Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1904 — CURRENT COMMENY [ARTICLE]

CURRENT COMMENY

Mora Hallway Horrors. The railway accident that took place near Connellsville, Pa., Wednesday night, bringing death in a most hideous form to more than sixty passengers, and the accident Saturday evening near Grand Rapids, Mich., which caused the death of twenty-two passengers, give frightful confirmation of the interstate commerce commission’s conclusions regarding the shocking mortality from American railuufr casualties. The commission has declared the annual record of killed and maimed to be a ‘‘disgrace to the American people,” and no one can read of these latest disasters without feeling that the characterization is justified. Even If it were true that under present methods of railroading such catastrophes could not be foreseen or prevented, what should be said of the system or lack of system which fails to provide for such prevention? Is the science of railway management still so primitive that collisions cannot be guarded against? It is the business of railways to transport passengers safely and it is the prime requisite of that business that they supply every conceivable precaution necessary to prevent killing people. Accidents cannot be ex’plained away. It is the fact that they occur and not the reason for their occurring that constitutes proof of inefficiency. If they are not due to gross negligence that fact only emphasizes the innate and essential faultiness of the system. The railroads must stop this slaughter of their passengers and it is the duty of Congress, of the State Legislatures and of the courts to compel them to stop it.—Chicago News. Within four days fully one hundred persons were killed in the United States in railroad accidents and as many were seriously injured. Two of these accidents —that on the Baltimore and Ohio, near Pittsburg, and that on the Pere Marquette near Grand Rapids—have cost ninety lives, and the list may yet be increased. Both of these accidents might have been avoided if safety of passengers and trainmen had not been sacrificed to desire to “make time.” While the Baltimore and Ohio wreck was due immediately to timbers which had fallen from a freight preceding the passenger train, the real cause was an effort to make up for lost time. And although the immediate cause of the Pere Marquette collision is given as the blowing out of the red signal light at McCord, the real cause seems to have been an attempt to Bare time. —Chicago Post. .« - -•. When life depends upon so uncertain a thing as the burning of a light in the face of a blizzard, it is evident that reforms must be instituted in the operation of railroads. The case of the Pere Marquette road is but one of a score this year—one of many horrors which would have been averted had the block system been installed, a system under which but one-seventh of the railroad mileage in the country is now being operated. In every body of men some incompetents are found. Even the most efficient men occasionally make blunders or are guilty of errors of judgment. In the case of railroad men, errors may mean many deaths. Congress should pass a law compelling railroads to install the block system and take other precautions. Possibly it would be wise to have a track patrol in addition to the block system. At any rate, the traveling public must be better protected. —Chicago Journal.