PREFACE.
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These questions, however, are for railroad engineers tosettle. The responsibility of the railroad companies to theAmerican public is a point more important. The “Iron Age, ” speaking of this disaster says, “it is a disquieting acci dent .” It says also that: “We know there are plenty of cheap,badly built bridges, which the engineers are watching withanxious fears, and which, to all appearance, only stand bythe grace of God .”
The “Nation” of Feb. loth says: “By such disasters andby shipwreck are lives in these days sacrificed by the score,and yet except through the clumsy machinery of a coroner’sjury, hardly any where in America is there the slightestprovision made for inquiry into them.
“ Here are wholesale killings. In four cases out of fivesome one is responsible for them; there was a carelessnesssomewhere, or a false economy has been practised, or a de-fective discipline maintained, or some appliances of safetydispensed with, or some one has run for luck and taken hischances.”
It may be said of this case that the coroner’s jury were asthorough and faithful in their investigation as the American public could ask; and yet from the class of reporters whoconveyed so inadequately the results of that investigationfrom day to day no one was any wiser. The conclusion,however, has been reached, and the verdict correspondswith the evidence given in this book.
We have no space to give to the harsh words that have beenspoken. These have come not only from the bereaved friends,but from papers of high standing, among manufacturersand others.
The accident has been bad enough, and the decision of thecoroner’s jury sufficiently condemning. The action of theState Legislature has also made it a matter of investigation.