Charles McCarthy

“ To speak of the common law personal injury action as a remedy for this problem is to jest with serious subjects, to give a stone to one who asks for bread. The terrible economic waste, the overwhelming temptation to the commission of perjury and the relatively small proportion of the sums recovered which comes to the injured parties in such actions, condemn them as wholly inadequate to meet the difficulty. ”

“ If you can promise a man who comes into your employ that he will have a clean, bright place in which to work, that he can get married and bring up children because, if he is hurt, you will provide for him; in old age that he will be cared for; that if he is sick he will receive some benefit from you and that his growing children will receive industrial education which will fit them for the work of society and not leave them drifting, masterless men, you will have no difficulty with your employees. ”

“ The fixing of standards of life and health is just as easy as the fixing of valuations for rates of the price of gas or any other utility, and it is much better for the manufacturer and the public at large that there be some scientific or expert service in the standardization. ”

“ No employer shall require, permit or suffer any employee to go or be in any employment or place of employment which is not safe, and no such employers shall fail to furnish, provide and use safety devices and safeguards, or fail to adopt and use methods and processes reasonably adequate to render such employment and place of employment safe, and no such employer shall fail or neglect to do every other thing reasonably necessary to protect the life, health, safety or welfare of such employees and frequenters ”

“ It is not strange that this philosophy was brought into the Wisconsin law for workmen's compensation, because the idea had already been adopted that the state must protect and invest in the life and happiness of the individual in order that the greatest prosperity might come from it and that security, peace and happiness are the best foundations of good government and prosperity. ”

“ Industrial insurance is the name most commonly applied to workmen's compensation acts, and conveys the meaning that there is some plan of insurance. In the first tentative bills of this committee, the plan of insurance was brought forth, but after full and mature discussion it was decided that it would be better to leave the employer free to determine for himself the best means of taking care of the liability created. ”

“ The law is considered by many the greatest piece of legislation yet put forth in Wisconsin, and one which may be a long stride toward the solution of the whole industrial accident problem in America. Many humane manufacturers willing to do much for the betterment of conditions of life and health, are irritated by legislation good in its intention but so awkward in its construction as to be practically unworkable. ”

“ A great deal of litigation as well as dissatisfaction was found in England. There the insurance companies had many hangers-on, doctors, lawyers, etc., the cost of whom had to be met in some way, while in Germany the direct relation between the manufacturer and his employee led to a mutual basis of respect. In England it was not uncommon to find that if a certain company had old men in its employ, the insurance companies would raise the rate unless the firm disposed of them. ”

“ A new invention often makes it impossible for the manufacturer to obey some inflexible and awkward law, whereas a body of scientific men who can fix standards, and require safety devices which are workable, is much more practical. ”

“ The mutual insurance portion of the workmen's compensation is that which makes it really powerful and in the end, economical and just. Every state in this country adopting a workmen's compensation law will have to provide some such arrangement before thoroughly good results can be obtained. ”

“ The result has been that by the constant appeal from court to court and the slowness of justice, the man who apparently had justice on his side, never really received it and either had to compromise or take the moiety which was thrown to him at the end of the litigation. The workmen's compensation act is a means of giving not only a certain remedy to the aggrieved party but it is another example of the state standing behind the poorer man in litigation and making smooth the path for him so that he obtains justice. ”

“ The committee felt that to lay down a plan of insurance would be to put on a limitation that might handicap employers and leave them at the mercy of a certain class of insurance companies. We recognize the great benefits to employees of what are known as sick, accident and death benefit societies now in effect in many large institutions, and we much prefer to leave this whole matter open in such a way as to encourage the formation of these sick, accident and death societies. ”

“ No matter how many rights may be given the employee under any modification of the fellow-servant or contributory negligence doctrine, the poor fellow was obliged to go into court and ask that compensation be given to him. ”

“ The term 'employment' shall mean and include any trade, occupation or process of manufacture, or any method of carrying on such trade, occupation, or process of manufacture in which any person may be engaged, except in such private domestic service or agricultural pursuits as do not involve the use of mechanical power... ”

“ Without the coöperation and intelligence of the worker himself, much will be lost in the campaign of prevention and the legislative committee on industrial education had this well in mind when they drafted the bills which to-day may be called a part of the above code. ”

“ It must not be forgotten that the apprenticeship and the industrial education acts already mentioned furnish powerful allies for the above laws. A systematic attempt will be made under these acts to teach workers how to preserve life and health. ”

“ A German manufacturer in Cologne gave the writer the following as a basic idea of the new economic philosophy existing there. If in America you want to invest $200,000 in a manufacturing establishment, you put it all in the factory. It has gradually been found in this country that this is the wrong method; the right way is to put $100,000 in the plant and $100,000 in the men who run the plant. ”

“ The state has a well organized Board of health with a vital statistics division which coöperates with the school of medicine at the university through the experts and laboratories especially established for research into disease. ”