return same to my office at the earliest possible date. It is of vital importance that every employer in this City comply with the foregoing request. The Employers' Liability Commission of Ohio is making investigations in this locality and in order that proper investigations be made, the employers should render as much assistance as possible.

Should you desire further information please phone me. If you do not carry insurance with a Liability Company, please inform me at once and I will forward you another form."

Accompanying this letter was a blank permit which reads:

PERMIT FOR REPORT ON INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS

TO THE

EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY COMMISSION OF OHIO.

To

Please insert here name of Liability Company representing you.

GENTLEMEN: As an aid to the Employers' Liability Commission of Ohio, we hereby authorize and request you to make a report (to be considered considential) concerning accidents that were referred to you by (me) (us) during the period from December, 1906, to December, 1907, and from December, 1909, to December, 1910, this report to be on a form submitted by Mr. E. E. Watson, Director of Investigation for the Commission, 523 Schofield Bldg., Cleveland, and to cover the following information:

Name of injured person, address, occupation, whether married or single, nature of injury, date of injury, amount of settlement, whether settlement was made before or after suit, and name of industry.

We will consider it a favor if you will provide this information AT ONCE
Very respectfully,

Please insert here name of your company and by whom signed.

There are several hundred of these signed permits in our office at present and they are continuing to come in. We selected eighteen of the representative coal operators of the State and their permits are now being received.

We are submitting captions to those employers who do not carry liability insurance which have the same reading as those which we are sending the insurance companies. We are classifying these permits and getting the caption forms out as rapidly as possible.

OUR CHECK SYSTEM.

Immediately upon receiving the resolution from the Commission to the Cleveland employers, assuring them that the investigation would be thorough, we began developing a check system, which we have completed at an expenditure of much time, justifying the act on the grounds that it is now possible to check all the information received, whereby we can determine whether it is accurate or not. It is imperative that we apply a confirmatory test to the information we receive prior to inserting the same in our statistical tables, because many will send in information which is entirely misleading, owing to the fact that they are not familiar

with the handling of statistical data, and may not understand clearly just what is wanted, irrespective of the amount of care we take in being explicit.

SECTION III.

JUSTIFICATION FOR A THOROUGH INVESTIGATION.

Before the importance of a thorough investigation preceding an entrance upon a workman's compensation plan can be appreciated, it is necessary that it be clearly understood just what is the meaning involved where Ohio is to embark on a workman's compensation plan, while her neighboring states, Indiana, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, and others, are to remain working under their present employers' liability laws. The situation can be brought out more clearly perhaps by comparing the meaning involved in Ohio's setting out alone on a workman's compensation plan as compared with the United States adopting such a plan as a national procedure.

The United States, as a nation endorsing such a compensation plan, has as its meaning the shifting of the entire cost of accidents onto those industries in which these accidents take place. For instance, John Browne, an employe, is thirty years old; has a life expectancy of twenty years; has a wife and three children; is earning $500 a year; and is killed while in the course of his employment. Here is an economic loss to his family of approximately $8,000. Now, with a national system of compensation for industrial accidents this $8,000 would (in theory at least) be borne by the industry concerned. As a procedure for the nation such a change whereby the industry would have to bear the entire cost of all of its industrial accidents could be made in a short time, and without peril to its industries; for, if such a plan added five per cent to the cost of the product of a given industry, this five per cent would be added to the price of the product when placed upon the market and the consumer would have to pay this additional cost, and there would result a uniform increase throughout all the different states. But for Ohio alone to adopt a workman's compensation plan while 1er neighboring states continue under their present liability laws, the situation is entirely different. In fact, state competition would not permit of such a procedure. A national procedure, as just stated, means, shifting the cost of all the industrial accidents onto the industries in which these accidents occur, but a similar system for the State of Ohio alone means simply that the waste of the present system is to be done away with. It has nothing whatever to do with the question of shifting the cost of industrial accidents onto the industries.

Therefore, since the question resolves itself into one of merely doing away with the waste of the present system, how is Ohio able to insert the terms of settlement into a workman's compensation plan under which the employers and employes shall operate, until she knows just what this waste is? In other words, what will she have as a basis for computation?

A thorough investigation must provide Ohio with three things before she can afford to attempt to insert the terms of settlement in a workman's compensation plan:

(a) what is the employer of Ohio paying as damages for his industrial accidents under the present system?

(b) what is the defense of his personal injury suits costing him under the present system?

(c) what are the different trade hazards of her industries?

Now because the present system is such an intolerantly wasteful one; forces the employer to fight the widow and children of his injured employe; results in such a magnitude of misery and wretchedness to the homes of the injured workmen; is entirely devoid of uniformity and consistency, no more than a great gamble where a very few get a large settlement, a few more secure insignificant amounts, while the great army of injured workmen are getting nothing whatever; because of these conditions the employer and employe alike, have become so impatient that they are willing to abandon this cruel and tyrannical system even at the hazard of making a wild leap into the dark. But if patience were to be enjoined at any time it is particularly during that period which is required for making a thorough investigation. It must be borne in mind that there is no royal road to a workman's compensation plan for Ohio or any other state acting singly.

The employer and employe have one peril in common in making a hasty entrance upon a workman's compensation plan. Assume that terms of settlement are inserted in a workman's compensation plan under which Ohio is to operate, but that she has not been supplied with the data of a thoroughgoing investigation in the first place, she has but one way left by which she may arrive at her terms, and that is by the "bargaining process." where the employe says he aught to have so much, the employer says he ought not, and from this the deal is struck. Assume that the effect of this deal is to compel the employer to pay an amount in excess of what his industrial accidents are costing him under the present system. So long as this excess does not pass that point where the Ohio employer can continue to compete with the employers of the adjacent states, there are no serious consequences resulting; but the instant the excess passes this point, the employe has to pay it. He will suffer a corresponding wage reduction.*

This condition only serves to emphasize how regrettable that Ohio along with a group of her neighboring states cannot enter upon a Workman's Compensation Plan unitedly. It is absolutely impossible for Ohio-a lone State-to pay to the widow and children of the injured employe any approach to compensation commensurate with their loss, notwithstanding that such a procedure is vastly better for the Ohio employe and employer in that it abolishes the waste and antagonism of the present system, and establishes a uniformity of settlement; whereas the several states acting unitedly on such a plan, could, without imperiling the lives of the industries of any of these respective states, pay treble this amount. The wisdom of such a procedure is further emphasized by the demand that prevails at present for uniform legislation for all business interstate in character. The ap

*A compensation plan may be drawn up whereby the employe is a party to the fund. If so, the question still resolves itself into one of wages, in case of an extreme excess. To the extent that the employe contributes to this fund, he either lowers his present standard of living or receives a wage increase. The problem of competition with other states remains the same. Where the employer is dependent upon non-union help he can continue to operate so long as the excess does not force his employes' pay below the subsistence wage; and with union help, below the standard wage; but the instant the burden passes these respective points the Ohio employer is forced to the wall, or, (if his industry is not stationary in character) exiled from the State, and a great body of employes are thrown out of employment. Therefore, it assuredly behooves the employe to co-operate with the employer to see that the terms of settlement in a workman's compensation plan are not too high. Moreover, such a condition would entail the added hardship of keeping other employers from locating in Ohio.

plicability of this demand with reference to a Workman's Compensation Plan is obvious.

The employe faces an added peril in not having the results of a thorough investigation as a guide to the insertion of terms in a workman's compensation plan. If the bargaining process causes the employer to pay less than he can afford to pay, i. e., less than that amount which will not handicap him in his competition with the employers of the adjacent states, to this extent is the injured employe deprived, or in event of the accident resulting in death, his wife and children denied protection.

Again, a workman's compensation plan with the results of a thorough investigation as a basis for computation, is sure to have the hearty support of both the employer and employe, because,

(a) Such a plan requires that the employer pay for his industrial accidents Every cent that he possibly can without being handicapped in his competition with the employers of the adjacent states.

(b) From the employer's standpoint, the plan so arrived at is going to do away with that present expense to which he is placed in defending his personal injury suits; furthermore, such a plan is going to secure to him the sympathetic co-operation of his employe, as a substitution for that bitter hostility and antagonism which the present system necessitates - meaning an increased efficiency of the employe to his employer; thus in reality giving the Ohio employer a decided advantage over the employers of other states-the most powerful incentive to induce employers of foreign states to locate in Ohio.

(c) From the employe's standpoint, the compensation plan thus arrived at will save to the injured employe that amount which he is paying his lawyer under the present system, thereby exterminating not only that low parasitical type of ambulance chaser which the present system breeds, but saving to the widow the need of searching for counsel of any sort; furthermore, the workman's compensation plan entails no delay in securing settlement, whereas the present system demands it. The time the home of the injured employe needs settlement most is immediately after the accident has occurred. After a delay of one, two, or three years the mother has been forced to go out of the home and the children have been taken from school, and when the meager amount that actually gets to them under the present system does arrive it has come too late; the evil has already been done.

(d) Moreover, a workman's compensation plan provides for an equitable distribution of the aggregate amount which the employer is required to pay for his industrial accidents; under it from eighty to ninety-five per cent of the injured employes are to receive settlement, the amount to the individual injured employe being determined by the wage he is receiving.

(e) That state which is first to enter upon a carefully arrived at Work

We made a study of 611 industrial accident cases coming up under the English Workman's Compensation Act of 1897 [see table No. 12], and found that 156 per cent of these cases failed to receive settlement because of the serious and wilful misconduct clause, wherefore, 98.44 per cent were eligible for compensation under the English Workman's Compensation Act. This is of particular significance for us owing to the fact that we are employing this clause in all our proposed compensation plans in the United States and are putting the same interpretation on it as the English are. (This serious and wilful misconduct clause does not apply to those accidents resulting seriously.)

man's Compensation Plan is sure to forge ahead of the neighboring states industrially because:

(1) It does away with the waste of the present system;

(2) establishes sympathetic co-operation between employer and employe;

(3) creates a selective process which is to the end of eliminating that class of accidents which is due to carelessness either on the part of . the employer or employe by severely penalizing the former and not compensating the latter when the accident occurs as a result of such carelessness.§

I seriously question whether it has heretofore been possible for any of the United States to have made that sort of an investigation which would serve as a basis for computation in inserting the terms of settlement in a workman's compensation plan. Three conditions are responsible for Ohio's having such an opportunity:

(a) the education of her employers and employes upon the significance and service of such a plan;

(b) the willingness of the Ohio employers to co-operate in an investigation; (c) our having developed a check system whereby we are able to confirm all of the information we receive prior to inserting its gravamen in statistical tables.

Most respectfully submitted,

EMILE E. WATSON,

Director of Investigation.

OCCUPATIONAL DISEASES.

It is difficult to make any clear distinction between industrial accidents and occupational diseases. Often the latter are responsible for the former. Owing to the fact that Investigator Harms and myself were in the service of the Illinois State "Occupational Disease" Commission, where we gave special attention to the investigation of the effect of lead and carbon monoxide poisoning on the health of those workmen who by the nature of their work came into contact with these poisons, and the effect of the brass foundries on the health of these employes, we have given attention to these conditions in our present investigation when we have happened to give what they considered to be information on industrial accidents, but I found that the information which seventy-five per cent of them had to report would properly come under the purview of an "Occupational Disease" commission, and not one on "Industrial Accidents." To illustrate my meaning, we sent out inquiry sheets to the trade unions. Here is one of the replies:

"Mr.

42 years old, Polish, residence, painter, married, one child under twelve years, employer Mr. cause of injury-lead poi

§ That plan whose greatest service is not to the end of preventing accidents is a failure, i. e., that plan which fails in most severely penalizing the employer where the accident has been the result of improperly safe-guarded machinery or in neglect in making application of the most approved methods whereby the lives and limbs of his employes would be most greatly safe-guarded; and that puts a premium on carelessness on the part of the employe by compensating him where the injury has been due to his own serious and wilful misconduct.