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Show "Does the Widow Jones live here?" That was the way he put it, this bungling fellow who broke the news of a husband's hus-band's accidental death. In a way, it's a joke. But it's one of those jokes when we laugh out of sympathy because be-cause the joke grows out of a bitter reality. Telling a woman wo-man her husband has just been killed in an accident is a heart-breaking job, as anybody knows who's ever had the assignment assign-ment Twenty-five years ago, in the factory fac-tory and on the farm, it was a com-i com-i mon story "He was caught between the r " 1 :'! ' , """ i - "I ' ' I . ' ' , K. ': t -: ' : ',,..,'. f , tl ' ,,' ' ' f ' I operators that safety pay, ft money invested in safety instruction and safety equipment will reduce costs and increase operating effl ciency, just as it has been proven" in larger industries. This, too wm be a puzzler for delegates. ' Other Jobs for occupational safe-ty: safe-ty: More research into the causes of occupational accidents and diseases-education diseases-education of manufacturers to in' sistence that safety be built into every ev-ery piece of machinery before it i used; and more safety courses in engineering colleges and vocational schools. Death at the Wheel Traffic, of course, has become our principal national accident problem Last year, 39,500 lives were lost iri traffic, and an estimated 1,400 000 other citizens of the United States 5A1PETTS BIRTHBAV crane and the wall ... He was piling pil-ing sheets of steel when they fell over . . . The horse bolted when he was cleaning the mower . . . Nobody No-body saw, but he must of been oiling it when the ram come down ..." In something like 35,000 homes during 1913, there came a knock on the door, a man with his hat in hand, not knowing how to break the news. Aroused by the horrible tragedy of these accidents, and, on the other side of the picture, by their wasteful waste-ful cost to industry, a small group of men met that year and determined to do something about it. Their determination de-termination gave birth to the National Na-tional Safety council. With two men, a stenographer and a battered typewriter, type-writer, the council started out like David against a towering Goliath Accidents. Working on the fundamental assumption as-sumption that for every accident there is a cause and a cure they fought inch by inch against the hopeless hope-less pessimism of men who thought that wherever there was industry there would be accideats. That was 25 years ago. This year the largest safety assembly as-sembly in the history of the world is celebrating the silver anniversary of that founding. Ten thousand men and women from London to Los Angeles An-geles are meeting In Chicago for five days beginning October 10 at the National Safety council's silver Jubilee congress. The Accomplishment Before them will rise a 13-foot birthday cake, but behind them will stand a greater monument a record rec-ord of 2S5.0O0 lives saved In those 25 years a cityful of human beings i who would not have been alive today to-day had accidents continued at the 1913 level. Considering Industry's tremendous growth since 1913 and the probability that increased technology tech-nology would otherwise have brought an even greater accident i rate, this figure of 235.000 seems very modest indeed. And this campaign against accidents acci-dents has not been confined to Industry. In-dustry. Gradually the work has spread Into every department of human hu-man life. Once it was understood that accidents could be prevented by a common-sense safety program, people realized that what was being done In Industry could be done In the home, on the streets and highways high-ways and in other public places. This development was hastened by business men's realization that quite ns many of their men were losing time from injuries at home and going go-ing to and from work as from accidents acci-dents In the plant. Traffic deaths around 4.CKX) in 1913 doubled tho following year, tripled the next, and readied a peak 10 times ns great before preventive work could pull the curve downward. down-ward. Farm accidents mounted by leaps nnd bounds to tho point where nearly near-ly one-fourth of all occupational deaths happened on the farm. The home which wo think of ns a haven of safety became one of the worst accident locations of nil, threatening even to surpass traffic accidents In annual fatalities. And so the safety movement grew Into one of the vital forces of America, Amer-ica, entrusted with the responsibility of conserving human life. But still It has only begun. Members Mem-bers of the council arc quick to say their work has only scratched the surface. Last year alone, they point out, accidents took IOC. 000 lives In America one In each 300 families, on Hie average. The cost of these accidents averaged aver-aged $115 for each family In tho nation n grand total of $.1. 500, 000.-000! 000.-000! And the pain nnd sulTering In-volved In-volved in 100.000 deaths cannot be expressed in any mathematical fig. r '" .;.r " . .fx " 'x , . .X ' v.. 1 .-V, e " '' f i ' ' ? i ' f v 1 t i k , ' - - ! ' ! I , ; i i . , .4,1 j 1 ' t 1 i i ' i , . 'in-1' i ! : ! : I,: - I t ' f ' ' - i 'II mm mtm Money icasted in 1937 traffic arcitlvnts icould hare built 33 Umpire State buildings, or 250 ocean linert like the Mor-mandie. Mor-mandie. It ras equivalent to destruction of a city like If alt ham, Mass., or- Santa Monica, Calif. ure. While accidents continue to disable dis-able one member of every fourth family in the country in or.e year, there's st:U i big Job fxr safety. Planning the Future Thus, though In a Jubilant mood over the reductions achieved during the past year In traffic, public and occupational accidents, delegates will turn aside from their celebration celebra-tion of the council's twenty-fifth birthday to chart a future course. What will safety bring in the next quarter century? How far can it go toward cutting still further our annual an-nual sacrifice of lives to accidents? What r.cw tilings will it bring Into our work and our daily habits? Farms nnd small businesses will receive more attention in the future, the council believes. If accident prevention pre-vention bad been given the same attention at-tention In agriculture nnd in U small businesses ns it was given by the railroads, public utilities and larger manufacturing plants, the total to-tal of lives saved would have been very much greater. Last year. 4.500 f.irmers were killed In accidents. Machinery was responsible for more than a quarter of these tractors, circular saws, combines, discs, etc. Almost ns many were killed by animals. No other Industrial group except the trade nnd service industries accounted ac-counted for so many fatalities; In nil manufacturing there were only 2,000 deaths. The accident record for farmers. In relation to exposure, Is not so good ns that of workers In manufacturing industries. Farmers work nbout half again ns many man-hours during dur-ing the year but they have throe-fourths throe-fourths again ns many deaths. Although Al-though exact calculations nre out of the question. It Is estimated that the occupational death rate Is about 15 per rent higher for agriculture than for manufacturing. The geographical spread of farmers farm-ers and their comparative Isolation makes slow work of safety education educa-tion In agriculture. How to reach farmers with safety Information, with reminders on the safe use of machinery nnd the safe handling of animals, will be one of a big problem prob-lem for tho congress. Similarly with small business men. It Is harder to convince small Illustrated h,re are two common accident causes, one agricultural, one industrial. I eft: sfo.im',,,, ,' lro, f mowing machine. ,,,. horses don't run ,, ,,, oil off your les. K;rJ,,t 4 ro-M.r-sharp paper cult!,,. ,. n7i ,',-,', ,; ,,, , j u oi h e, ', ;,.., , , ,' ?;, m i ond. were injured. Council statisticians have estimated that motor vehicle accidents cost us $1,700,000,000 last year. These are the highest figures ever reached. The death toll Is four.gf.hj as great as American losses in the World war. It is equivalent to the destruction of a city like Waltham, Mass., or Santa Monica, Calif. The money wasted in 1937 trajp.c accidents would have built 35 Empire Em-pire State buildings, or 250 ocean liners like the Normandie. More and more cities and states, however, are keeping good accident records and thus learning more about how and why accidents occur. But the traffic problem still is a challenge. The council has proved that accidents can be reduced wherever wher-ever a state or community is willing to apply a well-rounded, scientiSc program, Ar.d for the first eight and one-half months of 1933 the nation na-tion as a whole has experienced a 20 per cent reduction in traSc deaths below the same months f:r the preceding year, without any decrease de-crease In travel as measured by gasoline consumption. That this reduction is but a small part cf what might have been achieved had we been able to apply what we have even thus far learned about traffic accidents, is shown by the experience cf cities E.-.d state's which have, through the applicatica of balanced programs, ejected savings sav-ings of upwards cf 50 per cent a their traffic fatalities within the short space cf a year. Thus the lag between what we know about accidents acci-dents ar.d what we are doing about them is costing us something lie 13.000 lives this year. Therefore, cr.e cf the principal prcblemj facing the delegates as they look Into the future will be getting get-ting across to the public L-.frrrr.at:a already developed about tra.f.c accidents, ac-cidents, and enlisting the public more than ever before in the war gainst accidents. But research statistical engineering engi-neering and psychological into the cause and cure cf accidents must go forward. New developments, lie the chemical tests to shew when drivers have been drinking, better cars and safer highways, scientfc methods cf eliminating right hazards, haz-ards, will be cr.e phase of the stuck. st-uck. Another will be a ccntnua-tion ccntnua-tion cf the campaign for uniform traffic laws. Including standard drivers" driv-ers" license laws, accident reporting, report-ing, road rules, signs and signals; for regular Inspection ci all motor vehicles; and for more safety training train-ing in schools, with driving instructors instruc-tors for every high school student In home accidents, safety workers face a problem similar to that involved in-volved In agriculture. The fact that most home accidents do not come to official notice unless hospita'.ired makes it difficult to collect accurate data. And like -the farmer, the housewife is isolated in her household house-hold and cannot easily be reached by broadcast mcthodj cf safety education. educa-tion. But in recent years, through women's clubs, through home mazarines, maz-arines, women's pages in newspapers newspa-pers nnd housekeeping broadcasts, an Increasing attempt has been made to familiarire housewives with the principal harards of their own homes. Looking Into the future, the delegates must plan how to intensify this campaign, and how to carry the safety Idea to contractors and architects ar-chitects so that homes of the future will be built with safety In mind. Iys It jound like a Herculean task? Terhaps It Is. but to men ni women who have been responsible for an almost continuous drop in accidents ac-cidents in the face of America's tremendous growth during the past quarter century, the accomplishments accomplish-ments of the past stand as a challenge chal-lenge for the future. P Wrstcrn NfwKpapfr I'nlon. r - p-; ""i i . i x J 1 f .. i x ! ' f 1 ! j I ! 1 ' ' ' - ' 1 ' x '' i t I |