the steel mills is the tremendous rush of the work. "In the mills in England," he said, "they begin to work about 6, stop at 8:30 for fortyfive minutes for the men to get breakfast; stop again at 1 for an hour for the men to get dinner, and stop again at 5:30 for half an hour. At these periods everything stops. The machinery is quiet. This is the reason why the English mills do not produce as much steel in the same length of time as the American mills. Here the machinery never stops. Another shift is always ready and waiting to step into the place of the shift that is leaving. Not a moment is lost. If a mill stops three minutes for repairs, or for any other cause, a detailed report of this must be made by the man in charge. If this happens two or three times under one man, the matter will be taken up with a question as to his efficiency. Under this kind of a drive, how can anybody be careful?”

When we read then, of a man who went up to make repairs without stopping the crane, or of a man who tried to throw a belt without slowing down the shaft, we must not lay the resulting accident unquestioningly to his own personal, ill-considered haste. Perhaps he was but a part of a great machine going too fast for safety. Every man in the process must keep the pace of the whole. He can no more go his own gait than a spoke in a wheel can go its own gait.1

But the Southern and Eastern European is charged with more than ignorant carelessness or passive acquiescence in dangerous conditions,-the very existence of such conditions "has been due to . . . his tractability or subserviency":

When the older employees have found unsafe and insanitary working conditions prevailing in the mines and industrial establishments, and have protested, the recent immigrant employees, usually through ignorance of mining or other working methods, have manifested a willingness to accept the alleged unsatisfactory condition.2

As an illustration of such ineffective "protests," the commission cites a case where an American miner was discharged for refusing to work in a chamber which was in need of timbering, and was replaced by a foreigner.3 Similar examples could, doubtless, be multiplied at will, considering the general disregard for safety in coal mines. Such indi

2

Eastman, loc. cit., pp. 64, 85, 94.

Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, p. 501. 3 Ibid., vol. 6, p. 241.

vidual objections, however, scarcely amount to a "protest." If the English-speaking miners had shown a disposition to "protest" against dangerous working conditions, it certainly must have found some expression in their strikes. We learn that during the twenty-year period from 1881 to 1900, there occurred 2515 strikes in the coal and coke industry, involving 14,575 establishments. Of the latter number there were nine (9) in which strikes were declared against dangerous working conditions. These figures conclusively prove that the American miners made no concerted protest against dangerous working conditions even in the early '80's, when the Southern and Eastern Europeans employed in the mines were but a handful.

To what extent, if at all, individual objections of the "older employees" would have been effective in advancing the introduction of better working conditions, in the absence of Southern and Eastern European immigrant employees, can be judged by a comparison with another extra-hazardous industry, viz., steam railroads, in which the proportion of non-English-speaking employees is very small.2

1 Sixteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, pp. 352-353, 480-481.-The objects for which these strikes were ordered were as follows:

According to the census of 1900, the ratio of non-English-speaking workmen employed on the railroads was only 7.5 per cent.-Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, pp. 821–829.

There is a marked distinction in this respect between different classes of railroad employees. The trainmen are as a rule, English-speaking, the Slavs, Hungarians, and Italians being employed mainly on construction work. In Diagram XXVIII. are plotted the accident rates per 1000 employees in bituminous and anthracite coal mines and on railroads, for the twenty-year period from 1889 to 1908.* The accident rate for all railway employees is not much lower than the rate for coal miners. But the fatal accident rate among trainmen is a great deal higher and has been steadily increasing since 1894.

The number of accidents resulting in personal injuries to railroad employees is still greater. In 1891-1909 it varied from one in every thirty-three, to one in every seventeen employees. The ratio of injured trainmen varied during the same period from one in every twelve, to one in eight. It stood at the last figure in 1906-1908 and declined to one in nine during the year 1909. This means that in nine years' service every trainman has a probability of one hundred per cent to sustain personal injuries.

The ratio of native Americans to all railroad employees killed in work accidents, according to available information, was 72 per cent in the Pittsburgh district,3 and 62.8 per cent in Illinois; the proportion of those who suffered personal injuries in Illinois was 66.6 per cent.4 The trainmen who run the greatest risk of death, or personal injury, are all English-speaking and cannot be replaced by non-English-speaking immigrants. Strike statistics show that the employees in all industries combined under the head of "transportation" struck for 212 different causes

The figures on which this diagram is based are given in the Appendix, Table XXIX.

2 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1910, Table 181, p. 284. 3 Eastman, loc. cit., p. 14, Table 3; number of native Americans89, out of a total of 123 killed in accidents.

4 Fifteenth Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Illinois, pp. 161, 251.

in 3436 establishments, but the number of establishments in which strikes were declared against unsafe machinery and other dangers incident to employment was only seven.1

This comparison may be extended to all classes of employment, loss of life and limb being an incident rather than an accident of modern industry. The Sixteenth Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor enumerates 1422 different causes of strikes for the twentyyear period 1891-1900. The total number of establishments which were affected by strikes during that period was 117,509. The number among them where strikes were declared against unsafe machinery and other dangers incident to employment was only eighty-three.2

These figures testify that "acquiescence in dangerous and unsanitary working conditions" is the general attitude of organized and unorganized workers in labor disputes. This apparent indifference cannot be explained by the obstruction of the Southern and Eastern Europeans because the majority of the wage-earners as late as 1900 were of native birth.3 It may reasonably be assumed that organized labor does not feel strong enough to enforce demands which would involve large outlays by employers for safe equipment and other improvements. The individual workman realizes that it would be quixotic on his part to "protest" singly against evils which organized labor is powerless to remedy.

The only effort ever made by a labor organization to provide in a systematic manner for safe working conditions has crystallized in the Joint Board of Sanitary Control in the cloak, suit, and skirt industry of New York City. This Board was created in 1910 as the result of a strike of cloak and suit makers. "The bulk of the workers in the industry are Russian, Galician, Roumanian, and Polish Hebrews. . . . The Italians . . . constitute about fifteen

1 Sixteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Table X. pp. 510-513. 2 Ibid., Table XI, pp. 519-541.

3 Hourwich, loc. cit., p. 327, Table VIII.