Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1915-08-14
WOrkmen's Compensation
Aids State Prosperity
Raises Wages Bers Cordn
ing a Cooperative Spirit Between Employer
and mplOye.
and EmpIoye

Spirit Between Employer
mploye.
compensation paid for the injured or
their dependents during that month,
totaled $10O,809.69.
Although it was predicted that
failures would follow the passage of
the Workmen's Compensation law, on
the theory that manufacturers could
not stand the burden of paying, with
out question, all of the claims made by
injured employees, not single manu-
facturer has been forced out of bust
ness, for this reason either in Mich
igan or elsewhere, so far as learned.
Instead, business conditions have inn
proved.
Feeling of Unrest Disappears
Previous to the placing of the first
law of this kind on the statute books,
in 1907, the country was in state of
industrial unrest. Capital did not trust
labor and labor would not trust cap
ital. Workmen who were injured in
factories invariably brought suit for
large sums and the defendants con-
tested vigorously, often carrying the
suits to the highest courts spending
large sums in an effort to outlast the
injured workman.
Sociologists, after long study of
the industrial conditions and the pow
erty due to injuries sustained by
workmen, decided that one way to
cope with pauperism, at least so far
as concerned the incapacitated work
men, because of accident, was to es-
tablish a fixed table of compensation
for all injuries and make payment of
the same compulsory upon the en-
ployer.
The Workmen's Compensation law
was the instrument offered to bring
about this change. While thirty states
have adopted such laws, each differ
ing in minor particulars only, all are
said to be working satisfactorily.
Eight states passed Compensation
laws this year and others will be add
ed at the next legislative sessions.
Efficient Educational Work.
The increased efficiency in the in
dustrial forces of the state is greatly
due to the educational work which has
been done and which is being done by
the Workmen's Compensation Service
Bureau and the companies subscribing
thereto. Workmen are taught how to
look after their own safety and also
are made to understand that men with
loose habits sooner or later make way
for others.
While this REIMBURSEMENT was TAX
ing place in the industrial world re-
form legislators became active and
succeeded in passing a number of bills
giving their state monopoly of in
dustrial accident insurance. However
impracticable some of these bills may
have been, they offered an opportunity
to insurance companies to prove that
they could treat the public fairly and
give protection as cheaply as a state
with its inexperienced political forces.
Taxpayers were taken into their con-
fidence and shown that this rate cut
ting method was no saving at all, but
simply the shifting of financial OBJ
legation upon them, to make up state
In Michigan, with an opportunity
for state insurance, or that offered by
mutual or stock companies, the indus
tries are so well satisfied with the
methods of mutual and stock COM
panies that about go per cent of all
accident insurance is thus carried.
Rights of Private Business
One argument presented by insur-
ance men, which finds Judgment in the
public mind is that no state has a
right to monopolize any business
which can be as well carried on by
private capital and that no business
which is operated by state to the
detriment of the public and at loss
to the taxpayer, should continue.
State supervision has brought about
satisfactory results in several lines of
activity, but state operation of any
particular business is yet to be proven
economical or fairly Mark T. Nc