The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1911-01-18
Sweeping Reforms
Are Recommended
CONTINUED from First Paeel

have proved very useful but which
have for the time being slipped out of
the control of the very law that gave
them leave to be and that can make on.
unmake them at pleasure. We have
low to set ourselves to control then,
soberly but effectively, and to bring
them thoroughly within the regulation
of the law.
In the first place it is plain that our
laws with regard to the relations of
employer and employee are in many re-
spects wholly antiquated and impos-
sible. They We're framed for another
age which nobody now living remem-
bers, which is. indeed. so remote from
our life that it would be difficult for
many of us to understand it If it were
described to us.
I'VE call these questions of EMPLOY
ers liability and workingmens' com.
pensation. but these terms do not sug-
gest quite the whole matter. There
is something very new very big and
very complex about these new rela-
lions of capital and labor. A new
economic society has sprung I'D, and
we must offset a new set of adjust
ments. We must not pit power against
weakness. The employer is generally,
in our day, a powerful group Of indi-
viduals, and the workingman is still.
under our existing law. an individual
when dealing with his employer, in
case of accident, for example, or OF
loss, or of illness as well as In every
| contractual relationship. We must
have a workingm compensation act
which will not put upon him the bur-
den Of fighting powerful composite en-
ployers to obtain his rights, but which
will give him his rights without suit,
directly, and without contest, by auto
matte operation of law, as if of a law
of insurance
THE FIRST ADJUSTMENT.
This is the first adjustment needed.
because it affects the rights. the hap
piness, the lives and fortunes OF the
greatest number, and because 1t Is th.
adjustment for which justice cries
loudest.
I'VE are much too free with grants
of charters to corporations in New Jer-
sey. A corporation exists only by Ii
cense of law. and the law is respon-
si,le for what it creates. Il can never
| rightfully authorize any kind of fraud
or imposition. 1t cannot righteously
allow the setting up of a business
which has no sound basis or fair deal
| ing or the principles of honest indus
| try. The law cannot give it's license
to things of that kind. It thereby au-
ithenticates what it ought to forbid.
II would urge the imperative obliga-
| ton Of public policy and public hon.
esty we are under to effect such
! changes in the law of the state as will
henceforth effectually prevent the
abuse of the privilege Of Incorporation
which has in recent years brought SO
much discredit upon our state. ii will
be necessary to regulate and restrict
the issue of securities, enforce regula-
! tons with regard to bona f1de capital
examine very vigorously the basis o.
capitalization, and to prescribe meth
DDS by which the public may be safe
guarded against fraud. deception, ex-
tortion and every abuse Of it's conf
dence.
EXTEND TO ALL.
Such scrutiny and regulation ought
not to be confined to corporations seek
| ing charters. They ought also to be
extended to corporations already oper-
ating under the license and authority
of the state"
The power to originate and conducr
| investigations of public service corpo-
irations. regulate the rates and adjust
the service of such corporations oper-
ating within the state, should be be-
slowed upon the New Jersey Public
Utilities Commission, the governor de-
cieres. Were the commission clothed
with such power, the. governor says
their rulings would serve to establish
definitely debatable values upon which
many questions Of taxation turn. THE
whole system of taxation" Governor