The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-07-01
COAL MINE ACCIDENTS.

Since the deplorable accident at SEQ
field on May day other explosions in
other parts of the country have been
reported, none accompanied by such
enormous loss of life, but aggregating
over a hundred fatalities, nevertheless.
In Carolina. in Illinois and in PennsyI-
vania casualties of this character have
occurred within the past sixty days
and newspapers have devoted consider
able space to a discussion of causes
and preventives.
In every state where coal mining is
carried on, legal guards have been
thrown around the workmen and
system of official inspection has been
adopted for the mines. These methods
of protection for miners have not al
ways met the expectations of those
who devised them. One of the prin-
cipal reasons for this is that the ap-
pOintment of coal mine inspectors and
other officials having the work in
charge has degenerated into a system
of political jObbery in some of the
states. In others the compensation is
not sufficient to insure the services of
the most efficient men for this extreme
ly particular work. There is no more
responsible position than one in which
the lives of hundreds Of human beings
are entrusted to his care and the des-
tiny of whole families rests upon his
competency and judgment.
Owing to this state of affairs many
have become convinced that the po-
litical inspection of coal mines is a fiat
and fatal failure and that some other
system should be devised. The Pitts
burg Post believes that there
would be fewer accidents if the
whole batch of mine officeholders
were legislated out of office and
reliance had on the mutual plans
of operators and miners, directed by
the supreme law OF self-protection. This
was what the miners relied on before
the system of legal inspection and po-
litical agents was adopted, and we are
assured with better results in the pre-
servation of human life
The Post recently printed an inter
esting communication from Mr.. ]. B.
Corey, a practical miner and operator
Of Pennsylvania, in which he advocates
the roofing out of the entire system of
official inspection and the abuses il
has introduced, and favors placing the
whole matter in the hands of operators
and miners, who. he claims, can and
will protect themselves much more eff
fectively than is possible under the
existing system.
The main objection to this plan is
that the old conditions under which
coal mining was carried on have passed
and with them the old-time relations
between the employer and the en-
ployee. The business is now carried
on by large corporations employing
large numbers of men. Co-operative
arrangements are matters of the past
and the miner is compelled to look to
the state for protection when he needs
it. If incompetent officials are placed
in charge of his safety he has an op-
portunity, if he survive, to go to the
polls and rebuke the authority that
made him or tried to make him the
victim of a spells system. He has
the right and it is his duty to vote his
sentiments concerning the executive
who seeks to barter away the security
of coal miners for the political infu-
ence of an incompetent inspector.
This is the coal miners only remedy
at present Legislation has r,a5e -,,Io.--
inventors have made contrivances for
the safety of miners. 1t is for inspect
ors TO say whether or not the rules are
obeyed OF the devices used. Legisla-
ton and science are slowly but surely
leading the coal miner to greater Sc
curity. 1t wasn't long ago when mining
was more hazardous than it is today. |
Safety lamps were not known, venti- |