The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-04-08

! Its success. Its success lies in your
hands and mine and if we exercise the
| care that we ought to exercise, we
shall be abundant1y rewarded
Mr.. GIeed's Address.
| c. s. Gleed, a director of the Santa
Fe, delivered an address which was to
| the point. He said:
! Perhaps the most striking distinc-
| ton between barbarism and civiliza-
| ton is the difference in the estimates
! they respectively make on the value
of the human body and human life
The further we go towards barbar-
ism the less regard we find for the
human body or human life.
The further We go towards civiliza-
ton the more regard we find for the
human body and human life.
THE higher the civilization the
more firm is the conviction that the
human body is a sacred thing-as the
dwelling place of an immortal soul
I'm our own country, throughout it's
! history, we have felt and professed
the greatest possible regard for the
human body and human life. We
have condemned murder and given
murderers the EXTREMIST punishments
and have filled our statute books with
prohibitions of and punishments for
crimes against the human body So
valuable have life and bodily welfare
been considered that countless law
yerS have done little else than prose-
cute claims for injury or death against
individual firms and corporations who
have directly or indirectly caused in
jury or death without under any cir
cumStanceS intending to cause harm to
anybody.
1--WE have been very highly civilized
so far as our feelings and professions
and laws are an index. The great
not been thoroughly or even reason
ably practical in our measures for
Warding off bodily injuries. We ap-
pear to have relied too much on the
"a 1,,f1
working people, careful of the well
fare of others.
I'VE have said, in effect, if we hang
over the heads of individuals and corpora
tons heavy penalties for inflictng hurt
on others, they will surely be as careful
as they possibly can be- But this is not
a sound conclusion. The willingness to
take undue risks in every direction is
characteristic of mankind. The boy be-
gins by swimming in dangerous waters
skating on thin ice and climbing too high
in the trees.
The young man runs his motor too
fast, flies too high in his aeroplane
piunges into football and other forms of
bloodshed and goes generally in search
of danger. Finally the full grown man
rides over rotten railroad tracks, sleeps
in fire-trap houses, turns death loose on
road tracks for promenade and play
ground purposes, rides on poor roads and
flimSy country bridges, builds towns
where floods can get them and in thou
and other ways courts danger to the
human life.
so far as the railroads of the United
States are concerned, / assert without
fear of successful contradiction that they
have gone further and done more for the
preservation of the human body and
human life than any other one agency.
''It is true that when the years figures
are made up, the record of deaths and
injuries growing out of the operation of
ords could be compared with the records
of death and injury due to other lines of
activity, they would be found to be in
every way more favorable.
TT is a fact that ] feel much more
like buying an accident policy when
board one I think this telling is
shared by all the experienced travellers
of the country. That the railroads have
been more diligent than others in this
respect is due to many reasons. One is
that managers themselves-the supervis-
ing officers-are likely to be the first to
suffer from the misconduct of employees
Another is that the financial penalties
are greater in the case of railroads than
is the case of any other defendants in
To Conserve Human Life.
Though already ahead of all others in
their efforts to conserve human life, the
railroads are growing daily more and
more anxious to make progress in this
direction. They are goaded on to this
by mercilesS opinion and by the relent-
less prod of modern accounting. The &C
countant and the statistician of the pres
ent day causes a common run OF 1nSlgn1f1-
cant facts to bloom into vast acres or
important conclusions.
Thousands of facts which once would
have been slurred over as unimportant
developed into terrible indictments Of men
and managers and methods. Accountants
and statiStcianS are showing every day
more and more wildly the economic
waste in every form of unnecessary i'm
pairment of physical efficiency. In other
words, personal injury does not pay ana
= iyaiTp
cit therefore happens that your railroad,
the great Santa Fe, is a leader as it al
ways is in the great work of insuring
safety. When your old commanders,
William B. Strong and Albert A. Robin
son, finished the new line from Kansas
City to Chicago, their boast was that no
similar mileage in the United States was
so free from grade crossings. So your
present commanders. Mr.. Ripley and his
associates, are leaving nothing in their
power undone to insure safety to the IlVeS
and persons of every employee and every
patron and every citizen coming in con-
tact with the property. And this not
alone because it pays but because the
most elemental demands of righteousness
require it. They believe in civilization
and not in barbarism."
Some Significant Figures.
Mr.. Hale gave some figures that were
significant. He said:
Ever since / took up this work on the
Santa Fe L have been trying to hit upon
some scheme or device, some plan. that
would give me an opportunity of talking
to you women, publicly of course. For,
just as you women had more to do with
the breaking up of the liquor habit among
railroad men, which happily is broken up,
just you are going to be the very best
of help, the most potent force in the
spreading of this gospel of safety.
1T means more to you, you women,
than it does to your husband or his son.
If he loses his life, his griefs and sorrows
are all behind him but you are just COM
ing into yours. L want to remind you that
out o. the nearly 10000 people. who Were
killed and Injured the American rail-
roads last year, that over 80 per cent OF
them We're avoidable-were due to some
ones carelessness or thoughtlessness or
cussednesS or whatever you want to call
it. want to remind you that it is you
and your families that are going to be