212 ANNUAL EEPOKT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



more humanitarian lines, until at present it is being taken up on a 

 scale that would not have been dreamed of in this country a few 

 years ago. Safeguards once considered entirely satisfactory are 

 being replaced by others of improved construction. New forms of 

 protection are constantly being devised. 



In some of the companies which were brought together in 1901, to 

 form the United States Steel Corporation, organized safety depart- 

 ments have existed for the last 15 years; in all of them more and 

 more attention has been given to safeguarding employees, until at 

 present each of the main constituent companies has a corps of trained 

 specialists who devote their time to studying the causes of accidents 

 and to devising means to prevent them. New impetus was given this 

 work by the interest manifested in it and the policy adopted toward 

 it by the officials of the Steel Corporation. Every year all the men 

 in charge of these matters for the several subsidiary companies have 

 been called together at the general offices in New York for discussion 

 of the problems connected with their work, the first general meeting 

 being held in May, 1906. At these meetings the officers of the corpo- 

 ration have given assurances of support to the subsidiary companies 

 in every practical undertaking* for the prevention of accidents. This 

 resulted in the formation in April, 1908, of a central committee of 

 safety. 



This committee is composed of five members representing sub- 

 sidiary companies operating the largest plants and mills, with an 

 officer of the United States Steel Corporation acting as chairman. 

 It was empowered to appoint inspectors to examine the various 

 plants and equipment, and submit reports of safety conditions, with 

 suggestions for improvement. The committee was further requested 

 to record and disseminate data on regulations, rules, devices, etc., 

 tending toward safer working conditions in the plants. 



Some idea of the breadth of the field before the new committee 

 may be gained from the fact that it includes 143 manufacturing 

 plants, in addition to mining and transportation properties, employ- 

 ing in all approximately 200,000 men. 



The committee has selected as its inspectors men already engaged 

 in safety work in the subsidiary companies. In other words the 

 matter has resolved itself largely into a system of inter-company 

 inspection, which gives the plants inspected the benefit of new view- 

 point and varied experience, and at the same time enables the in- 

 spectors themselves to see what is being done elsewhere, and to carry 

 back new ideas and devices to their own plants. The plan has worked 

 well and has been of great assistance to the several companies, who 

 hitherto had been coping with their own safety problems without 

 definite knowledge of what other members of the great corporation 

 family were doing. 



