The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-01-06
THE FARMER: JANUARY 6. 1909

l thority. The lack of it has led to a
 vAriance of standards that should not
 obtain. A small. compact community
 such as Connecticut is. ought to have
 a 4chool system that should be a model
 of Tits kind. Indeed, it is asserted by ] ed Jcators who have given the subject
 mach study that there is not a com
 mtnwealth with less legal provision for supervision and less conformity to any
 fixed standard than Connecticut
 sou can do the State no greater ser l vice than by devoting your intelligent
 efforts to a betternent of our public schools, and I ask that you give earn
 est attention to the report of the spec
 ial commission on this subject.
 1 CARE OF THE BLIND.
 One of the educational institutions of tho State which commend to, your favorable and sympathetic considera- tion is the Connecticut School for the
 Blind. It long since outgrew it's in- 1 adequate school buildings where at one time as many as eight children were | obliged to, sleep crowded together in ] one room. and its increasing numbers
 inperatively demand larger and better i facilities for the efficient accomplish ment of it's benevolent designs. Under these circumstances I am disposed to recommend such an appropriation as, supplemented by gifts already made to the school, will enable it to fairly meet and discharge it's education and indus
 trial undertakings.
 EMPLOYERS LIABILITY. l There has been for several years an urgent, and ever more pressing de- mand, from the workingmen of this | and other state, for substantial re- form of the laws relating to the lia- bilNy of an employer for injuries, re- ; ceived by his employees in the course of their employment. When such de- | mand is supported, as it is in this in- stance, by the agreement of economists, professional teachers of law. and the jucges of the courts which apply the law, that the present state of the law works grave injustice to a class least i, able to bear it, it ought to receive the most careful and earnest attention of the law-making body.
 MT. Labatt, the most recent Ameri- can writer on the law of the Employ ''This subject, may, without any ex- agGeration, be said to enjoy the un- enviable distinction of having been the occasion of a larger number of con-
 1icting doctrines and inconsistent de- cisions than any other branch of the 1aw." I
 The true doctrine of this subject un- are the inevitable incident of manu- featuring and railroad operations; they are a part of the cost of the business: the operation of a great factory every year wears out and breaks a certain number of machines; the repair or re- placement of such machines is a part of the operating cost, which the man. ager must figure into the cost of the product. But the business also in- variably, year by year, mutilates and kills a certain number of men: why should not that cost also be borne by %I,1 cost of the product? The injured work ingman must of necessity. bear the pain. disfgurement and other personal damage of the injury; it's money cost should not also be cast upon him.
 But as practical men we may recog- nize that a complete doing of justice is not now practicable. The great objec-f ton is that manufacturers of a parti- cular state would be handicapped in competition if they were exposed to burdens that their rivals would render it impossible for them to charge the additional cost of labor accidents into the price of manufactured article.
 There is. however. one reform in this field of law that in my judgment is the least measure of justice that ought to. be considered, and that ought to be enacted into law without delay; that is }theabolition of the so-called fellow servant rule" By this rule, an enl--
 
 an injury caused by the negligence of another employe. The law makes a man liable for damage done bv~ the negligent act of a servant in the course of his employment, except in the single case when the. injured man is also an employe of, the same mas- ter. This doctrine was first laid down about seventy years ago.. when fac- tories were small, and when all the servants of a master knew each other and worked in close contact. It was argued that this rule would lead the men to watch, each others conduct and so tend to prevent accidents. This argument. however just it may have been then. is grotesquely' absurd as applied to, the conditions of twentieth century manufacturing or railroading When the conductor of railr oad train, who has received from the telegrapher written order to run his train to a certain station. which order results in a collision and an injury to him, is told that he cannot recover compen- sation for his injury because the tele- grapher was a fellow-servant with him Ga decision which has been repeatedly made in the American Courts,) he is likely to have besides the pain of his injury a ranking sense of injustice.
 The subject is particularly pressed upon the attention of the Connecticut Legislature by the protests which our own courts have made against the fel- low-servant rule. while they have felt obliged to apply it as the existing law.
 I earnestly recommend the passage of an act abolishing the fellow-servant rule.
 TRADE COMBINATIONS.
 Combinations of capital and combina- tion.s of labor are to-day subjects of vast importance and interest to the masses of our citizens There seems to be little doubt that the time is rapidly approaching when the. test to be ap- piled to combinations of $capital will relate. not to the question as to wheth- CT there is a combination but whether that combination in its overation, actually results in bringing about an unreasonable restraint of trade and thus inflicts injury on the people.
 The same latitude should pervade the laws relating to combinations of wOrkin gmen, in labor unions, trade unions and kindred organizations It is difficult for me to see why an agree ment or combination of workingmen to do. procure to be done, an act in contemplation of trade dispute for example between employers and e1n- ployes, should not be judged solely as to its legality, by nature of the act done or proposed to be done.
 In other words, if the act when done by one man would not be crime then it should be held equally innocent if If |