590 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 955 



public-service commissions have it in their 

 power to effect an immense improvement 

 in this respect, but first a thorough inves- 

 tigation should be made, with the coopera- 

 tion of the railroads, to show what are 

 the best methods to follow, and what it 

 is practicable to accomplish with present 

 resources. 



HEATING AND VENTILATION OP CAES 



Another question of great practical im- 

 portance is the heating and ventilation of 

 ears, including Pullman sleeping-cars. 

 Any person who has sweltered in an over- 

 heated, unventilated lower berth of a 

 sleeping-car (and who has not), will allow 

 that there is great room for improvement. 

 Surely the resources of American inven- 

 tion have not been exhausted in this direc- 

 tion, nor, indeed, with respect to heating 

 and ventilation of day coaches. It is one 

 of the functions of public-service commis- 

 sions to see that the health and comfort of 

 the public are kept in view by the utility 

 companies, and if it can be made clear 

 what should be done in this respect, the 

 way to reform is open. 



RAILWAY ACCIDENTS 



Another line of work which deserves an 

 immense amount of investigation and 

 study, and cooperation between the states 

 and the federal government, is the preven- 

 tion of railway accidents. Much has been 

 done and is now being done, both by fed- 

 eral and state agencies, and by the railway 

 companies; but far greater sums of money 

 might well be expended by the states and 

 the federal government in a systematic 

 investigation of all phases of this question. 

 It is nothing short of a national disgrace 

 that American railways should kill and 

 injure so many more people than do the 

 railways of European countries, even 

 where the speeds are as high and the pas- 



senger traffic as heavy. Life is too cheap 

 with us, and the penalty for disasters too 

 slight. The causes of these accidents are 

 partly physical and partly psychological; 

 no doubt greater attention given to the 

 subject of how to prevent both kinds of 

 accidents would be abundantly rewarded." 



Other subjects deserving research could 

 be named that fall within the province of 

 the public-service commission, but enough 

 has been said to show how important are 

 their functions apart from the duty of 

 fixing rates and preventing discrimination. 

 These illustrations show how much better 

 it is for the public as well as the companies 

 that the commissions regulate by coopera- 

 ting with and assisting the companies in- 

 stead merely of dictating to them what 

 they shall do or shall not do; that the 

 scientist, the engineer and the statistician 

 are more useful to them in their work than 

 the lawyer ; that the bar of public opinion 

 is more effective than the courts in en- 

 forcing their decrees. Many of these utili- 

 ties are operated by big corporations, own- 

 ing scores of plants in many states ; in the 

 case of the telephone and telegraph, they 

 are gigantic systems operating over the 

 whole country. It is therefore important 

 that the rules and regulations in the dif- 

 ferent states shall be as nearly uniform as 

 possible. Hence, in order to reach wise and 

 just conclusions, and to secure uniformity, 



' A recent writer states that 19,377 more per- 

 sons were injured on railroads in the United States 

 in 1912 than in 1911, and commenting on the 

 slight amount of scientific information that has 

 been collected regarding the causes of accidents, 

 he adds: 



' ' The railroads of this country carry so many 

 passengers and so much freight that in one year 

 they are able to charge three billion dollars for 

 the service. And yet it is admitted that no accu- 

 rate engineering data showing the actual stresses 

 which are set up in railway structures by loco- 

 motives and cars of different weights and moving 

 at different speeds has ever been gathered." 



