Iditarod pioneer., 1915-10-16
"SKILLFULLY-DEVISED PLAN TO PREVENT EMPLOYES OB-
 TANNING COMPENSATION
(Nome Industrial Worker)

| SteIl lDt uRllt pl N31 III tliC ' dllohS S'"'S' and territories have, however inadequate they may have been, the compensatory ad- vantages of being able to eliminate costly and time dragging damage suits. Commls- sions carry out the provisions of law, and the arrangements made for the enforce ment are usually complete and thorough. To be sure, most of the laws, if not all of them, are even more beneficial to the em- ployer than to the employe, but on the whole it may be taken for granted that in asmuch as the employe seldom got very much anyway he could not be much worse getting that little he did get under the acts, provided that he was given 1t quickly and without trouble, as he generally was Such an act is that of the state of New York, which has just been sustained by the court of appeals in a very lengthy and very | important decision.
 That decision should be read with profit by those Soons of ours who at the last session of the Alaska legislature passed a limited liability for employers law, and had the gall or the ignorance, or both, to en- deavor to palm 1t off upon the people of the territory as a workmens compensation act.
 The other acts provide expressly for their quick and efficient enforcement, and eliml nate, as in New York, the doctrines as to assumption of risk and fellow servant.
 The Alaska law does nothing of the kind. If man is injured, before he can get com pensation he has to do as he did before, take his case to the courts for adjustment, paying some lawyer contingent fee, and he will be fought by employers as before, with arguments making use of the fellow servant, assumption of risk and contribu- tory negligence doctrines, as has always be- fore happened
 Never before has any legislature so stuiti- fed itself a3 has this Alaska legislature in the passage of such damnable act All it does is to limit the amount that can be sued fer; but it arranged for suit in court and arranged that the employers could plead all those motheaten technical arguments, manifestly unjust under modern conditions of life-the assumption of risk, cOntributory negligence and the fault of a fellow servant.
 In the decision sustaining the New York law, which eliminates any such defense in opposition to the decision Of comsscn, the court said as to these doctrines:
 No one doubts that the doctrine of as sumption of risk and the fellow servant doc Urine were developed by the courts under different conditions than those now prevail ing and may be limited and entirely abro- gated by legislature.
 In another section the court went on: Surely it is competent for the state, in the promotion of the general welfare, to re quire both employer and employe to yield something toward the establishment of a principle and plan of compensation for heir mutual protection and advantage
 We'd like any of those legislators who stood up and voted for this limited liability act called worlImen's compensation law in Juneau 10 point out in one regard wherein the employers have yielded anything in the establishment of this skillfully- devised plan to prevent employees obtaining adequate l compensation.
 The employes still face the same dlatory legal procedure; they still face costly and intcrmnable law suits Not only that. Tut they have seen the legislators, at the in- stance of bunch of corporation lawyers, | rehabilitate obsolete doctrines of the courts and expressly provide that they can be made use of in opposition to the worker 5 claims
 No Solon who voted for such law can be trusted by the working people of this territory, and everyone who supported this law should be relegated to the limbo of ob- scurity, where they can neither plead ignor, ance nor pretend philanthropy when passing off upon the workers of this territory such a legislative abortion.