The same cause which accounted for the remarkable recession of railway casualties in 1908 was still operative in a more marked degree throughout 1909, as evidenced in the above table. Here is shown a reduction from 1907 of 68% in fatalities to passengers in train accidents and of nearly 50% in those to employes. Even in all classes of accidents the decrease is almost as striking. A drop from 647 to 335 in fatalities to passengers and from 4,353 to 2,456 in fatalities to employes, resulting from whatever cause, should be a matter for national congratulation and thanksgiving.
That the facts herein set forth should have no lesson for national authorities beyond moving them to appeal for additional control of safety appliances is nothing short of a national scandal. As for safety devices, the railways in 1907 were practically as well equipped as in 1909. The percentage operated under the protection of block signals was 27.1% in 1909 against 26.2% in 1907, a difference inappreciable as compared with the recorded difference in fatalities. The government inspectors reported the equipment in better condition in 1907 than for any previous year by fully 30%, and yet that was the worst year in the annals of railway accidents.
An English writer (H. Raynor Wilson), his vision unobscured by the propinquity of patent devices, has placed his finger on the true cause of the reduction in railway accidents in the United States in 1908 and 1909 when writing in "The Safety of British Railways" he says:
"Experience in America during the period of depression that has prevailed since the summer of 1907 shows that fewer accidents occur during such times. There are not so many goods trains, the men are less 'pushed,' they work fewer hours, and the careless and indifferent are weeded out."
But we do not have to go to England for a convincing analysis of the causes of the remarkable decrease in accidents on American railways in 1908 and 1909. In the presence of similar conditions Statistician Adams in his official report for 1894 penned the following:
"Another explanation may be suggested for this decrease in casualties to railway employes. The character of equipment used during the year covered by this report was undoubtedly of a higher grade than in previous years. A large number of old cars of abandoned type were destroyed during the year, while there was an increase in the better grades of cars equipped with train brakes and automatic couplers. This, however, is a suggestion merely, there being no statistical proof of any relation between a higher grade equipment and the decrease of accidents to employes. It is also probable, in view of the fact that liability to accident is increased by the employment of the shiftless and unskilled, that the grade of labor was raised through the discharge of so large a number of employes. This latter suggestion finds support in the fact that the ratio of casualties in the Southern States, where the grade of labor is somewhat inferior, has for a series of years been higher than in the Northern and Eastern States."
With a continuation of similar conditions as to traffic and labor throughout 1895, the Official Statistician, having not yet accepted the theory that violation of rules, carelessness and negligence are amenable to patent appliances, emphasized the concluding suggestion of his 1894 report in these terms:
"From the above comparative statement it is clear that the year ending June 30, 1895, is more satisfactory, so far as accidents are concerned, than any previous year. Reference was made in last year's report to the fact that the marked reduction in the pay roll of the railways, by which the incompetent and inefficient were dropped from the railway service, and the consignment to the scrap heap of equipment worn out or out of date, were largely responsible for the greater safety in railway travel and railway employment shown by the statistics of the year. The result of raising the character of the railway service and grade of railway equipment is yet more marked during the present year, and to this must be added the fact that the demands upon the passenger service during the present year have been somewhat decreased. It is also worthy of suggestion, although the facts yet at command are not adequate for confident assertion, that the fitting of equipment with automatic devices is beginning to show beneficial results."
From that year to this the fitting of equipment with automatic devices has proceeded with uninterrupted despatch. Where in 1895 only 27.7% of it was equipped with train brakes and 31.3% with automatic couplers, in 1907 the Commission reported 94.4% equipped with train brakes and 99% with automatic couplers. In every form of mechanical safety device the railway equipment of 1907 was incomparably better than in 1895, and yet the number of fatal accidents to employes in 1907 exceeded those in 1895 seven to three and to passengers three and four-fifths to one. In the matter of deaths in coupling accidents alone are "beneficial results" traceable to automatic safety devices. The character of the men in the service, their automatic observance of regulations, intelligence and alert devotion to duty are the best preventives of railway accidents, and the conditions prevalent after the panics of 1893 and 1907 are conducive to these conditions.
It is not likely, however, that the American people will welcome experiences, even in homeopathic doses, such as we knew in 1904, as the cure for railway accidents. But from the lessons of every depression, as read in the statistics of railway fatalities, the American people have a right to expect their representatives in federal and state legislatures to learn that the prevention of railway accidents rests on the intelligence, vigilance and experience of the man and not with the multiplication of devices. Automatic obedience to rules will prevent more accidents than all the safety devices that cumber the shelves of the Patent Office at Washington. Invention, however, is easier to the average American than plain everyday observance of rules. Besides the selling of devices to railways is a profitable business.