When this recommendation was adopted in one Colorado mine ten years later, the Engineering and Mining Journal found the fact of sufficient interest as news to print the following letter from a correspondent:

This mine has introduced a decided novelty in the form of a separate roadway for the miners to enter and leave the workings, thus doing away with the necessity of their travelling along the haulage-ways, and providing an additional avenue of escape. in time of danger.1

The displacement of the mule by the cable car or electric motor has been the source of a new danger to the life of the miner. Many miners are killed by the running trains of coal. This is, of course, clearly the result of their own negligence: why do they travel in the haulage-way? The fact is, however, that the man-entry and track are dark from beginning to end and low, so that one would have to travel in a stooping position all the way. The track is covered with loose slate and big chunks of coal. Therefore the miners prefer the haulage entry, where there are occasional lights, a smooth path to walk, and a higher roof. Most of these risks are humanly preventable, 3 and their continuance is due to economic conditions beyond the control of the mine worker, even with a perfect command of English.

The economic cause of the high rate of fatalities in American coal mines was squarely stated by Dr. J. A. Holmes, Director of the Bureau of Mines, in an address delivered at the annual meeting of the National Civic Federation in New York, November 23, 1909:

There can be no permanent industry without reasonable profits. It is unjust and irrational that in this great and essential branch of industry reasonable profits or even the payment of operating expenses should be dependent upon methods involving unnecessary sacrifice of human life. . . . Ruinous competition exists not only between the operators in the same fields, but between the operators of one field as against those in another field or in another state where different mining laws and regulations are in force. This competition is . . . forcing

The Engineering and Mining Journal, January 14, 1911, p. 135. Eastman, loc. cit., pp. 38-39. 3 Ibid., p. 46.

even the larger operator to mine coal under conditions which he cannot approve, but from which he finds no escape. . . . Each must live (or succumb) by underbidding the other, which he can do only through following the wasteful and unsafe mining methods which prevail in this country to-day in spite of the desire of every operator, to improve them. The American mine owner is as humane as the mine owner of any other country, and he would like to follow every practice and use every appliance for safety to be found in Great Britain, or France, or Belgium, or Germany, or elsewhere, but he pays his miners higher wages and, at the same time, receives for his coal at the mine half the price received for similar coal by the operator in those countries. . . . The ruinous competitive system upon which coal mining in the United States is based at the present time should be changed and the price paid for coal at the mines should be such as will permit and secure safe and efficient mining-mining unaccompanied by either this large loss of life or waste of resources, mining which can have due regard not only to the safety, but also to the health and comfort of the men who toil underground.'

Thus in the opinion of the head of the bureau created for the purpose of safeguarding the lives of the mine workers, "unnecessary sacrifice of human life" is conditioned by competition among mine operators.

According to the inspector-general of mines of Belgium (quoted above), "similar dangerous conditions once existed in France and Belgium, now the safest coal-mining countries in the world," but they were removed by stringent legislation and by an effective enforcement of the law." In Europe wooden shafts are not permitted, the maximum amount of explosives to be used in one blast is limited by law, all machinery must be properly guarded, etc. Dr. Holmes believes that the adoption of similar regulations in the United States would prevent three fourths of the present

I

Joseph A. Holmes: "Coal Mine Accidents and their Prevention," Thirty-Fifth Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Mines of the State of Ohio, 1909, pp. 126-128.

2

Haynes, loc. cit., pp. 148, 150-151. Clarence Hall and Walter O. Snelling: "Coal Mine Accidents: their Causes and Prevention." Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey, No. 333, p. 6. Eastman, loc. cit., p. 46. Hoffman, loc. cit., pp. 476–477.

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loss of life, which implies that "the greatest number of accidents in bituminous coal mines" (contrary to the view accepted by the Immigration Commission), do not arise from "the recklessness, ignorance, and inexperience of employees."

This opinion is derived from the statistics of accidents in the United States and foreign countries. The comparative rates of fatal accidents in American and foreign coal mines are shown graphically in Diagram XXV., reproduced from

DIAGRAM XXV.

3.5

3.26

XXV. Fatal accident rates in coal mines per 1000 workmen employed in the United States and foreign countries.

the recent study of the Minnesota Bureau of Labor on the subject of industrial accidents.2 The rate of fatal accidents in the United States is thrice as high as in France and Belgium, which shows that two thirds of the fatal accidents in the American mines could be prevented. Considering,

2

Haynes, loc. cit., p. 140.

Twelfth Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor, Industries and Commerce of the State of Minnesota,, 1909-10, p. 203.

however, that the natural conditions in American mines are more favorable for the safe extraction of coal than in any other country in the world,' Dr. Holmes's estimate that three fourths of all mining accidents are due to absence of proper precautions is quite conservative.

The difference between the accident rate in the United States and those in Austria and Russia deserves special attention, a large percentage of American mine workers being Austrian and Russian immigrants. The American fatality rate is twice as high as the Austrian. Of course, the popular explanation is, that the Austrians and Russians. employed in American mines do not understand the English language, whereas in their home countries they work under the direction of foremen who speak their own languages. In so far as the failure of foreign-born mine workers to understand warnings and instructions given in the English language may affect the rate of accidents in American mines, the difference is clearly chargeable to the carelessness, not of the mine workers, but of the mine operators who fail to provide competent foremen speaking the languages of their employees. In Prussia, where a large and growing percentage of the coal miners are Poles, 2 the fatal accident rate is nevertheless 37 per cent below the average for the United States.3

United States Geological Survey, Bulletin No. 333, p. 13. The European experts above referred to "unanimously reported that the natural conditions in American mines were much better than in Europe. They found, for example, that up to the present time Americans were not operating in the very deep levels of four thousand feet and lower, not uncommon in Europe, where the task of supplying fresh air and getting rid of dangerous gases is very difficult. In America, also, only thick seams more easily ventilated are, as yet, generally worked. . . . Of late years, with the gradual exhaustion of higher levels, of the thicker seams, and of the supplies of supporting timbers, conditions have come to resemble more nearly those found in Europe, and it is for this reason that the percentage of fatalities has so rapidly increased in the past decade."-Haynes, loc. cit., pp. 141–142.

2 See Chapter VIII., p. 182. The average for 1900-1904 in Prussia was 2.06 per 1000 employees.

3 United States Geological Survey, Bulletin No. 333, p. 8.

This comparison may be pursued further. If it is true that the rate of fatalities in the United States is increased by the employment of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, it may be expected that the rate will be higher in those States where the percentage of Southern and Eastern Europeans is higher among the coal miners. The comparative numbers of lives lost per thousand employees and per one million tons of coal mined in the principal mining States during the twenty-year period 18891908 are shown on Diagram XXVI, the distance from left to right representing the percentage of persons of Slavic and Italian parentage among the miners in 1900. These States produced, in 1908, 86.6 per cent of the total output of bituminous coal in the United States.2

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We find the highest rate of fatal accidents per one million tons mined, in Oklahoma, with 14 per cent of Southern and Eastern European mine workers; next follow Tennessee and Alabama, with I per cent and 2 per cent of Southern and Eastern Europeans respectively. On the other hand, in Pennsylvania with 36 per cent, and Illinois with 22 per cent, the rate of accidents is much lower, and approximately the same as in Ohio with 9 per cent, and Indiana with 5.5 per cent. The course of the other curve is the same: West Virginia, Alabama, and Tennessee, with small percentages of Southern and Eastern European mine workers, have higher fatality rates per one thousand employees than Pennsylvania and Illinois with much larger percentages of Southern and Eastern Europeans.

For rates of fatal accidents cf. Hoffman, loc cit., p. 452; the percentages of miners of Southern and Eastern European parentage were computed from XII. Census Report on Occupations, Table 41. The figures are given in the Appendix, Table XXVII. The census classification of breadwinners by occupation, nativity, and state makes no distinction between coal miners and metalliferous miners. This comparison accordingly comprises only such States in which there are no metalliferous mines, or the number of metalliferous miners is negligible, com. pared with the number of coal miners.

* Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1910, Table 120, pp. 208-209.