In 1890, before the present appalling slaughter began, we were killing, of a given number of employees, twice as many as the State-owned roads of Germany, and three times as many as Austria. The street railroads of New York City alone take one human life every day, or one in ten thousand of the population every year. People walk about the streets carelessly, but tremble when there is a thunderstorm; yet the street-cars kill ten persons in a year for every one that the lightning kills in the lifetime of a man! These things create indignation in our pulpits and editorial rooms; but any practical railroad man could tell you that to stop them would be to overthrow society. The reason they occur is that it costs less to pay the damages than it would to take proper precautions, and if the railroads were forced to take the precautions, many of them would have to shut down at once. The situation is covered so completely in the following news item, clipped from the Minneapolis _Journal_ of May 26, 1904, that I cannot do better than to quote it entire: “Because James J. Hill guaranteed eight per cent. to the stockholders of the Burlington when he assumed control of that system, many of the older employees are undergoing what they consider real hardship. Ten days ago the _Journal_ voiced the complaints of Burlington employees on other parts of the system, mentioning the fact that the runs to and from the Twin Cities had been combined in some way, to squeeze more work out of the train crews. The new schedule has now been in effect longer and complaints are correspondingly more emphatic. No dissatisfaction is openly expressed, as the Hill guillotine gets nobody more surely than the man who talks too much. “Trainmen complain that with the long runs and long hours they are forced to work to a point almost beyond human endurance. They are haunted by the fear of accidents from unpreventable neglect of duty. They hold that the running of trains in safety depends upon the vigilance and alertness of the crews and they cannot do themselves and their employers justice, when compelled to work long hours on fast runs. “Crews are now running from Minneapolis to Chicago, a distance of about 430 miles, with seventy-two stops. The men start from Minneapolis at 7:30 A. M., and arrive, on locals, in Chicago at 9:35 P. M. The men leaving Chicago on No. 50 at 10:50 P. M. arrive in Minneapolis at 1:20 P. M. the next afternoon. “Trainmen declare that in making this schedule the management has broken faith and virtually abrogates previous working agreements. Hints of a strike are made. In discussing the conditions an old Burlington employee said: