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he did not believe that the remedy to meet the situation had been yet found. The summary concurred in by the other members is as follows:

First. That the present system in New York rests on a basis that is economically unwise and unfair, and that in operation it is wasteful, uncertain, and productive of antagonism between workmen and employers.

Second. That it is satisfactory to none, and tolerable only to those employers and workmen who practically disregard their legal rights and obligations and fairly share the burden of accidents in industries.

Third. That the evils of the system are most marked in hazardous employments where the trade risk is high and serious accidents frequent.

Fourth. That as a matter of fact workmen in the dangerous trades do not, and practically can not, provide for themselves adequate accident insurance, and therefore the burden of serious accidents falls on the workmen least able to bear it, and brings many of them and their families to want.

These results can, we think, be best avoided by compelling the employer to share the accident burden in intrinsically dangerous trades, since by the fixing of the price of his product the shock of the accident may be borne by the community. In those employments which have not so great an element of danger, in which, speaking generally, there is no such imperative demand for the exercise of the police power of the State for the safeguarding of its workers from destitution and its consequences, we recommend as the first step in this change of system such amendment of the present law as will do away with some of its unfairness in theory and practice and increase the workman's chance of recovery under the law. With such changes in the law we couple an elective plan of compensation which, if generally adopted, will do away with many of the evils of the present system. Its adoption will, we believe, be profitable to both employer and employee and prove to be the simplest way for the State gradually to change its system of liability without disturbance of industrial conditions.

Not the least of the motives moving us is the hope that by these means a source of antagonism between employer and employed, pregnant with danger for the State, may be eliminated.

ACTION BY EMPLOYERS AND ASSOCIATIONS OF EMPLOYERS AND OF WORKMEN.

Besides work along these lines of legislative action or suggestion, there is a hardly less important and influential force at work from the side of the employer and the employed, acting through the channels of their own organizations and in connection with individual establishments, industries, or associations. The actual attainments up to 1907 made in the direction of compensation and relief benefits are set forth in the Twenty-third Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, the subject of which is workmen's insurance and benefit funds in the

United States. Labor organizations, railroads, factories, mines, and industrial and mercantile undertakings of all sorts are represented in the movement whose object is to alleviate the hardships and distress following on disability caused by industrial accidents.

UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION.

A striking recent illustration of this form of action is found in the case of the United States Steel Corporation which put a new accident relief system into operation in May of this year for a trial year. This corporation has a pay roll of nearly a quarter of a million men, and while many of its branches of work involve what are called hazardous employments, all classes of employment are on the same basis as to the benefits of the relief system. The question of negligence is put entirely aside, the only condition for the receipt of relief being that there shall be disabling accidental injury in the course of employment. The injury must be such as to prevent the employee from following "his usual or any other occupation." The bringing of a suit at law bars all benefits under the scheme. The employee is called on for no contribution, all funds being supplied by the corporation.

The amount of benefits paid begins with 18 months' earnings as death benefits for married men living with their families, the scale increasing with the number of children under 16 years of age and with length of service, the maximum limit being $3,000. Unmarried employees are entitled to no death benefits other than funeral expenses, and the limitation as to married men, i. e., "living with their families," apparently cuts off nonresident families of alien workmen from all compensation under this scheme. Considerable discretion is allowed in the administration of both death and disability features of the scheme, and provision is made for medical and hospital treatment. Temporary disability is relieved according to a sliding scale, the amount not to exceed $1.50 per day for single men and $2 per day for married men. Permanent-disability cases are generally to be dealt with according to their nature, but stated rates are announced for the loss of a hand (12 months' wages), the loss of an arm (18) months' wages), the loss of a foot (9 months' wages), the loss of a leg (12 months' wages), and the loss of an eye (6 months' wages). This system connects itself essentially and naturally with measures of the company to safeguard its workmen from accidental injury.

INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER COMPANY.

Another corporation taking an important step in the same direction is the International Harvester Company and associated companies, the system becoming effective May 1, 1910. This scheme, affecting

approximately 30,000 employees, also ignores the customary defenses of negligence, assumed risks, and fellow-service, only intoxication and willful disregard of the use of safety appliances cutting employees off from the benefit of the scheme. No distinction is made between employees having resident and those having nonresident families. Dependents of employees dying as the result of accident and within 16 weeks of its occurrence receive 3 years' average earnings, but not less that $1,500 nor more than $4,000. For injury causing" inability to work at any gainful occupation whatsoever," the pay is one-quarter of the average earnings for the first 30 days and half pay thereafter for not more than 104 weeks from the date of the accident, compensation not to exceed $20 a week. If total disability continues after 104 weeks, the workman shall receive during such continuance an annual pension equal to 8 per cent of the death benefit which would have been payable in case of his death, but not less than $10 per month, payments to be made monthly. The loss of a hand or foot calls for the payment of one and one-half years' wages, not less than $500 nor more than $2,000; the loss of both hands or both feet, or one hand and one foot, four years' average wages, but not less than $2,000; the loss of one eye, three-fourths of a year's wages; and of both eyes the same as for both hands or feet. By the contribution of small sums-6 cents per month from employees earning $50 or less per month, 8 cents from those earning more than $50 and not more than $100, and 10 cents from those earning more than $100-the one-fourth pay for the first 30 days' disability may be increased to one-half pay for workmen making such contributions. No part of such contributions is to go for operating expenses. Lump-sum payments may be arranged for in lieu of weekly payments, and the acceptance of benefits is to operate as a release from all claims against the company.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS OF EMPLOYERS.

The National Metal Trades Association announced in the spring of this year a mutual insurance scheme in which employees in shops managed by its members may procure insurance covering sickness as well as accidents at a cost of $1 per month. No initial deposit or membership fee is required. No benefits are paid for disability lasting not more than 7 days, but if it lasts for 30 days full benefits are paid for the whole period. The rates of benefit vary from $20 to $60 per month according to the class of employment. The president of the National Cotton Manufacturers' Association advocates the establishment of a contributory accident insurance system for the cotton industry, and the National Manufacturers' Association has had a committee at work

since early in the current year investigating the question of compensation with the idea of drafting measures to be submitted to that body. The report of this committee to the fifteenth annual convention of that body in May last shows 67 per cent of the manufacturers in membership with the association to be in favor of a voluntary mutual insurance system among the membership, while 90 per cent are dissatisfied with the workings of the present employers' liability laws and liability insurance systems. The association adopted resolutions very much in agreement with the findings of the New York commission set forth above as to the inadequacy and unsatisfactory results of the present liability system, the fourth resolution being: "That we recommend to our members the inauguration with the least. possible delay of a system of voluntary, mutually contributory industrial accident indemnity insurance, this system to be elastic enough to provide for voluntary, contributory sickness, old age, and death insurance, if later deemed advisable." The association expressed its desire to cooperate with state legislators in promoting uniform, sound industrial indemnity legislation," while opposing unsound legislation. The president and directors of the association were authorized to arrange for the establishment of a suitable plan.

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NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION.

The National Civic Federation, representing employers, employees, and the public at large, at its tenth annual meeting in November, 1909, made the matter of compensation for injured wage-earners the principal subject of consideration, carrying the discussion forward to its conference on uniform state legislation in January last. At this latter meeting it was resolved to recommend "that workmen's compensation acts, fair to the employer and employee and just to the State, be uniformly substituted for the present system of employers' liability for injuries received in and arising out of the course of employment."

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR.

Organized labor, as represented by the American Federation of Labor, is also strongly committed to the idea of compensation, the proceedings of the conventions showing the growth of this sentiment to be rapid in recent years. The executive council of the federation. has prepared four bills embodying compensation provisions, and applicable to employment generally, to employees of the Federal Government, to dangerous employments in jurisdictions subject to federal control, and to persons employed in interstate and foreign commerce. These bills were indorsed by the annual convention of the federation of 1909, and activity of agitation in their behalf was encouraged.

The desirability of uniform enactments was dwelt upon in this connection-a feature of the case that was also emphasized in the discussions by the National Civic Federation noted above.

LEGAL PRINCIPLES INVOLVED.

The present system of employers' liability is admittedly a development along the lines of established legal ideas and principles, the occasion for the changes urged in the system being found in the alleged inadequacy of these ideas and principles to meet the industrial conditions of the present; i. e., the demand is fundamentally economic. It is none the less essential that the new system shall comport with the constitutional principles by which all legislation must be tested, so that after the economic desirability of a change is proved, the question of constitutionality remains for consideration. This phase of the question was presented at length at the Atlantic City conference and is discussed in the report of the New York commission, as must be the case whenever the subject is seriously considered. The relations of employer and employee and the conditions under which business and industrial undertakings can be carried on have been so extensively and particularly regulated by statute that the principal question lying open in this case is apparently that of sufficient justification to warrant the exercise by the legislatures of the police power in respect of this particular subject.

What the police power is, is not capable of exact definition, since it is subject to growth and change with changing industrial and social conditions. (4) Under it a government may preserve and promote the public welfare by establishing such rules and regulations for the conduct of persons and the management of business and property as may be conducive to the comfort, welfare, and safety of society. (*) Both property and liberty are held on such reasonable conditions as may be imposed by the governing power of the State in the exercise of this power, and with such conditions the provisions of the fourteenth amendment of the Federal Constitution, declaring that no State shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," were not designed to interfere; but every exercise of the police power is none the less subject to inquiry as to whether it is fair, reasonable, and appropriate; or whether, on the other hand, it is an unreasonable, unnecessary, and arbitrary interference with the right of individuals to their personal liberty. (c)

Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 207, 24 Sup. Ct. 124; Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, 18 Sup. Ct. 383.

Am. and Eng. Cyc. of Law, vol. 22, p. 916.

Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 25 Sup. Ct. 539.

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