Awful as it was, it isn't a puny drop in the bloody bucket.
Listen—this is from the New York Independent—not a Socialist paper. This conservative journal said in its issue of March 14, 1907:
"It is the common consensus of opinion among investigators that industrial casualties in this nation number more than 500,000 yearly. Dr. Josiah Strong estimates the number at 564,000. As there are 525,600 minutes in a year, it may readily be seen that every minute (day and night) our industrial system sends to the grave-yard or to the hospital a human being, the victim of some accident inseparable from his toil. We cry out against the horrors of war, but the ravages of industrial warfare are far greater than those of armed conflict. * * * But whose interest is it that the lives of the workers shall be guarded? The employer class has no material interest in the matter. The worker is "free" legally, to refuse to work under dangerous conditions. If, economically, he must accept work under these conditions (or starve), that is another matter."
And yet, every mine, mill, factory and railroad could be so guarded with safety appliances that accidents and loss of life would be reduced to a minimum.
But what does the Plunderbund care for human life when Dollars are in sight?
What does a workingman or a workingwoman or a child of the working class amount to, anyway, in the eyes of the masters that the working class votes to maintain in power?
What do the masters care that Disease, the dirty brood of Poverty and Filth, reaps its awful harvest every
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