The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1911-05-04

III the lead burst into her cabin and Selling a
e''i'er' rushed at her terrified children, but, be-
Iore she could shoot her arms were seized from
oe"Anu Inc struggle short and decisive.
one plunge backward across the pounded dirt
hoor ana the second woman staggered TO one
SIDE, painting, with the revolver safe in her hand
JUST at mat dramatic moment the body of her
own husband being carried to the surface
1hls was a mere incident almost lost in the
stupefacton following local calamity. But it
serves as 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 average American
coal mine The last annual report before the ex-
plosion showed that the mine had cleared $780,
600 in the previous year. it pointed out that the
property was yielding handsome returns on the
investment, but it did not mention the fact that
the mine dusty a new air-shaft was sore
ly needed. The airshaft would have cost $40 0OO
and the management decided against it. Unfor-
tunately, there 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 thrty-two widows thrown
upon the world. and almost a hundred children
fatherless. They formed important addition
to 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 were killed by an explo-
sion Of the coal dust, but they really killed
10y greed. 1t is the same with all mire 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
yon kill, but get out the coal" As Ex-Governor
Dawson of West Virginia once exclaimed in ex-
ASPIRATION There are coal companies which
have 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 section
alone, from killing six out of every thousand in
1900, by 1908, when the last reliable figures
obtained the annual death roll had increased
TO more than twelve.
The truth is that ruthlessly killed in
our coal fields because the coal operators find it
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 financial loss In the
Pittsburg district, even in the big notorious ex-
posions of recent years the average cost to the
operating companies has been less .hnn $50 for
every dead.
you mustn't blame the mine opcre tcrs" an i'm.
portant government Official apo'ogizcG. when the
blame laid at their doors. ut isn't their
fahlt. They are doing all they can"
You need only turn TO the governments own
reports to see the fallacy OF such 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 a scientific
than humanitarian organization asd Two men,
Clarence Hall and Walter Smelling wGge detailed
60 study the situation hese and abroad. They
found the contrast 20 be almost unbelievable 1t
is summarized in these few sentence:
In spite of ell the natural conditions tending
to reduce the percentage Of mine Disasters III the
United States to low figure the accidents dur
ing the last fifteen years have shcwn directly
contrary results. Considered in regard to the