Library Collections: Document: Full Text


American Charities

Creator: Amos G. Warner (author)
Date: 1908
Publisher: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York
Source: Straight Ahead Pictures Collection

Previous Page   Next Page   All Pages 


Page 40:

306  

The most palpable means by which occupation lessens the capacity of the individual is accident. The industry in which this is most conspicuous is transportation, and no country in the world offers more illustrations of such injury to railroad employees than the United States, as will be seen by reference to Table XXII.

307  

The figures vary from year to year. For example, Denmark's railways killed no passengers in 1903-1904, but did kill one for 1904-1905. Tasmania killed none in 1903 and Victoria only one to twenty million journeys.

308  

TABLE XXII.
Railway accidents, (101) 1902-1904.


(101) Parsons, "The Railways," etc., p. 444.

309  

PASSENGERS EMPLOYESS
Killed, 1 in Injured, 1 in Killed, 1 in Injured, 1 in
United States 1,957,441 84,424 364 22
Great Britain 8,073,000 445,000 736 88
Germany 11,701,354 2,113,471 1199 451
Belgium 33,151,173 431,937 2266 98
Austria-Hungary 9,432,303 1,323,551 1908 363
France 5,260,000 1,052,000 954 355
Switzerland 12,237,515 849,820 1070 42
Denmark 18,935,151 9,467,000 - -
Norway 7,690,000 4,350,000 - -
Sweden 6,667,000 6,450,000 - -
Russia 1,080,000 250,000 - -
Spain 2,000,000 308,000 - -
Canada 1,120,000 158,000 - -
Victoria 20,000,000 208,000 - -
Tasmania - 271,000 - -
New South Wales 5,000,000 589,000 - -
South Australia 6,667,000 2,500,000 - -

310  

Mr. Parsons comments as follows upon these figures: --

311  

"It appears from these figures that railroad travel is safest in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, and Australia, that it is more dangerous in Great Britain than in any of the above-named countries, and that in the United States it is most dangerous of all; about six times as dangerous as in Germany, seventeen times as dangerous as in Belgium, three times as dangerous as in France, and four times as dangerous as in Great Britain. In the United States the control by the law is not effective, and we see. . .the tendency to look first, last, and all the time at the cost and to avoid the expenditure necessary to abolish grade crossings, etc., if they think it will be cheaper to pay damages."

312  

Many of these accidents occur because the railway companies do not wish to go to the expense of newer equipment, such as block signals and automatic couplers; and others because of excessively long hours of labor, reaching, in emergencies, even to twenty or thirty hours of continuous duty. Not the least serious aspect of these injuries is the fact that railway employees are comparatively young men, at the age of highest economic value to their families and to the state.

313  

One of the largest Life Insurance Companies in the United States estimates the fatal accident rate, as a whole, from 80 to 85 to every 100,000 of the population. The percentage of fatal to total accidents varies from 2.1 in factory labor to 40.2 per cent in accidents from boiler explosions. Assuming that 25 are injured to one killed on the average, there is the result that not less than 1,600,000 persons are killed or injured annually in this country. And this does not take into account minor accidents. It seems to be the experience of accident insurance companies that the ratio of fatal to non-fatal accidents claims are as one to one hundred. (102)


(102) Hunter, "Poverty," Appendix, pp. 314-345.

314  

Many of these cases were probably provided for by benefit associations maintained by the men or by the relief work of the companies; but such relief is always partial and temporary, and of course makes no atonement to the industry of the country as a whole for the amount of personal capacity destroyed. It would not usually be easy to trace pauperism in a given case to an accident on a railroad, although the author has himself been called to deal with some cases of destitution resulting directly from such accidents; but frequently pauperism does not result until years afterwards, when a widowed mother has broken down in the attempt to support her family, or when some aged or incapable relative has been turned adrift from the incapacity of the family to maintain him longer.

315  

In 1907 Francis H. McLean made a report of a detailed investigation of 736 cases of industrial accident leading to dependency, which had come to the notice of charitable societies. The nature of these disabilities is shown in the following list: (103) --


(103) Report to N. Y. State Conf. of Charities and Corrections, 1907, published in part in "Charities and the Commons," vol. xix., pp. 1203 ff.

316  

Trade disease 13
Building 82
Electrical 5
Transportation 25
Machinery 76
Street (drivers and messengers) 37
Dock work 11
Explosions 2
Elevator (attendants only) 7
Blasting 13
Lifting, strains, blows (result hernia) 388
Miscellaneous 77
736

317  

It is of special significance that about one-half of these accidents occurred to men under 40, belonging to the unskilled trades, whose wages were less than $15 per week. Of the total number 421, or 57 per cent, were permanently disabled: Amputation of fingers and toes, 7; amputation of legs, feet, hands, or arms, 20; brain injured, 10; partially crippled, 8; paralyzed, 5; blinded, 53, permanently injured by lead poisoning, 2; spine injured, 2, internal injuries, 3; loss of hearing, 1; deaf and dumb, 1, hernia resulting in partial loss of wage-earning ability, at least 250; insane, 21; killed, 45. What the inevitable cost of public and private relief for these persons and their families would be, it is impossible to estimate, but there had been spent already an average of $50 per person in 92 cases, 111 had received hospital care for periods of one month to one year, 53 blind and 20 insane persons must be supported, and there were varying amounts of medical expenditure for all the remainder. But this is not all; there was a marked deterioration in a considerable number of families, resulting from these injuries, shown in chronic dependency, intemperance not before present, lowering of standards of living, widow's health broken, family disrupted, habits of begging developed, savings used, furniture pawned, and families evicted.

Previous Page   Next Page

Pages:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32  33  34  35  36  37  38  39  40  41  42  43  44  45  46  47  48  49  50  51  52  53  54  55  56  57  58  59  60  61  62    All Pages