The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1888-11-22
RAILWAY CORPORATIONS
And Their Duties to Persons
Injured by Accidents.
Doctor Swearingen Graphically
Tells What He Knows
About 1t in Vigorous
Language.


private walks of life may perform many
generous deeds; but when acting in the
body corporate they attend strictly to
financial affairs, without apparently con-
sidering the moral obligations that must
inevitably fall upon them.
Their superintendents are first class
men with splendid business qualifications;
but from the force of circumstances they
acquire the habit of looking at all things
from standpoint of profit and loss.
These corporations employ the most
skillful lawyers, and expect them, in every
professional act, to reflect, not the will of
man or men, but the will of q corpora
ton.
The old fashioned scales of equity
used in the ox-cart days for balancing
rights and wrongs, are thrown aside by
these rigid interpreters of law, and the
voice of mercy seems lost in the rattle of
wheels and the scream of engines.
1t is the veriest folly for any one to
bring suit against railway corporation
unless his claim is as unanswerable
as promissory note, and the
law applicable to 1t as explicit as
the Ten Commandments. Those who
have INDUCED in the luxury of a
lawsuit without these essential prereoui
sites, are generally satisfied with the one
experiment.
Baffied in securing their rights, taxed by
the courts for the valuable information
given in the school of experienne-and by
their own lawyers for every note chanted
in the gamut of justice, it is not surpris-
ing that these victims of lawsuits, and
their friends, should look outside of court
houses for ways and means of redress,
and that the strategy of war suggested the
combination of forces.
All the employees of these giant corpora
tions, believing the law inadequate to
their protection, have organized into
secret aid SOCIETIES, in order to protect each
other. Engineers, conductors, brakemen
and Knights of Labor are linked together
for reciprocal safety, while the Farmers
Alliance looms up in the backgrounds
kind of reserve battle grounds for all of
these combinations to rally upon.
That unnamed element of discord be-
tween poverty and wealth, between labor
aud capital, has never before succeeded in
having the lines so sharply drawn and so
clearly defined as now, and they present
subjects worthy of the profoundest
thought of every patriotic citizen.
Our state legislatures have been flooded
with bills to regulate these colossal pow
ers-some of them so damaging TO rail-
way interests as to virtually amount to
confiscation-and they were, and always
ought to be, defeated. Other bills were
more temperate and just, but in trying TO
embrace the whole suoject-to formulate,
as it were, great rule by which to solve
many complex problems-they signally
failed to accomplish anything.
The lessons taught by these failures
should incline the legislative mind to
easier and less vulnerable methods of re =
form. Whenever an evil is made apparent,
correct it by a special enactment, and
thus by slow but progressive steps rem
edies can be more successfully applied.
Inspired by the hope of promoting such
policy, your attention Is respectfully
invited to the duties and responsibilities
of railway corporations to persons injured
by accidents.
The medical departments of these cor
porations are organized exclusively for the
benefit of employees. The hosp ital fund de-
trays all expenses, and it is made from a
monthly tax of so cents levied upon every
one employed by the company. The sys-
tenn is mastery creation-a kind of joint
stock association, where the stockholders
have no vote in the selection of officers, no
voice as to the manner Of investme nts, and
no knowledge of the amounts disbursed.
1t is, however, an economic institution,
and when properly administered furnishes
comfortable quarters and skillful sur Seons
for both sick and wounded.
As might be expected in this, as we'll as
in all other extensive enterprises, incom-
petent men will secure positions, and
either abuse or neglect the duties confded
to them. For instance, the superintend-
emit, or it may be, some official of the
medical department, in their efforts to
practice questionable economy, very
often rush injured men to hospitals who
are not in condition to travel.
1 can recall several such cases, and in
order to more fully elaborate the position
taken, will report one, more aggravated
than any of the others, but no more illus
trative of the evil complained of.
About ive years ago, section hand
at Manor was thrown from and run over
by hand car.
One of the local physicians, conscien
tious and capable surgeon, was at once
called, and discovered that the muscles of
the ID iured man near to and parallel with
the spinal column were badly lscerated,
and that some of the bones of the column
we're fractured. The doctor promptly
gave the attention and services necessary
for the relief of his patient, but realizing
hat under the most favorable conditions
IN arduous task had fallen to his lot,
.sked the railway ager t to wire the super.
ntendent for the special authority re-
luired by the company in such cases.
The message was sent, but in place of in
'tructions for the doctor TO continue in
,harge, an impeI alive order was given
he agent to send the man on first train to
he Houston iDfirmary.
l have no information as to who gave |
he order of removal, but as it was obeyed |
he presumption is Legitimate that it came |
rom some one in authority. The attend
ng surgeon was not even notified of the |
to remove his patient !
nd, of course, had no opportunity |
o support the broken back by splints
IT plaster dressing, nor 10 protest the |
anne of noble profession against such
srbarous atrocity.
As might have been anticipated by any
me who had seen the wounded man, long
efore the train that bore him reached the
destined point, death in mercy came to
IL relief.