Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1912-06-28
INDEPENDENCE DAY DISASTERS

INDEPENDENCE DAY DISASTERS
independence day is coming; day
Of powder poisoning and lockjaW; day
of hospitals and ambulances; day OF
mutilation and fire and death. II
there is anything that is sane in the
American people it is the growing re-
volt against our insane manner of Gel
ebrating the Fourth Of July. 1t might
be called 'Incendiaries' Day; for on
that day the fire-fiend runs riot. No
man having any public responsibility
fails to dread it. No fire department
gets through the day, and the nights
on both sides of it, without exhaus-
ton 1t is doubtful if on some fifth
of July an entire city may not COM
placently burn itself up in the faces
of firemen and fire horses too eX-
hausted by silly firecracker fires the
day before to cope with it. The fire
fighting apparatus of our cities and
towns is so overtaXed by the number
less calls which begin on the evening
of July Sd that response to possible
summons for help by neighboring
towns or cities is impossible. What
fire chief would dare allow even
hose wagon to go beyond immediate
recall while alarms in his own city
ilcr in or TOR m M
walls? Even the large number of falls
alarms, due to the reckless use of the
day, have their dire significance, for
they tire out the horses and the men,
and reduce the ability of the depart
ment to cope with actual fires. When
the gong begins to ring at headquar-
ters, it's call is as imperative for
rubbish heap ablaze as it is for the
hme of citizen The wear and tear
of the apparatus and even the injury
to the horses during thirtysix hours
of almost constant runs, may be as
great for false alarms as for real
ones. 1t seems sort of folly almost
too unspeakable to relate, but there
are instances where American fire
men have been killed in runs to fires
on July 4th by being thrown from
trucks by frightened horses swerying
| from their course at explosives
thrown under them as they galloped
past.
Never an Independence" Day but
scores of human beings are made de-
pendent for life. Life and limb are
jeopardized by explosives thrown
from windows above the level Of the
street, setting fire to clothing and
menacing the eyesight of those pass
ing, while upon the child who in
his innocent love of noise and Objec-
tive demonstration responds to our
present absurd kind of celebration
falls the heavy hand Of disaster When
our civilization was not SO complex,
it was possible for those who had the
courage to leave their homes to the
mercy of possible conflagratiOns, to
shut them up an escape to the quiet
of the country. Not SO to-day The
trolley car and the automobile fol-
low the seeker after peace to his
country retreats, throwing explosives
at his head as they roar past in their
reckless responsibility.
And for what, Nobody stops to in
quire. Nobody any longer cares. We
have gotten wholly away from the ed
vocational significance of 'Independ-
ence" Day, and lost ourselves in an
orgy of fire and noise
1t is, perhaps, too much to expect
any sudden return to sanity; but
some effort at least may be made by
cities and towns toward leading their
people into more moderate and more
intelligent forms of celebration. If
explosives must be used the author
tiles can limit their use to the public
parks during certain hours of the !..y
where the folly-hunters may kill and
MAIN themselves and each other to
hearts content, without injuring
other people, or destroying property
by fire. The firing off of explosives
among the closely built shingle-roofed
frame houses, which compose the
greater part of our cities, is wholly
in accord with the reckless spirit of
Americans regarding fire.
j If before every Fourth of July all
cites and towns were given thor
ough cleaning of rubbish and all use
IF explosives then restricted as to