Industrial Safety Quotes
Most mine safety initiatives have only been passed or implemented after a major mine disaster. This type of inertia, in most fields, is unfortunately typical of legislative calendars and agendas where only a few items are high priority at any one time.
The Panama railroad had been built by Americans over a half century ago, with appalling loss of life
Before there was a Panama Canal, there was a railroad that Americans had built earlier. Goods could be transshipped across Panama from one ocean to the other. However, the unloading and reloading of ships made the process very inefficient. A Canal would be much better. TR recognized the appalling loss of life in the construction of the railroad but we went ahead and built the canal which cost many more lives. Workers died from Malaria, other diseases, and a high rate of industrial and construction injuries.
The First Lady was very practical. Although she was a strong advocate of women working in all areas of the labor force, she also realized that there were very few women who had done so before and thus there were few role models for them. So women did not generally know how to dress to keep themselves safe. And if she thought any information was needed, she used her daily syndicated column in many of America’s newspapers to convey that information.
As hard as it is to understand today, there were few states with safety laws governing industry. There was no OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration ) or other federal regulation of industrial safety conditions.
Fracturing underground shale—fracking—releases natural gas which the US has in an energy equivalent of two Saudi Arabias. However this is done by injecting water and chemicals into the underground shale. The shale is generally below the water table but the concrete shaft that carries the fluid and the gas at high pressure through the water table. There have been serious accidents where drinking water has been polluted. The George W. Bush administration, led by VP Cheney whose company was in the fracking business had a law passed which gave the gas fracking industry the right to endanger or pollute drinking water without the inspection of meeting the standards of the Clean Water Act and other state and federal protection laws. They are also exempt from having to disclose what poisons or carcinogens are in the fracking fluid or how much they are injecting into a community’s land and water. So the best potential option for American Energy independence got caught up with disputes over proper safety and disclosure procedures and the exemptions that were granted by Congress.
At the time there was very little such legislation or regulation, and the little there was only occurred after massive lobbying efforts by organized labor. In modern times, often it takes a horrible tragedy to occur before the political will can be mobilized to cope with issues of occupational health and safety.
He made this quotation in a discussion about nuclear weapons, but the principle is valid for many areas from the Internet to pharmaceuticals. In the nuclear weapons case there have been a number of accidents – including fatal ones – over the years and on several occasions a nuclear weapon came close to detonating near populated areas. In one case, radiation damage from a crash of a nuclear weapons equipped bomber have made an area in Spain unusable for years into the future.
President Harrison had first brought the problem of injured workers having no protection or recourse to public attention {640537} Then Roosevelt’s term created legislation and the Congress passed it. The very conservative Supreme Court had declared the Employers’ Liability Act of 1906 unconstitutional, leaving no recourse of assistance for American railroad employees injured on their job through no fault of their own. Roosevelt was furious and he had the legislation redrafted to get around the Supreme Court objections. and that was passed in 1908 and was not overturned.
