Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-03-24
OMPENSAT|O|V URGED
IN REPORT To STATE
Commission Says It Would Tend
to Lessen Dependency
Throughout Penna.

A strong plea for the enactment OF
a workmen's compensation act as a
means toward lessening dependency
in Pennsylvania is made in the con-
cluding portion of the report OF the
State Dependents commission just
made public. This report, which is
the result of two years of expert study
by some of the most qualified men in
Pennsylvania deals with every phase
of the vast subject and the conclusion
is earnestly in favor of prompt pas
sage by the legislature Of a rational
compensation system.
The commissions conclusions which
follow a discussion of the unemploy-
ment situation are as follows:
The present Industrial depression.
causing so great an increase of at least
partial and temporary dependency,
calls for the immediate relief of all
deserving people thrown out OF regu-
lar employment. The most obvious
! remedy for unemployment is the
prosecution of all kinds of Federal,
State and Municipal public works for
which there is general need or n
general demand. There is much of
this kind OF work to be done and IT
would help the present situation If ii
were started at once, This question
must ultimately be met, by each COM
munity, which will eventually recoup
those other advantages which follow
in the wake of all public improve
ments. The method of meeting the
present depression by initiative
schemes of public works will be found
TO be more satisfactory and less eX-
pensive than any system of merely
haritable work. Those out of work
are asking for work, not charity, and
where public works are a necessity.
their postponement or abandonment
is a costly piece of civic laundering.
The Federal. State and Municipal gov
ernments should cause inquiry to be
made into the trustworthiness of every
unemployed applicant for work, and
where satisfied, should make an ap-
preparation TO provide his employment
on some necessary public works. This
has been successfully done in the city
of Reading, and the commission COM
mends the study of this simple meas
ure of procedure to the attention of
the officials of the Federal and State
Governments and of the municipal
executives in all the large industrial
centers or the Commonwealth.
Conditions Demand Ii
In PENNSYLVANIA the maximum
percentage of the community is en-
gagged in manual labor. a very large
part of il in factories where power
driven machinery is in use. Statistics
of wages lost and of poverty resulting
from industrial accidents cannot be
compiled without the expenditure of
very large sums OF money for a con-
siderable number of years throughout
the State, and even then the results of
such an investigation would probably
be wholly unsatisfactory. In single
copmunities, however. such facts
are available as hint at the Importance
OF this factor as a cause of pauperism
and dependency in the State. In Al
legheny county alone one family out
of every six hundred in the community
is deprived of its chief wage Garner
each year by death as a result of a
work accident. The statistics of those
companies which keep the most care
full records of such matters show that
for every one who is killed, fifty are
injured, the degree of injury varying
from practically no disability at all
up to the total permanent disability
of the wage Garner. In many cases
the prudence and foresight of the
worker are such that the temporary
loss of earning power does not mean
dependency upon public or private
charity; but in very large proper
ton of these cases the injured man,
after a few weeks of enforced idle
ness, becomes a charge upon the
community either directly through its
public agencies or indirectly through
the generosity or charity of the citi-
zens of the State. 1t has been esti-
mated by various officers having to do
with the relief of poverty at several
different localities in the State of Ohio,
that the adoption of the plan for
workmen's compensation in the State
has alone brought about a reduction
of about % per cent. of the number
of paupers dependent upon the charity
of that State, its municipalities and
its people. While from the nature of
the case such estimates cannot, of
course, be mathematically precise, this
statement has not been successfully
challenged.
Good Economy
IF II be suggested that the system
of workmen's compensation is but the
establishment of a charitable system