STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 7 
86 per cent; the Union ‘Pacific Railroad has a safety record for shop 
employees that is over five times as favorable as the average of the 
other large railroad systems of the United States; the Clark Thread 
Company has a record of nearly 10,000,000 man-hours without an 
accident ; one of the plants of the duPont Company with 65 employees 
has a record of eleven years with only one accident, and that a rela- 
tively minor one, 
These examples not only conclusively answer the query whether 
accidents are controllable, but the results are so remarkable that they 
definitely raise the question whether the new safety movement, when 
it really gathers momentum, may not quite eclipse the older movement 
and bring results that have scarcely been dreamed possible heretofore. 
Apparently there are hidden sources of strength in the safety move- 
ment that have hardly been tapped. The common outstanding feature 
of all the cases cited is the thoroughgoing interest of the executive. In 
Every one of these cases the result has been not casual and accidental; 
it has been the result of long-continued, careful effort; it has been 
obviously the carrying out of an executive policy. The executive had 
not only an interest, but a vision of safety and a growing belief in 
the possibility of realizing it, and he went to work to attain it through 
the peculiarly effective ways that are known to executives. In other 
words, these are simply further examples of the ability of an executive 
to impress his point of view upon industry and the significant feature 
of these cases is the demonstration that this power of the executive to 
influence action carries over into the accident field. 
This, then, raises the question : Is not the key to the safety movement 
of the future the chief executive himself? Up to the present time 
the safety movement has in general been, essentially, a second-rank 
movement. It has had the knowledge and approval of executives, but 
it has not entered into the consciousness of most executives as a matter 
demanding their personal interest and attention. 
The point of view underlying and motivating this present undertak- 
ing is, as a matter of fact, a belief that the time has come when safety 
in industry must become a matter of first-rate and first-hand executive 
importance. Frankly, the primary purpose of this study is to interest 
executives in the subject. It is believed that the success of the safety 
movement of the future, a movement that must stem an industrial 
tide that is running not only swiftly and dangerously, but ever more 
swiftly and more dangerously, can be had only when safety is recog- 
nized as a major executive ob jective. 
This research, then, is primarily a study of the part that safety plays 
in industry. Does it or does it not, in the very nature of things, belong 
in the same class with other executive interests? Does safety go down