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One Little Railroad Wreck.
Does It Tlake You Think ? We Hope So.
There is nothing new in this. * It
is the usual story of human lives
sacrificed to human enterprise and
the right of the dollar.
This time the wreck is on the Bal
timore and Ohio Railroad. More
than fifty are dead—“mainly women
and children, which made it hard to
identify them, as they had no busi
ness cards in their pockets.”
The dead were very thoroughly
ground up. It was difficult to get
various arms and legs and heads and
bodies sorted out so as to form a
complete corpse for the satisfaction
of the bereaved and irritated rela
tives.
f V
Readers, do you know why these
women and children and men are
dead, ground to pieces?
It is because this country—that is
to say, the money that rules it—puts
profit above human life, dividends
above human beings.
You are perhaps tired of reading
our comments on railroad murders.
We do not blame you—we are a lit
tle tired of writing them.
But we shall write these comments
today and many days, and perhaps
many years hereafter.
It took a great deal of writing and
talking to wipe out slavery, the ’ ght
of one man to own another"., life.
It will take a great deal of writing
and talking to wipe out that peculiar
property right which gives the man
the right to take another’s life.
We shan’t worry you with fifteen
arguments in connection with this
shameful murder of women and chil
dren by a railroad corporation. We
call your attention to only two.
Here is the first one:
A light engine and a light train
of empty cars ran into a passenger
train filled with human beings. They
were in the railroad’s estimation
cheap human beings, not the very
prosperous kind, and they were rid
ing in the ordinary “day coaches.”
Day coaches, you know, are match
boxes that smash like pasteboard
when anything hits them.
If those had been well-built cars,
cars as well built as the ordinary
Pullmans, there would have been lit
tle and probably no loss of life.
There would have been a shaking up.
But well-built cars would not crush
like eggshells.
The dispatch tells us that the en
gine which ran into the train went
through the flimsy cars, smashing
them like paper, without damaging
the engine, injuring the cowcatcher,
or the engineer or fireman.
Do you know why the cars in
which those people were killed were
like matchboxes?
It is because the difference be
tween the cost of a good car and the
cost of a cheap car goes into the
pockets of the men that own the
railroads. That difference helps to
pay dividends on the millions of
watered stock that represent and
create the fortunes of the hundred
time millionaires.
Os course, with Government own
ership we should have some stealing,
although the people would soon be
gin to vote wisely and the railroads
would soon be well managed.
But under Government ownership
no on© would be interested in build
ing cheap, flimsy passenger cars. On
the contrary, the profit of the graft
ers would come from the cost of
building the cars, and it would be to
their interest to build the cars strong
and expensive. The people would be
robbed of some money, but their
lives would be spared.
Now they are robbed of their
money and of their lives at the same
time. Government ownership would
be some improvement, wouldn’t it?
One other point:
The engineer of the train that ran
into the people and killed them says
that when his train entered the block
at North Tacoma the track was
clear. The operator declares that the
block was not clear, that “he gave
the train the red light.”
What does that mean? It means
that it is cheaper for this privately
o wped railroad to kill women and
children than to put in a block sys
tem making it absolutely impossible
for one train to run into another.
Switzerland, dear readers, is a
cheap little country. Mountains,
glaciers, rocks, hotels, tourists, and
honesty are about all it possesses.
Switzerland is, speaking from the
Rockefeller point of view, a wretched
little place.
But in Switzerland the government
—that is to say, the people—owns
the railroads and operates them.
In Switzerland they not only have
the block signal, but the latest, most
perfect automatic system. By this
arrangement, when the Baltimore &
Ohio engine started to run into the
block containing the wretched pas
sengers murdered on Sunday, the
engine would have stopped of its own
accord.
The Swiss people run their rail
roads. And, naturally, they put
their own lives above dividends.
They arrange their roads so that
when an engine tries to run into a
seation of track containing another
train the air brakes on that engine
are set automatically, and even if
the engineer were sound asleep or
dead at his throttle the engine would
stop of its own accord, the brakes
would be set automatically and stop
the whole train.
You can see that such a system
would have prevented the killing of
those poor women and children on
the Baltimore and Ohio day before
But such a system costs money.
It is cheaper to grind up a few
women and children once in a while
yesterday.
than to equip thousands of trains
and tens of thousands of cars with
automatic safety devices. The pri
vately owned railroads hire the best
lawyers and pay them by the year
to fight every claim. Then why spend
more money to make the people’s
lives safe, when your legal system
enables you to kill them safely?
Readers, private ownership of
public necessities means discomfort
every day.
Private ownership of public neces
sities means robbery of the public
every day. It means bribery of your
officials as long as they are permitted
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
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I Change of Name
Having purchased the interest of the Estate of SA MITEL
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15