Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1913-10-07
The Fire Question in the u. S.

The Fire Question in the u. S.
The fire question is really becoming a burning
issue in the United States, and the figures are grow
ing so rapidly that when one considers them he
cannot help being impressed with the enormity Of
the problem.
Statistics show that in 1910 the portion of the fire
loss for the United States and Canada which came
before the National Board of Underwriters, amounted
to 1924, 470,650.l The actual fire. loss was more than
$780, O0,O 00, and this does not Include mine, marine
and forest fires. - E$"E
The federal government began, in 1907, an investi-
cation, through our consnlates, into fire conditions in
Europe. Almost every consular reply stated, in effect,
that our fire departments and fire fighting methods
are vastly superior, but that fire losses in European
countries are, of course, much smaller. For example,
in 1910 we find that 13 of the largest cities of Ger
many, with a combined population OF 5,616,S22, suffer
ed a fire loss of $1,O67,205. Five American cities,
Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, st. Louis and San
Francisco, with a combined population 100000 less,
5,51O,S97, suffered a fire loss, in the same year, OF
s14,25O,1S3 New York, with a population of 4,766,Ss3,
added its 1851 ,S31-about five times the loss for
London and nine times that of Paris.
Between 1901 and 1910 it cost every man, woman
and child in the United States and Canada an average
of $3.50 a year for fire. The European was paying
80 cents; the German, for his part, only 10. Between
1900 and 1909 our population increased 73 per cent;
our fire loss increased 1874 per cent. What is more
sinister, the number Of our fires per capita is steadily
increasing. The puzzled foreigner may be %pardoned
for finding it hard to decide whether we are a nation
OF children playing with matches or a nation of in.
cendiaries. We now burn up every year half the
value of the buildings we erect in the same year.
But the loss of property is not the worst loss.
ures gathered by the United States Geological Survey
for 1907, and drawn from a little more than a third
of our total poulation, give a loss of life from fire Of
l,449, and a list of injured, of 1854. Mr.. Charles
Whiting Baker. editor Of the Engineering News, has
reduced this to a gruesome statistical image. "The
buildings consumed" he writes, would line both
sides Of a street extending from New York to Chi
cago. A person journeying along this street of desc
lation would pass in every thousand feet a ruin from
which an injured person, was taken. AT every three
quarters OF a mile in this journey he would encounter
ter the charred remains OF a human being who had
been burned to DEATH" Since 1908 five fires alone
the Collingwood school house, the Boyertown moving
picturesshow, the 1roquois theater in Chicago, and the
steamer General Slocum, and the Asch Building in
New lork-glve a total of more than 2,10O deaths!
This is, ba,barism. What was merely a national waste
has become a national shame.
And-human nature being substantially the same
thing in America as it is in Europe-those who are
FO1NA w hAo", ldC IL UEdWC upon our
crlm1naHy lax fire laws, and upon the criminally bad
construction of our buildings. "Most of the building
laws now in force" reports the chief inspector of the
ire prevention bureau Of St. Louis, "are Inadequate
and obsolete And he is echoed by every chief, fire
commissioner, and underwriting authority throughout
the country. Inere is the same unanimity as to the
remedy. IN place of fre-fghting, heroic and inefi-
cient. we need the quiet and effective methods of pre-.
vention. New York is. paying $4,000, 900 for the
maintenance of its fire department." said ex.Chief.
Croker recently,s"and about $15oO9 a year to prevent
f1res!" In. thai, lies the whole situation. Modern
medicine takes all its broad and vital value from its
power to prevent disease. What civilized country
now waits for its citizens to develop SMALLPOX or
cholera or yellow fever? Fires ought properly to be
regarded as SO many cases of malignant disease. a
disease fearfully contagious.
We have the preventive medicine for fire. # can
De administered by the youngest civil engineer out
OF the institute of technology. And the same logic
"hlch aas compelled government, through its boards
OF h~ealth-nunicipa1, state and federal-to take up
the practlce OF one sort of preventive medicine must
IN the, end bring it to take up the practice of the
other. In the meantime, much can be ACCOMPLISHED
by the individual,
has recently been appointed by the
National Education association which is of special i'm.
portance IN view of educational legislation now pend
ing IN, the national congress at Washington in con-
nectlon with the smith-Lever bill. This committee
consists of five members, one representing state uni
one representing Normal schools, one rep
resentlng state superintendent, and one representing
city school superintendents, and is appointed to con.
Ter and advise on behalf of the National Educational
ASSOCIATION with any committee or commission which
may DE appointed by the congress of the United
states states 10 frame legislation for federal aid to voca-
t1onal education or to consider plans for such action
by the federal government, which may be considering
legislation to that end which may be pending before
congress.