1908 had an experience of not less than one year, and in some occupations one of more than five years, e. g., fire bosses 100 per cent; track layers 60.8 per cent; machine runners 59.5 per cent, etc. Among the miners, the most numerous and exposed class, 39.7 per cent had an experience of over five years.'

The preceding classification deals with length of experience, without regard to race or nationality. It might be argued that the Southern and Eastern Europeans are handicapped by ignorance of the English language even after years of employment in the mines and possibly swell the numbers of victims with long experience. This supposition is dismissed by the West Virginia statistics in which the accidents are classified by nativity and length of experience, as shown in Table 132:

TABLE 132.

NUMBER AND PER CENT OF TOTAL ACCIDENTS TO COAL MINERS, CLASSIFIED BY NATIVITY AND LENGTH OF EXPERIENCE IN WEST VIRGINIA,

This table shows that experience of the mine workers counts for very little in fatal accidents: one half of all English-speaking mine workers had had an experience of

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more than five years when they lost their lives. Of the Southern and Eastern Europeans killed, one fourth had worked more than five years in the mines and three fourths more than one year. The smaller percentage of Southern and Eastern Europeans who lost their lives after an experience of more than five years cannot be taken as proof that inexperience was the cause of death in all other cases: it must be borne in mind that most of the Southern and Eastern European miners in West Virginia are recent immigrants, who for this arithmetical reason alone must contribute a larger number to the death roll of persons with brief experience. If it is sought to explain the prevalence of more recent immigrants among the victims of accidents by their negligence, due to inexperience, it must follow as a corollary that the higher percentage of miners of long experience among the English-speaking victims proves them to be twice as careless or as ignorant as the Southern and Eastern Europeans. This assumption does not agree, however, with the fact that the percentage of recent employees among the victims of accidents is approximately the same for every language or race group. It is clear that the knowledge of the English language gives the new mine worker scarcely greater immunity from accident than that which the law of chance allows to the non-English-speaking miner. The cause of accidents in coal mines is not philological, but technological.

Withal, it is an undeniable fact that the fatal accident rate has increased in the bituminous coal mines of the United States within the last twenty years, simultaneously with the increasing numbers of Slavs and Italians employed in the mines. This coincidence is accepted as sufficient proof that the increasing employment of Southern and Eastern Europeans in coal mines has been the cause of the increase in the fatal accident rate. This explanation is contradicted, however, by the statistics of accidents in the anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania, for which there are data going as far back as 1870. In 1909, 60 per cent

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of the inside employees in the anthracite mines were of the non-English-speaking races. As shown on Diagram XXVII, the greatest relative numbers of fatal accidents were recorded back in 1870-1874, when the employees were all English-speaking. The lowest rate per one million tons mined is reported for the year 1903, and the next lowest for the year 1909.

In the face of this fact, the increase in the number of recent immigrant employees cannot stand as an explanation of the increase of the accident rate in bituminous mines. The European mining experts, mentioned before, lay stress upon the "gradual exhaustion of higher levels, of the thicker seams, and of the supplies of supporting timbers, . . . and it is for this reason (they hold) that the percentage of fatalities has so rapidly increased in the past decade."3

No doubt "contributory negligence" on the part of the Southern and Eastern European may figure as a factor in many accidents. It is claimed, e. g., by American and English-speaking miners, that the lives of the mine workers are endangered by the carelessness of the recent immigrants whose "desire. . . for large earnings. . . leads them to neglect to take the proper measures relative to timbering and other precautions, for the reason that these measures require the loss of time from their productive work and the consequent decrease in earnings."4 This claim is nothing but the outworn common-law defence of "negligence of fellow-servant," in an employer's liability action. From the modern point of view the employer's duty to furnish his employees a safe place of work is not discharged by leaving the necessary timbering to be done by volunteers for the common good without extra compensation. It is his duty to hire special men for that work and to keep the mine safe at his own expense. Be it as it may,

1 Report of the Department of Mines of Pennsylvania, 1909, Part I. pp. 25-26. 2 The figures will be found in the Appendix, Table XXVIII.

3 Haynes, loc. cit., p. 142.

4 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 6, p. 652.

it is well to remember, however, that in those days when there were no "ignorant foreigners" to whom the responsibility for mine accidents could be shifted, it was the "recklessness" of the English-speaking miners' that was to blame. As far back as 1875, a Pennsylvania mine inspector said in his report: "I am sorry to have to report that a majority of the accidents that occur in the coal mines are the result of recklessness of the workmen themselves.": This comment was as general in the early reports of the Pennsylvania state mine inspectors, according to Dr. Roberts, as in the recent reports quoted by the Immigration Commission. It is evident that an American farmer boy who for the first time goes down into a mine is as incapable of a proper appreciation of the dangers of mining as a recent Slav immigrant. But even an experienced miner faced every day of his life with the "one universal characteristic" of American mining conditions-"the criminal disregard of the considerations of safety"3—at length comes to feel that "a man may as well pass in his checks that way as any other."4 If he is to continue as a miner, he must develop a frame of mind akin to that of a soldier in war-time. While carelessness on the part of the miners may be a contributory cause in many accidents, the "carelessness" itself is, as Dr. Roberts put it-a "psychological effect of accidents."5

In the iron and steel mills there is the same disposition as in coal mining to shift the responsibility for accidents to the ignorance of the "Hunkie." Speaking of the "personal factor" in industrial accidents, Miss Eastman subordinates it to "the pressure and speed at which the plant is run, an expression of the employer's direct financial interest in the output."

One of the older and wiser mill superintendents in the Pittsburgh District told me [says she], that the one greatest cause of danger in

1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, p. 232. Roberts, loc. cit., p. 154.

3 Haynes, loc. cit., p. 148.

4 Words of a miner quoted from the report of a Pennsylvania mine inspector, Roberts, loc. cit., p. 154. 5 Ibid.