THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Human Lives at Stake IT WAS several years ago that certain "fanatics" and "interested parties" began urging upon Congress the enactment of a law requiring...
...Is it any wonder that the railway employees of the country begged Congress to pass a safety appliance law...
...We say "needless," because this much of death and injury has since been saved by the operation of "paternalistic" laws and of "government interference...
...The average number of tons in a train in 1893 was 184, while in 1908 it was 352, an increase of 168 tons per train...
...This, then, is why the railway employees of the country demand the enactment of a Federal Full Crew Law, to require the railroads to man their trains with sufficient crews to perform the service without UN-necessary hazard...
...The following diagrams illustrate, in a striking and simple manner, the result of the safety appliance legislation in the saving of life and limb: The first one shows the manner in which the proportion of casualties due to coupling cars has decreased under the operation of this law...
...It is a chart, a guide-board, to the necessity of further legislation...
...This cause is entitled to the active support of every humane-minded citizen...
...the number of tons of freight carried per train has increased over 90 per cent...
...When the railroads advance the wages of their employees 10 per cent, they demand that the public shall bear the burden in increased transportation charges...
...The result of the operation of this law in diminishing the number of casualties to train men is as gratifying as it is remarkable...
...Here again we find railroad management—management with one eye on the traffic and the other on the stock ticker—careless of human life...
...Here again we get back to first principles in railroad policy...
...have been decried by them as "arbitrary," an "unwarranted interference" with the management of railway property by its owners, as "impracticable," as "paternalistic," as "socialistic,'' and what not...
...What then is the tendency in railway management which is responsible for this increasing hazard of railroad service...
...The railway employees were interested in favor of the legislation, because they believed it would reduce the hazard of their employment and save their lives and limbs...
...Likewise, of course, the railroads were interested...
...Thus, while the total number of casualties due to coupling fell from more than 300 out of every 10,000 trainmen employed in 1893 to a little over 100 in 1908, the casualties from other causes increased from 600 out of every 10,000 trainmen in 1893 to more than 1,200 in 1908...
...The proportion of casualties due to coupling was reduced from 44.33% of the total in 1893 to 8.87% in 1908...
...So the matter stood until 1893, when finally the passage by Congress of the Federal Safety Appliance Act was forced by a wave of public opinion...
...Also, as would be expected, experience in the actual operation of these laws, has been to disprove the contentions of their opponents and to justify those of their advocates...
...An active and in-sistent public interest in behalf of this legislation will impel Congress to act...
...Always the wise policy of this class of legislation has been denied by the railroads and their representatives in Congress and always its efficacy and practicability have been disputed...
...These statistics show that in the year 1893, before the safety appliance law was in force, one out of every 349 railway employees employed in coupling and uncoupling cars was killed, and that one out of every 13 so employed was injured, in many cases maimed and crippled for life...
...It is needed because of the historical antipathy of the railroads, and hence of Congress, to legislation of this character...
...Think of it...
...In part this condition is the result of railway policy in reducing the size of train crews, and in part the result of refusing to increase the size of train crews in proportion to the demands of the traffic...
...We believe it is this policy, more than any other one thing, that is responsible for the increasing proportion of killed and injured trainmen on American railways...
...The railway managers were interested against the legislation, because it would "interfere" with the management of their business and would require them to make large expenditures of money, which they believed would not proportionately increase their ability to pay dividends...
...The second shows the decrease of coupling accidents from 1893 to 1908...
...It is a fair commentary on American railway management that an act of Congress was required to compel the railroads to equip their locomotives with ash-pans, so that the ashes might be removed from under the fire-box without obliging the men charged with that duty to crawl under the wheels of locomotives that might stand still while they were doing it and might not...
...The result is that in spite of the beneficent operation of the safety appliance law and other laws in reducing the number of coupling casualties, the total number of casualties from all causes increased from something over 1,100 in each 10,000 trainmen in 1893 to nearly 1,400 in 1908...
...The elections follow this session or congress...
...And out of every five employees injured, at least four represented that much needless pain, suffering and loss...
...Policies of railway management which resulted in the year of 1908 in killing and injuring 86,837 employees on american railroads demand the enactment of corrective legislation...
...The law to promote the safety of employees and travelers upon railroads by limiting the hours of service of railway employees and the railway employers' liability law had a similar history...
...The number of tons carried by the railroads for each trainman employed in 1893 was 5,085, while in 1908 it was 7,858, an increase of 2,273 tons per man...
...Also, that support is needed...
...But note the difference after the law is in operation...
...The statistics of railroad accidents are furnished to the Interstate Commerce Commission by the railroads themselves...
...But it is certain that it makes more exacting, more severe and more hazardous, year by year, the employment of the trainmen...
...But of all the railroad conductors, trainmen, switch tenders, crossing tenders, and watchmen, who went to work for the railroads that year, one out op 349 went to his death and one out of every 13 "assumed the risk...
...The "fanatics" were in favor of the legislation because they believed it to be right and humane...
...The Interstate Commerce Commission has just issued a circular, showing the results of the operation of the safety appliance law in reducing the number of injuries to railway employees in the branches of railway employment to which that law particularly applies...
...The most important and most efficient provision of the safety appliance law, as amended and as construed by the courts, is that which requires railroads to equip cars used in moving interstate traffic with couplers which couple the cars automatically by impact and which can be uncoupled without the necessity of men going between the ends of the cars...
...We say "at least," because more can be saved by more of this kind of legislation...
...In 1908, of the railway employees in this class the number killed was only one out of 983 and the number injured was only one out of 62 so employed...
...One after another, these laws for the protection of human life and human limb have been opposed by the railroads...
...It shows this: THAT THE DECREASE IN COUPLING CASUALTIES HAS BEEN MORE THAN OFFSET BY THE INCREASE IN CASUALTIES FROM OTHER CAUSES...
...For years the representatives of the railway employees and other advocates of this form of "paternalism" pleaded vainly with Congress to pass this just legislation...
...But it also shows something else...
...The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Human Lives at Stake IT WAS several years ago that certain "fanatics" and "interested parties" began urging upon Congress the enactment of a law requiring railroads to equip trains and cars engaged in interstate commerce with safety appliances, such as airbrakes and automatic couplers...
...in the fifteen years covered by this comparison, the number of tons of freight handled by each trainman oh american railroads has increased approximately 46 ps cent...
...The railroad employees of the country, of course, were interested...
...Step by step Congress, always at first on the side of the railroads, has been compelled by the force of public opinion to yield the passage of these just laws...
...While the representatives of the railway employees stood, hat in hand, outside the doors of Congressional committee rooms with their respectful petitions, the representatives of the railways sat within, dictating the course of legislation...
...It may be that such a policy enables the railroads to do business at a slightly less cost, and it may be that it enables them to pay slightly larger dividends...
...the number of freight cars for each trainman has increased 25 per cent...
...WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMEN AND SENATORS...
...And such has been the course of all other legislation of a similar character...
...The employees of the railroads—the men in the business— have been complaining for some time that the hazard of their employment is being increased, especially in the train service, by the imposition upon them by their employers of excessive and increasing Burdens...
...Meanwhile, by exacting greater services from their employees, they are constantly forcing down the cost per ton of handling the traffic...
...They are compiled by the Commission and published from time to time...
...SOMETHING SHOULD BE DONE...
...The complaints of the trainmen, based upon their daily experience, are fully sustained by the statistics furnished by the railroads to the Interstate Commerce Commission...
...In other words, out of every three lives that were lost under the "let alone" policy of permitting the railroads to "manage their business as they saw fit,"—with one eye on the traffic and the other eye on the stock ticker,—at least two represented just so much needless waste of human life...
...SOMETHING IS WRONG...
...The number of freight cars for each trainman employed in 1893 was 8. In 1908 it was 10, an increase of 2 cars per man...
Vol. 2 • March 1910 • No. 9
