The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1917-02-23
The Cheapness at
Which Life is Held
Editor Pennington Times:

Editor Pennington Times:
The victories of peace have their
price in dead and MANNED as well as
the victories of war, as the intensity
of life increases. AS the hold of the
weaker becomes feebler, as the strug-
gle for existence grows ever sharper,
SO the peril to the life and limb of the
worker is enhanced with every me-
chanical advance. The death roll of
industry is longer than is evident
from official figures. Many are kill
ed without violence. Thousands of
men lose their lives in mines and
mills without the inquest Of coron-
err. The slow death which comes from
vitiated atmosphere from inhaling
constantly the dust and smoke of
mines, from laboring increasingly in
constrained and unnatural postures,
and the death that comes from pro-
Hanged exposure, from over exertion
and under nutrition, from lack OF
sleep, from lack of recuperation, swells
beyond computation, the unnumbered
victims of restless progress. While
some fatalities of our industrial life
are inevitable, while many are maim-
ed, many sickened because of condi-
tons beyond the reasonable power or
control of employer or Of the State,
vet there is no doubt that a vast
amount of entirely unnecessarily and
easily avoidable injury inflicted upon
the miners of the Lead Belt could be
avoided. The evil is at present great
err in volume and extent than in form
err years. The great lead corporations
of the Lead Belt have, in the past,
spent hundreds of thousands Of dol
lars devising ways and means of saw
ing time and labor in taking out ore.
We wonder how much they have spent
in devising ways and means Of pro-
tecting the life, limb and health Of
their employees. A few years ago
some of the corporations Of the Lead
Belt employed what they termed an
deficiency expert" to look over their
plants and tell them how they could
be operated more cheaply and with
greater saving. We wonder how
many efficiency experts they have en-
ployed to look over the mines and tell
them how they might better protect
the life, limbs and health of their en-
ployes, the men who really produce
their great wealth. The time is not
far distant when the miners them
selves will have a man Of their own
choosing to look over the mines and
tell those Eastern Shylocks what they
shall or shall not do to protect the life,
limb and health of their employees.
With lead quoted at 5000, and readily
saleable at $8.75, there can be no ex-
cuse for some of the mines being in
the deplorable condition that they are
reported to be in. If the word of man
can be relied upon at all, some of those
mines should be abated as common nu-
stances. We suggest that if neces-
sary the State Board of Health be
called upon to take action with ref
erence to those tuberculosis incubators,
called by those who own them, mines.
There are just two things that will
remedy conditions in the Lead Belt.
A man in charge who hiss some inter
est in the health and welfare of his
fellowman or a strong union. Never
in the history of the Lead Belt did
employees need the assistance of a
strong organization as they do today.
1t is senseless for the employees of the
Lead Belt to work for the meager
wages they are now receiving, when
we consider what lead is today selling
for more than double what it has
ever sold for at any time in the his
tory of the Lead Belt. MAX.