The Cordova daily times., 1919-03-13
MUST PROTECT
 MINERS FROM
 THE IGNORANT

I Manning, director of the bureau oi
 mines, department of the interior, in
 formed congress recently that the ed
 ucation of the non-English- speaking 1 foreign-born among the miners by the so-called Americanization bill should result in the saving from death each l year of nearly one thousand of these men and the saving from injury of 1 about 150,000. Teaching these men how to read and write the English language would permit them to read the ordinary precautionary signs in the most dangerous mines and enable the men to understand the sugges- tions for safety given by the bosses, according to MT. Manning.
 MT. Manning planes the present high death and injury rate in the mines to the presence Of these for eigners from the on-English-speak- ing races, a majority of whom are not even able to read or write their own languages. He finds that the death and injury rates among these men are twice as high as among the English speaking miners, and their presence in the mines is responsible for a higher accident rate than would ordi- rari'y exist among the English-speak- ing miners, making these men men, ace to all of the miners. The statis- tics show that there are more than 620,000 foreign-born men employed in the mines, and that 75 per cent of these, or 5000, are from the non English-speaking races, nearly all of them from countries where there is no mining
 These are the men the bureau of mines is unable to reach with it's life saving recommendations for they can not understand. We have tried to but this seems to be hopeless, too, for we find that but a few of them can read even their own languages. What I object to most seriously is that it Is the great horde of men of this cali Der which is jeopardizinig the lives of the American miners. The intellik gent American miner has been making much progress in safety, and if we had to deal with him alone, the death rates would soon be down to a par with the natural hazards of the in- dustry, and t would not be pointed out that this country has the highest fatality rates of any civilized country | in the world. For the protection of the English-speaking miners we should educate these ignorant, Hitter ate men or keep them out of the mines. They should be given the op- portunity of keepinig pace with Amer ican progress and chance to become good American citizens, or they should be kept away from places where they endanger the lives of men who are good, intelligent citizens
 With the mining industry increas- ing in extent about 10 per cent year, the leaders believe that we need all the men we can get. If that is true let us give these men decent chance for their lives, and let us give the miners from the English-speaking races, who do understand the diff1- culties and dangers, a little more than fifty-ffty chance for tn fir lives.
 There are two points in this that appeal to me. First, it is our duty as citizens to make better citizens out of these -English-spe ak'n~ foreign CTS and save them from the dangers we know SO well, and second, it is our greatest duty to furnish our own Eng lish-speaking miners with the protec- tion they are entitled to against the irresponsible and ignorant type of miner who does not understand the dangers and apparently cares so little about them. The mad dog that is running amuck in the mining indus try today is the foreign-born from the non -English-speaking races who does not know the English language and who in majority of instances is so ignorant that he doesn't know how to read or write even his own language" Your eyes fitted. Compound and stigmatic lenses replaced. See os. borne.
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