twenty got less than $500. Among the cases for which no cash compensation was paid, seven were fatal and twenty involved permanent disability.

The attitude of the employers on the whole seems to be far from creditable, while the attitude of the insurance companies seems to be worse still. According to the report of the investigators:

"There is some evidence to show that insurance companies make it their practice to offer $25 to get rid of a claim. If suit is seriously threatened, they raise the offer to about $300, regardless of the nature of the injury. The $300, it is stated, is based on what it would cost to defend a suit."

In connection with the section just quoted, the Washington Evening Star committed a serious mistake-if it was a mistake. In that newspaper's version, the first sentence of the paragraph ran thus: "There is no positive evidence that insurance companies. make it their practice

*

This perversion, whether intentional or unintentional, of the text of the report, is suggestive of the kind of controversy which now rages about the enactment of a compensation law for the District of Columbia.

With few exceptions, the members of Congress profess to be in favor of such a statute. The only serious question among them concerns the kind of insurance which shall be permitted to the employers. The Underhill bill would allow employers to insure their risks with private casualty companies, while the Fitzgerald bill would compel them to take out insurance from a public fund, excluding entirely the private companies. The friends of the former bill contend that the rates of compensation which it provides and the other features which directly affect the employees, are quite as good as the provisions of the Fitzgerald bill. By the friends of the latter it is maintained that the Underhill bill is inferior, inasmuch as it does not make adequate provision for accident prevention, nor for rehabilitation of industrial cripples, and because it allows direct settlements between employer and employee. Nevertheless, these differences have received little attention in the controversy compared with that devoted to the issue of insurance in a public fund vs. insurance in private casualty companies.

So bitter has the quarrel become over this issue that the authors of the respective bills do not always take the trouble to treat each other with excessive politeness at the hearings. During that which took place January 26, Mr. Fitzgerald took exception to the form

Accident Compensation in District of Columbia

19

of a question addressed by Mr. Underhill to Dr. John B. Andrews, who was testifying before the subcommittee:

Mr. FITZGERALD: "You understand that this is a statement of Mr. Underhill. Anybody would challenge the truth of the statement you made, Mr. Underhill, because that is quite contrary to the history."

Mr. UNDERHILL: "My own state repudiated it."

Mr. FITZGERALD: "I think you are less informed about your own state and the origin of state funds for protection of workingmen than anyone I have seen that studied the question * **"

A sophisticated person who listened to Mr. Underhill's questions and objections concerning the Fitzgerald bill would have no hestitation in classifying him as "hard-boiled." One not entirely sophisticated would wonder why Mr. Underhill is so concerned to have his own bill recommended by the committee rather than the Fitzgerald bill, inasmuch as he contends that the only difference between the two is that the Fitzgerald bill excludes from the operation of the act the private casualty companies, while his gives them all the business of insuring against accidents. After all, the amount of such business that is likely to exist in private employments in the District of Columbia is comparatively insignificant. It would not greatly enrich any or all of the private companies.

Apparently the answer is to be found in the fear that if the public fund should be enacted in the District of Columbia law, this action would have considerable exemplary effect throughout the states. If Congress committed itself to the public fund method, the agitation for the adoption of that method in many of the states would be considerably strengthened. Should several of the states that now permit the private companies to carry a part or all of this insurance, substitute the compulsory state fund, the private companies would obviously be deprived of a very large volume of business.

There is only one theory upon which the Underhill bill can logically be preferred to the Fitzgerald bill. It is that the interests of a private business group are to be preferred to the public interests. If insurance in a public fund costs only onefourth as much as insurance in the private companies, the former represents efficiency, and the latter represents inefficiency. Is industrial accident insurance by the private companies of such great importance to political theory, or to doctrinaire assumptions about the functions of the State, that it must be upheld at the expense of the consumers, who must ultimately pay the excess cost?

THRE

Four More Mine Disasters!

HREE coal mine explosions and the flooding of an iron mine-killing a total of 110 miners-open the record of mine tragedies for 1924. The most recent catastrophe was that at Castle Gate, Utah, March 8, where a terrific coal dust explosion wrecked the mine and killed 172 miners, practically all of whom were heads of families!

In a single week in January there were two gas-and-coal dust explosions one at Shanktown, Pennsylvania, in which 36 miners lost their lives and another at Johnston City, Illinois, in which 32 miners met violent death. A fourth disaster occurred at Crosby, Minnesota, February 3, when the bottom fell out of a small lake, letting the water into an iron mine and drowning 42 miners.

Once more, in quick succession, came the all too familiar stories of grim human tragedies in mining communities to darken the first pages of newspapers.

Castle Gate: "A bitter cold wind swept down from the
north. * * Huge fires were built and around these men,
women and children huddled, anxious for news of their miss-
ing.*
Bodies brought out were so charred and muti-
lated by the blast that identification was difficult."

* *

Crosby: "Night found, standing at the shaft opening, scores of wives, mothers and children, some in tears, others dryeyed and staring, as helpless as were the men about them to rescue those overwhelmed in the murky waters."

Shanktown: "The explosion was audible over
a wide
area. The rumbling, which died away as suddenly as it came,
left a stillness which was broken by screams from the women
who instinctively knew the always feared tragedy had come.'
Johnston City: "Throngs of frenzied men, women and
children are gathered about the entrance to the mine. *
A number of the bodies brought to the surface were burned
beyond recognition."

*

Already in 1924 three "major" explosions in coal mines have taken 240 lives! In 1923 265 miners were killed in five "major" coal mine disasters. These tragedies followed a series of eleven "major" explosions in 1922 which caused the death of 264 men. In ten years we have killed nearly 25,000 coal miners!

How much longer shall these killings continue? ("The great explosions should not be considered to be normal occupational accidents," says the director of the federal Bureau of Mines.) When will the public insist upon removing for all time the dreaded spectre of violent death that stalks through the mines? These questions-which must here again be raised-were asked in every issue of this REVIEW for 1923. And in each

new issue, without fail, it has been necessary to record the news of one or more new disasters.

Accident com

Mine bureaus have existed for many years. pensation laws have provided at least partial relief for those left dependent. But safety standards are still inadequate. The United States Bureau of Mines has shown that many of the worst hazards of mining can be eliminated. Director Bain of the Bureau declares that "explosions can and must be prevented." Results, however, depend upon local and state action.

In order to make safety work in the mines more effective the American Association for Labor Legislation is urging the adoption of a program for strengthening protective legislation, which includes—

1. The adoption of uniform legal minimum standards of safety;

2. The use underground of no explosive that is not after scientific investigation numbered among the "permissibles;" the strict limitation of "shooting off the solid;" and the use of shale or approved rock dust to check the spread of coal dust explosions;

3. Reward careful employers and penalize the less scrupulous, by the universal adoption of schedule rating for insurance under accident compensation laws, with a further graduated penalty for cases of wilful failure to put into effect legal safety regulations;

4. An adequate mine inspection staff selected upon a merit basis of training and experience, fairly paid, for reasonably long tenure of office and protected from partisan interference whether political or industrial;

5. Greater public authority, federal and state, to procure and disseminate information, and to establish and maintain on a uniform basis reasonable minimum standards of safety.

The Association's program of prevention of needless coal mine disasters-discussed more fully on pages 22-35 of this REVIEW has aroused widespread interest. It has been put forward during the past year with the active cooperation of the press, and after consultation with mine operators and engineers, representatives of the miners' organizations, state and federal mine inspectors, and an examination of published records.

Why should there be further delay in taking the necessary preventive measures? Why continue NEEDLESSLY to destroy property in an essential industry and sacrifice additional hundreds of precious human lives?

A Program for Their Prevention

BY JOHN B. ANDREWS

Secretary, American Association for Labor Legislation

Y

My first trip underground in a coal mine was twenty-three

years ago, but I became especially interested in coal mine accidents at the time of the Illinois Cherry Mine Disaster in 1909. That catastrophe, where 259 were killed, resulted in some improvements in mine practice and, with other mine disasters of the period, led to the creation in 1910 of the United States Bureau of Mines. Its first director, Dr. Holmes, until his untimely death, was an officer of the Association for Labor Legislation. For fifteen yearsin the midst of many other activities—we have attempted to follow the general progress of scientific research and to aid in the practical application of improved safety measures.

Safety in this country has, up to this time, received most public attention in factories. Probably this is due in part to the presence of women and children in manufacturing establishments, but it is also because factories are, day after day in many thousands of communities, much more under the eye of our citizens. Coal mines are much more remote. They are thought of principally in relation to the price of coal. And the human cost of mining coal-the maimed bodies and shortened lives of those who dig down into the earthhas not received sufficient public attention.

There is a powerful labor organization in this industry, but it has concentrated its attention principally upon the obviously important matters of wages and hours. Some mine operators, we find, are making splendid efforts to reduce accidents; many others are "leaving safety to chance."

I have found among mining engineers as well as among coal operators a surprising readiness to assert that of course the cost of needed safety precautions must be added to the price of coal. Is this declaration warranted by the facts? The profits made by many coal companies do not suggest that all of the cost of preventing coal mine accidents need be passed on to those who buy the coal. Moreover, accident prevention work, in thousands of instances, has paid for itself.