New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1911-02-01
SAFETY ON THE RAILROADS
Employees Of the Chicago and
North Western Company Start
a Significant Movement.

According to the report -of the In
terstate Commerce Commission, l97
railroad employees we're killed and
4, 284 were more or less severely in
jured, on the railrc ads of the United
States, during the year ending June
30, 1910, through carelessness or failure
to observe the rules laid down for
their guidance while engaged in their
regular railroad work.
That these avoidable accidents en-
tailed tremendous economic loss
both to the men injured AID to their
employers, goes without saying; that
they have set the employees OF the rail-
roads to serious thinking is evidenced
by the sigifcant and distinctly prac-
tical action taken recentely by the en-
ployes of the Chicago and North
Western Railway Company.
Safety, not only for employees but
for the public, always has been
characteristic of North Western
operation; yet avoidable accidents
have happened to employees, and
through these both the men and the
company have suffered loss.
To reduce this class of accidents
to the minimum, and thus to increase
efficiency: to make still greater the
safety both of travel and operation
along the 1900 miles OF North
Western Lines, the serious thinking
of the employees has crystallized into
definite organization, covering every
foot of the system and every detail Of
operation.
Beginning with a Central Safety
Committee composed Of operating
and other general officials the or
ganizatlon has expanded till now
there are safety committees on every
division, carrying out every day the
main purposes of the Organization
the securing of greater safety through
more rigid inspection and stricter ad-
1 herence to the company's rules.
j The methods ofthese afety COM
mittees are simple but thorough.
stated tours of inspection are made
by the committee of each division.
Conditions favorable to ready correc-
ton are attended to on the spot: un-
desirable conditions, of general
character, are reported promptly to the
Central Safety Committee, with recon-
ndations, and measures are taken
without delay to notify all of the
division committees and to have the
danger reduced or removed-always
preferably the latter.
Apply the remedy before accident,
not afterward, is the basic rule OF
procedure.
The cooperation Of the management
naturally, has been prompt and en-
thusiastic. In every practicable way
the men have been encouraged to
make the safety movement the most
characteristic feature OF the operative
activities of the company. This domi-
nant purpose is set out tersely In the
motto: "Safety first which the COM
mittees have adopted.
e AS the division safety committees
are composed of engineers, conduc-
tors, brakemen, switchmen, firemen,
trackmen, shop men, and station en-
ployes, and as the Central Safety
Committee embraces the active gen.
eral operating officials, it may be seen
that no point has been left uncovered,
no possible source of danger without
its protective eye.
Add to this that the slogan, safety
First" is heard and repeated by 30,
600 employees, carried into their homes
in dozen different states, taken up
by wives and children in $4,000 dif-
ferent neighborhoods, and spread
thus through village and town and
city; add again to all of this that this
safety movement is certain to spread
till every railroad in the United
States has adopted and applied tin
principle at least-and surely, in
view of such prospect, he would be
venturesome prophet who would essay
to forecast either its ultimate scope or
its salutary effect upon the life and
economy of our citizenship.