The Bismarck Tribune

Tragedy on Our Doorstep

During much of the year the ever-mounting toll of deaths from accidental causes is something to read in the newspaper.
We see the comparative score between this year and last and note that we are ahead of or behind the previous record.
It isn't always easy to translate these things into terms of the blood which is shed, the hopes blasted, the economic loss or the women and children left without husband or father. In short, statistics on our mounting accident toll may mean no more than the counting of so many beans.
But every so often tragedy moves out of the neighbor's yard and into our own. Last week-end it camped on our doorstep with three persons dead in our own vicinity. The thing for us to think about is that the victims might have been ourselves had we been doing the same sort of thing.
The automobile accident which caused two deaths and several injuries merits investigation. Its cause, if it can be determined, should be given to the public. It is pointing the finger at no one to say that someone clearly was to blame for this head-on collision. The public will be served if the officials of Morton county will give us the background as well as the immediate cause of this disaster. SUCH ACCIDENTS DO NOT JUST HAPPEN. THEY ARE CAUSED.
If the blame attaches to dead men let there be no hushing of the fact. They may, in death, serve the purpose of emphasizing the ways by which men go to oblivion.
The tragedy on the river should serve as a warning to others that the Missouri is a treacherous stream. Both of the men in the overturned boat could swim but only one got out of the river alive. Its clutching fingers dragged the other down.
The moral in the motoring crash was the same as that preached by most of the 36,000 automobile deaths last year.
Excessive speed and carelessness travel faster than any driver on the highway. They catch up with him and pilot him to his doom.
That in the river mishap is that a frail craft has no place on the Missouri river. It is too dangerous.
If we, right here in Western North Dakota, would learn that automobiles and water are treacherous things and should be handled with care, the average span of life might be materially increased.