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AMBULANCE SERVICES ARE CAPABLE
Firefighters currently assist the paramedics on ambulances when there is a serious enough need to have more hands on board ("Ambulance arguments," May 4). The level of care does not get higher, other than the extra help. The ambulance services in town are Advanced Life Support and quite capable of handling any emergency, and the paramedic on board the ambulance is still in charge of running the call.
I find Springfield Fire Department wanting to expand into the ambulance transport side funny. Several years ago, Chief Ken Fustin attempted to expand SFD response on medical calls by adding EMS squad units that would respond to medical calls – both to help reduce wear and tear on the engines and to keep use of personnel on medical calls to a minimum – and he received pushback from the union and personnel.
Unless there has been a large shift within the department, as a retired paramedic myself, I know that many of the firefighters wanted as little as possible to do with running medical calls.
Jason Gross
Via illinoistimes.com
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NO BENEFIT TO CITY
One thing the article doesn't mention is that under the current system of Springfield Fire Department personnel riding in ambulances and upgrading the level of patient care, the ambulance companies are billing the patients for the services provided by SFD emergency medical technicians, but the city sees none of that money. Also, the city is taking on liability that would normally be carried by the private ambulance companies.
Joseph Higginson
Via illinoistimes.com
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NOT UP TO THE STATE
It's not the state's job to enforce immigration law – it's the federal government's role ("Noncitizen driver's licenses," May 4). If it makes us safer, it's a good thing.
Mary Harris
Via Facebook.com/illinoistimes
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BE SKEPTICAL
Scott Reeder says that he has uncovered special insight about May Day and Haymarket after reading Timothy Messer-Kruse's book ("The myth of May Day," May 4). He says it upturns what he learned in high school – that those hanged for the bomb that went off in Chicago's Haymarket square were in fact guilty of murder.
But Messer-Kruse's book uses specious evidence that has not been legitimated by other historians. One such source is Anarchy and Anarchists, a book produced by police propagandist Captain Michael Schaack. Chicago's own Police Superintendent Frederick Ebersold described it as "a complete fabrication." The best histories show that the police were themselves embedded in a conspiracy of capitalists against the labor movement. These capitalists worked hand-in-glove with the police. Messer-Kruse's modern forensic tests that claim to sustain the guilt of the hanged have to be greeted with skepticism.
Messer-Kruse also makes the claim that the trial was fair by the "standards of the time." The standards of the time also allowed law and policing to revoke justice for workers. The state legislature allowed capitalists to arm their own private militia and used the state militia to put down strikes, while it refused to grant the right to workers to form their own private militia to defend their rights.
But even by the standards of the time, Governor John Altgeld concluded that these men were not granted a fair trial. He pardoned the convicted men posthumously as a result. The intent of the prosecution was not to find criminals, but to find scapegoats to derail the eight-hour-day movement. The police released the most likely suspect. This fact should have at least troubled Reeder and Messer-Kruse and raised questions about the guilt of the convicted. Focus on that fact: the key suspect was released, in order to target the men who were convicted and hanged.
I'm glad Reeder is reading history, but he might want to continue this journey by reading a bit more.
Rosemary Feurer, History Department, Northern Illinois University
