The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-03-31
cAN TnEY AFFoRp rTr

The dispatches of Friday morning brought news of disastrous wreck on the previous afternoon near Los An- geles. Cal. Twenty-six or more dead and many more Injured is the record so far as heard from. Wrecking of trains and killing people, as contem- porary remarks, "is too expensive bus mess for the railroads to indulge in through lack of plan and interest on the part of the management It is con- ceded that there would be no accidents if the companies themselves had their way in the matter of desire; they just happen through the frallty of human nature and the depravity of inanimate things. But the matter of chance is subject to a large degree of control and when the American public decides that 1t can no longer tolerate the fre- quency of death and injury through the railroads something more win probably be found to be done to guard the safety of passengers and crew than is now done. In the first eight weeks of this year about ITS people were killed and about 425 were injured In railroad accidents. In seven disasters on five roads since New Years, 123 per- sons were killed and 313 injured. This of people ought to be worth more def mite interest than it has yet aroused on the part of the people generally. :"
 That is just what it is coming to. Leaving out all question of humanity, all regard for human safety, the mat ter Is narrowing itself down to this: Can the railroads afford it? That Is the question the companies must an- swer for themselves and they may as well get down to 1t. It is not whether accidents can be entirely avoided. but to get 1t down to a sordid affair of dollars and cents. can the railroaS companies afford to have such frequent and deplorable disasters as are occur ring almost every day? That Is the money side of 1t, and That is the side that is supposed to Appeal to all cor porations. It may or may not be strict ly true or fair to the corporations themselves, to assume that they care nothing for human life. but admitting the truth of the. charge. can they af- ford to allow this continued sacrifice of their patrons?
 It Is not only that these disasters cause frequent damage suits, but that if not stopped they are bound to breed a feeling of distrust with the public that will operate to the detriment of sh- rogrOads and tbair busfpass pan ple are not compelled to ride on the trains as much as they do. Time has been within the memory of some of us when there were no trains to ride on, and people got along fairly well with out them. They can get along now with much less travel on the raIl- roads than they do and If they become fully convinced that such travel is not worthy the risk they will cut much of tt out.
 It is useless for anysrailroad to ar gue that these frlghtful happenings cannot be avoided for that argument will not hold water in the face of es- tablished facts. In some statistics we printed a few days ago it was shown that more than half the killings oc- cured on less than half the railroads of the country. and that on two im- portant roads there had not been a fatal accident in ten years. It is also officially known that the fatalities in the United States are, as we now re- call the figures about four times as great as in England. Is it conceivable that one system of roads cannot be
 managed as safely as another. or Drae-