Charlevoix county herald., 1911-05-27

- tne lead burst into her cabin, and seizing a
revolver rushed at her terrified children but be-
~ o,e sne could shoot, her arms were seized from
oehlho. The struggle was short and decisive
one plunge backward across the pounded dirt
moor and the second. woman staggered TO one
s'oe' panting, with the revolver safe in her hand
just at that dramatic moment the body of her
own husband was being carried to the surface
lhs was mere incident, almost lost in the
stupetaction following local calamity But it
serves as a meaningful introduction to a splen.
did example of the kind of occurrence which has
doubled the number of men killed in our coal
mines in the last ten years.
The Starkville mine Is an average American
coal mine. The last annual report before the ex-
ploslon showed that the mine had cleared $780,
600 in the previous year. 1t pointed out that the
property was yielding handsome returns on the
investment, but it did not mention the fact that
the mine was so dusty air-shaft was sore
ly needed The ar-shaft would have cost 100000
and the management decided against it, Unfor-
tunately, there was no one in the state of Colo
RADIO to make the company sink it.
One-fftieth of the years earnings was too
much to make the mine reasonably safe! Re-
suit. ffty-fve dead thirty-two widows thrown
upon the world, and almost hundred children
fatherless They formed important addition
10 the years total from the coal mines Of more
than seven thousand killed and injured fifteen
hundred widowed and four thousand children de-
pendent on ignorant and helpless women
Officially these men killed by an explo-
sion of the coal dust, but they were really killed
by greed. 1t is the same with all mine disasters.
You can find volume after volume on the causes
but sift them to the bottom, and in more than
threefourths of the cases you will find that spirit
of, Get out the coal, never mind how many men
you kill, but get out the coal" AS Ex-Governor
Dawson OF West Virginia once exclaimed in ex-
ASPIRATION, There are coal companies which
have no regard whatever for human life"
This explains why there are killed in certain
sections of the naturally not unsafe bituminous
coal fields of Pennsylvania and West Virginia
twelve times as many men in comparison to the
number employed as in the highly dangerous
coal mines of Belgium. For in this one section
alone, from killing six out of every thousand in
1909, by 1908 when the last reliable figures were
obtained, the annual death roll had increased
tc --cro than ty olve.
The truth is that men are ruthlessly killed in
our coal fields because the coal operators find 1t
less expensive to repair damage than take pre-
cautions. The human cost they do not take the
trouble to figure because, to them, there is none.
To Kill miners entails no financial loss In the
Pittsburg district even in the big notorious ex-
plosions OF recent years, the average cost to the
operating companies has been less than $50 for
every man dead.
You mustn't blame the mine operators" an i'm
portant government official apologized when the
blame laid at their doors 1T isn't their
fault. They are doing all they can"
You need only turn to the governments own
reports to see the fallacy of such a statement
The increase in mine disasters became so marked
about five years ago that it even attracted the at
tention of the geological survey, more scientific
than humanitarian organization and two men,
Clarence Hall and Walter Smelling, were detailed
TO study the situation here and abroad They
found the contrast to be almost unbelievable. 1t
is summarized in these few sentences
I'm spite of all the natural conditions tending
to reduce the percentage of mine disasters IN the
United States to low figure, the accidents dur
Ing the last fifteen years have shown directly
contrary results Considered In regard to the