Evening star., 1908-01-26
SUNDAY MAGAZINE FOR JANUARY Is. 1908

and four thousand suffer injury in order that
homes may be heated and our industrial needs
supplied. Ps 3D. oo;aan+. H.. - sxn,os;ons c.ve-
ms falls of roof or slate coal cutting machinery,
electricity, fire damp, and dynamite. Fifty per
cent. of the men, especially the miners and leaders.
cannot speak English, and utterly ignorant of
the deadly perils surrounding them in the dark,
glittering subterranean cities of coal. In my
opinion, declares James E. Roderck, chief of the
Department of Mines for Pennsylvania, " a foreman
know English, to work together. should be held
guilty of manslaughter in of fatal accident.
But who cares? Here is a stray Slay victim with
good" says the boarding boss and passes the body
along to a medical college for the dissectng table.
AS to the factories and workshops, it is extremely
have are sufficiently startling,-two hundred and
thirty-two thousand employees killed and injured
annually. Is it any wonder that the land should
accidents cost three hundred and forty eight million
dollars year!
Accidents in Factories
MANUFACTURING accidents must be estimated
1'A rather than stated fatty; for data are wanting
Terrible as they are, they have never attracted
much attention, because it is nobodys business to
collect and publish the figures. So far only one
State has made serious effort to secure figures
York Bureau of Labor strove to get returns of
industrial accidents for three months among one
half the States factory workers.
Confessedly incomplete returns for this period
showed one thousand eight hundred and twenty
two serious accidents On this basis all New Yorks
factories would show fourteen thousand six hum
are known to be far below the real facts. Many
trades not very dangerous reported fortyour cases
to the thousand workers; and there was everywhere
disposition to conceal casualties But even forty
four to the thousand gives two hundred and thirty
two thousand factory employees killed and injured
annually in this one division of industrial
army. And remember, all of them are men in early
middle 1he,-trained and experienced hands such
least be spared It has been estimated that
industrial casualties of this kind cost the nation at
least twice its annual fire loss, which now stands
at about one hundred and seventy -four million
dollars. Thus is worth far more than the
article he mines makes
This, of course, is regarding the question purely
its economic side and with no reference to moral
sponsbility at all. Every year thousands of wage
earners-nen, women, and children-are caught in
the machinery of our record breaking production and
turned out hopeless crpples Thousands more, as has
been shown are killed outright. But even so we are
too busy to count the Dead to consider the injured
No Time for Safeeuards
CERTAIN it is that few efforts are made in the
- hurlyburly of output to safeguard the workers.
Out of six hundred and twelve caught in the
machine cases. forty per cent. could have been pre-
other day man was "a arrested in New York for beg
ging. His hands and fingers were partly cut off by
harvesting machine in Chicago. But then he was
passed off by the manufacturer for support on the
community at large. Again, simply because the COM
pany would not provide him with rubber gloves, an
exceedingly careful painter on New York elevated
railroad recently paralyzed through contact
with the third rail-
But here is specially deplorable case, showing
how we treat those who fall under the wheels of
Americas Juggernaut car: A mechanic employed
by great traffic corporation was struck by live
wire. His heart was affected, his neck twisted his
eyes all but destroyed. He was indeed pitiable