Vol. XIX.

U

NREST possesses our people. Nor is it a vague discontent born of a passing mood or incident, but a deep vibrant emotion, significant because earnest. There is not a man so secluded that propaganda does not invade his contentment or lethargy-propaganda of all varieties, of all guaranteed degrees of effectiveness; presented in the pulpit and on the stage, from the platform and the soapbox, by the press and through the mail, in song and in story, in learned treatise and blazoned on handbills. There is no escape from these enthusiastic, self-appointed disseminators informed as to conditions, armed with platforms of definite reform.

Here and there arise leaders, minor prophets, all afire over the injustice of some special wrong within the range of their individual experiences; occasionally a major prophet appears whose wider and deeper vision enables him to know men and to point out the universal in all their experiences and aspirations.

As the universal stands out, all these apparently disjointed, inchoate, specialized

efforts take their natural positions as parts of a great yearning and striving for the betterment of all the people; it is as though some master hand had taken the brush from an unskilled dauber and by a few bold interpretive strokes had made of an unmeaning mass a glimpse of the ideal. So this unrest stands revealed as a great movement toward democracy-a tidal swell, so large that all parts can not move together, progressing with varying degrees of rapidity and certainty. The more advanced portions prepare the way for the more retarded.

The great social wealth of our country has furnished the material for more comforts in living. These in turn are an incentive to ambition. Unrest has its origin in prosperity and not in extreme destitution; there must be a personal realization of something better beyond, something to be attained. This realization has come into the experience of the great masses of our people-the people who labor. With a wealth of wisdom of the ways of men, accumulated in their journey from slavery to freedom, now as workmen co-operating in

the production of the vast social wealth, insisting on a greater share in the distribution, they have evolved definite economic and social demands. The justice of their cause is manifest as the light of American golden prosperity falls upon unclean tenement homes, ragged and hungry children, broken wrecks of industrial workers. The most effective instrument the workers have employed that this unrest and discontent might be utilized for constructive reform is the trade union—an organization evolved out of the necessities of the workers, as broad and as deep and as manifold in purposes as are the needs of the workingman. It is his economic agent with which he comes in contact with business affairs; where shrewd bargaining and business methods are necessary to gain any advantage or profit. Business men interpret the trade union as purely a business device—no more. To others it is a class organization by which this class will gradually assume an economic and political control. To some it is a great social uplift movement for the purpose of inculcating higher ideals, customs, habits.

The trade union is all of these things. In a cross section of society its live tendrils reach out through all the phases of social experience touching the workingman's life. It gains for him higher wages without which he has not the means for physical, intellectual or moral improvement. In fighting the common battles involving self-sacrifice and co operation, he realizes the meaning of the fellowship and brotherhood of man, he catches the vision of impersonal immortality. The trade union serves the function of a club, a place of social pleasures, where those of the same standards and experience naturally gather. Since party politics are so thoroughly organized in United States that every considerable undertaking has its political significances and influence, the trade union must seek some of its ends through political channels.

The pathway to social legislation in our country is made most difficult by two elements our dual form of government, which often necessitates a national law and State laws to secure for all the workers a desirable condition, and our judiciary, which ofttimes takes from us that which we think we have. In securing legislative relief for ills that collective bargaining can remedy, representatives of the trade unions

not

have been increasingly influential and successful at Washington, the various State capitals, and municipal governments.

The political potentiality of organized workers is not usually appreciated by the casual reader, or, in truth, by the average writer of history. Many reform movements owe their inception to some lowly group of workers who called attention to serious wrongs and tried somehow to alleviate them. Their efforts attracted the attention of those of more influential positions, who took up the cause, brought aid, and when the change was effected, the part played by workers. had been forgotten. In the English political reform legislation of the nineteenth century, beneath all the partisan and parliamentary activity, there appears as the primal, causal force, in the work of agitation and education, a trade unionist-Francis Place. In much of our American reform legislation those who blazed the way, pointed out the needs, were not infrequently representatives of organized labor. Often unaided they reached the goal. Frequently some humanitarian organization has adopted their causes, rendered them aid, and then claimed the honor of achievement.

Society is self-complacent, blind to the obvious wrongs until some social cataclysm or impending danger is upon it. There must needs be some sentinels ever watching whither we are headed, where the social dangers lie. This is one of the functions of the organized trade group ever studying conditions of work, changes in regulations, the relation between their group and the organic whole, and calling attention of the organized whole to needs and remedies. The political expression of these social and economic requirements of the workers we term labor legislation. The following study, is not an attempt to make a digest of the laws enacted by the various State Legislatures, but rather to point out their bearing upon social progress and the realization of democracy-to show what organized labor has been doing and why it is doing it. The data were furnished by Commissioners of Labor of the various States, covering the legislative sessions of 1911-12.

Enactment of labor legislation does not usually come about without hard work on the part of its proponents. Their needs and theories must be presented and defended, hostile legislation must be defeated. Secur

ing these positive and negative results requires that labor representatives be constantly in attendance and on guard. The trade union while essentially an economic organization, utilizes its power for political and social advantage. The labor organizations maintain legislative agents. This is particularly true of the American Federation of Labor, the State federations, and city central bodies.

The most strikingly characteristic feature of the general economic legislation enacted during the past two years is compensation and insurance of employes. The legislation is based upon a new theory of the costs of production. The old theory provided that the employer should bear the cost of material, machinery, and such loss as might result from use or waste of these. More recently, the employer has always set aside a certain sum for appreciation, but now the idea of the social cost of production entails still further provisions. The aroused social conscience is demanding that the public through the employer not only pay for the waste and destruction of material things, but for the waste and destruction of human life.

The great social wealth that has come as a result of improved methods, mechanical inventions and power, and the development of natural resources, is in strong contrast to the distribution of wealth and the misfortunes of many of those who have aided in its production. People with enlightened consciences see the injustice of pauperism among workers who have produced a social wealth greater than that of any other country, and demand that more consideration and more care be given to the human element in production. Under the old system, in case of injury or death, the worker or his dependents had the right to institute legal proceedings, but the cost of the lawsuit and the time consumed in gaining judgment, the unequal advantage of his position in court as compared with his employer, the employer's defenses under the common law, rendered this method no adequate means to justice. To remedy this situation the workers and their friends have, in the last two years, succeeded in securing compensation or insurance laws in ten States. Compensation laws have been adopted by California, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Illinois, Kansas, New Hampshire, and Nevada. These laws are of two types; obligatory and

optional. As a result of the New York experience, most of the States adopted nominally elective or optional laws. All these laws require the employer to bear the entire cost of the compensation. Massachusetts, Ohio, and Washington have adopted insurance laws. The Washington law is compulsory in certain enumerated extrahazardous occupations; the Ohio law provides that 10 per cent of the expense shall be paid by the employes, and 90 per cent by the employers. The early Massachusetts experience with an opitional compensation law revealed that such a law remains a dead letter. Accordingly, most of the laws abrogate or modify the employers' defenses under the common law. In California and New Jersey this abrogation is unqualified, but in the other States it is provided that in case the employer does not elect to accept the provisions of the law, he loses these defenses. Coercion is brought to bear upon the employe by providing that if he does. not accept the compensation but carries his case to the court, then the employer retains the three common law defenses. This double-edge coercion is found in Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The laws all establish presumption in favor of adoption overcome only by express notices. New Jersey gives equal exercise of option to both employers and employes; elsewhere, the employe is discriminated against on the theory that he is more helpless and the employer can more easily force him to act contrary to his own advantage.

These laws provide for benefit awards in the case of injuries, temporary or permanent, and in the case of death. The awards are determined according to a fixed schedule or upon a salary basis. While the maximum attainable may seem small as compared with the injury or what might be obtained in the common courts, there is yet a benefit due to the simplicity and cheapness of the process, and the sureness of the result. In case the employer and employe are not able to reach an agreement in regard to an injury or damages, administrative machinery of two types is furnished-industrial and judicial. New judicial. New Hampshire provides for proceedings in equity, New Jersey for proceedings in the courts of common pleas; the other States have provided some special industrial agency or commission with the

right of referring all appeals to the courts. Two methods of payment are prescribed; either by lump sum or by periodic remittances. Consensus of opinion greatly favors the latter method, since the average workingman is accustomed to dealing with small amounts and does not understand conserving his resources.

This legislation places upon each industry the burden of its full social cost. It is generally conceded that the waste of the old system is economically indefensible-a waste absorbed by lawyers. The moral and social waste has been past computation. Commissions for investigating the subject of compensation and reporting laws to their State Legislatures have been appointed by Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Michigan, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, and West Virginia.

This use of commissions is another of the significant features of the legislative development of the past two years—the application of the research method to politics. Formerly each State adopted policies, experimented in laws, regardless of the experiences of all the other States or countries. Under the influence of evolutionary thought, politics has been recognized as a science, and consequently statesmen and politicians have become students of comparative politics, recognizing the social loss from not profiting by political experiences. It is conceded that a given set of forces, under definite and known control, gives reactions that can be anticipated. The political scientists collect all data bearing on a given theory, tabulate the reactions, taking into account environment and outside influences. This material, carefully digested and aualyzed, will give the curve of the effectiveness of the political method, and enable the legislators to reach satisfactory and scientific conclusions.

Working upon this theory, many of the States have appointed commissions, composed of members of the legislative body, specialists, and interested outsiders, to collect all information and data upon the proposed legislation, to get a line on public demands and the interests of those affected, and, from all this mass of information-expert and otherwise-to formulate the best plan for action. This serves as a guide to the Legislatures in enacting laws. The scope of legislation has

so widened in the last year that it is impossible for legislators to have personal information on all matters that come up for their consideration; hence the necessity of making use of such devices for getting expert information.

The work of such commissions has given us some of our most enlightened and progressive legislation; for example, the Illinois legislation on industrial diseases and the Massachusetts minimum wage law. These commissions deal with a great variety of subjects. Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts have appointed special commissions to draw up mining codes; New Jersey has appointed commissions to report upon old-age insurance and immigration; Massachusetts has appointed a homestead commission to inquire into the practicability of aiding workingmen to own their own homes and to find out what other countries have done along that line, also an educational commission to inquire into parttime schools.

The commission has also been utilized as part of the administrative machinery. The Wisconsin Industrial Commission is an American State experiment with a policy very common in Europe-that of blocking out a broad legislative policy and leaving the details to the administrative agents. The law provides that all places of employment shall be safe, defines "safe" in broad, general terms and directs the Industrial Commission to establish regulations and standards for securing the desired end. The adoption of this policy resulted from the conviction that a legislative body can not lay down specific regulations to meet all exigenciesthe legislative body has neither the time nor the expert information. The establishing of these directions belongs more properly to the administrative agents, the State determined.

Another principle that is gaining in favor with the legislators is that of the shorter working day, or the eight-hour principle. Under the old natural rights political theory, when government was considered a necessary evil-to be curbed and restricted lest it infringe upon the rights of the individualsuch legislation was considered unconstitutional; but democratic control of the Government, the more sensitive social conscience, keener appreciation of the value of each individual, have widened the scope of

legislative action so that it operates not only to protect property, but also to protect and to conserve human life. Laws for shorter workday are of this class.

It seems unnecessary to comment ou the fact that a normal working day enables the individual to be of greater productive value; time for rest and recreation enables him to come back to work invigorated. Women and children, considered the special wards of the State, have been guaranteed a shorter workday by New York, South Carolina, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Washington, and California. Men have been considered more capable of providing for their own needs, and are not so frequently protected by legislation; however, Colorado has enacted that eight hours be the working day in the coal mines and for employes in State tunnels; Pennsylvania has limited the working day of hoisting engineers in anthracite mines to eight hours; New Jersey and Wisconsin have provided an eight-hour day on public works; Connecticut has made the same provision for the engineers, firemen, and other craftsmen, who are State employes.

Railroad accidents resulted in regulation of working time on railroads by two States. California has restricted the working hours of all railroad employes to sixteen per day, requiring that they have eight hours off duty; Nebraska has fixed sixteen hours as the workday for employes having charge of train movements, and nine hours work out of twenty-four for telegraph operators and dispatchers. Another phase of the regulation of work time appears in the Connecticut legislation, requiring that all workers be secured one day's rest out of seven. Wisconsin was working to the same end when she forbade the opening of certain shops or stores on Sunday as not work of necessity or charity.

The problem of human life with its possibilities of physical, intellectual, and moral development previously undreamed of, is being revealed to the American people. We are now beginning in part to appreciate that the scientific principles we have been applying to the propagation of plants and animals might be just as effectively applied to human beings. Labor legislation reflects these conceptions. This social ideal begins with the claim for every child of the right to be well born. Massachusetts made the first step in this direction by the enactment of a

maternity law, which requires that no woman be employed in mercantile, mechanical or manufacturing establishments two weeks previous to childbirth, or four weeks after. Such law is common in Europe as a protection to mother and child. It is a fundamental regulation in securing for the child its physical heritage. The General Assembly of New York enacted a similar law in 1912.

The next step in this sort of protection is legislation fixing the age at which a child may begin work. Most of the States have placed this age at fourteen with certain provisions that may extend the limit to sixteen. This provides for the child the chance for normal physical development and is reinforced by compulsory education laws which secure the opportunity for intellectual development. Our democratic government has come to realize that its progress is conditioned by the progress of the masses of its population; that only as they secure advantages for the cultivation of all of their powers can society expect to realize its highest possibilities.

A protest has been raised against legislation of this kind on the ground that the wages of these children are necessary for the support of the most needy families. Michigan has met this objection by the enactment of a law providing that $3 per week be paid by the State to such families while the children are in school. Most of the States permit children to leave school at the age of sixteen, regardless of their educational requirements. Massachusetts, however, did not stop her efforts there, but requires such illiterates to attend night school until they are twenty-one.

For many years the working people have felt that the type of education to be gained from the public school is something not adapted to their needs, that it is a sort of intellectual gymnastic training wholly irrelevant to the affairs of the working world, and that somehow education should be made practical, should fit their children for their life. Massachusetts appointed a committee to investigate what has been done in the part-time schools established, and to report recommendations for the State. The laws fixing the work age limit and requiring school attendance supplement each other, and often come under a common administration. Many of the laws