Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-03-01

AnA send telegram, do you ever
y" stop to think of the men
whose hands have touched
every inch of the wire that carries your
voice, or your message, or the electric
spark? OF the men whose labor in put
ting the wires in place makes possible
your use of them? To be sure. you have
dim, half-formed consciousness that you
are using a most wonderful device that
eliminates space in Aladdin-like manner,
and. perhaps a vague, momentary feeling
of satisfaction that such convenienceS are
at your disposal. Maybe a fleeing thought
of the master mind that invented the
mechanism comes to you-to be discarded.
half completed, the next instant when the
commonplace, everyday usage of the
necessity makes an indulgence in roman
tic speculation as to the how and the
why of it absurd.
But there is a romance in the call of the
telephone. the ''click- click of the Morse
and the flare of the incandescent. 1t is
no: in the instrument itself. nor in the
wire, but in the lives of the men who do
nothing more noteworthy than the simple
stringing of the wires. the men behind
the guns. so to speak; the men who walk
on the house tops and risk their lives
daily at the top of telegraph poles with
death humming and singing along a metal
coil but a few inches from their faces
But little over a week ago an item in
the local papers told of the th1rty-foot
fall of lineman at Takoma Park from
the top of telephone pole. His leg was
broken and his bruises were many Daily
the telegraph news of your evening pa
pers bring tales of similar fatalities in
other cities. Here a man is dashed to
pieces on the pavement. and the curious
crowd gaZeS up at the top OF the pole
from which he fell. and mutely wonders
what it must feel like to fall from that
tc OLE fro n o.
and speculation is rife as to why he be-
same so neglectfVl to come in contact
with live wire. Another dispatch mar
rates the fall from roof of iineman
so interested IN the adjustment of his
wires that he failed to notice the bit OF
ice under his foot until he suddenly felt
himself sliding down the roof grabbing,
clutching striving with every muscle In
his writhing body to strike some pro-
lection and avert the sickenins thud
below.
The life of the lineman is fraught with
danger. and death works side by side with
him each day Eternal vigilance is in
his case the price of life. Careful and
cautious as ne may be, there is always
the chance that some slight detail will be
remembered only when it is too late.
Many terrible struggle for life and
countless stubborn. courageous battles
against Impending Oedtn nave petH SiHh-
" fought out by the men who walk on
the house tops and cling to the towering
poles while the rest of the world passes
by underneath unaware OF the tragedy
that threatens above.
"Yes / suppose it is a dangerous bust
ness" said foreman of a telephone con-
structhn gang" TO Star reporter the
other day. but I've been in 1t so long-for
over twenty-five yearS-that l mink OF
that side of ii only when some poor fell
low gets his as they say. In handling
my men, however. l have never Tor
moment been unmindful OF the danger
they are subject to in the tWfnkling OF an
eve And I've never sent man up a
pole or across roof that l myself was
afraid to try
There's a peculiar thing about a con-
struction gang do you know? Just let
one man become nervous and panic
stricken for ever so slight cause, ana
the rest of them follow him like a flock
of sheep Occasionally you find man
whose nerve is cast-iron or whose brain
Is slow to realize danger. He sticks, and
ne is usually picked up crushed and iife-
less or horribly manned and crippled. 1
have not seen many accidents In my day.
but those l have witnessed have been
chastity in their suddenness.
50
Take the case of this man who fell
from the pole at Takoma Park last week.
His was a case of his spurs cutting out
The spur which every lineman>wears on
the inner side of each ankle is intended
to enter the pole. in climbing, nearly
horizontal as possible. A new man is
taught how TO ascend pole in this man
ner An old hand sometimes becomes
careless or the wood has become rotted
through exposure to the elements The
.ineman ascends quickly. putting all of
his weight on spur as he lifts the
other leg for the next step. Bingo. His
spur has gone into the wood-at angle
and out again. and he falls. That is
called cutting out
ION the other hand. there are many
men in the business who can ascend to
the top of a pole. clasp their arms around
it, remove their spurs from the wood and
drop twenty feet and more. with a speed
almost equal to falling. and catch their
spurs in the pole again, stopping their
ascent a few feet from the ground. /
knew a man once who invariably descend
ed in this manner because it saved him
the tedious exertion of climbing down step
nv step. He got his one day. though not
in performing his favorite trick.
The great danger in work on house
top is that the lineman accustomed to
,.Iinging to pole feels so secure on the
, broad roof by comparison that he. be-
comes extremely negligent This rooftop
work however. is rapidly becoming
thing of the past, for the telephone COM
panies all over the country are sending
their wires into houses direct from short