James Harrington Boyd
Published: 2015-07-13
Total Pages: 58
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Excerpt from Workmen's Compensation, or Insurance Against Loss of Wages Arising Out of Industrial Accidents The increasing interest in legislation to secure workingmen against loss arising from industrial accidents was attested in the appointment last winter of employers' liability commissions by the states of Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin, to investigate workingmen's compensation and insurance with a view to remedial legislation. These commissions recently met in Chicago to exchange views and to plan, so far as practicable, uniformity of action. The report of their proceedings, which is now passing through the press, will be the latest, and from the American viewpoint, probably the most important contribution to the subject. The Illinois commission has finished its work and its report has been published. In speaking of this the secretary of the commission declares, "For the first time in the history of Illinois, if not in the United States, we have a text-book on the subject of employers' liability. More than 5,000 individual accidents were investigated and recorded, together with comparative figures and analyses." Reports of other state commissions, embracing as some of them will the testimony of experts who have investigated conditions in this country and the experience of European nations, will constitute a most valuable addition to the literature on this subject. The Ohio commission at this time has not completed its work, and no attempt will be made to anticipate its report. It has had numerous and well attended public hearings in which employers, employes and other interested parties have spoken freely on almost every phase of compensation for accident. Indeed the discussions have taken a much wider range and have included sickness, invalidity and old age insurance. The systems and experiences of European nations, especially those of Germany and Great Britain, have been presented by experts who recently returned from abroad, where they had made extended and systematic investigation. In general it may be said that manufacturers have favored a single compensation or accident insurance, similar to that of Germany. There have, however, been a few dissenting opinions. One manufacturer declared, among other things, that "it is just as impossible to enact a compulsory compensation act that would be constitutional as it would be to pass a valid compulsory arbitration law." "Both," he insisted, "are palpably unconstitutional. A compulsory compensation act would interfere with the right of contract. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.