response to telephone requests. The representatives of these associations and organizations actively aided the commission and extended many courtesies. Public officials charged with the administration of the law generously tendered their services, devoted entire days to the conferences, and furnished information whenever called upon. The commission desires here to express thanks to these representatives and officials, as well as to the employers and workmen who have responded to the letters and questionnaires. The names appear in Appendix No. 8. The assistance given was helpful beyond expectation. Several thousand of the question schedules have been returned to the commission fully answered; in hundreds of cases extended views of the employers were expressed. The principal officials of the trade unions in the several States visited expressed at length the attitude of the union men with respect to the various acts and stated their aims with regard to desired legislation or amendments to existing legislation. Voluminous testimony was taken at the conferences.

REPORT OF THE COMMISSION.

To Messrs. SAMUEL GOMPERS,

President of the American Federation of Labor, and AUGUST BELMONT,

Chairman of the Workmen's Compensation Department, the National Civic Federation.

GENTLEMEN: The commission appointed in July, 1914, to investigate the operation of State workmen's compensation acts respectfully submits herewith its report:

I. UNIFORMITY OF LEGISLATION.

Employers strongly expressed their desire for substantial uniformity in legislation. The employer who is engaged in construction work in several States, as well as the manufacturer who operates plants in different States, or who sends men from one State to another to install machinery, desires uniformity of legislation, especially in the methods of administration.

Uniformity of cost is an element of vital interest to employers. For this reason they have frequently asked, first, that the elective acts of their States be made compulsory, so that all employers may compete on the same basis; and secondly, that there be uniformity in cost under the acts of the various States. In expressing this view, one employer said to the commission:

There should be uniformity as between the amounts paid in different States. It stands to reason that if the manufacturers in one State should pay 75 per cent of the wages earned by the workmen and those in an adjoining State, for instance, should pay from 35 to 40 per cent, the manufacturers of the first State would be at a disadvantage. It is immaterial, so long as you have a fixed method, whether the amount paid is one sum or another.

Naturally this uniformity could not be attained in the early stages of the legislation. The experience gained by the States in following their different methods is valuable. The uniformity desirable will undoubtedly come as a result of the adoption by each State of those provisions of the various acts which experience shows give the best results.

II. THE PRINCIPLE OF WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.

The principle of workmen's compensation is that industry in general should bear the financial burden of all industrial accidents rather than the workers who happen to be the victims of particular accidents, and that the only way this can be accomplished is through the agency of the employer who, in computing costs and fixing the price of his finished product will include the industrial losses due to accidents.

Industrial operations being broadly considered, the question of direct fault is not material. The fact that loss of bodily faculty and regular wages occurs entitles the victim to compensation unless his injuries have been received through his own willful intent. In this concept of social obligation the compensation principle differs from the old system of employers' liability, under which the employer paid damages only where the accident was due to his fault or the fault of his servants.

III. FURTHER EXTENSION OF EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY IN ABSENCE OF COMPENSATION LAWS.

The liability of employers under the liability act could have been and undoubtedly will be further increased by the enactment of safety requirements and regulations, the violation of which would imply negligence and create liability on the part of the employers. This phase of the subject is illustrated by Federal law. Under the safety appliance act affecting interstate railroad employees, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, the employer is under an absolute duty not only to install specified safety appliances but to keep them in order. The original argument of the railroad companies was that, having installed safety appliances as required by the statute, their full duty was performed by using reasonable care in keeping them in order, but this contention the Supreme Court overruled, deciding that the duty imposed upon the railroad company to install the safety appliances was a continuing one and that the company was liable to an employee injured from failure to keep the appliances in order. From this it is apparent that if compensation had not been proposed the employers' liability would ultimately have been greatly increased both by the removal of the defenses hereinafter referred to and the adoption of strict safety requirements. Since it is certain that liability laws, based as they are upon neligence or the violation of a statutory duty, can never reach all accidents, as many can not be traced to legal fault of any kind, an employer would have found himself under the burden of an expensive liability law without affording protection to all of his employees.

IV. QUESTIONS INVOLVED SHOULD BE CONSIDERED SEPARATELY.

At the very outset of its inquiry the commission became convinced that each of the problems arising under existing compensation acts should be considered separately, and that much of the confusion that exists upon the subject is due to the fact that public opinion with regard to a particular statute is controlled and influenced by some particular feature of the law, when, as a matter of fact, that particular feature is merely incidental and not essential to the operation of the principle of workmen's compensation. This became apparent, for example, when persons were found criticizing compensation legislation in general, when as a fact their antipathy had been aroused merely by reason of a particular defect or through faulty method of administration which could easily have been cured; on the other hand, persons were found praising a particular method of administration in their own State, entirely unmindful of the fact that equally fortunate results had been reached under other methods in other States.

The principle of granting compensation to injured workmen, regardless of fault, is the essential attribute of a compensation act; that principle should be tested upon its own merits. The methods of administration and of insuring the payment of compensation are entirely separable from the consideration of the principle of workmen's compensation. During the inquiry the commission found differences of opinion as to administrative and insurance matters among those who agreed as to the principle of workmen's compensation, and attempt has been made here to separate these various questions so that each may be considered by itself.

V. ELECTIVE VERSUS COMPULSORY ACTS.

The Court of Appeals of New York held, in the Ives case, that the compulsory compensation act involved in that decision-the first act passed in the State, in 1910-was unconstitutional, inasmuch as making an employer liable to pay compensation to an injured workman for an injury due to no fault or neglect of law upon the part of the employer was "a taking of property without due process of law." The court held that a statute could properly remove the defense of contributory negligence as well as that of the fellow-servant rule, but that the defense of assumption of risk could not be abrogated except where the risk involved some fault or neglect of duty upon the part of the employer; that is, the law could not be abrogate the assumption by the employee of the inherent risks of an occupation. A year later the Supreme Court of the State of Washington, in sustaining the compulsory act of that State, was not in agreement with the New York Court of Appeals, although it claimed that the Washington statute was different from that of New York.

It will be noted that the New York compulsory act involved in the Ives decision did not make compensation the exclusive remedy of the employee; it retained as against the employer all existing liabilities based on negligence, and in addition attempted to create for the employee the right to compensation for accidents regardless of fault, thus permitting the injured employee to elect after an accident which remedy he would pursue. In other words, the effect of this statute was to create a compensation act covering the accidents in which no fault or negligence on the part of the employer was involved, and retaining for the employee his rights under the liability law for all accidents due to the fault or negligence of the employer.

Aside from the Washington decision sustaining the act of that State, no court has as yet determined the constitutionality of a statute creating a compensation act covering all injuries regardless of fault and making such act the exclusive remedy of the employee. Since the decision in the Ives case declaring the workmen's compensation act of 1910 unconstitutional, 22 States, including New York, have adopted compensation acts, all elective with the exception of Washington, though California, Óhio, and New York have amended their constitutions in this respect, and have enacted compulsory acts which went into effect on January 1, 1914.1

The method of making the election varies in different States. In some States the employer is required to signify his acceptance of the

1 In Wyoming, a constitutional amendment has been passed by the legislature and will be submitted to the people at the general election in November, 1914.