Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1911-12-10
REGARDED AS CERTAIN THAT
SUPREME COURT MUST DEF
FINITELY SETTLE QUESTION.
What IS COMPENSATION?
State Of Washington Has Gone BE-
yond Others in Creation or Indus
trial Insurance Commission.

Cldlth supreme court VIII ne Cdlleu
upon to determine the constitution
ality of state legislation designed TO
secure compensation for the injury
or death of employees by a compulsory
system Of special taxation levied on
the lines of industrial activity in
which they are employed. Invasion
of the right of contract and an at
tack upon the constitutional guaranty
against seizure of property without
due process of law will be the points
developed in case that must prove
of widespread interest to all employ
ers of labor and all employees.
The movement toward state super
vision of compensation for injured
workmen has found expression in a
number of states and recent sessions
of congress have disclosed the likli-
hood of the question becoming the
subject of proposed national legisla
ton. OF the acts so far adopted by
various states by far the greater num-
Der are elective in character, leaving
TO both employer and emplOye the OPP
tion to agree in and be bound by the
act to stand upon their common law
rights of action and defense. Admit
ted doubt of constitutionality has de-
TERED most state legislatures from
passing acts intended to force all
classes of industrial activity to come
under their provisions and to abro-
gate the right of private contract be-
tween employer and employe.
The State of Washington, which like
several of the western states is inclined
toward the extreme socialistic type Of
experimental legislation, has gone far
beyond any of other states with an
act creating a state industrial insur-
ance commission of three appointive
members, into whose hands every en-
ployer Of labor is expected to pay
special tax, based upon percentages
of his pay roll and ranging from .015
per cent to 100 per cent annually,
from which the commission will pay
out compensation to injured work
men or surviving relatives, at arbi-
trary valuations fixed on life, limb
and various forms of possible accident
This law was passed last winter
and in the few months of its opera
tions has discovered serious weak
nesses that make II unsatisfactory TO
both employer and employe. One pc
cular feature, and the one which will
receive the special attention Of the
federal courts, is the attempted class-
fication of industries and the pro-
vision that employers of each class
shall pay into a separate fund the
monies from which shall be drawn
compensation for employees injured or
killed in that particular classification.
For example no compensation for an
accident in a sawmill may be drawn
from the fund maintained by the tax
upon printing establishments, and so
on.
1t is this peculiar feature that has
given rise to the case which will bring
the entire system under review by the
federal courts. In powder mill ex-
plosion and fire at Chehalis, Wash,
last month, eight employees were
killed. Compensation for the surviv-
ing relatives, under the valuation for
loss of life fixed by law, would amount
to a total exceeding $4,000. There
and no other industry contributes to
this special fund. At the time of the
Chehalls accident the fund to which
these three powder raIlls contributed
contained but $270. 70 the dismay
of workingmen throughout the state,
the industrial insurance commission
arbitrarily scaled the values of the
lives lost to a total of less than $1,000,
against the three powder manufac-
turies to make up the difference be-
twen the $270 on hand and the &c.
600. The resources of the mill at
which the accident occurred were
wiped out with the destruction of the
plant. The commission therefore
holds that the two other concerns,
which had no accident and carry no
share of the blame, must pay the loss.
These concerns are determined to re-
sist
The supreme court of the State Of
Washington, in a moot case, has up
held the compensation act insofar as
II relates to the police power of the
state to read into contracts between
employer and employe provisions for
adequate compensation In case of in
Jury or death, and also the right of
the state legislature to levy a tax for
the special purposes Of the act But
the right of the industrial Insurance
commission to arbitrarily increase the
burden Of this form Of taxation and to
impose IT upon innocent parties, has
not been passed upon and will be
fought out in the federal courts.
Neither the employers in this case nor
the state of Washington will be salts
fed until decision is had from the
United States supreme court
The character of the Washington
act and its failure under the first
test, through inadequacy in the pro-
duction Of funds and injustice to both
employer and employe is likely to
cause congress and the legislatures Of
other states to call halt on the move
ment until more reasonable system
can be devised.
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