Arizona republican., 1907-09-27
THE GRtAT REQ PLAGUE
 OUR BURNT OFFERINGS
Why it Will Pay to Spend More Money in More NeorIy Fireproof Construe- ton.

F. W. Fitzpatrick. of the Internation- al Society of Municipal Building Com missioners. thus urges greater precau- tions against the ravages of fire:
 The country has grown to the point where everything about it is big; it's commerce. its products, yes, even it's crimes are colossal Presumably to keep things harmonic We permit our fire waste, our national ash heap. to also be mammoth. incidentally losing sight of the fact. however that 1t is, at the same time. idiotic. Our burnt offerings. our national ash-pile. could well be called a tribute to the "merci- less stupidity of the most enlightened nation on earth,"
 The strange thing about it all is that SO much is said in the daily and peri odic press about life insurance abuses. the picadilloes or more serious offenses of state and municipal grafters and all that sort of thing, indeed a wave of reform has made itself felt the country over. but so far little or nothing has been done to reform one of the great est abuses. the costliest and most mur- derous of municipal ills from which we suffer-Fire. True, millions are spent in actually fighting fire. but minutes thought is sufficient to convince any one that an attempt at cure is futile. Preventive measures can be the only solution of the matter.
 A normal years losses (and. by the way. there are mighty few normal years. what with Baltimore in 1904 and san Francisco in l906) mean s200,- 100000 in smoke. At least another Sl50, 100000 is spent in alleged fire protection. fire departments. high pres sure water plants. etc. beyond which We eXpend another S196. 1000. 900 in att tempting to get some solace via the route The sum of those figures represents our annual normal cost of fire. Tn 1905 a phenomenally prosperous and busy year in building. We did in actual construction and re- pairs of buildings. $525. .0O0OO0 What think you of a nation that wastes as much as it produces? We burn up more property than a half-doZen first class nations put together. Just fire. eliminating insurance. protection and everything else, merely smoke costs us over S2.0O per capita year: the av- craze of all Europe is less than sO.33 per capital
 Incidentally we have destroyed over 5000 human lives by fire in one years time.
 But all this is normal years rec ord. See what we did in 1906. At no time or place on earth has there been so much building done We passed the s60O.000.00O mark in construction ha. hat ,,.f,I cisco and our regular fires" We also destroyed over $500 000. .0O0 worth of property. Thecost of our alleged fire protection has also increased and We have gambled with the insurance com panies in still heavier amounts than usual. so that our total expenditure for fire must be away in excess of s700.- 100000. It indeed is a cancer eating at tie very vitals of our economic structure. a devastating plague. The apotheosis of folly,
 Few people realize the degree in which gambling penetrates the busi- ness fabric. We see the work of the bug but accept it as a mat ter of course. Rather than build a little better and thus avoid fire. we have built to use a mild term. rot tenly, but have sought protection" from the gentlemen who. banded to- gether in that legitimate spoliation. under the name of fire insurance have condescended to sit in the game with us and rake in our shekles We have paid them in premiums since 1860. $3,622. .000. .O00. or. just in the past ten years, s1.61O.Ss5. 900. In 1905 we carried into the house" over s196.- 100000 in premiums and got back in salve for our losses a trifle over s95.- 100000. See how far that solace goes. | Take San Francisco as an example: over s300.0OO.OOO went up in smoke there. The loss in business to the city and to the county generally as a re- suit of that fire very nearly reached | s1.0O0. 100000: it is costing fully s12.- 000.000 to clear away the debris and | 1850, ,000.0 at least. and twenty years l time will be expended to repair the l