At this point two resolutions which had been adopted at the Atlantic City meeting, in July 1909, were re-adopted,—requesting the U. S. Bureau of Labor to publish the foreign compensation laws in English, and to investigate the comparative cost to employers, of liability insurance under the American system, and workmen's compensation under the British and German systems.
Mr. Miles M. Dawson, of New York City, said:
"I agree with the Wisconsin, Minnesota and New York Commissions that if we are to get anything done this year, we should go ahead and do it without waiting, for these tables of cost are by no means absolutely necessary.... But the things which can be brought out by that information are not quite the same things you are apparently thinking about.... A thoroughly competent expert, who will know what he is after, can put that information in the hands of the Bureau of Labor for publication by September or October next, and there is no reason why the Minnesota legislature or the Wisconsin legislature should hold up its report for an indefinite length of time. I have known New York pretty well, and if the Commission in New York renders a report during the present session and it meets with the approval of most of the Commission in New York, there is no doubt in my mind but what something will be done in New York before the present legislature is over."
Dr. Charles McCarthy, of Wisconsin, said:
"I am thoroughly in favor of getting the statistics from Europe and I fully realize what a job that is. I believe, however, there is a way of going ahead as Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Culbertson have suggested without getting the statistics. Perhaps we are trying to get too much at once upon the statute books. I would suggest that these industries might be classified as to the dangers which they incur, not necessarily the industries that are particularly dangerous, but a group of industries could be taken and the law applied to them, and a bill could be introduced in the three legislatures applying to those particular industries. The rates could be fixed in that law so reasonable that the manufacturers could not oppose the law, with a provision in the law that after investigation, or within a certain time, those rates would be increased in the future. Now, as an experimental thing, as a thing which all States could agree upon, that would not be hard to get and would not be hard to put upon our statute books. It would be an opening wedge, it could be tried before the courts and the principle determined by the courts and then applied within a few years to other industries of a dangerous nature. I do not think the process of statute law making is a process of getting all the statistics and facts from foreign countries; I think that it is the other way in America. Our statutes work out differently in the psychology of the working man, and I believe the way to do it in America is to get some particular group of industries that we know are dangerous and get three of the States to act together. I think the workmen will meet that half way, with the idea of increasing in the future. It is an entering wedge that all can agree upon." (Applause).
Mr. J. P. Cotton, counsel for the New York Commission:
"If we ever come to workmen's compensation, there has to be back of it sometime an efficient insurance system and the data of the English experience on that is of the very highest importance.... I do not see any reason why, in non-competitive trades, any American state is not now ready to go ahead and establish a system of compensation at such a rate as will at least grant relief to the workmen. But that does not make any less important the collection of foreign figures in particular accident experience."
Dr. McCarthy:
"How will it do to make a classification based upon actual statistics of deaths and accident rates and put it up to the courts? Suppose the courts do knock it down, then they will tell what we can do in the future. We don't want to be afraid of the veto of the courts, for in the end they will tell us what we can do. We have to go through that experience some time and we might as well begin with our best foot forward,—with the best case we can make."
Mr. George M. Gillette, of the Minnesota Commission: