“THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT.”
It is a fact which ought to disturb our national self-complacency that nearly every great disaster involving a terrible loss of human life is due primarily to two connected causes—greed and governmental corruption or inefficiency. “The trail of the serpent is over them all.” The appalling loss of lives in the Iroquois Theater at Chicago was due to the fact that the house was opened to make money before it was ready, and that official inspection failed to detect—or at least to report and remedy—gross and criminal neglects and defects which exposed the audience to the dreadful fate that overwhelmed them. In the General Slocum catastrophe it is plain that “money-saving” was responsible for imperfect fire-protection apparatus, inadequate life-saving appliances, and an incompetent crew. The fire-hose was worthless, the standpipes were useless, a large proportion of the life-preservers were rotten, the life-boats were a mockery. The ship was a death-trap in case of fire, as the fate of 700 victims irrefutably certifies. Yet the General Slocum was “officially inspected” last month, and the Federal officials have had the monumental impudence, since the disaster, to declare that the boat and equipments were “all right.” But when Coroner Berry asked Inspector Lundberg, “When did you last inspect the Slocum?” that official declined to answer, “on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me!” Supervising Inspector Uhler said in Washington:— What is the use of having the laws? They no longer act as a deterrent. We go out, discover a boat with rotten life-preservers, bad boilers, and a dozen other things, which some one is operating in defiance of the law. This is punished by a heavy fine. That is the limit of our powers. Now what happens? The violator of the law appeals to a senator or congressman and others high in political authority. The fine is reduced. I know of scores of cases where fines have been reduced from $1,000 to $20, and others from $500 to $10. The records will show cases where fines of $1,500 have been reduced to $25. Does any one suppose that the owner of a big excursion steamer cares for these fines, especially when to obey the law would mean the outlay of hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars?—Of course not. Here is the fateful coupling—Greed and Corruption. Companies and corporations try to squeeze the last dollar of possible profit out of their enterprises, regardless of law or of the public safety. Inspectors are appointed through political influence, when the sole tests should be character and capacity. As a result, inspection is perfunctory or venal. Excursion ships are floating tinder-boxes, theaters (when not rigidly supervised) are death-traps, grade crossings make grim Death chuckle, and crowded tenements invite new holocausts.—N. Y. World.