Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1911-03-10
u1iooleburv Register
SLAUGHTER OF THE lNNO-
GENT.
Over Million Killed and Injured IN
Railway Accidents During
Last Twenty Years.


The following article is from the
Chicago Tribune and was reprinted in
the Washington Post and shows the
necessity of our Legislatures passing
proper laws for the construction of i'm
proved steel cars which would reduce
in a large measure the number of cas-
ualties in railroad accidents. Too
much care can not be exercised in the
operation of railroads and much blame
is placed upon employees, where the
company is actually responsible, for the
loss of lives and injuries received in
head-on or rear-end collisions:
ut has been held that the decadence
of civilization is shown by the cheap
ness with which human life is held.
If so. the United States is in a deplor-
able condition.
LAS this is public question and one
that concerns nearly all of us, it should
be publicly and honestly discussed and
the financial end of it made minor con-
sideration-there is nothing that can
atone LOT lIe lOSS VI Olle human iAN'
statistics show that since Decem-
Der 81, 1890, nearly 1880, 600 human
beings have been killed and injured by
railroad accidents some of these the
most distressing that have ever been
recorded.
"To quote from a special regarding a
wreck near St. Louis on the Burlington
Road: j. A. McKittrick, stockman
of Brookfield, cried: Get an ak and
chop my leg off. The steam is cooking
me-" At the time when he called for
the AK the leg was being slowly cut
from the body with his own pocketknife
in the hands of Rev. r. c. Allen. The
leg was severed at the knee and the in
iured man pulled from the trap in which
he had been caught.
''In the Associated Press report of
the Denver and Rio Grande collision at
Adobe it says: Seventeen charred,
mangled and utterly unrecognizable
bodies lie in the Pueblo morgue, two
are in the morgue at Florence, severa
other persons are known to be dead
and possibly a score of bodies are burneC
to ashes. There was not a single body
recovered from the wreckage, with the
exception of the engineer, who, al
though horribly manged, had not beer
reached by the fierce flames that sweep
through the wrecked cars. Bits o
charred flesh and piles of bones We're al
that indicated that holocaust had oc
Cured, but trained eyes picked out tn
pelvic bones from the masses, and from
these it was seen that so far as tn
search had progressed no fewer than 3
human beings had persisted.
1.-THE analysis of the above is that tn
night operator had other business tina
he wanted to attend to, and the da
operator had gone to sleep, as he wa
doing two mems work. all of which wa
wanton disregard of the law and prob
ably the rules of the road. However
there had been thousands that had gon
before and thousands since in PRACTICAL
the same way, without any more than
Coroner's inquest and a few editorial
that have so far failed to do much
the way of awakening the general pull
lie to the extent of helping the stu;
ton.
"When two American spies were pl
to death in Nicaragua the entire nation
with one accord, arose and shouted fC
vengeance and no end of suggestion VIZ
made as to what ought to be done by til
Government.
"There certainly must be some rem
edy outside of signals and trusting
humanity overworked and otherwise
for this y.day tragedy.
"Block and automatic signals are d.
ing great deal undoubtedly, but IN
of the worst wrecks have occurre
where they have been in full workir
order, and there are hundreds of di
astrous collisions that have happen'