The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-09-05
THE SOLDIER AND MINER.
The Latter Is a True Hero as Well
as the Former.

| The Mining Reporter, of Denver,
pays the following just tribute to the
bravery Of the men who work in the
mines:
In war days the brave man is made
hero. Alive. he has the victor's
wreath of laurel; dead, he is covered
| with cypress, and his grave is wet with
a nations tears. We build monuments
to him. He has the seat of honor in
public gatherings and legislative halls.
But the brave man in peace is I'M
known. Alive, he has no wreath; dead,
no nations tears, and no monument
and no honor. In the excitement of
battle, when all the combative devil in
a man is wide awake and eager, when
the roar Of cannon, shrek of she'll
whiz Of bullet and rattle of rifle works
every nerve to a breaking pitch, it is
easy to do and dare. A man is but
following nature to be brave then. But
in the darkness of underground life,
where a loose scale, a falling rock,
rotten Spreader, poor timbering, rotten
ladder. delayed shot, poison gas or I'M
looked-for fire may bring death or suf-
on the battle field to do heroic act
is another thing. Excitement, the in
nate love of combat, the noises of bat
tie, the inspiration of duty, patriotism,
pride and honor are absent. If a man
is brave there, it is because he is brave
by nature. And there are tens of thou
sands who prove their bravery in these
places every day.
Every day the miner, either at the
coal banks or in the ore mine, takes
his life in his hand, and day by day
he risks il for another. In every min
ing town and camp sometime during
the year bruised, bloody, shapeless
corpse is raised from a. shaft. All too
often a great accident fills the region
with horror, when wives and children
who weep, and wives and children
who are white and silent in woe,
gather around the shaft mouth, down
which death has just reaped harvest,
And such events always furnish illus
trations of bravery equal to any ever
seen where the flag waves and the yell
of the charge is heard.
We stood by a Comstock shaft when
it was necessary for some one to go
down on the cage to save the lives of
fellow workmen below. Going down on
that cage was almost certain death.
There were plenty ready to go. Said
one: Here, John, you've got a wife; /
haven't. Let me go in your place.
Were Drawer words ever saio on battle
field? He went, and said: IF don't
ring up in five minutes, I'll be dead.
a long five minutes they were No ring
came. But he closed the bulkhead he
went to close, and died before return
ing to the shaft. He gave his life for |
others.
The other day two men in a shaft lit |
the fuse to a 20-inch hole and got in |
the bucket and rung hoist The bucket |
went up to the lower timbers and |
caught. One miner fell back to the |
bottom. The other rung stop. then |
lower, and went back to the bottom |
and pulled the fuse, and saved his /
partners life. Two seconds more and |
both would have been killed
There never was a winter since the |
settlement of the country when men
have not risked, and sometimes risked |
and lost, their lives, in trying to save |
others from snow slides. The miner is
as brave as the soldier. Peace hath
her victories no less than war, and |
they are nobler, because done without !