222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ment of the President's suggestion would actually work a hard- 

 ship to the employe's themselves by throwing thousands of them 

 out of employment. (Of course, the hoary old question as to 

 whether improvements in machinery in the long run do actually 

 throw laborers out of employment might be discussed just here, 

 but I fancy that while we were discussing it a great many brake- 

 men might starve.) 



If such a matter as this could be left by all the States, by unan- 

 imous consent, to the Federal power, and if, instead of so sweep- 

 ing a law as the President suggests, a statute might be provided 

 requiring the draw-heads of all freight-cars manufactured or ad- 

 mitted into the United States to be of a uniform height and to be 

 within projecting frame corners from the rail surface, everybody 

 can see that not only humanity but perfect justice both to the 

 railway company and to the employe" would be subserved.* 



We are not at present discussing the question of automatic 

 couplers ; but this illustration shows : first, the necessity of a single 

 and uniform railway law-maker, and that the law-maker should 

 be guided only by expert knowledge and act only after adequate 

 discussion and deliberation as to the best methods for not only 

 preserving the lives of employe's, but of conserving to them the 

 opportunity of earning a living, and to the railway company the 

 opportunity to earn the money to pay them their wages. It is 

 certainly not necessary to go further into the subject already so 

 fully discussed in these pages; but when the reader of former 

 papers remembers the absurd and arbitrary laws passed by cer- 

 tain State Legislatures, such as prescribing the size and cost of 

 station-houses, the number and distance even, without the slight- 

 est regard to the business or the earnings of the company, he will 

 see at once how prohibitive of profitable railway enterprises (and 

 so how perilous to the public, and even to the national prosperity) 

 it may be, to leave all statutory control and regulation of railways 

 in its present indifferent, undecided, and altogether chaotic state. 

 It seems to me that it is the interest of the nation, of the public 

 at large, of the railway companies, of their employe's in short, 

 of all concerned that such an adjustment may be arrived at as 

 will secure, if at all, a Federal control of railways in the spirit of 



* I think such a law as this would be a better one than one directing the use of an 

 automatic coupler, for it would not throw any brakemen out of their jobs. As to the loss 

 of life spoken of by the President, the larger number of instances will, I think, be found 

 to have occurred at night, when brakemen, not knowing of course the height of the draw- 

 heads of the cars approaching them, and often while using every precaution, might be 

 caught and crushed by a different build of car with flush corners, or higher or lower tim- 

 bered corners. Such a law, prescribing uniformity in this detail, and mulcting the company 

 owning the car or cars causing the death or mutilation with adequate damages, would be, I 

 think, a salutary and an exemplary one. 



