EDITOR'S TABLE. 



557 



Now we plunge onco more into an era 

 of disasters. But what does tbis sug- 

 gest, if not that prolonged immunity 

 from accident due, as Mr. Morgan says, 

 to the strides of science and to skillful 

 organization, had led to a less vivid re- 

 alization of the dangers attendant on 

 railway trafBo, and a consequent relax- 

 ation of vigilance. This is just what 

 would naturally happen, so why invoke 

 the " act of God " to explain what 

 natural principles are quite sufficient 

 to account for ? All things tend more 

 or less to move in cycles ; all action, 

 we might almost say, tends more or 

 less to polarize itself and so to check 

 or reverse its current. Thus prolonged 

 immunity from disaster tends to weak- 

 en that very realization of danger which 

 is the first condition of safety. Hence 

 follows, in natural sequence, a relaxa- 

 tion of the rigorous discipline to which 

 safety had been due ; and then we 

 have not long to wait for such acci- 

 dents as Mr. Morgan would fain per- 

 suade us are to be classed as " acts of 

 God." Again, Mr. Morgan tells us 

 that " however we may explain it, it 

 happens to be one of the most persist- 

 ent of truths that accidents are of more 

 frequent occurrence upon bankrupt or 

 non-dividend paying, than upon solv- 

 ent and dividend paying, railroads." 

 Truths are very apt to be persistent 

 when they rest upon some permanent 

 principle ; and in this case the explana- 

 tion of the truth mentioned by Mr. 

 Morgan is very obvious. The solvent 

 and flourishing railroads can afford to 

 pay for, and do pay for, better serv- 

 ice than the bankrupt and decaying 

 ones; and the better service gives bet- 

 ter results in point of safety — leaves 

 less opportunity for " acts of God." If 

 Mr. Morgan's " truth " was not so per- 

 sistent, or if it was persistent the other 

 way; and if it could be shown either 

 that the ratio of accident did not de- 

 pend at all upon vigor of management, 

 or that the more vigorous the manage- 

 ment the greater the number of unac- 



countable accidents, then there would 

 indeed be something to say for the " act- 

 of-God " theory. It is strange that Mr. 

 Morgan should dwell with such em- 

 pliasis upon a truth that tends so di- 

 rectly and persistently to contradict his 

 own thesis. 



But what are the railway companies 

 to do, it may be asked, if things natu- 

 rally move in cycles, and if accidents are 

 therefore liable to follow in ordinary 

 course upon a period of freedom from 

 accidents ? We answer that it is for 

 man in the maturity of his intellectual 

 development so to take account of the 

 action of natural laws as to provide 

 against their injurious results. It is a 

 law of Nature that metal expands with 

 heat and contracts with cold, but the 

 pendulums of clocks meant to keep ac- 

 curate time are not left on that account 

 to undergo all the vicissitudes of tem- 

 perature. The voltaic cell is not left to 

 polarize itself out of all usefulness, nor 

 the furnace-fire to quench itself with 

 its own ashes. In every such case, as 

 soon as the law is observed, measures 

 are devised, with more or less success, 

 to introduce such compensations or rec- 

 tifications as may be required ; and we 

 refuse to believe that compensatory 

 measures of an entirely analogous kind 

 could not be introduced in the rail- 

 way service of the country to prevent 

 safety from polarizing itself into dis- 

 aster. 



"We quite fail to see what Mr. Mor- 

 gan hopes to gain for his argument by 

 remarking, as he does more than once, 

 that the disasters he cites — those, name- 

 ly, at Republic, at White River Junc- 

 tion, at Forest Hills, at Chatsworth, 

 and at Kouts' Station — happened 

 " from the simplest natural causes," 

 and might have happened equally to 

 the rudest vehicular contrivances of 

 primeval or prehistoric man. As to 

 the natural causes, of course they are 

 simple enough : a bridge that is half 

 burned away can not be expected to 

 possess the strength of one in perfect 



