For several years past the railroads have been actively engaged in a safety first campaign. The "Safety First" signs have been posted in shops and roundhouses, in stations and on time tables. As a result of this campaign the number of railway accidents in the last year for which the Interstate Commerce Commission issues a full report (1915) was only 170,661-of which 8,621 were persons killed and 162,040 were persons injured. The high water mark in American railroad accidents was 1913, with 10,964 killed and 200,308 injured.

The men who operate the railroads were engaged in a fierce struggle against the forces of nature, against human carelessness, recklessness, ignorance and greed. That struggle cost the lives of 2,152 and the more or less serious injury of 138,092. The others killed and injured were passengers or trespassers.

There were about 300,000 engineers, firemen, conductors and "other trainmen" employed on the railroads of the United States in 1915. In addition, there were about 40,000 crossing tenders, switch tenders and watchmen, and perhaps 500,000 trackmen and other laborers who were in danger from moving trains. The chief danger from train movement was run by the men actually concerned in train operation -not over 400,000 at the outside. For each 1,000 of these men, there were four employes killed and 100 injured in the operation of trains in 1915.

These figures are stated roughly because the reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission do not show clearly what accidents were accidents to train crews and what accidents were to other employes engaged in train operation. But the fact of the business is that in 1915 a man engaged in the operation of trains had one chance in about 250 to be killed and

one chance in about ten to be injured during the year.

There are other dangerous places on the railroads. In 1914, the last year for which comparative figures are available, there were 385,524 men at work in the railroad shops. Of these men, 101 were killed and 53,051 were injured. The rate of death is much less than on the trains-1 in 4000; but the accident rate is higher-13 per thousand, one injury for each eight men employed.

These figures cover only one year. Multiply them by ten-to cover ten years of service. The operating crews have one chance in twenty-five to be killed and one chance in one to be injured. The shopmen have one chance in one to be injured. The shopmen have one chance in 400 to be killed and five chances in four to be injured. How vivid Kipling made these facts in his famous lines

"They finger death at their glove's end When they piece and repiece the

living wire;

He rears against the gates they tend; They feed him hungry beside their

fires.

At break of day, ere men see clear,

They stumble into his terrible stall, And hale him forth like a haltered steer,

And goad him and turn him till evenfall."

Men who risk life and limb daily in the service of their fellows are entitled to the best that the world has to give. Their wages should be high. Their hours should be short. Their working conditions should be as safe as human ingenuity can make them, and they should be assured ample compensation in case of injury and a generous provision for their families in case of death. The men themselves should be regarded with the profound

respect that one man pays to another who goes to the battlefield, the locomotive cab, the railroad shops, or any other shambles, and there risks life and limb that his fellows may have more abundant life.

EIGHT-HOUR LAW UPHELD. Milwaukee, Wis., Nov.-The validity of the city's eight-hour day ordinance, which provides that the work day for city employees, as well as for employes of contractors doing city work, shall not exceed eight hours, was upheld by the State Supreme Court at Madison. The ordinance went to the Supreme Court on an appeal from the District and Municipal Courts, in the case against Contractor Conrad Raulf.

Mr. Raulf was doing sewer construction work for the city on the south side about a year ago, and was arrested for violation of the ordinance, it having been shown that he employed men on the job for longer than eight

Local No. 36.

F. SNYDER..

"TOM TRACY" IS DEAD. Washington.-Thomas F. Tracy, secretary of the Union Label Trades Department, A. F. of L., and vice-president of the Cigarmakers' International Union, died at his home in this city, after an illness covering several months.

The remains were interred November 8. The A. F. of L. building was closed during the day. The funeral services were attended by all the resident officials of the A. F. of L. and its departments and a large number of trade union officials from the East and Middle West.

Members of Washington Lodge No. 15, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, acted as honorary pallbearers.

Standing beside the grave, President Gompers said the last farewell to this lifelong trade unionist and his friend and intimate who had remained true to a plighted faith. "No man of my acquaintance had a more penetrating mind, was more devoted to a principle,

more unflinching in his courage than Thomas F. Tracy," said President Gompers.

Deceased was president of Boston Cigarmakers' Union, vice-president of the International Cigarmakers' Union for over fifteen years; legislative committeeman of the A. F. of L.; general organizer of the A. F. of L., and the first secretary of the Union Label Trades Department. His wife died two years ago. Four children survive.

Thomas F. Tracy was a Spartan in his adherence to the cause of trade unionism and was numbered among the early pioneers who builded the present trade union structure. While others might waver when the ship occasionally reeled under attacks from within and without, "Tom" Tracy's loyalty was never questioned. He was a trade unionist, first and last, and was uncompromising in his belief that the trade union movement was the only hope for better conditions and a fuller life for those who toil.

Norway

Washington, Nov. Manufacture of coal from waste materials of paper factories-an industry which holds forth promise of reducing the cost of paper and providing at small cost an excellent substitute for coal as a fuel product is described in a report made public by the Department of Commerce from American Consul-General Dennison, Christiana, Norway. The project is said to be practicable and an exploiting corporation already has been formed by Norwegian interests.

Department officials were keenly interested in the report and discussed whether such a project could not be undertaken sucessfully in the United States, particularly in paper producing localities, and pointed out that if this were done it might give some relief from the threatened coal famine and prove valuable to paper manufacturers.

Coal in Powder Form.

The inventor of the coal substitute is named by Consul Dennison as R. V. Strelenert, a Gothenburg engineer. The process is said to be that of producing coal in powder form from sulphite lye.

"It is stated that this process," the report says, "produces a 'coal powder' almost equal in calorific value to firstclass coal namely 6,900 calories against 7,000 in the case of the best English coal. The process has been tested and proved to the satisfaction of Norwegian interests. A company under the title of Sulphite Coal, Ltd., has been formed with a minimum capital of $428,000 to exploit it.

"It is estimated that if the coal powder is made of all the sulphite lye refuse of Norway, 30 per cent. of the import coal will be replaced.

"According to Dr. Strelenert's

method, the lye will be mixed with some foreign material after the boiling of the sulphite and then it will be transferred to a large kiln where it is boiled again under high pressure. Under this process the lye is changed and the substance, which is converted into coal, sinks to the bottom and is then taken out in the form of a thick black paste.

"The water which remains in the paste is removed in a centrifugal machine and the residue is the coal in a powdered form. The powder will then in all probability be made into brickettes and used in the same manner as coal.

"It may seem strange that coal can be produced from lye, but the following will explain the reason:

"Under the sulphite process only 45 per cent. of the weight of the timber is utilized. The remainder falls as refuse into the lye and it is this (over half of the timber) which Dr. Strelenert's process transforms into coal."

MARK TWAIN ON "CLASSES."

There are wise people who talk ever so knowingly and complacently about "the working classes," and satisfy themselves that a day's hard intellectual work is very much harder than a day's hard manual toil, and is righteously entitled to much bigger pay. Why they really think that, you know, is because they know all about the one but haven't tried the other. But I know all about both; and so far as I am concerned, there isn't money enough to hire me to swing a pickaxe thirty days, but I will do the hardest kind of intellectual work for just as near nothing as you can cipher it down-and I will be satisfied, too.Mark Twain.