The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-07-16
JONAS LONGS SONS.

Pennsylvania We're not only without
mine inspectors, but the mines were
without any legal regulation whatever.
The men who at the daily risk of life
and limb brought from the bowels of
the earth the fuel without which civil
izatiOn would languish and life be-
came uncomfortable, were absolutely
without any legal protection against
the most rapacious of eXploiters. Timb-
ers for supporting the roofs" of mines
We're not furnished in sufficient guam
tity and often when they were furn-
ished they We're of unsuitable dimen-
sions and of poor quality. Hundreds,
thousands of men have died sudden
and awful deaths for lack of proper
timbers to support the roof" from un-
der which the coal had been mined.
Then only the crudest means of ven-
tilation were in use, and tens of thou
sands of men and boys have been sent
to untimely graves by the slow poison
of the murderously foul eXhalations
of inadequately ventilated coal mines,
or have been blown to atoms by the
revolving fire damp explosions which
with awful frequency used to depopu-
late whole towns in the mining regions,
blotting out all the able bodied male
residents. Only those who have toiled
underground can realize the terrible
meaning of those awful agents of
death-foul air and fire damp. For the
legislation which has so great a degree
rendered the mines wholesome and the
lives of the miners less subject to the
awful and ever present dangers of the
N n ~ "a lynn hold
Senator Quay responsible.
During the twenty years in which the
legislation of the state has been-ac-
cording 10 Mr.. Wanamaker-"domi-
mated" and controlled" by this man."
laws have been enacted which require
mine owners to keep the places where
their miners work free from water, and
for these laws and for the better health
and added comfort they bring to the
miners Senator Quay is TO be held ac-
countable.
HOSPITALS.
Before the time during which this
man" has dominated" and "con-
trolled" the Pennsylvania legislature,
many a wounded miner has died while
being taken from the scene of some
awful accident to the remotely situ-
ated hospital. Even when the hospital
was not too distant the attendant ex-
pense in thousands of cases made any,
thing but home treatment out of the
question; home treatment which, how
ever loving and tender, cannot give to
the poor, mangled sufferer the benefit
of the appliances with which science
has equipped the modern hospital. But
during these years, while the legisla-
ture did all that this BOSS" COM
manded and refrained from doing all
that he forbade, that same Quay-con-
trolled legislature has established cot
tages in all the mining centres, in which
miners are treated free of charge, and
every year hundreds of them are spared
the Dains and the torture which sur
gical science and skill. equipped with
modern hospital appliances. can al
leviate, and are restored to their fam
lilies undsfigured by those deformities
which all too often. and unavoidably,
attended the home cured cases in the
years before this man" began his
dreadful career of domination and
control"
1t is in no small degree due to the
enactment and enforcement of laws
passed during these years of Quay
control" that miners asthma" a dis
ease due TO defective ventilation, has
been nearly eliminated. During these
years of Quay domination" legisla-
tion the number Of accidents in mines
have been so lessened that whereas,
before the era of Quay rule" began,
human life was sacrificed for every
l03,127 tons of coal mined, now the
record is one life for each 800, 1855 tons.
For all this Mr.. Wanamaker insists
that Quay and Quay only shall be held
responsible. and it is reasonable to ex-
pect that If the eloquence of the great
and good merchant has not been en-
tirely Intellectual, no Quay candidate"
will get the vote of single Pennsyl-
Vania-undertaker. The votes of the
manufacturers of artificial limbs may
also be won from the awful boss" by
the good mans eloquence. for the sta