The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-09

tune long before that fortune reaches point where it would be seriously affected by any inheritance tax such as l propose. It is eninently right that the nation should fix the terms upon which the great fortunes are inherited. They rarely do good and they often do harm to those who inherit them in their entirety.
 Protection for Wageworkers.
 The above is the merest sketch, hardly even a sketch in outline, of the reforms for which we should work. But there is one matter with which the Congress should deal at this session. There should no longer be any paltering with the ques- tion of taking care of the Wage-workers who, under our present industrial sys- tenn. become killed, crippled, or worn out as part of the regular incidents of given business. The majority of wage workers must have their rights secured for them by state action; but the national government should legislation in thorough going and far-reaching fashion not only for all employees of the national govern ment, but for all persons engaged in in- terstate commerce. The object sought for could be achieved to a measurable de- gree, as far as those killed or crippled are concerned, by proper employers liability laws, As far as concerns those who have been worn out, l call your attention to the fact that definite steps toward pro- viding old-age pensions have been taken in many of our private industries. These may be indefinitely extended through voluntary association and contributory schemes, or through the agency of saw ings banks, as under the recent Massa- chusetts plan. To strengthen these prac- tical measures should be our immediate duty; 1t is not at present necessary to consider the larger and more general governmental schemes that most Euro pean governments have found themselves obliged to adopt
 Our present sytem, or rather no sys- tenn. works dreadful wrong, and is of benefit to only one class of people-the lawyers When a workman is injured what he needs is not an expensive and doubtful lawsuit, but the certainty of re- lief through immediate administrative ac- tion The number of accidents which re- suit in the death or crippling of wage. workers, in the union at large, is simply appalling; in q very few years it runs up a total far in excess of the aggregate of the dead and wounded in any modern war No academic theory about free dom of contract or constitutional lib- erty to>contract' should be permitted to interfere with this and similar movements. Progress in civilization has everywhere meant a limitation and regulation of contract. l call your especial attention to the bulletin of the bureau of labor which gives statement of the methods of treating the unemployed in European countries, as this is a subject which in Germany, for instance, is treated in con nectson with making provisions for worn out and crippled workmen.
 Pending a thoroughgoing investigation and action there is certain legislation which should be enacted at once. The law, passed at the last session of the Congress, granting compensation to cer- tain classes of employees of the govern ment should be extended to include all employees of the government and should be made more liberal in its terms. There is no good ground for the distinction made in the law between those engaged in hazardous occupations and those not so engaged. If a man is injured or killed in any line of work, it was hazardous in his case. Whether 1 per cent or 10 per cent of those following a given oc- cupation actually suffer injury or death ought not to have any bearing on the question of their receiving compensation. It is grim logic which says to an in- iured employe or to the dependents of one killed that he or they are entitled to no compensation because very few people other than he have been injured or killed in that occupation Perhaps one of the most striking omissions in the law is
 
 and others whose lives may be sacrificed in enforcing the laws of the United States. The terms of the act providing compensation should be made more lib- eral than in the present act year s compensation is not adequate for a wage earner's family in the event of his death by accident in the course of his employ ment. And in the event of death occur ing say, 10 or Ii months after the acci- dent the family would only receive as compensation the equivalent of one or two months earnings. In this respect the generosity of the United States to- ward it's employees compares most un- favorably with that of every country in Europe--even the poorest.
 The terms of the act are also a hard ship in prohibiting payment in cases where the accident Is in any way due to the negligence of the employe. It Is in-