Images of people leaping to certain death from the doomed World Trade Center, distributed to us via all forms of media, will not soon be forgotten. Indeed, similar images, from a disaster that also occurred in New York City, more than 90 years ago, and not two miles away from the site of last month's horrific events, still haunt the minds of nearly everyone familiar with that grim story.

It was a Saturday--March 25, 1911. The mostly immigrant girls, who worked for the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, were putting in some overtime, to add to their meager (even for those days) $6 per week pay envelope. At 4:45 PM, the bell rang, indicating that the shift was over, and it was literally as the girls were putting on their coats, did someone yell "Fire!"

From the street below, you could see smoke pouring out of the windows, and bolts of cloth being thrown down. Observers remarked that owners Isaac Harris and Max Blanck were trying to save their best material. Soon, though, it was apparent that the missiles flying toward the ground were not bolts of cloth at all. They were bodies, and they kept coming. Newspaper accounts spoke of "showers of bodies." So many flew out of the windows, that the movement of the fire engines was hindered with the street littered as it was.

Given the highly flammable cloth and explosive lint in the air, it took no time at all for the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors to become fully engulfed. 146 would die, due in large measure to locked doors, exit doors that opened INWARD, unbelievably crowded working conditions, and lack of useful fire escapes.

It wasn't as if people hadn't noticed that there was a problem. The building had experienced four recent fires, and had been written up as unsafe. A few months earlier, there had been a strike to protest the miserable working conditions.

The day after, Fire Chief Edward F. Croker was livid, calling the incident an outrage. He spoke bitterly of the way in which the Manufacturers' Association was devising methods to block his proposal for enforcing better methods of fire protection.

Harris and Blanck, who survived by making their way to the roof, via a route unknown to most of the employees, were charged with manslaughter and were acquitted. But in 1914, they were ordered by a judge to pay damages of $75 each to the families of 23 victims who had sued.

The Triangle Shirtwaist fire inspired countless fire and worker safety laws around the country and the world, and is known, to this day, by virtually every firefighter on the planet.

With the gift of hindsight, we can try to explain how such a tragedy could have occurred. In essence, it was a product of the times. In that era, there was an extremely rigid social order--people knew their place, and did what they were told. America was most definitely a land of opportunity, but progress was hampered by social class in a way that would be quite difficult for our modern mind to understand. And, make no mistake, the worst jobs went to immigrants, whom many regarded as sub-human. Concepts of social justice were in their infancy. A prescription for disaster, you might say.

As for the events of September 11, 2001, we can also use hindsight to explain how such tragedies could have occurred. They, too, were a product of their time.

Catalyzed by the unlikely partnership of country club Republicans looking for slave labor, colleges looking for students and thus more federal dollars, and Democratic politicians looking for votes, immigration became virtually unlimited. There were simply not the resources available, nor the will, to check on the hundreds of thousands of expired visas, phony student visas, and known felons--let alone terrorists--who had entered this country. 1911's rigid social order was replaced with a false and unctuous hyper-egalitarianism, that promoted tolerance as the ultimate virtue, and moral relativism as the byword. A prescription for disaster, you might say.

This time, though, the toll was far higher, and the problem won't be solved by merely enacting laws. Nothing less than a radical change in our moral and social fabric will suffice, and it is not at all certain that we are up to the task.

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