New Britain Herald Newspaper, July 25, 1914, Page 8

NEW BRITAIN DAILY HERALD, SATURDAY, JULY 25, to14. Photos by American Press Assoclation. 1.—The last word in auto water towers. 2 and 6.—Latest types auto fire en- g 3.—Scene showing devastation by recent big fire at Salem, Mass. 4.—Made homeless by Salem fire. 5~—New York city fire tugs throwing powerful streams. 7.—Striking pho- tograph taken at Salem fire. 8.—Fire engine tender getting water from river. By’ JOHN J. BREEN. ; HE recent big fire at Salem, Mass., in which property val- ued at $15,000,000 was destroy- ed, thousands made homeless and several lost their lives, again has demonstrated the helplessness of the most modern of fire apparatuses and has emphasized the old saying that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”” Experts on fire meth- ods all over this country are bending their energies in an effort to reduce to a minimum the danger of a fire start- ing. At the last convention of the Nation- al Fire Prevention society it was shown that the annual loss through fires in this country is $450,000,000 a year or $4.50 a year for every man, woman and child in the country. “If I were to be asked to name the one great need, the one vital problem of the United States today,” says Ex- Chief Croker, the former head of the New York fire department, “I should answer without hesitation fire preven- tion. We are yearly burning up mil- lions of dollars’ worth of property quite unnecessarily and foolishly. It is dis- graceful. Our progress as a nation is | being kept back by this terrible drain | on our resources by fire.” In his book on fire prevention for- mer Chief Croker says that nowhere | * else in the world has fire fighting be- come the beautiful effective science it is in America, but what is the .use of it all when in the science, if it may be called that, of not having fires, or qnly a few fires, America is far behind all other countries. In every large Amer- ican city great fires come. There is brilllant work in handling them—and no one is blamed for causing them. Germany's Law Drastic. In Germany, to take just one coun- try from Chief Croker's records, it is different. A fire occurs. At once there is the mischief to pay. Somebody has to be saddled with the responsibility. An oflicial starts out to discover who is to blame. ¥From Dr. James C. Bay- 1 in “City Life and Municipal Facts” Chief Croker quotes: “An American gentleman living with his family in Berlin was one morning awakened by the smell of smoke in his apartment and found that a fire, orig- inating in a room overhead, was eat- ing its way down throigh the ceiling of his dining room. The fire was ex- tinguished with chemical apparatus without any water damage and with- out needless destruction of. walls or furniture, and before the firemen left they had removed every trace of debris and scrubbed the floors of the rooms in which they had worked. “Meanwhile a ' careful investigation made by officers equipped with notebooks, not by asking questions of tenants or gossiping with servants, but from personal observation. Next morn- ing the gentleman who had turned in the alarm was sent for and conducted before a firc marshal or equivalent offi- cer with inquisitorial powers. That he had important engagements elsewhere counted for nothing. FPublic business never walits on private convenience in Prussia. Te was asked all sorts of questions, which he was able to answer satisfac- torily. The fire was known to have originated from a coal which had drop- ped from a laundry stove in the attic and rolled upon an unprotected wooden floor. The tenant showed that the stove was an appointment of the build- ing, provided by the landlord, and that it was neither his duty nor his priv- ilege to change it. “Then the landlord was called. He showed that he had recently purchased the building under the usual guaranty that all laws and ordinances had been complied with in construction and ap- pointments, that he had neither set nor moved the stove in question and that his attention had not been called to any condition involving a fire risk. This was not considered quite satis- factory and he was told to awalt further instructions. “Then the builder from whom the landlord purchased was called. He had to admit that he, as the builder, was Photographing Dewey a Hard Task Photos copyright, 1914, by American Press Assoclation. Mrs. Dewey being HERE are probably fewer pic- tures in circulation of Ad- miral George Dewey, the hero of Manila bay, than of any other public man. Ever since he _jumped into fame Admiral Dewey has herror of camera men and seldom has sat for any photo- graph. His aversion to photographs and photographers has been shared by Mrs. Dewey. Therefore when the admiral recently at Long Island City graciously consented to poge for his picture it was isted from a tug at Long Island City and latest posed photograph of Admiral Dewoy. an event. The admiral and Mrs. Dewey were on their way to Manhattan Beach, where the admiral was seeking the re- cuperation that his physicians said he needed. There are many stories told of the atfempts ta get Rhotographs of ‘Ad- 2 responsible for the setting of the stove as the police had found it and that he had violated the law in neglecting to provide a suitable metallic hearth of the required kind and dimensions be- tween it and the floor. “The assessment against him began with the estimated cost to the city for responding td the alarm and extin- guishing the fire, including the damage to the furniture and property of ten- ants, and was rounded by an exemplary fine of 500 marks as a reminder that laws are enacted for a purpose and carry substantial penalties for their violation. The damage to the building was not included in the assessment miral and Mrs. Dewey. Immediately after their marriage some years ago they were the particular objects of the camera squad. The wife of the admiral of the navy is noted for her brightness at repartee. At the time of her engagement to the hero of Manila bay she was much an- noyed at the publicity given to her every movement and very sensitive to criticism. An editor of one of the Washington papers called to her over the telephone one day in regard to a photograph that had been sent to him to use in a descriptive article. “It is so poor,” explained the editor, who was an old friend of Mrs. Dewey’s, “that I dislike to use it. Are you sure you know which one I refer to.” “Oh, ves,” sald Mrs. Dewey. all right.” “But I don’t think it is all right,” said the editor. “Don’t you want jus- tice done you?” “No,” replled M hope for mercy.” How Admiral Dewey gave the Ger- mans plainly to understand that they “could have war" if they wanted it is frankly set forth in Admiral von Die- derichs’ vigorous rejoinder to the Ger- man chapter in Dewey’s autobiography. The German officer's statement fills twenty-six pages of the March num- ber of the Marine Rundschau, the of- ficlal organ of the German navy de- partment. Admiral von Diederichs says he had sent his flag lieutenant, Commander von Hintze, now German minister to Mexlco, to Admiral Dewey with a memorandum of ' “grievances.” He quotes the flag lieutenant's account of his interview with Dewey, whom Hintze described as “having gradually come to speak with heat.” The American admiral sald the sit- uation must be cleared up forthwith. The blockade law was as clear as the A B C. He had been studying it dally because he could not afford to make mistakes. He knew exactly what his rights were. He had the right to board any ship, man-of-war or mer- chantman and make inquiries neces- sary to establish its identity. “Why,” continued Admiral Dewey, “I shall stop each vessel, whatever may be her colors, and if she doesn't stop I shall fire at her, and that means war, do you know, sir?” ‘When Dewey repeated the phrase, “If Germany wants war,” etc. Hintze says he took his leave of the admiral. Commander von Hintze's report added: “I had the impression that on this occaslon, which was trifling in {tseif, a mass of inflammable material con- sisting cf suspicion, rumors and new; paper articles which had been smol- dering in Dewey’s mind for a long time had simply exploded. WRTHUR J. BRINTON. — “That’s rs. Dewey. *“I only against the bullder. It was held that while the owner had not committed the violation of law which caused the fire he had been negligent in not dis- covering and correcting it, and for this reason he should pay for his own re- pairs.” Perhaps the average American would howl at a system like this; but, as Chief Croker says, it has its advan- tages. It may seem a hardship to start out to convict some one of start- ing a fire, to legislate that having fire on one’s own premises is a crime and to make the householder prove himself innocent or else to adjudge him guilty. Yet that plan has worked well. What has happened is that the fire loss in Europe s only about one-seventh of what it is in the United States. This seemingly harsh system is In vogue fairly well throughout Europe and very definitely in Germany. Fires Due to Carelessn Fire Commissioner Robert Adamson of New York clty declares that inves- tigation immediately following the great Triangle factory fire in New York city brought out careless habits both in factories and in homes were the main causes of most fires. A match or cigarette thrown among some waste clippings on the Triangle factory floor was the probable the fact that | - cause of the terrible disaster. Out of that thoughtless action has grown the law against smoking in factories. Despite all the efforts of the New York city department, however, thers is a vast amount of public disregard of simple precautions against fire, as is shown by an analysis of the reports of fires for last year. For instance, glanc- ing down the list of the principal, causes of fire, it appears that cigars, cigarettes and their careless handling caused no less than 11,079 fires last year, with an estimated loss of $306,« 335. The careless handling of matches caused a property loss in Greater New York of $131,888, the total number of. such fires being 1,176. While on the* subject of matches and their careless handling it might be mentioned that children playing with matches causef’ 588 fires last year, with a loss of $32,- 245, which must be added to the match | damage, making a total from this cause of $164,133. Experts ous combustion does take place, and fire investigators have too often wit- nessed its depredations to doubt its ex istence. Fires from this cause could be readily prevented by simply having metal receptacles, with lids, in which |such waste materials could be de- | posited after use. And yet in hundreds of machine shops and in other places highly combustible waste is left to lie about in odd corners. When fires oc- cur in these places no one seems to know the cause. . now admit that spontane- FRANCE AROUSED BY LIVES OF HER PUBLIC MEN UT of the furious agitation over the murder of Editor Gaston Calmette of the Paris Figaro by Mme. Calllaux, wife of the minister of finance, the religious movement for a moral standard in politics has gathered many recruits from both Protestants and Catholics in Paris. The Paris press is fore- shadowing approaching exposures in the private lives of some of the most powerful statesmen in France which may cause a revolution in the matri- monial standard 'demanded for high officials of the government, hitherto elected to office regardless of the most flagrant violations of private morality. The Caillaux trial again drew the at- tention of the whole world to the shocking condition of morality in the private lives of French statesmen and the dangers to the life of the republic arising from these conditions. Cail- laux, it will be recalled, discusséed in- timate state secrets in correspondence with a woman not then his wife. As this has also occurred with other statesmen equally prominent, the question is asked, “If these men di- vorce and remarry every few years, scattering confidential information broadcast in thelr feminine circle as they go from one woman to another, how many years will the republic con- tinue to exist?" One of the reformers has said, “Things are as bad today in Paris when liberty, equality and fraternity are supposed to be enthroned instead of the divine right of kings, as they ever were when Mme. du Pompadour and the Du Barry were the actual ar- biters of the nation's ywelfare.” The American republic, whose po- litical corruption is a time worn sub- ject of discussion in Europe, is now brought forward in France as a model in that it makes a man's private mo- rality a part of his public record to be subjected to the strictest scrutiny by the people. The history is given of Washington, Adams, Monroe and Lin- coln to show that they could not have been elected if their private lives had not been free from scandal. Few men in French public life are spared. Tt is declared that it would take a Diogenes to discover a French statesman who could hold high office in the United States under the stand- ards there. Clemenceauw's well known history of his divorce from his Amer- ican wife has been dragged to light to prove that this was not the slightest detriment to his becoming prime min- ister. The scandal of President Faure's death in the presence of his mistress at the Elysee while his wife and daughter, in another part of the palace, were Kept in ignorance of it for several hours is a story which is be- ing retold with all {ts unsavory, detallg of the notorious criminal case. The corruption well known to exist at the grand opera, the Theatre Fran- caise and the other institutions sub- sidized by the government is coming in for a full share of criticism. Mem- bers of the cabinet control those in- stitutions, and it is serted that no woman can hope for success at any of them except through the “protection” of some statesman. WALTON WILLIAMS, Mme. Caillaux, who murdered Editor Calmette of the Paris Figara