Safety from fire is as necessary as safety from any other danger. When fire protection is considered, no one would for a moment minimize the noble daring and self-sacrifice of American firemen. They too have suffered a needless loss of life and limb as a result of fire hazards which have been allowed to continue unchecked, but at last fire prevention is a dominant note in all progressive communities today and among all progressive civic workers. In the education of the public in this matter, and even in the practical constructive work in fire prevention, women have already extended their hands to help and bent their minds upon the problem.

The American Club Woman has been insistent upon the need of placing emphasis upon causes of fires and the necessity of their avoidance. In late numbers, it said:

An effort should be made to educate men and women and little children as to the ordinary methods of fire prevention. In New York City a course of education through the medium of the public schools has noticeably decreased the fire losses.

Young women who expect to go into factory and store employment should be taught to study the construction of buildings used for such purposes and they should refuse to risk their lives in fire traps or places where proper precautions are not observed.

Scores of young girls lost their lives in a factory fire at Binghamton, N. Y., recently. It was the old story of a building which was inevitably a fire trap. They claim they had fire drills in this place, but the girls were burned to death just the same.

Employers are often willing to expose their employees to fire risks to save a few dollars in rent. Ignorant girls do not know the danger and would be afraid to protest if they did for fear of losing employment.

This is one of the reforms which can be brought about by women’s clubs. They can insist that factories are placed in fireproof buildings. They, and they alone, can create the public sentiment which will prevent the awful sacrifice of life which now goes on because nobody takes the trouble to secure real fire prevention.

“Will You Be a Fire Warden and Saver of Life” is the heading of a fire prevention placard which the Texas Federation of Club Women is sending throughout the State. The card indicates measures for fire prevention in the home which every housewife can readily observe.

Texas club women are lowering insurance rates by their active fire prevention work and what is far more important—saving many lives.

The women’s clubs are being asked in New York to start a campaign of education to keep things clean, after the accumulations of rubbish have been carted away. The Women’s National Fire Prevention Association is distributing leaflets, printed in several languages, urging housewives to dispose of waste paper and other inflammable refuse daily. Strict cleanliness is one of the best of fire preventives.

In Baltimore, the fire chief testified publicly to the fact that the clean-up crusade carried on by the women had been his greatest aid in fire prevention work. It is an obvious fact that proper disposal of rubbish eliminates fuel for the flames.

One of the most vigorous anti-fire campaigns ever carried on by women was that waged by the working women of Newark, New Jersey, just after a terrible factory holocaust in that city of numberless factories. The women’s trade unions of Newark actually brought about changed conditions in the factories through their splendid organization and fighting spirit. In New York, soon after the Newark experience, about 150 girls were burned in the Triangle Factory fire and women again led the agitation against the evils that exist in shops and factories all over New York. The Women’s Trade Union League, many of whose members were burned at this time, started the campaign. A Fire Complaint Committee was formed and through it circulars were distributed broadcast among the workers requesting them to observe conditions where they worked and report certain definite evils to it. Every mail for weeks brought a vast pile of complaints, intelligent and eager, which were turned over by the Committee to those in authority, an effort being made to follow-up results.

A Citizens’ Committee was formed at the instigation of the women of the Trade Union League which maintained enthusiasm through a typical nine days of horror, and then largely subsided, although some influence is undoubtedly seen in the present work of the Fire Prevention Bureau recently organized in New York. More definite results as far as factories are concerned seem to have been obtained by the Cloak and Suit Makers’ Unions through their Board of Sanitary Control. Many of the women who were so aroused by the Triangle fire feel that better results would now be seen if they had waged all the public agitation through the workers themselves whose own interest it is to maintain fire safeguards in their places of toil.

Among the evils which lead to fire carnage, it was discovered at that time, were locked doors, doors that swing in, clippings of inflammable material and threads allowed to accumulate beside the workers, aisles too narrow for passage, barred windows, rickety fire escapes, or no fire escapes at all, narrow wooden stairs, ignorance of exits or an insufficient number, lack of fire extinguishers, proximity of shirtwaist factories and the like to chemical works or such factories as excelsior hair works, absence of fire drills and employers’ indifference to requirements for safety for the workers.

The present Fire Commissioner, Mr. Robert Adamson, is thoroughly intent upon remedying this evil condition of affairs. The following statement of his position indicates the spirit with which he entered upon the duties attached to his office:

Robert Adamson, New York’s Fire Commissioner, has appointed three women on the force. Last week he wrote to John E. O’Brien, counsel for the women on the civil service list, eligible for appointment:

“It is my intention to appoint women as inspectors in the Bureau of Fire Prevention, so far as the character of the work of that bureau will permit. I understand that Commissioner Johnson felt that the work of the bureau in its entirety could be performed by men, and that he, therefore, declined to make any appointments from the women’s eligible list; whereupon the women on this list applied to the court for an order directing the consolidation of the women’s eligible list with the men’s eligible list, which application was denied by both the Supreme Court and Appellate Division.

“You now inform me that it is the intention of the women on this list to meet in a short time and determine whether they will appeal the matter to a higher court. I have always felt that the Bureau of Fire Prevention is peculiarly one in which women could, with great advantage to the welfare of the city, be employed.

“Certain classes of the work in this bureau could, in my opinion, be performed by women even better than by men. For example, the services of women should be particularly available in the inspection of factories where women are employed; in moving-picture places; perhaps in dance halls, and in other places where this department has jurisdiction in prescribing regulations to insure safety in case of fire. Generally speaking, I have found that in any work involving the welfare and safety of the public, women are most zealous and energetic, and I have also found in my experience in the city’s service that in positions which women are called upon to fill they display a very high grade of ability for the salaries paid.

“I think the prejudice against the employment of women in these and other positions, which they can fill as well as men can fill them, is dying out. As soon as my other duties will permit me, I intend to make a careful investigation of the work of the Fire Prevention Bureau and of the existing vacancies there.

“If I find that the result of that investigation verifies my present view of the matter, I shall appoint women to those vacancies. I believe that the appointment of women in this bureau to do such work as I have indicated will greatly improve the efficiency and usefulness of this most important branch of the fire department, the work of which I find has only fairly been inaugurated.”

Mr. Adamson thereupon appointed three women. All are well-known settlement and social workers.

The Manufacturers’ Association of New York has at last felt the need of action for the protection of employees to the extent at least of engaging a fire expert to go through the establishments under its control and do something toward fire prevention. Mrs. Christopher has been engaged by this association and she has established excellent fire drills in many factories and in loft buildings, especially, and in other ways is insisting upon improvements and better protection for the workers.

Since sanitary and hygiene inspection are so closely allied to fire protection, a single inspector when trained can care for all three needs if necessary. Women who make the former inspections well can readily add the third.

In smaller towns, where lack of fire-fighting apparatus is the chief trouble, we often find women working to make good the deficiency. A little club of women in Vallejo, California, for instance, owned and managed a fire engine until the town authorities grew ashamed and decided that the city should have a fire department.^[49]

Women have helped in the work of the American Museum of Safety of New York, the motto of which is “Now Let Us Conserve Human Life.” Mrs. W. H. Tolman, wife of the Director of the Museum, inaugurated the safety campaign among the school children in New York City. This campaign was conducted under the Museum’s auspices in coÖperation with the Board of Education. Mrs. Tolman trained the lecturers in this work, and herself personally lectured to many thousands of school children on the importance of thoughtfulness and caution in protecting their own lives and those of their playmates upon the congested streets of our city. In connection with this school campaign, Safety Stories and Safety Buttons were distributed by the Museum, with a view to strengthening the instruction given in the safety talks of the lecturers.

After instruction by lecture was introduced in the schools of New Jersey, accidents were reduced 44 per cent. within a period of six months as compared with a previous period before such instruction was given.

The traffic problem is one of the most troublesome of all in a great city. Fortunately, upon it, too, women are bringing a salutary influence to bear. Frances Perkins of the Safety Committee of New York is generally admitted to be a moving spirit in the safety agitation that is beginning to produce certain visible results in that city.

Industrial safety is one of the most important aspects of safety in general, but, aside from the fire and sanitary protection of workers, and even there, it is largely a state matter rather than a municipal one, and has to do with laws relative to mechanical devices, age limits, and other requirements. Industrial safety is, therefore, a larger topic than can be justifiably introduced here. It is an element not ignored, however, by women who think of public safety, for luckily in practical life and in social work there are no page limitations.