Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-03-16
Char

| There's very plain. ordinary look
ing poster in the window of the public
waiting room of the Harrisburg Rail-
ways Company in Market Square and
because 1t appears like an advertise
ment of some form of amusement
probably the average passer-by has
| not stopped to read it. Yet that pos
ter is part in a humble way OF a
campaign that is being conducted all
: over the United States and Canada
] Tor You and yours and your neighbors
I and which will be in full swing in this
! city before many months through the
interest of the industrial and utility
| corporations and the public spirited
men and women who have been think
ing about physical welfare when a
good many have been devoting time
and thought to dollars, dividends, food
and amusements. This poster Is only
| half dozen lines long, but it winds up
! with these words:
BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY.
| In short, it is one of the safety
posters that are now so common in
| New York and Chicago, the cities
| where it has been charged human life
| and limb is at matter of minor con-
slderation. There are probably tens
| OF thousands of posters of similar i'm
port staring into the eyes of people in
those cities and maybe a million or so
in the country. 1t is part of a great
campaign that was begun years ago
and which has enlisted the earnest
consideration of thoughtful men. 1t is
an outgrowth of the work of that
little understood official, the efficiency
engineer, the speed man, the fellow
VINO hunts up lost motion. Ten years
ago the placing of such poster would
have been regarded by the man in
q Of n nt-lre 60
ley line or anything else as something
altruistic. charitable act. Now it's
/ plain business. Loss of skilled hands,
damages and, above all, public opinion,
have impelled employers or managers
to regard accidents of a preventable
| character exactly as the grand scheme
OF nature makes them: sheer waste.
The poster over in Market Square
! contains the advice not to attempt to
cross a street behind q car The
reader is told to be sure that there is
no car or vehicle coming in the oppo-
site direction, or, in other words to
see that the coast is clear. 1t brings
10 the mind of every reader that strk-
ing sign with which everyone who has
travelled along the Reading railway is
familiar, stop, look and listen" 1t
has been said that those words, at
trlouted to Judge PaXson, have saved
many lives and no end of dollars, if
tne TWO could be mentioned in the
same breath. The Readings signs
have been up for half generation. but
II Is because their warning has been
burned into the minds of so many
people that there are not more acci-
dents in the midst of the great growth
of automobile traffic. It's going to
take years to abolish the grade cross
lngs, but so long as the traveller on
Wheels is accustomed to regard a cross
dog and grade crossing with caution,
the signs serves its purpose.
But TO get back to the that poster
on the Railways office window. one
of these days. through the cooperation
OF the trolley officials and persons in
terested in cutting the number of acci,
dents in the United States. Pennsyl-
Vanla and Harrisburg in half, there is
going to be posted all over this COM
munity similar warnings. Over the
East river the Brooklyn Rapid Transit
Company has placed in every BROOKLYN
schoolroom calendar showing twelve
ways in which pupil can get hurt by
trolley car. Some of the pictures
are pretty crude, but the very look of
terror on the faces of the victims
strikes the lesson home. For each
month there is separate illustration
showing kid being thrown into the
air because he lodged behind a car
ana was hit by car coming from
another direction in Just the manner
that the Harrisburg Railways poster
seeks TO warn against: or showing how
a roller skater can go into the laws
OF death by reckless curves on the
asphalt: how jumping cars will bring
injury or death, or some other form in
winch the trolley car can harm those
who do not use the care dictated nv
modern traffic conditions. 1t is sought
10 lnStlil into the minds of those young
Broklynltes that they have got to be
careful not to get hurt. Now the Har-
rlsburg poster with it's Better Safe
Ihan Sorry means the same thing
ana the railways company could do
nothing better than hammer that
phrase into the minds of the children
OF Harrisburg. There are ways of
reaching the schools, the homes and
the Fairgrounds of the Youngsters
Some of the advertising space in the
cars might be employed and there is
always the billboard and the news
paper. Great industrial plants like the
pennsylvania Steel Works spend thou
sands of dollars every year for safety
or employees alone and the works are
full OF warning signs. You can't roam
about the great plant like sightseers
usSu " do Will imminent FISK of life
| limb or neck, and John Hunk is apt
to get verbal ripping up the back
from his boss if he disregards a sign
or warning that he is not to go some
place where he is liable to be hit on
| the head by chain from a crane or
where he might be in the position of
trying to buck dinlley. The work of
the PENNSYLVANIA Railroad for safety
| Is famous the world over and no more
magnificent project was ever launched
by transportation company than
| safety first, although stockholders
have moaned, according to some
rumors, over the money it cost. II
was adherence to such propaganda, a,
they used to be called a few years ago
that enabled the railroad to make that
showing for 1913 in regard to mishaps
to passengers. So that posting of the
poster with it's striking coupling OF
safety and sorrow means the localizine
of the safety movement here. And it's
the duty of everyone to help it alonl
by doing what he or she was intended
to do in this world: Look Out.
YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
| Yesterday 7 tonlx cjraII