Page:Fagan (1908) Confessions of a railroad signalman.djvu/194

168 yet one topic of another nature that should prove unusually interesting to the general public.

To the writer of this book it has always seemed strange that the public interest and anxiety in regard to these distressing railroad accidents should never yet have taken the form of a very natural curiosity to find out to what extent and by whom these matters have been systematically studied and thought out. Doubtless the public has the impression that its interests are being cared for somehow by somebody. But impressions of this kind must not be mistaken for evidence. What, for instance, are the names of the employees, the managers, the politicians, or the legislators who have studied these railroad accidents at close range and given the public the benefit of their investigations? If these authorities have given little time and no thought to the subject, the public should be informed why they have avoided the discussion. As a matter of fact, the investigation has been avoided, practically by all hands, for the reason that no man can honestly apply any kind of a probe to a serious railroad accident without running the risk of a clash with the labor organizations. No such neglect, for this or other reasons, of a great public issue can be pointed to in any other department of American industry or civilization.

For instance, from time to time we read in the