The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1911-06-22
BUILDINGS THAT
ARE DEATH PROOF
u GREAT NEED
Frightfm Conditions Are Re.
vealed in Factories in This
Country.

In am article entitled "Deathproot
versus tireproof' IN Hampton's, based
on the fatal Triangle shirtwaist fac
tory fire in New York some time ago,
Rheta Childe Dorr points out certain
grave lessons 10 be learned from that
disaster. In part she says:
In all, 145 working people, mostly
girls, died in the Triangle fire. Some
one should pay for this said firenen
and policemen oyer and over again as
they worked. and thousands of New
York people, reading next morning in
their papers, the awful story of the fire.
echoed with. SOM one shall pay for
this
Who shall pay when las Industrious
w~orkingrnen and women buy with their
lives the poor privilege of toiling Iona
hours in a p~ower-driven factory? We
know who pays for the damaged fac.
tory building, the roken plate glass,
the lost merchandise. The Insurance
companies pay for them, their full
value. WHO shall pay for the loss i1
human life?
Up to the present day we havs
treated the fire problem much as the
o~ld-fashioned doctors treated disease
Inc Doctors entire concern was with
the individual patient. He blew this
man, poured drugs down his throat, and
left the result to Providence. The
doctor did nothing at all to prevent this
spread or the recurrence of the dis
ease, and until Very recently the theory
that disease ought to and could be
eliminated altogether was held by nd
practical man.
Thus with the fire problem. Our
entire concern has been with the indi-
vidual catastrophe. We have made OF
IRE fighting a science, yet we continue
to have fires. The time has come when
we must make a business of fire pre-
v%entton, and, in case of u~npreventable
fires, of minimizing the human loss. y
After all. 1t Is a simple proposition
that we have before us. First we shall
have to arrange things SO that there
Will be very few fires. Then we must
arrange things so that the people in a
burning building can get out. And
then we must teach the people, through
fire drills, that they can get out.
Within the last two years we have
heard a great deal about industrial eff
cheney. To most people industrial eff
cheney has meant only a plan for get
Ting more and better work out of Ia
Dor, but that is only part of its mean
ing. 1t aims to make industry efficient
by protecting n conserving the la
borer. Already it has gone far toward
protecting him from death and injury
by fire.
we might build an entire city o,
freprocf buildings and have limos as
many fires and quite as many deaths
by fire as We have now. The efficiency
engineers are beginning to impress the
public with the necessity for death
proof buildings.
"A joint BOARD of sanitary control
consisting of representatives of en-
ployers and workers in the garment
trades recently made an investigation
pf 1,463 garment factories in New York
Pity. The conditions they discovered
were amazing. Here is a summary of
their report:
"of 1,46s factories, 1873 had hall
iioofs upenfIfg inward instead of out
ward. Thus, at the outset, SIS per
cent of garment factories in New York
.hre violating n important law guard
ing against loss of life in ease OF fire.
"Of 491 factories. 40 per cent had 40
ire exits except n fire escape.
"One hundred and one had no fire
escape drop ladders. or they We're out
bf reach.
"Sixty-fve had straight ladders. very
difficult to use.
sixty had halls less han three feet
vide.
o halls and atairways locked during
he day.
Fourteen had no fire scape
Seventy three factories so fragrant
v violated the fire laws that the com
nittee thought wise to notify not only
| he proprietors. but the mayor, the SUI
~serintendent of buildings and the fire
md police commissioners.
Clearly, IL we are to cease killing
md manning the workers, we nave got
10 make over the factory. We cannot
ear down IL rebuild all in a minute.
.ut one thing we can do. We a build
Il fire wall in the middle of every large
,uilding used for manufacturing"