Evening star., 1925-03-29
The Floyd Collinses of Our Mines
BY IDA NJ. TARBELL.

r F that pitiful Kentucky tragedy
which dragged it's hopeless way
through II days of the month of
i February will turn the minds of
but fraction Of the hundreds OF
thousands of men and women whose
first thought in the morning during
those days was a Floyd Collins plight,
why, then, the boy will not have per-
fshed in vain.
Floyd Collins was pinned down by
falling rock while exploring the
narrow passages which run like
spider legs from the caves below the
surface IN the sandy soil near Cave
City, Ky.
Everything that men-and resouce-
full men-could do was done to ex-
trieate him, but the case was hope
less from the first-the' shifting earth
claimed its prey.
Floyd Collins died, the victim of his
love of adventure and discovery.
Every year more than 900 btu
minous coal miners are entombed In
American mines as he was. Falling
earth, rocks. timber, coal, trap them.
They die victims Of industry-part TT
OF the price we pay for warmth and
flying wheels.
Nine hundred Floyd CoIlinses a year
awful toll as necessary incident to
keeping the world running. Yet each
one of these trapped miners died as
Floyd Collins did-unless the engulf-
ing earth is merciful and kills by a
blow. "a lonely. black DEATH" one
who sat at the mouth of the pit
through those II days described 1t.
"Entombed alive far down In the
earth, with no human voice nor hand
to comfort him, no human ear to hear
his futile, frenzied cries. The rocks
held him SO jealousy, even in death.
that it meant death itself to take him
from their clutches"
Can the death list of miners from
this cause be cut down? Must we en-
gulf 800 men yearly in taking out
soft coal? We need not. A careful
and scientific testing Of the veins
which are to be opened, followed by
timbering adequate to the risk re-
vealed-timbering which all careful
and responsible.mine owners use and
which in some States the law requires
and at least partly enforces-would
cut the 800 in half
Why do we not save these men,
then? Why? Careful testing, proper
timbering, cost money, take time;
they interfere with quick, cheap pro-
duction. "We'll risk it"'
But it is not a jealous earth, re-
senting mans interference, that de-
stroys all the Floyd Colinses of the
mines.
The 900 a year engulfed are but
half Of the lives spent yearly in the
United States in getting out btu
minous coal. For 10 years, 1912-1922,
the yearly average of deaths, so our
best authority, the United States Bu-
reau of Mines, reports, was 1,824-43
men out of every 1000 employed.
That Is fully three times as many as
they kill in Great Britain.
Il X X
What is the matter with us that
we endure this? Is it ignorance?
Perish the thought! An American
mine owner will resent the imputa-
tion with scorn. 1 have heard him
| myself. What bulletin can tell him
anything about mining! He knows
And, NOR cover, our United States Bu-
| reau of Mines Is the best in the world
and there is nothing about mining it
doesn't know, and it is a nuisance in
its insistence on safety devices.
There is only one answer, then, for
we certainly, do kill three times as
many per 1000 as GSeat Britain does.
Ii my mine owner friend is right and
we know, it follows we don't prac-
tlce Wnat we KnoW-tnat we TAX
the chance in other things as well as
in proper tunneling.
Knowing but not doing is what is
killing men in our mines at this
awful rate "Tardy adoption of safe
guards, tagging years behind engi-
neering knowledge of what can and
| ought to be done, causes the awful
death toll,'' declares John e. An
| drews, the active head of the Ameri-
can Association for Labor Legisla-
tion, who has studied the methods OF