Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1905-12-29
The SANE AND The
INSANE MOTORISTS
Statistics Will Be Issued TO
Show the Needless
Deaths.
THE CAREFUL ENGINEER
Majority Of Disasters Are Directly Due
to the Criminal Careless
ness OF Reckless
Chauffeurs.
From The Kansa. City Star.

From the Kansas City Star.
II a history is ever written of the au-
~tomobiling season in the north, which
may be said to have been brought to a
formal and exciting close with
the road contest for the Wander
bilt cup, not the least instructive chap
ter will deal with the wrecks that have
marked the seasons sport and the
numerous fatalities, not to mention
manning and lesser injuries that have
resulted directly from the wrecks at one
time or another Strewing the highways
and byways of the land.
Until the statistics of the season are
compiled it will be impossible to state
with any degree of accuracy the num-
Der of Automobiles killed and injured.
But the number will certainly prove
well nigh appalling when it is taken
into consideration that one can recall
of hand numerous newspaper accounts
OF automobile wrecks in each OF which
one or more lives were lost.
1t was In the early part Of June that
an automobile was driven off a draw
bridge into the Chicago river; three of
the four occupants were drowned, the
survivor being seriously injured.
<ADOuI NuS SdIilc llIIlS Il lOCOIilOllNt
crashed into a touring car occupied by
Richard S. Sayer, a prominent New
Yorker, and his family. Mr.. and Mrs.
Sayer were killed outright and the two
children MANNED for life. The day fol-
lowing ar automobilist was killed and
his three guests injured by the formers
machine smashing into a fence in a
Massachusetts, town, Saugus by name.
In August there occurred, among
nfhnTC rum fro atn nnnt1AAta fhnt OF
tracted more than usual attention.
Early in the month a locomotive
wrecked at a grade crossing in Ben
nington, VT, the touring car in which
New York's third deputy police COM
missioner. Harris Lindsey, and his
~fiancee, Miss Evelyn F. Willing Of Chi
cago were riding, with the result that
both were instantly killed.
Hardly had the flowers on the graves
of these victims withered when the
country was startled by the news that
Vtnson +. Walsh, the ~17-year-old son
of the famous western mining million
aire, Thomas F. Walsh, had driven his
automobile off q brideg into a creek
near fashions Newport, himself meet
Ing instant death and causing serious
injuries to his sister, Miss Evelyn l..
Walsh: Mrs. James l.. Kernochan, one
of Americas leading horsewomen;
Harry Z. Oelrichs and Herbert c. Pell,
Or.
Some Terrible Disasters.
The first part Of the month was
marked by a fatal accident peculiarly
like the Walsh accident in that the au-
tomobile was driven Off a bridge near
the little New Jersey town of Atco, and
also strikingly like the Lindsey Willing
tragedy. In that the two victims, Neill
Wolfe and Miss Marie Hamill of Phila-
delphia, were affianced.
But why continue TO recall the grew
some record? Suffice it to say that
persons who have kept in close touch
with the seasons wrecks are pretty
well agreed that scarcely a week
passed without its fatality and certain
ly not without its own list of more or
less seriously injured.
Naturally, so many serious wrecks
have caused the question to be raised.
What has been the general cause of
them? Wherever two or more auto
mobilists, who have the true interests
of the sport at heart, are gathered to-
gether, this query invariably crops out,
and before ii has been put aside an
other question usually comes to the
tore: What will be the ultimate effect
of these fatal wrecks upon the auto
mobile situation In this country?
Automobiles are pretty generally
agreed that the wrecks are In noWise
due to any structural defects in auto
mobiles. What, then. Is the true ex-
PLANTATION of the blood smeared jumbles
of machinery that have caused the
country to raise its hands In horror?
Simply MISUNDERSTANDING short
of criminal recklessness On the part OF
q very small minority Of the country's
a~utomobilists,' said a leading auto
mobile manufacturer. who has been
giving much time lately to efforts to
discourage reckless driving. II will GO
further and call this particular form OF
recklessness the most fiendish hat the
human being is capable of.
ITO make perfectly plain to you the
real depths Of the recklessness and its
folly, let mt contrast for you the meth
DDS of the trained locomotive engineer
and the reckless amateur driver Of a
motor car-the iend who brings wholly
unmerited disrepute upon the heads OF
all reputable automobilists Of whatever
community.
Before a man is accepted by any
railroad as q locomotive engineer he
must not only rave become thoroughly
acquainted with the locomotive, but the
division of the track over which he will
run the delicate and fearfully made
mechanism. This he does by serving a
more or less lengthy apprenticeship as
fireman. Then, once seated on the
right hand side OF a locomotives cab
does he Immediately pull the throttle
wide open and let her out the full dis
tance of the run? Not he.
The Careful Engineer.
whenever he approaches a curve, he
brings his engine to that speed al
which the curve can be taken in safety
to everybody and everything con
cerned. Every bridge has its certain
limit of speed which he observes. Or
certain straight stretches, where he
knows it can be lone in safety, he gath.
ers speed, running at a rate of perhaps
eighty miles an hour. But or the 9th
er stretches, where are intersections
possibly, or a bridge or two. he does
not attempt TO lake over twenty OF
twenty-five miles ar hour. and Otter
less than that.
All this is on a track, a roadbed, spe'
cially prepared for locomotive trayeEins
and speeding-a track every foot OF
which is constantly watched with nu'
merous eagle eyes and kept up to the
highest standard. and along which nu'
merous signals are set and many trust
ed men are stationed to. aid and guard
the engineer In his flight. no matter
whether that be fifteen miles I'm hour if
the limits of some town or city. Oh
ninety miles across a stretch OF prairie
with scarcely q. roll In II. And yet, In
spite OF all the safeguards that are
thrown round the running OF a loco
motive. accidents happen-terrible acct
dents, that startle h country every
now and then.
"N0w, the locomotive II . nischan'
1m Of multiplied horsa power. 30 Y