The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1912-04-19
A GENERAL WARNING TO
The TRAVELLING PUBLIC
THERE is STRIKE ON THE HARTMAN RAILROAD LINES
INCOMPETENT MEN ARE TAKING THE PLACES OF THE
STRIKERS AND LARGE DEATH ROLL IS THE RESULT
AN ACCOUNT OF THE SAN ANTONIO EXPLOSION

OF OUner engines Ill the building were
smashed the exploded locomotive was
demolished, the boiler jacket, weighing
over 1000 pounds, was lifted hundreds
of feet in the air and hurled more than
Il block away; the tender of the loco
motive was blown hundreds of feet away.
Most OF the newspaper accounts of the
affair state that most of the dead were
so badly mangled that they probably
never will be identified, and fragments
of their bodies were blown blocks away.
Ambulances and doctors of the Ft. Hous-
ton hospital corps were rushed to the
scene, the reserve corps removed the
corpses and pieces; not one whole body
was found. The injured were terribly
manned, and probably the death list will
be increased greatly.
The explosion shattered the glass in
hundreds of houses The round house
took fire after the disaster, increasing
the horror. Thousands flocked to the
scene. Four buildings were totally or
partially wrecked and the men in these
were blown to bits. One corpse was
found three blocks away. Those who
were killed were strike breakers, with
the exception of one, who was loco
motive engineer.
A woman living in a house several
blocks away was perhaps fatally in
jured by a portion of locomotive
crashing through the roof into her home.
Now, Mr.. Travelling Public, the point
which we want to draw your attention
to and warn you that your lives are in
danger while travelling on any of the
above mentioned roads, is this:
The men who were killed by these
boiler explosions, for the most part, were
strike breakers, and it appears that the
press of the public gives but little at
tention to this kind of loss, because
after the first day when the matter was
reported in the press not line has ap-
peared in any of the papers throughout
the country in regard to this explosion
since that time. This is evidently done
because the railroad officials wish to
keep the matter as quiet as possible
realizing that if it We're given too much
prominence the public would begin to
realize the danger of it.
When those locomotives exploded, they
happened to be standing in the COM
pany's round house-but suppose they
had not-suppose they had been hauling
the passenger train that you We're rid
ing on. and the explosion had taken
place then; do you realize that yourself
would probably have been killed or dan
gerously injured? Suppose that one of
those locomotives was hauling a train,
and standing under the passenger shed
of large union station, with probably
Is or 20 other passenger trains resting
under the same she'd with hundreds of
passengers in them, some going and
some coming, and several thousand peo-
pie in or about, or in the close vicinity
of this Union station, and this explosion
then took place. Do you realize the
terrible injury and the awful loss of life
that would be the result?
Or suppose that the boilers of one of
the Southern Pacific ferry boats crossing
from Oakland to San Francisco should
explode, do you realize the terrible dan
ger and awful loss of life that would be
the result?
We call your attention to those mat
ters, Mr.. Travelling Public, because they
are facts, and if you are heedful of the
welfare of yourself and your friends
when travelling, you will select some
route where the cars and the locomotives
are cared for by skilled and competent
mechanics, and where unnecessary dang
ers and those that can be avoided will
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