To those who regard war as a great disabling mill and contemplate with horror the casualty list of more than a quarter of a million of soldiers in the United States Army during the recent campaign, the statistics of disability and death chargeable to such peaceable agencies as the railroads may be extremely disconcerting. There is food for reflection in the announcement that the railway lines under government control in 1917, employing approximately two millions of persons, mostly men, injured more than 194,000 persons.1 Approximately 63,000 of the people injured were more or less severely crippled, and more than 10,000 were killed.
These are not figures rendered high by some fortuitous circumstance. The same incidence of railroad casualties is repeated year after year during war and peace alike. According to Census Bureau statistics,2 the deaths in 1917 from railroad accidents and injuries surpass all others from external causes