New Britain herald., 1922-12-01
ILL|TERACY CAUSE
 0F MANY ACCIDENTS
One Hall of Factory Casualties ASCribed to This Condition

Not only Is there loss in production because of the low wage earning pow
 or of the illiteratc foreigner. but there is a tremendous loss in accidents and casualties among the foreigners en- gagged In dangerous occupations. Mar ian K. Clark, of the New York State Industrial Commission, estimates that one-half Of the accidents in factories with resultant loss of sb0,000 per day to industries, are due to ignor- arce of the language. There are s00,- 900 factory workers in New York state who can not speak English. In ls16, 11,500,000 was paid out in that state in accordance with the working mans compensation law, an amount which would be increased te $35,- 100000 if to 1t were added loss of wages, labor turnover, doctors bills
 and administration of the law. Sta tistics of the United States Bureau Of Labor show that the rate of accidents in tho iron and steel industry during a period of eight years was highest among the non English speaking workers and showed little decrease from year to year. The Ford Motor Co. officials state that accidents have fallen off 54 per cent since their school was started in 1914.
 In mining, the most hazardous oc- cupatlon in this country, lack of abil- ity to read the English language is a tremendous handicap. In 1919 the director of f>the Bureau of Mines stat ed that 45,000 men in the mining in- dustry came from non- -English-speak- ing races. and that many of them were illiterate. He states that if these men were taught to read and write English it would be tremendous eco- homie factor in the industry through - reduction in the casualty list. He says: This is a plain business propo- sition to prevent the death Of at least 1000 miners each year and to pre- vent the injury of more than 150,000 miners each year. Thousands of illit- crate foreigners, many of them un- able even to read or write their na- tive language, are poured into the great American mining machine each year and with most disastrous results. The mines that employ numbers of foreigners generally have the precau- tionary rules printed in the different languages; but if the foreigners can rot even read his own language, these safety guides are q no value to him. The best estimates from a number of the larger mining states are to the ef- fleet that the English speaking foreigners suffer vice the fatalities that the English-speaking miners do. This means an excess of 930 non English-speaking foreigners killed each year, and I may say unnecessar- fly. If the average state compensa- tion is S3,000 which is a fair figure, the total economic loss each year to the country through the excess Of sdeaths of non- -English-speaking min 3ers alone amounts to $2,790,00o. On the same basis it is estimated that the excess of nop- -English-speaki King miners injured each year amounts to sB9,750 men. This is a loss in Wages alone of s1,743,75o. Taking the ex- cess ofsdeaths and injuries together due to non English speaking foreign4 CTS, the economic loss each year reaches $4.533,75o. This is entirely aside from the other costs to the in dustry in production lost"