The following on railroad legislation prepared by Mr. Coffin, does not in every particular meet the views of his colleagues. While agreeing with him in the main, they feel that it is hardly their province to go as far as he goes in asking for legislation, and for this reason it is though best that he alone should be responsible for it.

RAILROAD LEGISLATION.

While we have in preceding pages of this report taken notice of several subjects that should and probably will receive legislative attention, the peculiar state of unrest of the public mind and the demand for more and more stringent control of transportation corporations, may warrant the devotion of a few pages under the special head of "Railroad Legislation," to a further consideration of this specific subject.

At no previous time in the history of our state has our legislature come together with such a wide and varied field open for statesmanlike and wise legislation as presents itself to the incoming Twentysecond General Assembly.

The question of "what not to do" may be as important as that of what should be done. In fact in times of extreme public excitement, "what not to do," is often the true but difficult thing to decide.

With all of Iowa's greatness and her high rank among her sister states in railroad matters, she still is in the formative state.

Looking back upon her railroads, from a point twenty years in the future, her whole railroad system is crude and far from the perfection that is to be. Her road beds, her grades, her bridges, the equipments of trains and the service generally both for passenger and freight, the convenience, comfort and safety of the people both as patrons and employes of the companies, are as rude and as far below those of the near future as are the uncomely and crude ways of the pioneer farmer below that of the skilled and advance method of the scientific agriculturalist of the older states. It matters not that there may be for the time being an apparent slowness in the increase of the population and wealth of the state, owing largely to the intense desire in the mind of Americans to possess lands, that has led so many of our young men and even older citizens to seek homesteads, preemptions

and tree claims in the great territories and states west of us, the future of Iowa is assured.

The population and wealth of this state is destined to be large. In giving to Iowa such a soil as she has it was ordained in that gift that she should become great. Hence her railroads must in the future be prepared for a business so far beyond their present capacity as that now done will seen "like the day of small things." It must follow then that any legislation that will in any manner unreasonable cripple their resources so they cannot make the necessary improvements so as to be able to meet the coming demands upon them is such as it will be wise "not to do." Every wooden bridge must be replaced by stone and iron. All the temporary expedients of the present must give place to works that will be put in to stand the wear of centuries. Grades and curves must be cut down and straightened even at a costfar beyond that of first construction. Double tracks will very soon be an absolute necessity and on one of our trunk lines at least, greatly needed now.

As the country becomes more thickly settled more trains will be required, and it is very probable that it will be only a question of time when public safety will demand that grade crossings of rail. roads with each other must be abandoned and only overhead cross ings allowed, if, indeed, most if not all highway crossings shall not be required to be over or under.

The first thought, the first duty, the highest consideration of a State, or of a legislator who acts for a State, is the safety and happiness of its citizens.

The first duty of a government is primarily to protect the life of the citizens and then to prevent as far as possible all suffering, to relieve all in its power which it cannot prevent, and to throw all reasonable safeguards around property, and the extent to which law can go to protect and promote the morals of the State so far should legis. lation be invoked. If by law, temptations or incentives to immorality can be removed and the rights of the individual preserved, law should remove them.

Applying these unquestioned propositions to the situation, what are some of the facts that confront the Iowa lawmaker at the present time?

We need only to go back in the history of railroad work one year, to be most sadly convinced that there is much to be done to render railroad travel safe. While it is a matter of grateful surprise that of

the vast millions that ride on the rails so few meet with serious injury; still, in the last year, almost each month has witnessed railroad calamities that have shocked the entire nation. This only proves that the methods of railroad construction, of railroad equipment and railway management are still very far from being perfect. Startling as are the facts of these railroad horrors, in which scores of human beings have been either injured, killed, mangled or burned, and, as it would seem, so uncalled for, had a little more precaution and expenditure been used. Still, there is another chapter in the railroad history of this nation that cannot be read by any thoughtful man, and especially by a man charged with the responsibility of enacting laws for the protection of the life and safety of the citizen, without the question of his duty in relation thereto being forced upon his mind. Year after year the reports of this Commission have been burdened with the terrible facts of casualties occurring to train men.

Since the organization of this Board in 1878, up to the present time, it has been compelled to report an average of over 231 a year in this State, that have either been killed outright or crippled (most of them for life) from the continued use of the old link and coupling pin device and the hand brake on freight cars. In these nine years, 2,078 train men in this State have met with death or injury from coupling cars and falling from trains. Of these, 212 were killed outright from coupling cars and from being caught in frogs when going between the rails to couple or uncouple cars; 257 from falling from trains comes from being obliged to go on top of cars to use the brakes; Making a total of fatalities from these two causes alone of 469, and 1,609 injured and crippled.

Here is another startling fact. If we go back in the history of railroading in this nation and take all of the great and foremost railroad disasters for the last fifty years, that have so shocked the civilized world on their occurrence, and reckon up the long columns of the killed and injured in all those terrible accidents in all these long years, and then compare the number with that of train men who are killed and injured in these United States from coupling cars and by using the old hand brakes, we find that each year we kill and injure more of our young men by these two ways alone than were killed and injured in all those great accidents for fifty years put together. In addition to this fearful loss of life and limb, there has come a destruction of property in railway train wrecks directly traceable to the

insufficiency of this link and pin coupler and hand brake that in the aggregate would be well nigh beyond estimate or belief.

The question must arise in the mind of every thoughtful legislator, is all this loss of life, all this human suffering, and all this destruction of property, an inevitable accompaniment to railway transportation? To find an answer to this question he has a right to turn to the reports of the Railroad Commission for information.

For years this Board was obliged to place before the General Assembly the long array of fatalities and accidents arising from these two causes, but were unable to point out a practical remedy, and as it was unable to find one elsewhere, no action was taken. It is with great satisfaction that we can now say, this time of helplessness is past.

The last two years have witnessed great strides in the progress of perfecting safety appliances which will, if used, lessen these accidents to life and limb from these causes a very large per cent, if indeed they do not eliminate them entirely from future reports.

The application of the power brake to freight train service has been proved beyond all controversy to be not only eminently practical but an ecomical feature. There is no longer one particle of excuse for delay in this humane work of such legislation as will require railway companies to equip their freight cars with such brakes as will not necessitate the exposure of train men to the dangers and perils they have all these years so bravely met and so patiently endured. In the minds of railway managers the question of the economy and practicability of the power brake on freight cars is settled.

It now remains for legislative action to reinforce the demands of these managers upon the boards of directors and stock owners for the means to place these power brakes upon freight cars.

AUTOMATIC COUPLERS.

Along with and abreast of the brake has come the automatic coupler for these same freight cars.

No one, however sanguine he might have been one year ago, would have dared to hope there would be made in the coming year such progress towards the adoption of a "standard automatic coupler" for freight cars as has been made. To-day witnesses the grand fact that over two thirds of the railroads of this nation stand pledged to the adoption of the "Master Car-builders' self coupler of the Janney type."

Every objection to legislative action upon both of these indispens able safety appliances is now removed. The managers of the railroads themselves virtually come to the doors of our legislators and ask for such laws as will enable them to demand of railway boards of directors and stock owners appropriations to enable them to fit up their cars with these safety appliances.

NATIONAL MASTER CAR BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION.

A word of explanation in reference to the nature and work of this organization of railroad men may be in place here.

The Master Car Builders are charged with the responsibility of the construction and repairs of cars. They are to the management of a railroad what an architect is to a builder, what an engineer is to the building of a bridge or the construction of a railroad.

These master car builders are expert and skilled mechanics.

In their annual conventions all matters relative to the best methods of car building, including that of car couplings and brakes, are exhaustively discussed, and from a mutual interchange of views the most approved plans are eagerly sought after. They are sent to these annual conventions by and at the expense of the managers of railroads for this very purpose, and for the sake of securing uniform standards in the construction of cars as far as possible.

A moment's reflection of how the cars of any of our roads get scattered over many others, and needing repairs to be put upon them wherever they may be, will show the great advantage of a uniform standard for everything about a car, especially freight cars.

At their annual meeting in June last in Minneapolis, they finally, after years of discussion and after elaborate tests made by a committee chosen especially for the purpose, decided by deliberate vote upon a certain type or kind of automatic safety coupler for freight cars. By a very wise rule of the association every important or radical change or advance made has to be submitted by what is called a “letter ballot" to the railroads represented in the association for ratification, and if two-thirds of the roads so represented vote for it after having it under consideration for ninety days, then it becomes binding upon all the railroads in the nations voting. On the tenth of October last, the ninety days for voting ended, and when the canvass of the vote was made it was found to have carried by over a twothirds majority.

Here now the railroads themselves have decided in favor of safety