The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1916-06-27
WILL COMING FOURTH
Be INSANE ONE?
Records of Last Year Show That
Thirty PesrOnS We're Killed
by Fireworks.
WHY HAVE DEATHS THIS YEAR?

Will the coming Fourth of July
bring forth it's usual death roll or
will the work of the National Fire
Protection association have any effect
in it's attack upon the annual orgy of
fire and noise? The work of this all
powerful association has been felt
throughout the country but still deaths
and injuries are reported. In 1914
the aggregate of deaths and injuries
incident to the celebration of the
Fourth was greater by several hun
dred than the year before. Last year
shows a slightly better record. The
safe and sane Fourth propaganda
should be carried not only into the
big cities but into the smaller mum
icipalities and rural districts where
suitable legislation has not yet been
enacted. The Journal of the Amer
ican Medical issues the following re-
port:
In 1915 besides one death due to
tetanus, twenty-nine persons were
killed by various forms of fireworks,
making total of thirty deaths, or ten
, less than last year, two less than in
1913, eleven less than in 1912, twenty
than in 1910. The number this year
is the smallest since the collection
of these statistics was begun This
year five persons were killed outright
by firearms, five by explosion of pow
der, bombs or torpedoes, six by can
non, and two by other forms of fire
works. The most serious fact pre-
sented this year is that eleven per-
sons, mostly little girls or small chill
dren, were burned to death by fire
from fireworks, most cases being
caused by the supposedly harmless"
varieties
1t is, perhaps, too much to expect
a complete return to sanity; but some
effort at least may be made by all
cities and towns toward leading their
people into more moderate and more
Intelligent forms of celebration If
explosives must be used the authori-
ties can limit their use to the public
parks during certain hours of the day,
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
regarding fire.
If before every Fourth of July all
cities and towns were given a tho
rough cleaning of rubbish, and all use
of explosives then restricted as to time
and place, the police and public ward
ems might have at least a fighting
chance to minimize the disastrous re-
suits of our public folly during the
years it may require to inspire in our
| people desire for a rational kind of
| celebration And such a desire must
| be inspired. 1t is the duty of every
city to arrange for its people suitable
amuSementS or exercises definitely
caluculated to educate them in a ra-
| tiOnal observance of this historic hoI-
iday. Habits of folly can be most
easily eliminated by a substitution of
something better The things a CITY
can do to interest its citizens in a sane
and wholesome celebration are unlim-
| tied, and the municipalities which in
the past two years have taken steps
in this direction are already receiving
national praise for their wisdom and
their high sense of civic response
bility
The city Of Washington, D. c.. pass
ed law prohibiting the sale and use
of fireworks unless a permit was is
sued by the chief of the fire depart
ment The result is as fololws:
| Number of persons treated at Wash
| ington, D. c., local hospitals for in
juries from explosives:
! JULY 4, 1908.
When fireworks
i Hospital. were allowed
Emergency 25
| Casualty 6