leaving it to state control. In the same way, no doubt, the federal Congress may renounce its liability control and leave the subject to state control. In order that all employes of railroads may have the benefit of state or of federal compensation acts, Congress should delimit between its control and state control. The federal act should cover such cases as are clearly interstate and leave to state control all cases of doubtful jurisdiction, as well as those cases clearly within state jurisdiction. This can be done by careful classification. To begin with, shopmen and section-men should be left out of the federal act. They are seldom engaged in interstate commerce in fact. Car checkers, trackmen, and office employes can better be left to state control. Employes of railroads having their terminals wholly within a state should be left to state control in order to cover doubtful cases. In states having compensation acts it should be permissible for employes of railroads to elect to come under the state act. Working along these lines, using due care in drafting the federal act, the great uncertainty of the present remedies for injuries to railroad employes may, I believe, be practically eliminated. The desideratum is certainty of jurisdiction and certainty of relief. The present uncertainty of jurisdiction works great hardship to the employe and multiplies litigation. GOVNOR TEATS, Attorney, Tacoma, Washington: I am very much interested in the movement for compensation for injured industrial workers, and especially in that of the East, and of states other than the state of Washington where I live; because we think we have the model compensation scheme for all other states to copy and follow. Several states have had commissions that have made wide inquiry into the subject and issued many volumes of reports. Volumes of information have also been issued by England, Germany, and other countries. Individuals and associations, too, have written many volumes giving information on all phases of the several systems of Europe, on conditions under our old common law system, and on the working of casualty companies in this country. And yet very few states have compensation acts which will compensate, and several which have investigated the most and accomplished the most and compiled the most literature on the subject have done nothing else. Three of us Washingtonians who lived at Tacoma and were in terested in sociological affairs happened to meet after luncheon one day in July, 1910, and the question arose as to whether or not it was about time for the state to have a compensation law. We all agreed it was, and proceeded to act. We had the commercial club call a public meeting of all workmen and employers who wished to attend; special invitations were issued to prominent employers and workmen; and to give the affair a sort of official color, we invited Governor Hay to preside. About two hundred and fifty interested employers and workmen joined the meeting and discussed for two days all the phases of conditions and systems. It was finally arranged that a commission should be appointed by the governor to draw up a bill to be presented to the legislature, which was to convene in the following January. The commission, consisting of six workmen and six employers, soon organized, employed one of the best constitutional lawyers, and proceeded to work. I acted with the commission as sort of amicus curiae. The July meeting had decided that some bill should be drawn; and the first question was which plan to adopt,-compulsory state insurance; compulsory compensation by employers, allowing them to insure (the English system); or the elective system. In our state the casualty company had become a menace,-fighting first the injured and, when a verdict was rendered against the assured employer, then fighting the assured. The employing companies wanted to be relieved of such injustice to their workmen and to themselves and of the uncertainty as to their insurance. The workmen demanded that all injured employes be paid, without the intervention of casualty company, lawyer, or court. The elective system would not give relief from the casualty company, although it might run the gauntlet of our courts on constitutional grounds. The compulsory English system imposing direct burden on the employers also retained the casualty company as administrator, and might run amuck the due process clause of our constitution. But compulsory insurance, with the state as administrator, would eliminate the casualty company, the lawyer, and the court, and fall within the rule of the banking indemnity cases. The Washington law is the latter plan worked out to the best of our ability. Experience will suggest changes, it is true, but the main plan will not be changed, I believe. The law has withstood the constitutional test in our state supreme court, and we all believe will stand the test of the Supreme Court of the United States. If you want a law that must work justice to all parties concerned and be declared constitutional because just, model your compensation act on the Washington plan. MILES M. DAWSON, Counsellor-at-Law and Consulting Actuary, New York City: The topic for this evening is broad enough to embrace all that has been said upon the various phases of workmen's compensation, but I shall address myself chiefly, if not exclusively, to the narrow construction of the topic, viz, the relation between state and national systems or methods of compensation. We are, unfortunately, dealing with the workmen's compensation question in about fifty different territorial districts, that is, states, territories, the District of Columbia, and provinces or colonies. In consequence, we are certain to have a great complex or even conglomeration of statutes, each one differing from the other in minor matters, and most of them differing in important matters. In addition to this, if the present plans do not miscarry, we shall have national laws regulating the liability of railway companies to their employes and of the government to its employes. Shortly, also, we must necessarily pass laws similarly providing for compensation for the employes of other interstate commerce carriers, and perhaps eventually of all who are engaged in interstate commerce. All sorts of complications, for the most part as yet utterly unforeseen, must necessarily arise from the inconsistent provisions of the various state laws. Thus already in certain industries the insurance rate covering the liability of the employer is from ten to twelve times as high in Camden, N. J., as across the river in Pennsylvania. There will also be much confusion in the minds of workingmen, who can scarcely be expected to have in mind the fact that, if working in Camden for an employer who has not declined to accept the provisions of the New Jersey law, they are covered against all accidents; while if they should be injured when working in Philadelphia the chances would be nearly ten to one that they would have no claim whatever. This is not a pleasant picture for our own citizens to contemplate, and still less agreeable is it when one appreciates that, in consequence, we shall long be at the same moment the most illiberal country in the world in these respects, and, let us hope, after a time the most liberal country, according as we are judged by the law of one state or the law of another. There must soon, moreover, be very unpleasant issues in the courts as regards where the limits of the power of the national government are to be found,-to which point, of course, the power of the state extends. Thus, for instance, is the employe of an interstate railway company engaged in interstate commerce by reason of such employment, or only by reason of actual employment in interstate transactions and while thus employed? If the latter, will he be covered by the federal law if he is not at the time of injury engaged in interstate commerce? The proposed federal law purports to supersede wholly the remedy given by a state law to its citizens and residents, whether for negligence or under a compensation act. Whether it purports to exclude benefit under a state insurance act is questionable. If employers pay or offer to pay under the federal law, then, will it or will it not be recognized as an offset to liability under state laws in case it is held that the federal law does not wholly supersede them? Can the proposed federal law, as it seeks to do, deprive a workman of his right to sue another interstate commerce railway company for an injury caused by its negligence, and bestow that right upon his employer? It is probable that these difficulties will after a reasonable time adjust themselves under any system which we may adopt. If, for instance, as I have elsewhere suggested, we were to adopt a worthy national system under which, out of funds raised by compulsory contributions from employers or from employers and employes, all industrial accidents throughout the entire country would be compensated, undoubtedly we could protect this fund, in case the employe was permitted to collect elsewhere, by providing for offset, and, in my opinion, also for subrogation; and it is not within reason. to suppose that state courts and state legislatures, if need be, would not protect their citizens against being required in effect to pay the second time, by permitting evidence to be adduced to show the diminution of damages by reason of compensation under the federal act. That is, after a shorter or longer period, the state laws would be modified and confined only to cases where criminal liability existed, in which cases the damages would be made punitive and exemplary. Something akin to this will necessarily come out of the play, back and forth, of the various state and federal experiments in legislation, however numerous and complicated they may be. But it will take time, cause much trouble and expense and result only in a tolerable patch-work system, if legislation is to be by states; and, in the end, state legislation must, in my opinion, give way to an economical and efficient national system. |