PROTECTION OF EMPLOYEES AS VOTERS.

An enactment of the federal Congress (Revised Statutes, sec. 5507) provided a penalty for threats to deprive persons of employment, or for the refusal to renew contracts of employment, when such acts were done as a means of intimidating employees to prevent them from voting. On a prosecution under this statute it was declared by the court to be outside the scope of the powers of Congress, as granted by the fifteenth amendment, to secure to all citizens the right to vote, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The act was held to be an attempt to punish individuals who might commit the prohibited acts on their personal responsibility, and not as officers of any State or of the United States. It was therefore declared void. (")

The cases cited in the foregoing pages are collected in the following table, cases introduced for purposes of illustration or for the presentation of contrasting views being indicated by the letter (a), the unmarked cases being those in which laws were declared unconstitutional:

FRANCE, AND AUSTRALIA.

The text of the British Old-Age Pensions Act of 1908 was published in the Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, No. 78, and in the following pages the text of the old-age and invalidity pensions acts of Germany, France, and Austrialia is given. The earliest of these laws, that of Germany, is based on the contributory plan, by which the insured person and his employer pay the principal part of the cost of the pension, though the State adds a liberal subsidy from the national treasury. The British and Australian laws, on the other hand, are based on the noncontributory plan, a plan by which the cost of the pensions is paid from the general revenues of the State without assessing any part of the expense directly on the insured persons. The French system, as contained in the laws of 1905 and 1910, represents a combination of these two plans. A detailed description of the oldage invalidity insurance systems of France, Germany, and Great Britain is given in the Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor.

INVALIDITY INSURANCE OF WORKMEN IN GERMANY.

The following translation of the German law of July 13, 1899, relating to the invalidity insurance of workmen appeared in the British series of diplomatic and consular reports and is designated as No. 518 of the Miscellaneous Series of 1899. It is stated that the translation was made by Mr. Gastrell, commercial attaché to the British embassy at Berlin. As this publication is now out of print and as the Bureau of Labor is in receipt of frequent inquiries in regard to the German law the text is here reproduced in full. The translation is here given as it appears in the above-named report, with the exception that the equivalents of the German currency are given in United States instead of British currency.

The main provisions of the law of 1899 may be summarized as follows:

(1) Compulsory invalidity and old-age insurance for wage earners and salaried employees in industry, commerce, agriculture, and domestic service, with voluntary insurance for certain classes of independent persons. (2) Equal contributions by employers and employees in case of compulsory insurance. (3) A State subsidy of 50 marks ($11.90) annually to each pension granted. (4) Special transitory privileges during the period immediately following the enactment of the law for those persons whose age was too high to allow of the payment of the full number of weekly contributions required in order to acquire the right to benefits. (5) Old-age pen

sions at 70 and invalidity pensions in case of loss of earning power. (6) Repayment to the insured person or his survivors of contributions paid by him, in case of death or industrial accident, and to females in case of marriage. (7) Individual accounts and computation of benefits according to number of contributions paid in. (8) System of medical treatment with special reference to prevention of invalidity. (9) Centralized system of management in territorial government institutions, with representation of insured persons and employers. (10) Investment of accumulations by government territorial institutions in specified securities or in institutions to promote the welfare of the insured persons.

INVALIDITY INSURANCE LAW OF JULY 13, 1899.

I. EXTENT AND OBJECT OF THE INSURANCE.

OBLIGATORY INSURANCE.

SECTION 1. This law stipulates that after the completion of the sixteenth year of their age the following persons are to be insured:

(1) Persons employed as laborers, journeymen, assistants (Gehülfen), apprentices, or domestic servants earning wages or salary.

(2) Managing officials (Betriebsbeamten), foremen and technical workers (Techniker) clerks and apprentices in houses of business (exclusive of assistants and apprentices employed in apothecaries' shops), other employees whose service or employment forms their principal vocation, such as teachers and tutors and all persons in so far as they draw wages or salary, if their regular annual earnings from work do not exceed 2,000 marks [$476].

(3) Those persons employed for wages or salary as crews of German seagoing vessels and of vessels for internal navigation (sec. 2 of law of July 13, 1887 (a)); ships' captains, however, only when their regular annual earnings from work in wages or salary do not exceed 2,000 marks [$476]. The carrying of a German flag, authorized by virtue of article 2, section 7, paragraph 1, of the law of March 15, 1888 (b), does not constitute the ship a German vessel within the meaning of this act.

SEC. 2. By resolution of the Federal Council the enactments of section 1 can also be extended to special callings in the whole Empire or with restrictions to certain districts; also

(1) To masters in small trades and business men who do not regluarly employ at least one workman;

(2) To persons in independent trades, irrespective of the number of workmen employed by them, who work in their own workshops but who are employed by and for the account of other persons in trade in the production and elaboration of industrial products (persons engaged in home industries); and to the latter also when they furnish the raw and other requisite materials, and for the time during which they work temporarily for their own account.

By resolution of the Federal Council it can be decided—

(1) To what extent persons in trade under whose orders and for whose account persons engaged in home industries (sentence 1 of figure 2) work are to be called upon to fulfill the obligations laid down in this law for employers in respect of such persons as are engaged in home industries, and as regards their assistants, other journeymen, and apprentices.

(2) To what extent persons in trade under whose orders middlemen (distributors of work and material, agents, "middlemasters," etc.) have industrial products produced or elaborated, are to be called upon to fulfill the obligations laid by this law on employers in respect of persons thus employed by the middlemen engaged in home industries, and as regards their assistants, journeymen, and apprentices.

SEC. 3. Commissions on profits and payments received in kind count as wages or salary. For these the average value is taken into account and is fixed by the lower administrative authorities.

An employment for which only free maintenance is given as remuneration does not count within the meaning of this law as an employment entailing obligatory insurance.

@ Since 1900 this citation has been section 3 of the accident insurance law for seamen of June 30, 1900 since 1900 this citation has been section 10, paragraph 1, of the law of September 10, 1900, on the protectorates.

SEC. 4. It will be decided by resolution of the Federal Council to what extent temporary services are not to be considered as an employment entailing obligatory insurance within the meaning of this law.

The Federal Council is authorized to prescribe that foreigners whose sojourn in the country is permitted by the authorities for a limited time, at the expiration of which they must return abroad, are not liable to obligatory insurance. In so far as such a regulation may have been issued, employers who employ such foreigners have, in accordance with the detailed regulations of the Imperial Insurance Office, to pay to the insurance institution the same amount that they would have to pay out of their own pockets for the insurance of such foreigners (sec. 27, par. 3) if the insurance obligation existed for them.

SEC. 5. Officials in the employment of the Empire, of the Confederated States, and of the "communal unions" (Communal Verbände), also teachers and tutors in public schools or institutions, are not liable to obligatory insurance so long as they are employed solely in training for their future calling or in so far as a claim to pension is guaranteed them at least the amount of the infirmity pension to which they would be entitled under the scale of the first wages class.

Officials of the insurance institution who enjoy moneys from special benefit funds are not liable to obligatory insurance so long as a claim to pension of the sum specified in paragraph 1 is guaranteed them.

Further, persons not subject to the obligatory insurance are those who give instruction for remuneration, when this occurs during their scientific preparation for their future vocation; soldiers who are employed in the service as workmen; and those to whom an infirmity pension has been awarded under decisions based on the laws of the Empire.

Finally, those persons are not liable to obligatory insurance whose powers of work have been permanently diminished in consequence of old age, illness, or other infirmity to the point that they can not any longer earn a third of their average wages. This state is assumed to exist when they are no longer in a position to earn by work corresponding to their powers and capabilities, and which can reasonably be expected of them from their training and previous calling, a third of the money which similar persons in good bodily and mental conditions are accustomed to earn by work after similar training and in the same neighborhood.

SEC. 6. If they personally request it, those persons are to be exempted from obligatory insurance who enjoy from the Empire, from a confederated State, from a communal union, from an insurance institution or a special benefit fund, pensions, half pay, or similar receipts at least to the amount of the infirmity pension under the scale of the first wages class. In a similar manner are treated teachers or tutors in public schools or institutions, as also those persons who, under decisions of the laws of the Empire on accident insurance, are entitled to the receipt of an annual pension of at least the same amount. The same applies to persons who have completed their seventieth year. The lower administrative authorities of the place of employment decide as to accepting or rejecting the request for exemption. Complaint against the award is permissible to the next superior authority, whose decision is final. With the withdrawal of the request for exemption the obligation to insure again becomes operative.

In the same way those persons are, at their own request, to be relieved of obligatory insurance who undertake work for wages in the course of a calendar year only in certain seasons and for not more than 12 weeks, or in the whole year for not more than 50 days, and also such persons as independently gain their livelihood by other means, and others who work without wages or salary, so long as contributions have not been already paid for the same for 100 weeks. The Federal Council has authority to issue further regulations on this point.

SEC. 7. If they are asked to do so, the Federal Council can decide how far the regulations of section 5, paragraphs 1-3, and of section 6, paragraph 1, shall be applied to officials in the employment of other public associations or corporations; to teachers and tutors in private schools or institutions, in so far as these persons have not been guaranteed a right to a pension amounting to at least the amount of the infirmity pension under the first wages-class scale; and to persons to whom (on the ground of previous employment by such associations or corporations, schools, or institutions) pensions, half pay, or similar payments equal in amount to the above-mentioned minimum infirmity pension have been awarded.

SPECIAL BENEFIT FUNDS.

SEC. 8. Persons liable to insurance, who are employed in undertakings carried on by the Empire, by a confederated State, or by a communal union, satisfy the legal obligation to insure by participating in a special benefit fund (already previously