The Opelousas courier., 1905-07-22
%~~~<<~~~~Q< ~Vt~s~f%~~~~ss
The Slaughter of
Railroad Employees
BY Frederick Uphan Addms.

@Sn HE appalling slaughter OF railway employees due to the re-
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tenton of the uldfashioned freight car couplers so arouse"
public sentiment years ago, that congress a lo'ceu II" ~,
passing a law making obligatory n US or oo
vices. The railroad interests had figured 1t out, 10 thni
own satisfaction, that it was cheaper to keep on killing aho
manning tens of thousands Of their mn than 1t W a 10 Dy
&1m8 new couplers. Every possible influence has been employed
to delay and defeat the enforcement o his law le an
=" "hcn "a to check the wholesale murder OF Woodworking employees ln Nc
corporations declared that there we're n practical coupling devces so puefne
d LlSenood so absurd o its face that even those n WOULD lave peen
Wiling o all In the outrage declined to do 80 on this ground. lhe ranroau
onpanles fought the law in the courts and were beaten. 1t seemed hcoh
lrehensHe to them that a corporation should be compelled to spend none
nr Sc vain n proMless a thing IS the saving of human life.
Ihey induced congress to give them a extension of time. That extern
sion a long since expired, yet the statement is made and not denied that
that there are thousands of "a not proaded with automatic brakes The
more progress 0mniroad managers 10 recognize that the change trom the
murderous old coupCS to the nw ones is a profitable one NO modern Wal
a wrought so vast a devastation in human life and happiness a tn reten-
hn oil TIT antique couplers years after inventive genius had solved the prop
lem. y
A report recently issued by the Interstate Comnhrce Commission shows
ina The total number of casualties to persons on fAiroads In TIT unteo
states, during the fiscal ya ending June 80, 1904, hwas %, 1870, comprising
killed and 51343 injured. "This shows a large Increase over any other
year. 1t is a large total, and, in comparison, may IF said to be similar tot the
complete destruction of any n of such cities AZ Salt Lake CN. utah; oah
Antonio Texas; Racine, Wisconsin; Topeka, Kaesas; Waterbury, Connectr
cut; Wlkesbarre, Pennsylvania; or Augusta, Gedgia, neither of which mas
anything like $4,000 inhabitants. Ii both the American and British armies,
September 10, and October I, II, and u, 1777, iii the series Of fights n
movements around Saratoga, al included by f. S Cra@y:1n his "F1fteen Dc
cisive Battles of the World" there we're less than twenty thousand men;
while the highest total given by {. X. Adams, in Johnsons "Cydopaedia,' Of
the killed, wounded, and missing O both sides at Waterloo, one OF the great
est battles of all time, is 5442S men-not sc many by 7O2 as Tasty years total
of United States railroad casualties. The number of collisions and deraiE
ments during the past year a 1921, involving $93S3O77 in damages to
rolling stock n roadbeds. This gives the astounding increase of GAS COLI
sions and dera1ments owe 1903-astounding ut for the reduction of em
Dloyes, in 1904, by 75O00-Success.