The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1893-12-29
ITS ARMY OF VICTIMS.
Frightful Mortality Under Private Owner
ship and Operation of ubi:c Rail-

ship and Operation of lubi:c Rail-
roads.
Before going into n consideration of
the private railroad as public thief,
let me add a few remarks to mine OF
last week omit mission as a murderer
to make. a summary which the men,
ory can easily carry, thoughts weight
in the argument against private owner
ship Of railroads grows heavier day by
day.
Let us take, ponder and absorb just
few statistics. They are mot .dry"
but dripping with human blood. The
American railways for the year ended
June 80, 1890. killed or injured one
passenger out of every 1s1,6 persons
carried. A frightful record of corpor-
ate greed and capitalistic murder, is it
not? But there is yet an uglier side to
1t, Of their dreadfully hard-worked
employees who enjoy on an average the
magnificent wage of S1.64 day, they
managed to kill or injure one out Of
every thirty. One for every thirty
realize the redness, the blood-redness Of
that little item.
Look at it another way, so as to get
it firmly fixed in your mind and heart
The exact number of employees slaugh-
tered in that year was 2,451. or, to
speak roundly, one workman every six
days for 81. GA per day gave up his life
to the great American juggernaut.
Add to this %, S96 employees injured
more or less frightfully and perma-
ne ntly, and do we not have a sum in
arithmetic that becomes, IL we permit
such a condition to continue, a sum in
national morality?
Consider once more, in the new light,
the comparison | made last week with,
the public railroad systems of Ger
many. Austro- Hungary and India.
Here is the indictment in Il nutshell.
Our American railways, true examples
of private enterprise, run mad with
greed for gold, kill and iniure three
and onc-third times as many passengers
and six and one-fifth times as many
employees per anuuri:as the other coun:
tries combined.
There are so many rascally ramifica-
tions to this private railroad iniguity
that it resembles the great banyan
tree of India, beneath whose branches
ten thousand soldiers, it is said, could
encamp. Or rather, it resembles the
tabled upas tree. whose leaves distill
dews of poison and to sleep bene lth
which is certain death. TO sleep be-
meath this ever-increasing public
poison, the private railroad, is death
for the American people. for do not
robbing and impoverishing a man kill
him just as certainly, though a little
slower and with more torture of heart,
as to crush him beneath iron whsels or
burn him up in railroad accident?
/ was interested Ii few days ago in
looking over the patent office reports
to note that more patents had been
granted on car couplers than on any
other one article This excited my curi-
osity little, and on investigation
found that the railroads employed an
expert at Washington to watch for the
various patents granted and to secure
at as low n price as possible the prompt
assignment of the invention to those
interested in the pool. ! afterwards
learned that it was part Of the sys-
TEN to quietly buy up these inventions
and then shelve them. This prevents
the parading of them in public and the
arousing of public sentiment in favor
of marked improvements simply be-
cause nobody is financially interested
to do it. Thousands of patents have
already been granted on ear couplers,
| and yet the old system of wholesale
life -dcstroyers almost universally pre-
| walls.
Brakemen are obliged to risk life and
limb in going between cars, simply be-
cause the murderous greed of railroad
officials and stockholders prevent the
adoption of improvements, and deliber-
ately withholds the means of saving
| the lives of their employees, until an
| outraged public sentiment compels
| them to disgorge a few of their stolen
| dollars in the interest of common hu.
| manity.
1t is u well-known fact that larger
| army of men are employed on the rail-
| roads of the country than in any single
| industry. IL 1891 the number of men
| employed was one to every eighty-twO
| inha bitants and when we consider the
long hours of employment, small wages
paid and the fact that no attention
| whatever is given 70 their safety. il
| this does not put our vaunted Christian
CIVILIZATION 10 tne oiusn anu make tno
| petty killing of one man by another
seem like a peccadillo, it is because we
are so accustomed to the sight of in
| justice and wholesale slaughter that
| our hearts are hardened to human
| misery.
As rule the average railroad en-
ploye is worked beyond the point of
| physical endurance, and long hours un-
string his nerves and dull his senses
until he fails to measure up to the
standard of watchfulness. An accident
occurs and this poor railroad slave is
hustled into court charged with crimi-
nal negligence, and the directors go
scot free and a patient public foots the
| bills.
| Next week we will consider together
1.-THE private railroad as public thief
GEORGE +. WAsHBURN.