tracting 5.28 per cent from the 18.19 per cent there is left only 12.91 per cent of the cases in which injured. workmen can theoretically recover under the common and liability laws for personal injuries received while at work. See table § 47.

§ 49. Statistical results of the per cent. of workingmen who receive compensation under the common law and liability laws.-Prior to the adoption of compulsory State insurance in Germany, under the operation of common and liability laws injured workingmen received compensation in only 10 per cent. of the cases.81

By reference to the preceding tables of results in the different States and making allowance for the rotting of evidence between the time of the accident and that of the trial of the case, the statistics of the practical operation of the workingman's ability to recover compensation in the United States verifies the German statistics that he can theoretically recover in from 6 to 12 per cent. of the cases.

The fifth element which enters into the determination of the "economic insecurity of workingmen under the modern wage system" is gathered from the miscellaneous data. The preceding section shows:

(a) That in the rearing of children to the age of self-support 13 per cent die during that period; (b) That in the United States during the assumed productive life of wage earners it is estimated that the loss from death is 25 per cent; (c) That the loss of wages through sickness of workingmen is 6 per cent., saying nothing about the cost of supporting the aged, etc. Lastly, there is still the very important sixth element of the said insecurity-that is, the average compensa

31 Fourth Special Report of Commissioner Wright, 1893.

tion received by the dependents of a workman killed while at work under the present wage system.

Take the most favorable cases, called court cases; for example, in the Ohio table in a preceding section.33 The average compensation received by the family of the worker in fatal cases is $949. Deducting 25 per cent for attorney fees and $212 for funeral expenses and the costs of delay of settlement, and you have a net compensation of $500. Under the Ohio law, just passed, the workman receiving the average wages of $12 per week would receive $2,400.34 Thus the small per cent who receive any compensation under the present wage system receive on the average about one-fifth of what is regarded as a reasonably adequate compensation.

§ 50. Fundamental economic economic conclusions.-The foregoing statistical studies show conclusively that (and to what extent) the social and economic order of the people of the United States is gravely threatened in the permanency of its security by the economic insecurity of the workingmen which accompanies the modern wage system under the operation of the prevailing common and liability laws through which workingmen must seek compensation when they are injured in the due course of their employment.

Further, it should be said that the ultimate object of compulsory State insurance for workingmen is to conserve the normal capacity of the average worker of all the classes of workingmen and to maintain the same at the highest possible efficiency.

33 See § 41.

34 In the opinion of the writer the scientific and economic value to society of the statistical results which are set forth in Section 36 are, of all the economic statistics known to the writer, of the greatest importance; and that the conclusions derived by means thereof are new discoveries in the field of political economy.

§ 51. Remedies proposed-German and English plans. The German plan of insurance against accidents. had paid out $802,000,000 during the last 20 years ending in 1904. Of this total sum $555,750,000 was paid on account of sick insurance, $232,750,000 on account of accidents, and $13,500,000 on account of invalidism and old age.

To the fund necessary to make these payments the employer contributed $424,500,000. The employés contributed $377,000,000 and the Imperial Government paid a portion of the cost of administration and a small portion of the funds necessary to take care of invalidism and old age (50 marks in each case insured).

The general rules are, in respect to the raising of the insurance fund, that the employés should pay twothirds of the fund necessary to take care of sick insurance, which lasts for 13 weeks, and the employers pay one-third. In the case of accident insurance the employers pay about 85 per cent. and the employés 15 per cent. In the case of invalidism and old-age insurance the Imperial Government pays $12.50 for each person insured, and the remainder of the fund is paid half and half by the employers and employés.

The German plan in 1907 had 27,172,000 workingmen insured against sickness, accidents, and old age out of a population of 62,000,000 people.

Now, briefly, the English plan, which in 1908 had 13,000,000 workingmen insured, is the following:

In case of death, the compensation paid is at most three years' wages, at £300, or $1,460, with a minimum payment of three years' wages at £150, or $730. In case of disability which lasts longer than one week the compensation paid is one-half week's average wage, not to exceed $4.87, as long as the disability lasts. Responsibility for the payment of the compensation rests solely on the employers, and they are not required to insure.

In both the German and English plans the rules of contributory negligence, assumption of risk, and the fellowservant rules are abolished, and the only kind of negligence recognized is that of malicious negligence on the part of the employer or employé.

Now, the common law does not presume to furnish a plan of relief except where it can be proven that the defendant is at fault; therefore the common law does not presume to furnish any relief for something like 80 per cent of all workingmen injured and killed in the United States, and the lowest estimate of the number of persons injured and killed in the industrial accidents in 1909 is 536,000 people.

In the battle of Gettysburg, which lasted three days. in actual fighting, there were killed and wounded and missing 43,500 soldiers, and if, therefore, you were to have a battle of Gettysburg in one of each of 12 divisions of the United States, one in one month, say, in the neighborhood of Boston, and the next month in the neighborhood of New York City, a third at Washington, a fourth at New Orleans, a fifth at Cincinnati, one at Pittsburgh, a seventh at Chicago, one at St. Louis, one in Minneapolis, one in Denver, one at Portland, Ore., and wind up at the end of the year at San Francisco, you would not create quite the damage and destruction. which takes place in the conduct of our industries for one year; yet the common law does not pretend to furnish any relief or remedy, except in those cases in which the employer is negligent, and the best figures indicate that it does not exceed 20 per cent of all injuries, and even the part of that relief which reaches the employés is less than one-fifth of what the employers pay out to protect themselves against the liability arising out of injuries to workingmen in industrial accidents.

§ 52. Specific provision against the economic insecurity of workingmen in the United States.—Legislative agents and those best informed on the subject of compensating the workingmen injured in the due course of their employment agree that the most just and efficient remedy is that known as industrial insurance along the lines of the German plan, or a workman's compensation act along the lines of the British act.

Perhaps the most concrete illustration of the adaptation of the German plan of industrial insurance to the compensation of injured workmen now in operation in the United States is the Ohio workman's compensation act. The following statistical data is taken from the report of the experts for the Ohio commission which was prepared by Emile E. Watson, investigator in chief.35 The facts and the Ohio law are fairly typical of the conditions and the proposed remedies in respect to industrial insurance as they exist today in the United States. They are of the highest scientific importance. The results are briefly summarized in the following paragraphs:36

1. (a) Under the old system the Ohio workman who was killed while at his employment got an average settlement of $958×36÷100, or $344.88.

(b) Under the new workmen's compensation plan he will receive an average settlement of $2,444.

2. (a) Under the former system the widow and the children of the injured are obliged to pay 24 per cent of this $344.88 to lawyers and to the courts. (b) Under the workmen's compensation plan they will receive all the $2,444, not having to pay a penny for attorney or court costs.

3. (a) Under the old system only 36 per cent of 35 Report of the Employers' Liability Commission of Ohio, Pt. I, p. XXXV.

36 See tables in §§ 41-45.