I have introduced the bill for workmen's compensation in the Massachusetts Legislature for the last four years, the bill Mr. Lowell referred to, and, as has been stated, they have reported two different measures in two different years, and no one took any notice of them. In the mills in the city where I live, and in all the mill cities in Massachusetts, they have a great many more small accidents than they do of the serious ones. That is especially true in the weaver room, and I happen to be a weaver. We have a lot of things that are liable to take a finger off or injure an eye, or the shuttle is liable to come out of the loom suddenly, or you are liable to slip and get caught in the machinery. The machines are all crowded together, and a girl is liable to get her skirts or her hand caught in the machinery, and when little things like that occur, injuries that will possibly lay the employe up for a week or two, or three or four weeks, the employe should be protected. The operatives do not care much about the loss of a finger or the loss of beauty, or any such thing as that. The particular thing that the operative is interested in is, if he is a man of family, how his family is going to make out while he is on a sickbed and unable to work. He does not make large enough earnings so that he can lay aside his little savings for a rainy day. Unfortunately, the mill operative is the worst paid employe in the United States, without any doubt. They contribute a good deal to the prosperity of the commonwealth which I have the pleasure in part to represent, but they get very little of the cream of the industry.
The industry in Massachusetts, as you all know, is a big success, and we are proud of it and want it to stay there, and do not want to do anything that will drive it out of the State; but we do want to do something for the mill operatives, at least I do, and I think that the Commission which has been appointed will bring about some system that will give them protection. They make all the way from $6 to $10.50 in the cotton mills. The average, I believe, is about $7 in Fall River to-day, so that you can see that a mill operative getting injured has not anything to fall back on. He wants to be assured that his family is going to be taken care of. The operative has recourse to the employer's liability act, but it takes too long. It is about two years before a case comes to court in our State, and while he is waiting his family is waiting for that income that has been cut off.
I hope the New York delegation will pardon my referring to their having left out the manufacturers. There is some reason, no doubt, and I suppose in part it is due to interstate competition, and that is something we will have to look out for. If we have the time, Mr. Chairman, before this convention is over, I would like to hear from the New York delegation in regard to that feature.
John Mitchell: I think perhaps Mr. Parks did not understand. As I remember it, both Miss Eastman and Professor Seager called attention to what was done for those employed in manufacturing in New York. While our bill did not include those engaged in manufacturing in express terms, it has provided for them. That is to say, we have taken from the manufacturer a great many of his defenses from suits for damages, so that those who are engaged in hazardous occupations may sue under the employers' liability law, and the employer sued cannot set up as a defense the assumption of risk; while mill employes, not only in Massachusetts, but in all the New England States, are denied redress simply because they assume the risk of the industry. Those who are employed in industries where they get their fingers nipped off and other accidents which are not necessarily fatal, but nevertheless cause a loss of two or three or four months' time, under the New York law can bring suit under the employers' liability law, and, no doubt, in most cases would be able to make settlements without going through the slow process of the courts, because there would be a liability on the part of the employer in New York, whereas in the case of Massachusetts I understand at present there is no liability at all. So that we have, while perhaps not ample provision for them, yet so much better provisions than they ever had before that I dare say that nine cases will be compensated for in a suit for damages or settled because of the right to sue, where only one would have been compensated for under the old law.
Mr. Parks: I was not aware of that. I thought the bill covered merely those "dangerous occupations" Miss Eastman referred to.
Mr. Mitchell: No, we have two bills in New York.
New Jersey.
Miles M. Dawson (New York): I am sorry to say that I do not know very much about what Governor Fort did in New Jersey, or what the New Jersey Commission has done, because I am a resident of New York. I do know, however, that a Commission has been appointed, and that several gentlemen prominent in labor circles are on the Commission, and an officer of the United States Steel Corporation, and an officer of the Public Service Company, which operates nearly all of the trolley lines and, I think, all the electric lighting systems in northern New Jersey, are members of the Commission. From the make-up of the Commission I should expect that they would do good work, but I do not understand that they have as yet completely organized. I have not heard of their appointing counsel even, although they may have done so, and I do not think they have yet got down to work. The fact that they are not represented at this Conference is an indication that such is the case.
I do not think there is anything peculiar about their appointment or any unusual situation in New Jersey, except, as I understand it, that the Governor particularly and the Legislature to a large degree, are interested as nearly everybody is becoming interested nowadays in this general question, and so the Governor considered that there ought to be something done in New Jersey.