The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-04-17
THEY ARE FrnrDs..

man mercy 1t is that of train wreck ing. It Is not merely a -crime against the owners of property, though that ds bad enough, for one wreck may cost many thousands of dollars in repairs and damage suits, and may entail loss of other thousands by interruptlng business which is often seriously de- iayed by the results of one wreck.
 But the part of it for which there Is no defense and for which there should beeno mercy is that it Is cow ardly and dastardly aAsauit on human life. Aawreck may. as is sometimes the case, only in1ure the property of the railroads, without serious injury to human beings. but we. all know that mon rule. Sometimes passenger cars are smashed and scores of human beings are worse than murdered to gratify the spite or devilish malignity of one man, or of several combined. &i
 It is difficult to account for such degree of human villainy. as The Kansas City Journal says, Ion. any other theory than that total de- pravity is the nature of the impulse that actuates a railroad man to turn at least other men working in his own line of vocation. to the extent of plac- ing a deadly trap in their path from which there Is no escape. Investiga- tions into the causes of train wreck ing show that in very many cases the crimes are committed by discharged railway employees or by men on strike. who seek the destruction of railway property and injury to passenger bus mess. That these wreckers are total- proved by the fact that they are bring ing probable death to innocent passen- gers who have no part in quarrels or grievances involving railways or rail- way employees. The hideousness of these acts of wholesale slaughter makes their perpetrations appear in the public mind answerable to more severe pun ishment than are now provided by law in most States" lI
 As is we'll known, trains are often wrecked by professional train-robbers for no other purpose than footing the train and the passengers. This is on the same line as the act of the hold-up man who robs his, victim ors kills him if he resists, but it Is infinitely more devilish because 1t may result in the x,~11 In, n jury to private property. It is both robbery and murder.
 But these professional wreckers and robbers are even less culpable than are the classes referred to by The Jour nal who have no reason for their acts but spite against the company or some of its employees. Discharged hands seek this method of revenge on the officials who turn them off. and strikers some times do it for spite against com demands. In either case the offenders are worse than murderers and human laws should show them no leniency.
 But even all this Is eclipsed by se- ries of events which have during the past few weeks been taking place on the Pennsylvania Railroad. and espe- cially in the vicinity of Pittsburg. There. from the published accounts we have seen. there appears to be regular gang of professional train rob- bers at work, for it is hardly possible that one or two men could do all the. deviltry that has been going on there. Four serious wrecks have occurred on that road since March 22, and each bore unmistakable evidence of having been caused by the deliberate work of ex- perts. The work was plainly done by men who were thoroughly familiar with railroad construction, but who also knew all about the workings of the lines and schedules of trains where the wrecking was done
 It is not surprising to learn that the officials of the railroad are very much harrassed and worked up over these sinister events. nor that they are using every effort to detect the miscreants who are thus trifing with human life on a large scale. The company is now spending money at the rate of $5,0O0 a day in the effort to put stop to such practices, and the following summary from The New York Times will show how thoroughly in earnest the rail- road people are. They now have on duty this force:
 Sixty regular railroad detectives be- tween Pittsburg and Altoona, Pa.
 Sixty special detectives, most of them PInxertons from Chicago and New York.
 Entire force of two private detective bureaus at Pittsburg.
 Sheriff Gumbert of Allegheny County with three deputies.
 Chief of Detectives Egan of Pitts burg and three detectives
 Twenty regular railroad detectives between Pittsburg and Hudson. O.
 Sheriff of Summit County. O., and twelve deputies.
 sheriff of Portage County. O., and seven deputies.
 Sheriff of Cuyahoga County, O., and seventeen deputies.
 In addition to this large force of of- ficials the company has doubled its force of track walkers. so that now every portion of the company's tracks is patroIled every seven minutes. night and day. And yet. in spite of all these precautionary measures, we are not sur prised to learn that the railroad off cials are uneasy and afraid. as well they may be. for the work has been done so systematically, so slyly and so