FRIENDS, draw up a chair beside 

 my desk here for a few minutes. 

 You won't like what you are going 

 to see, but it could mean life or 

 death to one of your family — or 

 to you. See these scraps of paper ar- 

 ranged in several stacks on my desk? 

 They are newspaper clippings gathered 

 from papers alj over the state since 

 Jan. 1. 



Just scraps of paper now, but each 

 of those pieces of paper carries the 

 story of a death or serious injury on 

 some Illinois farm. Some of them tell 

 about your friends or neighbors, other 

 about close relatives. And the ones 

 we get next month may tell about you. 

 We won't take time to look through 

 all of them now, but let's glance 

 through just a few of those on the 

 largest stack. Those tell about tractor 

 accidents. Thumbing through those 

 papers you'll find . that most tractor 

 casualties happen to adults, but the 

 most tragic and shocking are those in- 

 volving little children. Here's one 

 dated April 21 in Milbrook. It tells 

 about a young farm mother and her 

 efforts to surprise her husband who was 

 away helping some neighbors. 



Have you seen enough ? We haven't 

 even looked at the refueling casualties 

 — such as those about gasoline spilled 

 on hot manifolds. This story shows 

 the folly of refueling inside a building. 



STAY 



Here's a story about a Henry farmer 

 who died in a fall beneath his plow. 

 And there is the same story about an 

 Adair farmer. With that same group 

 of clippings you will find the usual 

 number of farmers who were crushed 

 under tractors and who waited for 



ON 



™ LEVEL 



WHEN OPERATING YOUR TRACTOR 



Spilled gasoline ignited and destroyed 

 not only the tractor but a new car, 

 new corn picker, and the shed as well. 

 Nor have we seen any of the stories 

 about all those tractors and farm trail- 

 ers involved in accidents on the high- 

 ways of our state. But perhaps you are 

 beginning to see the picture as we see 

 it here. Those stories — stories about 

 real people — keep coming in month- 

 in and month-out until the stack is 

 about 300 clippings high as it was last 

 year. Every month, as sure as the 

 world, we know more are coming. And 

 we wonder, "Who will it be this 

 month.'" 



22 



minutes or hours for someone to hap- 

 pen along to drag them out. That's 

 what happened to this Freeport farmer. 

 A passing motorist summoned help, but 

 the farmer is still in serious condition. 

 Look at this Monticello clipping dated 

 April 29. Death by drowning came to 

 that young tractor operator when he 

 upset the tractor in a drainage ditch. 

 The same story from another paper says 

 his body was crushed. However death 

 may come, it still reflects the old, old 

 result of driving too close to ditches. 



A New Lenox farmer fractured his 

 skull, an Orland Park man broke a 

 foot, and a La Grange tractor operator 



hurt his back — all in falls from tractors. 



Dig down a little deeper in those 

 papers. You'll see several sad stories 

 about unguarded power take-offs. 

 Right there's one about a Patoka farmer 

 who lost his left leg — and his life — 

 when caught in the power take-off 

 while spraying fruit trees. 



Here's a clipping from Kankakee 

 labeled "unusual". It's about a farmer 

 hurt while cranking a tractor. Unusual.' 

 Just keep on looking for a moment 

 and you'll see several others very simi- 

 lar. One is from Palestine, another 

 from Reynolds, and there are still more. 



She could mind her youngest son, 

 age 4, while her four older children 

 were at school and get some of the 

 plowing done, too. But the surprise 

 ended in tragedy when both the mother 

 and child were found pinned under 

 the heavy tractor which had refused 

 to mount a steep slope after crossing 

 a small stream. Friends and neighbors 

 with 30 tractors and equipment finished 

 the job of plowing several days later. 

 But the mother and child are dead. 



The next clipping tells how a three- 

 year-old boy from near Chatsworth 

 suffered bruises and a broken collar 

 bone in a fall from a tractor. His 

 grandfather, the driver, also fell and 

 was injured attempting to catch the child. 



The next piece shows how a five- 

 year-old Manhattan girl was severely 

 cut when she fell from a moving trac- 

 tor under the blades of a disc. Riding 

 on the rear of the tractor proved to 

 be a dangerous thing for this little 

 tot. Fortunately, the disc hit a high 

 spot just as it passed over her and pre- 

 vented even more serious injuries. 



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