The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1911-04-14
WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION
DISCUSSED At CONFERENCE
BY Associated Press.

by Associated Press.
Philadelphia, Pa. April S.-P. Te-
Ieumseh Sherman, former labor COM
missioner of the state of New York,
addressed the fifteenth annual meeting
of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science today on the merits
of compensation law. He said
Il viii limit my arguments to those
which apply with full force only to
employment in the more hazardous or
ganized industries, to which, in my
| judgment, our first experiments in the
law of compensation should be limited
| in their application. The compensa-
tion law. is a development from the
principles of the negligence law, cor
rected to conform to the lessons of
experience and to modern scientific
knowledge and modified with a view
to concrete as distinguished from alb
stract justice. The compensation law
differs from the law of negligence in
principle in that it changes the rules
of "contributory negligence of "as-
sumption of risks" and of fellow SER
want" the criterion of negligence"
and the rules governing the burden of
proof and in that it fixes a definite and
limited measure of the amount of the
liability
THE compensation law treats all
the necessary risks of employment as
joint risks, of which the consequence
should be shared between the employer
and his injured workmen; and it ac-
cordingly imposes upon the employer
a legal liability to pay to his injured
workmen-or their dependents-his
share generally one-half) of their
wage losses resulting from such risks.
This conception of joint occupational
risk-of a mutual responsibility for
accidents from occupational risks-or
a moral partnership in the resulting
losses-is the great basis of the com
pensation liability.
I'm contrast with the compensation
law, our negligence law gives univer-
sal dissatisfaction Not only is it in
many respects absolutely unjust, but
even so far as its theories are just it
fails to carry out those theories in
practice. but results instead in med
ley of cruel wrong, oppressive waste
and delayed or compromised justice
The fault lies not so much with the
machinery of our courts as with the
law itself. For the law starts from
an unfair basis, by imposing the bur
den Of proof entirely upon the injured
workmen, and thereby insures inius-
tice to them where. as happens, in a
large proportion of cases, from the
very nature of the accidents, there
can be no real proof. And, where
there is scintill of proof, our law
is wrong, not as much in making
jurors judges of the facts, as in max
ing them judges of all possible infer
ences from distorted versions of
part of the facts, without scientific
rule or reason to guide them. The re-
suit not only is, but must be a pure
gamble, more expensive wasteful, dis
tressing and corrupting than any form
of gambling prohibited by the penal
law.
In my opinion it is altogether
mistake to seek remedy the existing
evils along the lines of our employers
liability statutes, These laws are in
too many respects grossly unjust to
employers, increase litigation, are ex
pensive and wasteful. are slow and un-
certain in results and furnish small
additional relief to the victims of in
dustrial accidents in the mass.
1T is a principal merit of the com
pensation law that under 1t questions
of industrial safety would cease al
most altogether to be subject for Judi
cial determination and that the intell- !
gence and efforts of employers would |
then be directed towards the preven- |
tion of accidents instead of towards
the maintainance of arbitrary condi- |
tions which will merely prevent liabil- |
ity for accidents.