The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1922-11-30
We Should Speed Up Safety
Br RIcHARn LloYp LOVES

Il YER since the advent Of the steam engine we
r. have been speeding up, and while that speed
has come with inestimable benefit, it has not
come without its measure Of attendant harm. When
the legislature of New York was first asked to grant
a franchise for eighteen miles Of steam railroad,
the right to build this first railroad was not granted
without a bitter opposition which eontended that it
would be unsafe because the engine would scare
so many horses that an unwarranted toll of death
would result.
The railroad came and those who opposed it we're
right in their death toll predictions. The engines
did scare the horses. There were runaways, and
what is worse, there were wrecks on the rails and
an ever-increasing list of accidents have been re-
corded as the iron ribbon mileage multiplied.
But for all this we would not erase the railroads
from our maps; we would not 60 back to the days
when even a king would cry My kingdom for a
horse"
The t~hreshing machine has cost many a thresher
an arm. But we would not 60 back to the days
when we hayed grain on the floor.
Mill machinery and foundry furnaces take their
human toll, But we cannot do without them.
We fly sky-high and all TOO often We read of a
fallen flyer, 1t is the price We pay to learn how
with safety to use the Swifter way.
The auto brings its price in limb and life, We
pay it and speed away.
We have been impatiently seeking speed. With
the same impotence we must seek safety. The
cost of speed has reached such alarming proper
tons that the Safety First" slogan was born.
Observe, we did not CITY "Cut it out" nor did We
even plead SLOW down." We do not want to
slacken, much less TO stop. On the contrary, We
want to speed up. That is progress. But We must
speed up safety.
The National Safety Council reports that the
compiled figures of preventable accidents in 1920
show death toll of as many people as live in the
State of Nevada. In other words, in one year We
wiped'out by accident one whole State, That means
that ii is time to STOP something. 1t is not speed
we should stop. We must stop recklessness,
The man-eating ~threshing machine has gone out
of fashion. But the fool at the auto wheel is busy.
Fatalities from reckless auto driving average thirty
deaths a day. We have speed laws, but they are
~defantly d~isobeyed and the v%iolators when arrested
are too often dismissed with modified reprimand
or a petty fine.
To endanger the life of another is not a light or
laughing matter.
We must adjust ourselves to the auto as the
horse did to the train. We make the train run on
schedule, limit its speed on curves, slow down at the
sign Of caution and come to full stop at the STOP
signal. So must We make every auto driver do.
There is but one way to do it, and that is for
every community to impose drastic penalty for ev-
cry offender and for every community to promptly
get nd of any officer that fails to arrest the offend
ers and every judge and magistrate that will not
impose the full penalty Of the crime.
If it is crime to take life, it is a crime to en-
danger life. Speed up safety, 1t is the duty OIL
every town and county government to get indig
nantly busy on this all important job. We canno
spare our people in whole state-ful lots.