SOCIAL LEGISLATION AND THE EXTRA SESSION
An open letter was sent to President Wilson this week with over forty-five signatures, urging the importance of a group of social measures which were neither voted down nor passed at the last session of Congress. In the opinion of the signers, among whom are included some of the Democratic leaders who have been foremost in social reform, this overhanging social legislation should be definitely acted upon at the extra session. The movement to this end was encouraged by the positions taken by President Wilson in his inaugural address.
The letter is the outgrowth of a meeting of men and women interested in social legislation held last week in New York at the call of Edward T. Devine as associate editor of The Survey. The signatures to the document are those of individuals solely. The particular measures will be urged at the forthcoming Congress by such national organizations as the American Association for Labor Legislation, National Consumers League, National Committee for Mental Hygiene, National Child Labor Committee, the American Prison Labor Association and the Gloucester Fisherman's Institute. While each organization is committed only to the measures in its own field, all of them have a common interest in seeing that the extra session takes up social legislation in addition to the tariff and currency. The letter follows:
The President,
The White House,
Washington. D. C.
Dear Mr. President:—On the eve of the convening of the Sixty-Third Congress in special session, the undersigned desire to bring to your attention certain bills of importance which have received the favorable consideration of the last Congress, but which, owing to various reasons, failed of affirmative action.
Nothing could set more vividly before the country the urgency of such measures than the words of your inaugural address, in which you pointed out the need for perfecting the means by which the government may be put at the service of humanity in safeguarding the health of the nation, the health of its men and its women and its children, as well as their rights in the struggle for existence. The country has been stirred by your declaration:
"This is no sentimental duty. The firm basis of government is justice, not pity. These are matters of justice. There can be no equality of opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with. Society must see to it that it does not itself crush or weaken or damage its own constituent parts."
The undersigned are aware that the time and energy of Congress will be largely expended upon the revision of the revenue and currency statutes. Without in any way meaning to minimize the importance of these subjects, we wish to lay emphasis upon what we believe to be the necessity for the passage of certain other measures directly affecting the health and happiness of hundreds of thousands of citizens. The legislative proposals which we present to you are not new; several of them have met with little open opposition; some have been passed by one house of Congress; others by both; all have been prepared by experts and are based upon tried principles already embodied either in the federal laws, in the laws of the various states, or in the laws of other nations. An example is the bill which aims to compensate workingmen employed in interstate commerce for accidents to life and limb. Another is the eight-hour bill for women in the District of Columbia, which was lost through an accident in the closing hours of the last Congress.
The measures which had not passed when Congress adjourned and which are herewith advocated are as follows. It is the principles underlying these several bills rather than the specific provisions of any measure that we wish to be understood as urging upon the attention of the President and Congress:
Providing compensation for federal employees suffering injury or occupational diseases in the course of their employment.
Providing compensation for employees in interstate commerce suffering injury in the course of their employment.
Harmonizing conflicting court decisions in different states by giving the state itself the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Establishing the eight-hour day for women employed in certain occupations in the District of Columbia.
Co-ordinating the federal health activities and strengthening the public health service.
Providing in the immigration act for mental examination of immigrants by alienists; safeguarding the welfare of immigrants at sea by detailing American medical officers and matrons to immigrant-carrying ships.
Providing a hospital ship for American deep-sea fishermen.
Providing for the betterment of the conditions of American seamen.
Establishing a commission to investigate jails and the correction of first offenders.
Abolishing the contract convict labor system by restricting interstate commerce in prison-made goods.
Legislation giving effect to the principles underlying such proposals as these would constitute, we believe, an important step in the accomplishment of the forward-looking purposes which you have placed before the American people.
Caroline B. Alexander
Frederic Almy
Louise de Koven Bowen
Louis D. Brandeis
Howard S. Braucher
Allen T. Burns
Charles C. Burlingham
Richard C. Cabot
Richard S. Childs
John R. Commons
Charles R. Crane
Edward T. Devine
Abram J. Elkus
H. D. W. English
Livingston Farrand
Homer Folks
Ernst Freund
John M. Glenn
Josephine Goldmark
T. J. Keenan
Florence Kelley
Howard A. Kelly
Arthur P. Kellogg
Paul U. Kellogg
John A. Kingsbury
Constance D. Leupp
Samuel McCune Lindsay
Charles S. Macfarland
W. N. McNair
Charles E. Merriam
Adelbert Moot
Henry Morgenthau
Frances Perkins
Charles R. Richards
Margaret Drier Robins
W. L. Russell
Thomas W. Salmon
Henry R. Seager
Thomas A. Storey
Graham Taylor
Graham Romeyn Taylor
Lillian D. Wald
James R. West
W. F. Willoughby
Stephen S. Wise
Robert A. Woods