Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1905 — WORKMEN KILLED LIKE CATTLE. [ARTICLE]

WORKMEN KILLED LIKE CATTLE.

Pittsburg a Veritable Slaughter House Kays an Official. “On account of insufficient laws regulating tlie matter, and tlie utter disregard for the laws which do exist, Pittsburg is being turned into a regular slaughter house, and hundreds of workmen, mostly foreigners, are being killed each year like so many sheep and cattle in the steel mills, the blast furnaces. and the coal mines.” Coroner Joseph <«. Armstrong made this startling statement in addressing it coroner’s jury investigating tlie death of a Hungarian killed at tlie plant of tiie American Steel - and Wire Company. Twelve deaths, lie said, had been reported in one month in a single plant. Adelbert Merle, Austro-llmigarian consul general, backed by the coroner, proposes to petition tlie State anil federal authorities to ascertain if something cannot be done. An attache of tlie consulate said the number of fatalities were never fully reported, hut that every year an investigation was asked of tlie cases of men who were reported to have disappeared. Two such cases now being inquired into were those of men employed at the tops of blast furnaces, who had probably made a misstep and followed the ore they were dumping into the furnaces, where their fate was something horrible to contemplate. Tlie officials of tlie steel mills say that they will do anything in their power to help better tlie conditions of tlie men. They claim that they have had uo knowledge that they were so horrible, and that the foremen iu charge are mainly responsible.

The $1,000,000 damage suit brought by the Morning Glory Mining and Leasing Company of Cripple Creek against the Mary McKinney Company lia9 been settled by the payment of a little over SIOO,OOO by the defendant to the plaintiff iu full settlement for all claims. Oiie of the most valuable libraries ever brought into this country, the Rowfant library, collected by Frederick Locker Lampson, the deceased English poet and Khakspearean collector, has Just been purchased by a New York publishing house.