In New York City, according to Tenement House Commissioner Murphy, 45 persons are burned alive every year in death-trap tenements. A new tenement house law prohibits the erection of death-traps, and in the new tenements there are no cremations. But the old death-traps are permitted to stand. In ten years, 450 more persons will have been burned alive. In 10 years, 1,500,000 more Americans will have died from tuberculosis. “Of the people living in the United States to-day,” said J. Pease Norton, Assistant Professor of Political Economy at Yale, “more than 8,000,000 will die of tuberculosis.” Between the ages of 20 and 30, every third death is from consumption, and, at all ages, the mortality from the same disease is one in nine. We now censure ancient kings for having slaughtered men in war for private profit. But what ancient king ever made such a record in war as our dividend-takers make in peace? What ancient king, in his whole lifetime, ever slew 8,000,000 men? What modern war marked the end of so many men as tuberculosis kills in a year? During the four years of the Civil War, only a little more than 200,000 men were killed in battle. Tuberculosis kills 300,000 Americans every two years. Other diseases that could be prevented if dividends were out of the way bring up the total of avoidable deaths in this country to 1,200,000 every two years. What if our Government did nothing to end a war that was killing 600,000 Americans each year? What if a few contractors who were making millions out of the war controlled elections, administrations and the courts and would not let the government end the war? What difference does it make whether foreign foes and army contractors kill these millions, or whether domestic dividend-takers and their governments kill them? Dead men not only “tell no tales,” but they have no preferences. It is as bad to be dead from one cause as from another. “During the next ten years,” said Professor Norton, “more than 6,000,000 infants less than two years old will end their little spans of life, while mothers sit by and watch in utter helplessness. And yet this number could probably be decreased by as much as half. But nothing is done.” Dr. Cressey L. Wilbur, Chief Statistician for Vital Statistics for the Federal Census Bureau, says that at least 100,000 and perhaps 200,000 children less than five years old die in this country every year from preventable causes.