From 1901 to 1911, 50,708 persons lost their lives by “walking on the railroad tracks,”—taking chances of death that were obvious. Add 54,183 more who were injured, and you have a total of death and destruction because the American people have not developed a public opinion upon this question that makes a person who recklessly takes such chances of death feel the opprobrium of his associates. Three pretty Iowa maids walked from Burlington to Chicago last autumn. Interviewed by a Chicago paper, they said: “Last Sunday we must have walked four hours on the road, though without seeing a soul. So we got back on the tracks, walking ‘goose fashion’ along the cinder path. It was n’t long before trains were going by, the people waving their handkerchiefs at us. That was great fun.” A railroad statistician posted on the death-roll among those who walk the tracks “for fun,” adds the comment: “What’s the use of signals, colored lights, or other forms of warning!”
The accident-record of the American railroads has often been made a weapon in the
