety already at hand but too often
neglected, we can look forward with confidence to a better record in the
coming years.

Mr. Chairman, I recommend and move the adoption of the report.

Chairman Fleming. Thank you, Mr. Fuller.

You have all received copies of the report, and Mr. Fuller has very ably
told you what it contains and what changes were made in it yesterday. Is
there any comment from the floor?

Mr. Arthur Benline (representing the Building Officials Council of
America and the Building Officials Foundation). Mr. Chairman we wish to
second the motion.

{*The question was put to a vote and was carried unanimously.*}

Chairman Fleming. We now recess until 2 o'clock this afternoon.

{*The Conference adjourned at 11:50 A.M.*}