THE Red Cross Societies in all countries, though primarily 

 organized to take charge of volunteer aid to the sick 

 and wounded in time of war, have broadened the scope 

 of their work to include the mitigating of suffering after great 

 disasters. To fulfill their duties sucessfully and efficiently 

 under both of these conditions necessitates the maintenance 

 of a permanent, if skeleton, organization with a trained, 

 skilled and experienced personnel. This means not only an 

 expenditure of considerable funds, but also the creation of 

 departments for special work. Organized and maintained, 

 these departments have proved not only of untold value dur- 

 ing war or disaster relief, but have become capable of ren- 

 dering a constant, patriotic and humane service to the country 

 in its every-day life. 



The vital statistics of our country are as yet far from perfect, 

 and no data concerning accidents in the lumber industries 

 could be obtained from the Census Bureau. For this reason 

 we are forced to base our statistics on those obtained from 

 the State of Washington, where 47, 400* men are employed in 

 this industry. In twenty-three months' time we find 251 fatal 

 accidents occurred, 990 persons permanently partially dis- 

 abled, and 8,420 suffered from temporary total disability. To 

 bring this down to monthly averages gives us more than ten 

 killed, forty-three permanently partially disabled, and three 

 hundred and sixty-six temporarily disabled in one month. 



I note in his address last year, Major E. T. Griggs said that 

 802,290 are employed in the lumber industry, one six- 

 teenth of that number being employed in the State of 

 Washington. We have no reason that I know of to assume 

 that lumbering is a more hazardous occupation in that 

 State than in any other. Therefor, I think we are jus- 

 tified in multiplying the above figures by sixteen for one 

 month, then multiplying this by twelve to obtain a rough esti- 

 mate for accident statistics in the entire lumber industry. 

 This will give us 1,920 killed, 8,256 permanently partially dis- 



