Alaska sentinel., 1903-01-01

In the rush of building in the down. town districts of Chicago the element of time in the construction is of vital consequence when the question of ground rents Is considered; where a man. firm, or corporation is paying 1 perhaps S25.O00 a year for a ground l lease it is necessary that the building shall not be any longer under way than the greatest haste in building makes unavoidable But if in this rush of building it should be brought l home to the builders that q steel struc- ture forced to completion in six months instead of a necessary twelve months should offer up sacrifice of one or more human lives for this priv ilege of haste, there is no question that Christian civilization would make such protest that six months build-
 ing would be made impossible.
 For to this hurry in a contract the l builders of Chicago credit greater loss | of life tran to all the other possibil- ties in building combined. In this sense haste is not the haste of the in dividual in individual tasks; it Is the haste that piles one set of workmen above another until perhaps a dozen gangs of men are working at dozen separate contracts, while between these gangs of men are floor after floor. formed of loose planking through which hammers, riyets, tongs, bricks, stones, terra cotta, and the thousand and one tools and materials of build | ing may fall in spite of all precautions, killing and maiming as they fall.
 You may lay the largest per cent of accidents on any building to this haste that sets one set of of workmen above another" said the superintend; ent of one )f the large construction companies. You may say that 90 per cent of the accidents on building Is due to falling missiles, and just to the extent that one gang of men Is piled upon another through a structure, just l to that extent one may expect these missiles in falling to find victims.
 Many Trades Wor ing at Once.
 Haste as 1t is ordinarily under stood is not accountable for undue ac- cidents. As rule. men working upon building do not work in rush. Steel workers do, but they are the exception. Haste in building means the beginning of wiring, freproofng carpentering, clustering, brlcklaying. plumbing. and perhaps certain lines of finishing. be- l fore the structural steel Is up to the level of the sixth floor of a sixteen story building In fact, on an ordi- nary downtown building going up in rush twenty-five separate trades have been at work through the struc- ture at the same time.
 "Ordinarilr a person familiar with the conditions under which craftsmen work might look to the laws and the city ordinances for protection of these men. But the laws do not protect. 1 There is an ordinance which requires the builder to see that the floors In n skeleton structure should be planked over. So they are, but with q dozen gangs of men working at dozen lines of work on a dozen floors, you may see where the element of chance plays. A l foreman pOIlS luEOuSu DulluILS may see board or two boards or three boards in a floor out of place. He or ders that the hole be covered over for the protection of everybody below i 1t. The order suits everybody below, | but the man who may have removed the boards for wiring the building, or for the conducting of pipes between floors, throws down his tools and says he will quit work if he is to be inter- fered with in his work. What is the contractor to do? It is a rush job; he cant spare the one angry workman; certainly he can't say to the gangs be- low to stop work because something possibly may fall through the hole and crush mans skull No; the condition Is ttat it is a rush job and as such the foreman walks away. unwillingly, but having no recourse that is practicable. Flight there the conditions are all ripe for the unexpected to happen-as the unexpected always does. Indeed, riyet may fall. red-hot, through a knot hole just as easily as through a hole ten feet square. and man just as easily may be under the one as under the other.
 Another thing making accidents in brilding easier is the general idea of