WHEN BRAVE
MEN DIE
POLICEMAN Robert Fossum gave his life in the cause of duty. He fell like a martyr by the way, the victim of coldblooded murder. His partner Ward Canfield continues to fight desperately for life as this is written.
If a collection had been started for the family of Patrolman Fossum the night of the killing with all its brutal details fresh in the minds of the public it would not have been difficult to raise $100,000.
No one will say that Fossum did not earn it or that his family did not deserve it. Yet just how well the family of Fossum will be cared for in the future is not certain.
When a person meets death on the job under Workmen's Compensation the maximum the surviving family will get is $17,500. That in most cases is not even a bare existence. Yet the amount was raised by the last session of the Legislature and was recommended by the Governor.
Structural iron Workers swing at dizzy heights high above the throng that until they look up at the most unbelievable distance at which iron Workers and other building tmdesmen work probably grumble their wages are too high. Brave Fire Fighters sacrifice their lives often.
It is not only police officers who face death while on duty and it is not always workmen. No one knows just how death will approach.
There was, for instance, the clerk who worked for the old Wall Streeter Russell Sage, and someone incensed at Sage rushed into the office to throw a bomb at Sage. Sage grabbed the clerk and thrust him in front of him so that the clerk received the full force of the bomb when it exploded and Russell got off with hardly a scratch.
It might have been thought that Sage would have told the clerk he would see he was well taken care of for life, him and his family. Not Russell Sage.
When the clerk had to sue his employer, Sage's slick lawyer found something in the old English law squib case that permitted Sage to wiggle out of any responsibility and he paid his terribly injured and maimed clerk nothing.
There was no such thing as Workmen's Compensation in those days. Those terrible unions had not been able to overcome the opposition of the virtuous and generous employers at that time and enacted laws that made the boss pay.
What we are attempting is to make plain that gratitude too often fades quickly.
Certainly it should be seen to that Fossum's family is well cared for and also Canfield's for perhaps he may be maimed for life and unable to move about.
There should be something done immediately to see to it that the law provides not only for brave police officers and brave workers in any line but for everyone so that in addition to having the head of the family give up his life, the family must not eke out many years on a pittance.
Had the band that Fossum and Canfield intercepted, not been intercepted, no one knows what the death list might have been.
The city is grateful, very grateful just now. It doesn't mean to be forgetful. But now is the time to put the price of a human life somewhere near where it ought to be. But more important than that something be done to see that all employees are properly paid whether city, state, county, national or in private employment, and their families cared for generously when death strikes.
A world rich enough to pour into world destruction what it does should be able to do more to protect human life in every line than at the present time and to assure that the families that survive are not to be poverty stricken.
Bringing the guilty to speedy and just justice of course must be accomplished. But this does not care for the survivors although it may deter the vicious.
When brave men die their families should not suffer economically. Whether or not the collection is the only way, it should be generously supported. If folks Fossum died to protect, give their money like Fossum gave his life, the collection should be large.
(Minneapolis labor Review.)
AUGUST, 1957