"It shall be lawful for any employer to make a contract in writing with any employee whereby the parties may agree that the employee shall become insured against accident occurring in the course of employment which results in personal injury or death, in accordance with the provisions of this Act, and that in consideration of such insurance the employer shall be relieved from the consequences of acts of omissions by reason of which he would without such contract become liable toward such employee or toward the legal representative, widow, widower, or next of kin, of such employee."

Section 2 provides for the method of administration. Section 3 defines the nature of the insured risk. Section 4 describes the beneficiaries.

Section 5 defines the benefits in case of death, and temporary or permanent disability.

Section 6 requires the employer, in consideration of his exemption from other liability, to pay at least 50 per cent. of the premiums.

Section 7 provides for notification of injury.

Section 8 permits deduction of premiums of workmen from pay roll.

Section 9 provides for custody of funds.

Section 10 provides remedies for non-payment of premiums.

Section II provides for collective policies.

Section 12 covers the case of employees leaving service. Section 13 provides for settlement of disputes by arbitration.

Section 14 protects the benefits from seizure for debt. Section 15 provides that the employer remains liable under the common law if he neglects requirements for preventing injuries.

Section 16 requires record of contracts and policies with the Insurance Superintendent.

Section 17 requires quarterly reports of settlements and payments.

Section 18 provides for official forms of contracts and policies.

Section 19 forbids an employer to make the signing of this contract a condition of employment. This was added after conference with trade union men. In any case it would be law.

IV.

THE RECEPTION OF THE REPORT.

The immediate fate of the bill had been anticipated by the commission. The members of the commission realized from the beginning that their functions were chiefly educational and that neither employers nor employees were prepared for immediate action.

Few members of the Legislature had given any study to the matter. The Senate committee which was charged with the bill gave the commission a patient and intelligent hearing. The Governor did all that was in his power and commended the report for favorable consideration.

The lobby of manufacturers and railroads was there to defeat another bill for protective legislation and soon learned that our bill was for the present harmless; so that apparently they gave it no attention. Manufacturers who were consulted regarded it with favor.

The trade union representatives openly opposed the bill in the committee hearings and elsewhere; they were sent there with a mandate to kill the proposed law and to urge action for protective legislation and a more drastic liability law. It is manifest that unless their attitude is changed we cannot secure such legislation; for lawmakers will not urge measures against their protest.

It is therefore important for us to put ourselves in their place and try to understand their reasoning. From

repeated conversation, speeches and public articles, we may conclude that their antagonism to insurance schemes is due to several causes:

(1) It became clear that the trade unions have not had time to consider the methods of insurance; and they have from some source acquired some distorted notions of what it means. As one of the ablest men among them, himself a zealous and convinced friend of the movement, declared, "We did not begin soon enough". It is encouraging to know that many of these men are giving the subject serious thought; in due time they will become advocates of some form of insurance legislation.

(2) The workingmen have been trained by habit to look to the liability law for their legal rights in cases of injury. The law itself and the procedure of courts have drilled them to a combative attitude; the suit is for exemplary damages, retribution for personal wrong, and what is sought is punishment of a person guilty of an offense. As experience under the new Compensation law in Great Britain shows, this hunger for revenge is not easily removed, after generations of training under it.

(3) Workingmen have been taught by the common law and procedure under it to look and fight for large speculative awards from juries and courts. They hear occasionally of awards of $5,000 to $30,000, and the natural thirst of the gambler is unconsciously excited and made feverish in them. They do not think so much of the weary years of waiting; of frequent defeat and disappointment at the end; of the lion's share which goes to the lawyers as contingent fees. They have not fully comprehended the fact that only a small part of the accidents in occupations is really due to negligence of the employer. But many of the men have learned this lesson and they will teach the others in due time. The workman

cannot quite consent to give up this fascinating pursuit of a lottery chance, with rare grand prizes, for the sober and measured methods of insurance.

(4) Another cause of trade union antagonism to insurance lay in the feeling that our particular measure comes short of the best laws of Europe; that the premiums there are all paid by the employers, while we, because we despaired of success if we asked more, required them to pay only half of the premiums. It is acknowledged that there is justice in this claim.

It is possible that some other form of law may be found which will meet this difficulty. (For example, might not the benefits be reduced to an amount which would be covered by half the proposed premiums, and all paid by the employers, on condition that they are released from further liabilities? Then the workmen would be free to increase and even double the benefits if they chose by accepting the proposed contract, or by insuring themselves in some other way. Whatever is done at first will probably be a compromise measure which will educate employees and employers for something better.) Even as the bill stands it is better than any of the great railroad schemes, for in them litigation is avoided and the men pay almost all the cost of insurance.

(5) We did not learn that the trade unions feared that our bill would weaken attachment to the unions. It is possible that they were to some extent affected by this fear, which could easily be shown to be groundless.

(6) Perhaps the most decisive factor in determining the trade unions to antagonize our bill was their concentrated effort to secure protective laws.

We did, indeed, make common cause with them; we offered evidence to prove that accident insurance laws, by requiring benefits without regard to proof of negligence

in all cases of injury, would bring pressure to bear on employers to use devices for reducing the number and severity of accidents.

But where a body of men are intent on one single point they are apt to regard any other proportion as a kind of rival.

PROBABLE INFLUENCE OF THE MOVEMENT IN ILLINOIS TO SECURE AN INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE LAW.

Two of the specific recommendations of the commission were adopted by the Legislature: (1) the requirement that manufacturers should report all serious accidental injuries to the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the capital; (2) the creation of a new commission to study the questions relating to industrial diseases.

The first of these measures will help to give us arguments and statistical data for an accident insurance law; the second will reveal the necessity for sickness and invalidism insurance. Both will keep the subject before the public mind.

The question will not down. The City Club and the Industrial Club of Chicago have already taken up the problem for serious consideration. Lawyers have begun to seek for a constitutional way out. Great newspapers are publishing stories of accidents, tragic in their consequences, which call for insurance protection. The charitable societies are opening their records to the public and revealing the causes of pauperism in accidents, diseases, invalidism, and old age. The Board of Cook County have instructed their agents to investigate the cases of dependent persons and families when their need of public relief was due to disease or accident.

The charitable societies are alive to the significance of the question and they are studying their records to discover how far the occupation ought to carry the burden of incapacity for earning a living.