The Lesson of Spencer’s Death.
No event in recent years has created a more profound sensation than the tragic death of President Samuel Spencer, of the Southern railroad, who was killed in a rear-end collision on his own road on the morning of Thanksgiving day. Mr. Spencer was a native Georgian, and worked his way through all the grades of his calling to the presidency he held at the time of his death. Many personal tributes have been paid to Mr. Spencer, but the fact that he was a victim to the inefficiency of his own railroad system has been commented upon with decided emphasis. Readers of The Jeffersonian Magazine will recall the heated controversy last summer between Mr. Watson and the editor of The Macon Telegraph. The latter criticised Mr. Watson for making the point that Mr. Spencer, as a railroad manager, squeezed too much money out of the South into the pockets of Wall street millionaires, allowing his road to become dangerous, allowing employes to be overworked, allowing bridges to become decayed, refusing to double-track where double tracking was needed and refusing to employ a sufficient number of men to do the amount of work necessary in the proper operation of the property. The text from which Mr. Watson preached was the official commendation of Mr. Spencer by the voting trustees of the Southern Railway Holding Company. They praised him because he had, during the last thirteen years, doubled their property, trebled the gross earnings, and increased the net earnings, over and above all operating expenses, more than 525 per cent. He took this report and proved that instead of being something for Mr. Spencer to be proud of, it was something to make him ashamed, since it proved conclusively that the road was being run simply from the standpoint of those who wanted dividends and who did not care how unsatisfactory was the service, nor how many lives were lost because of the failure to adopt safety appliances, double tracks, and by failure to abolish the deadly grade crossings. Mr. Watson feels that the fate which has overtaken Mr. Spencer is the most appalling proof that could be furnished that he was right in his contentions.
“HE WAS DEAF TO ALL WARNINGS, AND AT LENGTH HIS OWN TURN CAME.”
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT
The hand of the law will get old John D. himself yet.
—Minneapolis Journal.
The press of this country and England view the matter in the same light. The Brooklyn Eagle, in discussing the matter, says, “We can only deplore this very able man’s loss. We can only hope that his sacrifice may result in no further disregard of the precautions that would have averted it, had those precautions been observed. Until that time,” continues the Eagle, “we may expect preventable ‘accidents’ which wear every quality of murder except its intent.” The Pall Mall Gazette, of London, founded by W. T. Stead, expresses the hope that Mr. Spencer’s death “will arouse those responsible for the management of American railroads to a feeling that it is desirable to make them safer.” The statistics of accidental deaths in America, says The Gazette, “are appalling to the English mind, but seem to have little effect in America. But the inclusion of directors among the victims is almost proverbial as the surest route to reform.”
In spite of these solemn warnings another fatal rear-end collision occurred on the Southern within ten days, a short distance from the scene of the former accident.
Mr. Spencer has been succeeded, as President of the Southern, by Mr. W. W. Finley, formerly second vice-president of the road.