world of another human machine, it often means a widow and children growing up in a state of poverty and want, it means a weak instead of a strong worker twenty years from now. Whatever the industrial structure of society may be at that time, whether capitalistic or socialistic or communistic, that means an economic loss. The action taken by us of the present generation to prevent that loss depends upon whether our social consciousness is able to project itself so far into the future as to be influenced by considerations which will perhaps never affect us personally. Socialism has emphasized the injustice of many of our social institutions. Posteritism points out our shortsightedness. If our motto is, "After us the deluge", we shall certainly take no thought for the morrow. But that was not the point of view of the founders of the Republic. For they framed the federal constitution, not only to "establish justice" but also to "secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity."

THE AMERICAN WAY OF DISTRIBUTING INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT LOSSES.

A CRITICISM.

MISS CRYSTAL EASTMAN.

We in America have rather suddenly grown wise about the evils of our employers' liability situation, and about the superior advantages of European systems of compensation and insurance. There is probably no one here today who would earnestly defend our way of dealing with industrial accident losses. In spite of this depressing dearth of opposition, however, I shall proceed to demolish the "American System" with considerable enthusiasm, for the sake of certain points which it seems to me important to bring out.

It is generally recognized that the reduction of the yearly loss from industrial accidents is a grave issue in national economy. We are not here, though, to discuss the reduction of that loss, but the distribution of it,—also a question of national economy. It is good private economy to make the least possible deprivation out of a loss, and it is good national econmy. But nations have an advantage over individuals in adjusting their losses, for a national loss can be distributed in various ways among the individuals who make up the nation. I would criticise our present scheme for distributing the industrial accident loss, first of all, on this ground of national economy. Leaving aside for the present considerations of justice and practical operation, we may say with some confidence that the wisest national policy would be so to

distribute a loss that it would bear with the least possible hardship upon individuals. With this in mind, we turn to the actual present distribution of the loss through industrial accidents.

The bulk of it falls, in the shape of lost income, upon the injured workmen and their families, or upon the dependents of those killed. In some cases the employer shoulders a small share of this burden by making, voluntarily or under compulsion, a money compensation to the injured or his dependents. Thus out of 304 cases of men killed in industrial accidents in Allegheny County,—all of whom were contributing to the support of others, and two-thirds of whom were married, eighty-eight of the families left received not one dollar of compensation, ninety-two families received enough to barely cover funeral expenses, sixty-two families received less than $500. In other words, 59 per cent of these families were left to bear the entire income loss, and only 20 per cent received, in compensation for the death of an income provider, more than $500-a sum which would approximate one year's income of the lowest paid of the workers killed. In injury cases, we find about the same situation: Married men

56% received no

Single men, contributing to the support of others, 69% received no

Single men without dependents....

compensation.

compensation.

.80% received no compensation.

Looking at these figures in a different way, we find that for 259 injury cases the sum of income loss up to the date of investigation (one year or less from the time of the accident) was $52,509. The total compensation for these cases amounted to $12,000,-less than one-fourth of the first year's loss. The $12,000, however, is a fixed and

settled sum, while the $52,000 will go on increasing until all the men who have received serious permanent injuries are dead, or have reached an age at which without the injury they would have ceased to be income getters. Take, for instance, the cases of six men who were totally disabled for life: four of these men will walk on two crutches for the rest of their lives, one lost an arm and a leg, and one is paralyzed. Of these six men three received no compensation whatever, one $365, one $125, and one $30. The total loss of income for these men up to the end of their lives, according to their earnings at the time of injury and the mortality tables, will amount to $12,365. The total compensation for the six cases amounted to $520,-in other words 4 per cent of the loss.

The total loss to the families of 193 married men who were killed, figured on the same basis (but subtracting $300 a year to cover maintenance of the man killed), will amount to $2,754,357. The total compensation made to these 193 families was $72,039.

If these figures are typical, then we must conclude that the share of the loss borne by employers in the way of compensation is very small. Social workers will be quick to conclude that a great share of this burden must eventually be borne by the community through some form of charity, public or private, organized or individual. On this point the Pittsburgh study resulted in some significant and rather astonishing figures. Out of 526 workmen killed the city had the expense of burying six. Apart from this, there were, out of 825 cases studied, so far as we could discover, only seven in which any demand had been made upon organized or institutional charity; and in all of these seven the items of relief were very small. For instance, two orphan children are being cared for in an asylum and one blind old man whose son was killed

received $1.50 a month from the county for part of a

year.

The list of those aided by private individuals outside the immediate family is a little longer. Thirty-eight funerals were paid for by collections among friends, neighbors, or fellow-workmen; nineteen families received other help from such private sources. These instances range from that of a man who was boarded for nothing while he was disabled to two cases of systematic begging as a source of income. All this private, individual aid comes direct from the working people. Even the two who beg, beg from their own class. One, a widow with four children, begs at the Slavic Church door; the other begs at the mill gate on pay day.

Adding these two lists together we have, out of 825 cases studied, forty-four funerals paid for by charity and twenty-six instances of other aid from outside the immediate family.

This situation is partly explained by the fact that 149 of the men killed left dependents in Europe, and in nineteen other fatal cases the family went back to the old country soon after the funeral. In other words, 43 per cent of the fatal accidents in the Pittsburgh district leave a poverty problem not in America but in Europe. If we were discussing national morality, instead of national economy, we might pause to consider the ethics of this situation.

This statement as to the amount of relief given must be further qualified by the fact that we covered the life of the family for only about one year after the accident. This thought plunges us into the region of probability and guess work. Undoubtedly some of these families will become a burden upon the public. How great the burden we can only surmise. Statistics cannot help us