The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1920-06-18

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! fagmen at it all day and red lights at
night.
The people were indignant at this
! act Of manslaughtcr and the council
sent notification to the superinten-
! dent to appear before it at its next
meeting and arrange to make the
| crossing safe. He did not appear, of
| course. Too good diplomat Thought
| he'd wait till the council cooled down
| it never is very hot against a rail-
! road anyhow. But he came in at the
/ last meeting and talked so sweet that
| the council was sorry for the poor
| railroad. Some of the excuses he
made were funny, but they went.
| Promised to tell all his engineers to
! cross that crossing inside the speed
| limit, and if nobody was killed in the
| two or three days it would take to
| tell all the trainmen, everything would
! be lovely. Two or three days! If Mr..
! Burns had something for the train
men to know in behalf of the rail-
| road, every man out on the road
would know it when he reached the
next station, and every engineer and
conductor off duty would be told as
| soon as he went back on. Two or
! three days! That would have been a
| reasonable margin to the stage driv-
ers of sixty years ago.
| We hear Mr.. Burns says that the
railroad can't get reliable men to act
as watchmen for the money it is able
| to pay them. A poor excuse. It can
always pay highpriced lawyer a big
| fee to prevent an injured man or a
bereaved family from obtaining JUS
| tice.
If the trains cross Broadway in
side the speed limit. it will lessen the
| danger but not remove it. But they
are not going to observe the limit.
| Engineers don't like to run slowly.
| There is a reason. because if they do
| not bring their trains in on time once
in awhile, they are denoted in favor
Of men who will take chance. AS a
general thing, they seldom kill any
| but poor people, and no poor man can
afford to sue a railroad A railroad
will fight just claim all the way up
! to the supreme court in order to dis
| courage poor people from bringing
| just claims. So the engineers will
tiptoe over that crossing for a few
| days, then they will letter out little,
and the next day little more, and SO
or until soon they will be bowling
along at the same merry old clip.
Mr.. Burns said something to Us
about educating the people to be
careful. We have never noticed the
railroads setting up any schools of in
struction The kind Of education they
hand out results in funerals, big doc
tors bills and crippled men and wom-
en-. Nobody and no railroad has any
right to kill or cripple man because
| he is careless.
The man killed the other day was
only a poor darkey living out in the
piny woods He had a family and a
! few friends but not enough to count
that is, count money enough to hire
a lawyer who could cope with rail
road lawyer. So, of course, it makes
no difference about his being killed.
| The railroad doesn't care, if it doesn't
have to pay, the Ocala council doesn't
care and the people of Ocala don't
care.
But:
We have some white people here
who often drive over that crossing at
more than thirty miles an hour-not
in Fords, but in big, high-powered
cars. Often you can see car-full of
young folks, with some clever and
sllillful boy at the wheel, and fairy
sitting beside him, taking half his at
tention. Such a carfull, going out
Broadway, wouldn't see nor hear a
southbound train until they were
about to come together.
If such thing ever happens, there
will be anger as we'll as sorrow in
Ocala, and a train crew will have to
move lively to get out of town in time
to keep from being lynched, and they
will all come back to face trial, too
at their own expense-the railroad
won't pay their lawyers. And there
will be Grape on Ocala doors and
wrath as we'll as sadness in Ocals
hearts to think of tragedy that hap.
pened because a corporation meas
ures human life by dollars, and a city
government hadn't the spunk to pro
tect its people.
We can't see why the city doesn't
compel, without more ado, the Sea
board to put Waterman if not {
gate at that crossing. 1t has the
power. A few years ago, when Char
lie Hunter was president of the coun
Gil, a Seaboard crew made trouble a
one of the crossings in the yard, anC
he went down there and politely asked
them to move on. And they said they
wouldn't, but when they found them
selves starting for the hoosgow, the!
changed their minds. This council
can do the same thing if it will.
They said hundred or more year.
ago that the Bourbons never forgo
anything and never learned anything
We wonder if our railroads are no
the same way Thirty years ago, ever!
newspaper man in Florida had rail
road pass in his pocket, and railroad