United labor bulletin., 1913-05-01
nineteenth ASSEMBLY
EXCEEDS ALL RECORDS
Appealed the Anti-Boycott Law
Passed an Assumption of Risks
Act--Prevents the Hiring of Cor
poration Thugs in Time Of Strike.
GAVE MINERS EIGHT-nouR DAY

The nineteenth general assembly of
Colorado will go down in history as the
best of all the sessions of the Colorado
Legislatures to this time. There are a
few reasons for this: First, perhaps,
may be cited that the members of the
lower house and one-half of the senators
were nominated by their respective par
ties through the primary, in other
words. by the people. not by political
bosses. Therefore. a better grade of
men and women received the nomina-
tions dominated for office than was ever
to be expected when the big corpora
tions dominated conventions of both po-
litical parties and nominated their tools
for office, leaving the voters little choice
as to which to vote for at the elections.
The District Primary law has been a
trades union demand for many years, as
the various State Federations of Labor
political program shows, this plank be-
ing frequently endorsed at state conven-
tions. and the wisdom of the unionists
was demonstrated by the grade of men
elected to this nineteenth assembly.
All the members of the house were
nominated by the direct primary, and it
is the general opinion that in the house,
at least, there was a better, abler and
higher grade class of men and women
than in mostly any other lower house OF
the legislature. Then, again, the gen.
eral progressive spirit of the times and
the education of the people on economic
topics lead to a better feeling favoring
the enactment of labor legislation; and
still further, we had as fine set of
labor -unionists, and a larger number of
them than was the case in most other
legislatures. In saying this, do not de-
sire to detract one iota from the record
made by previous trades unionists who
have been members of the house. These
men had a harder row to hoe" per-
haps, than our boys in the nineteenth
There were not as many of them and
they had more opposition to encounter.
and they had to work harder to get
their measures through. but our boys in
the nineteenth were Tive bunch" and
are entitled to the thanks of all union
lists.
There were ten what may be called
labor bills" passed by the nineteenth
general assembly. The most important
one, in my judgment, being the so-called
Assumption of Risks law. This law is
aimed to abolish the old common-law
doctrine that an employe assumes all
the risks of being injured or killed when
he accepts the job, or of his occupation.
and that the employer is not responsi-
BILE for any injury the employe may re-
ceive. The new law, which has re-
ceived the sanction Of Governor Am
mons By his signing II. Allows right OF
action in case of injury or death of an
employe. and leaves it for the jury to
decide the amount of negligence, if any.
OF the employe and to fix the damages
against an employer in accordance with
their findings. Sixty per cent. of all
damage suits for injury or death have
been thrown out of court on this one as
sumption-that the employer was not
responsible for the injury or death of
employe through accident The opera
ton of the law will have the effect Of
making employers more careful of the
condition of their machinery, mines.
mills. factories and workshops in gen
eral. railroads and all occupations where
there is an element OF risk and will
pave the way for a Workman's Compen-
sation Act, and as it affects all lines OF
industry 1 class it as the most import
Continued on page 2.)