Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1910-03-05
THE LOSSES OF PEACE.

A Chicago paper quotes from an arta
Gle in the Army and Navy Journal
which points out some Of the horrors
that are not due to war. The losses
from coal mine fatalities, from crime
and from fires are shown to be much
greater than In European countries.
This comparison was given in refuta-
ton Of the assertion of those who pro-
test against generous appropriations
for the army and navy that standing
armies promote disregard for human
life, Relative to coal mine disasters
the article says:
In the last fourteen years 25,OOO
coal miners have been killed and
$4,000 manned or crippled, number
about equal to our entire regular army.
The death rate among miners is
greater in the United States than IN
any other country on earth
The number Of miners killed Tor
each 1000 men employed for an aver
age five year period is, in France, 81;
Belgium, 100: Great Britain, 1.25;
Prussia, 2.O6; United States, 3.39.
Our criminal statistics are given as
an evidence of the cheapness Of human
life in the United States. These figures
are given:
There are four and a half times as
many murders for every million Of our
population today as there were twenty
years ago. Chicago averages 118
murders year. In the same period
Paris records only fifteen murders and
attempted murders. London, four
times the size of Chicago, has only
twenty murders.
In twelve months Georgia records
forty-five homicid than all the
murders in the entire British empire
in the same time. Ten thousand per-
sons are murdered yearly in the Unit
ed States.
In three years, we are told, the vic
tins Of our murders total more than
the losses Of the British army in the
Boer war.
As to the number Of murders that go
unpublished in this country, the article
says:
In Germany. which has the largest
military establishment in the world, 80
per cent of the murderers are brought
to Justice; in Spain, 85 per cent; In
France, 81 per cent; in Italy, II per
cent; in England, so per cent. In the
United States only 2 per cent are pun
ished.
The following comparison of Amer
lean and European fire losses is given:
The fire loss in six European cities
for five years was 33 cents per capita,
while in the United States 1t was $3.O2,
nearly ten times as much. In thirty
foreign cities the per capita loss was
81 cents, against $40 in the five year
average Of 252 American cities TAX
Ing the number of fires to each 200
Of. population, there were 4.O5 for the
cities of this country against $50 for
those of Europe.
The fire loss of the United States for
1907, including property damaged,
maintenance of fire departments, fire
premiums above losses, protective
agencies, etc, was Sass, 900, or
s1,O0O,OOO more than the estimated
cost of the Panama canal. The lives
lost in fires in the same year, 1t Is
shown, were 1.449 and the injured
5,654-more than the number OF killed
and wounded in some of the important
battles of our country's history.
The Army and Navy Journal holds
that these figures give proof that the
universal peace agitators would 40
better to concentrate their energies to
efforts to prevent the destruction OF
life and property in the Bloody
Angles of Peace" rather than in OPP
posing adequate military and naval
establishments.