The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1916-12-29
WOrkmen'S Com
pensatiOn Act
st. Louis, Mo. Dec. 26, 1916.

| 81 LOUIS, MO lee. 20, 1910.
Editor Pennington Times:
There is vital objection to the
Compensation Act proposed by the
Missouri Workmen's Compensation
Conference, which seems so clear that
no two reasonable men can differ
about it--so plain no one, however
humble, can fail to understandable
tendency to increase the high cost of
living.
Under our present liability law, the
negligent employer pays his injured
employees damages out of his own
profits, while under the proposed
Workmen's Compensation Act the in
jured would be paid, not out of the
profits of the negligent employer, but
out of the pocket of the public.
To illustrate:
Two firms, under our present law,
under which only about half of our
employers insure, are engaged in the
manufacture of the same product.
The first is so careful that his en-
ployes escape without injury, the sec
ond negligently Injuries several Sc
riously.
The careful employer fixes his SELL
ing price at cost, plus profit. If the
negligent employer fixes his selling
price at cost, plus profit, plus dam
ages due to his own negligence, his
customers will desert him and pur-
chase from the careful, whose selling
price equals cost, plus profit, without
damages.
The negligent, to retain his trade,
must sell at cost, plus profit, without
damage money, and pay his injured
employees out of his own profits.
Those who do not insure are more
careful and fix the selling price at
cost plus profit and compel the others,
who exercise less care, to pay their in
surance premiums out of their profits.
If we were to adopt the Act proposed
by the Workmen's Compensation Con-
ference, both employers would come
under it and both would be compelled,
by its provisions, to insure. Both
would then sell at cost plus profit, plus
insurance premiums, which, except for
slight discrimination, would be prac-
tically the same for both. The care
full could not undersell the negligent.
1t would cost the one as much to in
sure and produce as the other. The
negligent, however careless, no mat
ter how much damages his insurer
pays for his negligence, would sell as
cheaply as the careful; both would add
the insurance premiums, out of which
the insurer would compensate the in
jured, to the selling price, and the
damages would be paid, not out of the
profits of the neglif ent, but out Of the
pocket of the public.
In 1914 the insurance companies of
this country, out of every hundred
dollars collected in premiums under
liability insurance, retained twenty
eight dollars for administering the
fund, and paid labor seventy-two dol
lars; but during the same year, out of
every hundred dollars collected under
Workmen's Compensation Insurance,
retained sixty-nine dollars for admin
istering the fund, and paid injured la
Dor thirty-one dollars.
The injured should not consent to an
act reducing their damages from sew
enty-two to thirty-one per cent of the
net premiums collected, increasing
the compensation of the insurance
companies from twenty-eight to six,
ty-nine per cent of their net premiums,
placing the careful and negligent en-
ployer on an equal footing, relieving
the negligent of the consequences of
their own wrong, and requiring the
consumer to pay for the producers
negligence.
If the public--the State--is to pay
the damages caused by the negligence