The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1911-09-29
PERIL IN LABOR.
Industry's Toll In Human Life
Grows AlarmingIy.
SOCIETY SLOW TO ACT.

Years.
The subject of employers liability
and workmen's compensation Is be
coming a serious one, with the ever
increasing and expanding commercial
activity of our country. John Mitchell,
vice president of the American fed
Grafton, who has been making study
of this important phase of our indus
trial life, has recently written an ar
ticle upon the subject. The salient
portions of it follow:
While the bread Of the laborer Is
earned in the sweat of his brow, 1t Is
eaten in the peril of his life. Whether
he work upon the sea, upon the earth
or in the mines underneath the earth.
the laborer constantly faces imminent
death, and his danger increases with
the progress of the age. With each
new invention the number of killed
and injured rises. Each new speeding
I'D of the mechanisms Of industrial
life, each increase in the number and
size of our mighty engines, brings
with it fresh human sacrifices. Each
year the locomotive augfnents the
number of it's victims, in each year is
heightened the roll of the men who
enter the dark and dampness Of the
mine, never to return to their homes
and loved ones.
1t is, of course, uncomfortable that
the gigantic industrial movements OF
the American people should be con-
Quoted without some fatalities. The
industrial structure Is q huge machine,
hard running and with many unguard-
ed parts, and many of the fatalities,
simply and solely the result Of condi-
lions beyond human control and in
separable from the ordinary course Of
existence. But thousands upon thou
sands Of easily preventable accidents
and fatalities occur each year, and 1t
is from these that we should strive to
secure relief.
1t Is a strange commentary upon our
boosted American civilization that in
the United States nearly three times as
many persons in proportion to the num-
Der employed are killed or injured in
the course of their employment as in
any other country in the world.
What the workingmen desire and de-
mand is not so much compensation for
injury as prevention of injury. 1t Is
all very well to receive $1,000 for the
loss of an eye or the loss of leg, but
it is much better for the man, as it is
for society, that the eye or the leg be
not lost.
| believe that industry should bear
the burden of the pecuniary loss sus-
tanned by workmen as result OF In
dustrial accidents just as it Is now re-
CURED to repair it's machinery and to
Offset the losses caused by depreciation
in the value of it's plants. The work
men and those dependent upon them
are now and will be under any sys'
tenn required to bear all the physical
pain and mental suffering. OF this
they cannot be relieved for this they
cannot be recOmpensed, but they should
be relieved of the narrowing fear of
hunger and want, they should be guar
anteed against the humiliation and
degradation of becoming objects of
charity.
1t would seem to me that from every
consideration of sound business judg-
meIt. practical economy and fair deal
ing between man and man we should
not hesitate longer in abandoning u
system that has been productive OF so
much misery and hardship, to say
nothing of the friction and i'll feeling
engendered between employer and en-
ployee. Under our present system an
injured workman is compelled to sue
the only man on earth upon whom he
has moral claim for employment.
whereas under an automatic compen-
sation system such as prevails i'll for
eign countries a man receives as a
right, not as a benefaction, definite
amount of money, sufficient amount
to tide him or his dependents over the
period of greatest distress.
During recent years our statesmen,
scientists and politicians have been
loud and earnest In their protestations
against the waste and exhaustion of
the nations natural resources. The
conservation of the material wealth
of the nation is matter of deep con
Germ ard of vital interest to our own
and to future generations, but In view
of the fact that $4,000 workmen are
killed or injured every year in Ameri-
can industry is it not high time that
systematic and effective efforts be
made by the state and national govern
ments to protect and conserve our hui
man resources-the lives, the health
and the happiness of the men and
women and children of labor?