The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-09-07
DOMAIN OF TEMPERANCE
LABoRERS REFUSED TO WORK
WITH ONE MAN.

One of the great industrial movements
Of the day is the nationwide effort,
under the slogan of Safety First" to
reduce the number of accidents among
the workers The industrial toll on
the laborers of the land looms as a
vast army of productive men either
killed or seriously injured every year.
Leading industries are engaged in
the campaign to reduce the number of
accidents, and to this end have their
welfare organizations and educational
systems. 1t is a hopeful sign in the
industrial world that the leaders of
these activities are so largely incor-
porating these helpful enterprises in
connection with the development of
their concerns.
Industry itself has commanded that,
for efficiency, men must be sober
Also, industry emphasizes the super
important fact that safety demands
| that men be absolutely sober.
Under the title of Safety First and
the War;" the Outlook gives an inter-
esting article on the Cambria Steel
| Co., by Lewis Edwin Thesis, in which
| it is stated: "a.
Iron workers have never been ac-
cused Of being either mollycoddles or
goody-gOodies. Consequently, when
nineteen of them, employed in one of
the rolling mills of the Cambria Steel
Co., at Jamestown, Pa, recently
marched to the Office and complained
that the twentieth man in their gang
was drunk, and demanded his removal
before they would go to work, the
matter occasioned no little comment.
In the entire history of steel-making
| probably nothing like that had ever
| happened before.
| "But this request for the removal
of an unfortunate fellow workman
| was not made merely because that
man had done something morally OBJ
| jectionable. 1t was made because
these workers were imbued with the
new spirit of safety first They re-
| garded an intoxicated worker just as
they would a cracked derrick or a
| broken link in a chain. He was some
thing that might at any moment cause
an accident that might tie up the mill
and kill or injure some of its workers.
And they were determined to play
safe.
THE Cambria Steel Co. was organ
lied perhaps sixty-fve years ago by
Philadelphians of that religious sect
known as Friends. AS friends they
have always treated their employees
IAN original force of 200 to 800 men,
now grown to 10000 men. They built
for their workmen the first industrial
hospital in the world. They put in
charge of it the best known surgeon
they could secure. AS far back as
forty years ago they organized a bene-
fit association to care for the families
of men who were in the hospital.
But while these efforts alleviated
suffering, they did not decrease acct
dents. Year after year the hospital
records showed about so many injured
men per hundred employees, and it
was accepted as fact that about that
proportion of men must necessarily be
injured in operating steel mill. - .
The casualties on the firing line of
| EAlAlOAASoAl arc SSSlh Z
and terrible as the casualties in the
trenches. In Pennsylvania alone 1885,
GIG men were killed and injured in
industry during the year 1916"
The public welfare departments of
industrial enterprises have as a part
of the safety campaign the direction
of the recreation hours of laborers, so
1 hnI will !, IL
fiuence and be thus unimpaired for
efficiency in duty hours.