On work calculated to prevent accidents in mines, not only the Tennessee Coal, Iron, & Railroad Company, but all the leading mining companies in the State join for conference.  As a result the number of accidents steadily decreases.  Nine years ago one man was killed, on an average, for every 100,000 tons of iron ore raised.  The record at the time of our visit was one man to 450,000 tons.  In the coal mines, where nine years ago one man was killed for every 75,000 tons raised, the recent record is one man for 650,000 tons.

In 1914, 126 men were killed in the coal mines of Alabama.  In 1915, though the tonnage was about the same, this number was reduced to 63, which was a record.  All this is the result of safety work.

“Aside from humane considerations,” said an official of the Tennessee Company, “this concern realizes that the man is the most valuable machine it has.”

This gentleman was one of the ablest men we met in the South.  While taking us through the company’s plant, and explaining to us the various operations, he was interesting, but the real enthusiasm of the man did not crop out until he took us to the company’s villages and showed us what was being done for the benefit of operatives and their families, and, of course, for the benefit of the company as well—­for he was a corporation official of the modern school, and he knew that by benefiting its men a corporation necessarily benefits itself.

The story of the Tennessee Company’s work among its employees, which began about five years ago, some time after the company was taken over by the United States Steel Corporation, is too great to be more than touched on here.  In the department of health thirty-six doctors, sixteen nurses, and a squad of sanitary inspectors are employed.  The department of social science covers education, welfare, and horticulture.  To me the work of these departments was a revelation.  Each camp has a first-rate hospital, each has its schools and guildhall, and everything is run as only an efficiently managed corporation can run things.

The Docena Village is less like one’s idea of a coal “camp” than of a pretty suburban development, or a military post, with officers’ houses built around a parade.  The grounds are well kept; there is a tennis court with vine-clad trellises about it, a fine playground for children, pretty brick walks, with splendid trees to shade them; and there is a brick schoolhouse which is a better building, better equipped, better lighted, and, above all, better ventilated than the schools I attended in my boyhood.

Near the school is the guildhall, which is used for religious services, meetings, and entertainments.  And best of all, perhaps, the houses are not the rows of sad, unpainted cabins one remembers having seen in western mining camps, but are pretty cottages, touched with a slight architectural variety, and with little variations of color, so that each home has individuality.