committee assembled on yesterday for the purpose of receiving the report of the subcommittee and considering it and of determining upon the policy to be. adopted in these hearings. It developed at this meeting on yesterday that there are two cases which have already been argued and submitted in the Supreme Court of the United States which, in the opinion of many members of the committee, may throw a very decided light on the questions which this commission will have to determine. One of those cases is a case from Connecticut involving..the constitutionality of the employers' liability act—the last one that was passed by Congress.

In that case the power of Congress under the commerce clause is involved, and likewise the point is raised as to how far Congress rray legislate on that subject under the restrictions of the fifth amendment to the Constitution; how far, in other words, such legislation as that would be taking property without due process of law. The other case is the case involving the safety-appliance law of Congress. You will remember, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that the present act of Congress applies that law to the railroad companies' lines the line of the railroad company that is engaged in interstate commerce and not merely to the vehicle of interstate commerce, assuming that Congress has the power to legislate in respect to a vehicle engaged in intrastate commerce, if upon the line of a company engaged in interstate. That case has been argued and submitted. In the opinion of this meeting on yesterday a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on those questions will probably be very illuminating to the commission in respect to those essential powers of Government, and the meeting felt that with two opinion days of the Supreme Court during this month, one on the 15th and the other on the 29th-the court being in recess simply for the purpose of considering its opinions-it might be reasonably anticipated that one or both of those cases would be decided on one or the other of those opinion days.

In view of that fact, and of the possibility that whatever might be done here to-day might have to be begun over again in the light of those decisions, I was instructed by the committee at the meeting on yesterday to ask this commission to allow the railroads to be heard on these legal questions after the second of those opinion days, some time about the second week in June, so that all of us may have the opportunity of having before us such light as those opinions may shed upon the subject, and may discuss the question with the illumínation that they throw upon it.

I wish to add, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that the attitude of the railroads, as indicated at this meeting, is an exceedingly cooperative attitude; it is in no sense an obstructive attitude. We realize the value of what this commission has in hand and the benefits of the opportunity which this discussion and possible legislation, based upon it, may bring not only to the carriers but to the employees of the company, and the benefit it may be to our system of jurisprudence. So I say this merely to indicate that the suggestion which is made as to a hearing in June instead of now is intended to be a helpful and cooperative suggestion, not an obstructive one, and I therefore respectfully ask that the commission, proceeding as it may see fit as to any other interest involved, will give us an opportunity of being heard on these legal questions some time about the ɛecond week in June.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. Is that whether the decisions in those two cases have been rendered or not?

Mr. THOм. Yes, sir; because if they do not render them then they will not be rendered until the fall of the year, and we do not think it would be reasonable to postpone the matter until then.

The CHAIRMAN. I think, Mr. Thom, there will be no difficulty in making that arrangement. Undoubtedly we will have to hold a number of meetings, but we are anxious to make a beginning, if we can, to-day in the work, and then adjourn over until some later day. Is there any other gentleman present who desires to be heard?

STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID LEWIS, MEMBER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman, may I ask if there are any restrictions in this morning's hearing upon the treatment of the subject?

The CHAIRMAN. This particular hearing has been called for the purpose of discussing the legal phases of the question. The commission thought that first of all it ought to be determined as nearly as possible how far, under the Constitution, we would be permitted to go with our legislation before we undertook to go there. So that while I think there would be no disposition to interfere with a statement a little broader than that, still that is the primary object of the meeting.

Mr. LEWIS. I would like to ask how much time can be allowed me this morning? I ask, because I want to know when the committee would like to conclude.

The CHAIRMAN. There is no limit of time at all. We desire to investigate the subject fully, and we want to hear from anybody and everybody who is interested in it.

Mr. LEWIS. I would like to present this view while these gentlemen

are here

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. Before you proceed, Mr. Lewis, will you state what body or bodies you represent?

Mr. LEWIS. I represent human nature generally, I think, I can say

in this matter.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. Yours will be just a general discussion of the whole subject?

Mr. LEWIS. Yes, sir.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. I did not know whether you represented any particular interest.

Mr. LEWIS. No, sir; I do not. Some years ago, through a publication of the Bureau of Labor, I became acquainted with the fact that a method of treating the subject of accidents which seemed humane and just at least, had been reached in England, and I think, in 1897, a compensation law was passed. I shall not go into the reasons upon which it was based, except merely to suggest that English statesmanship, on a very brief consideration of the matter, soon determined that since mining and railroading, and other occupations having inherent dangers, could not be conducted without killing men and crippling men, that at least a part of the value of their lives and limbs should be charged up to the cost of conducting the business. I think that is the only element of expenditure, generally speaking, now involved in the industry that is not paid for, and by a

singular coincidence, it happens to be the most humane element, or the element calling most loudly upon us.

In Maryland I took the subject up at once-I was then a member of the State Senate and succeeded at length in getting some legislation through for the coal miners of Maryland-I believe, perhaps, the only legislation now active in the United States. When elected to this Congress, it seemed to me that this subject constituted a primary duty, and so the other day I introduced in the House a bill providing for compensation for accidents arising in interstate commerce, and other fields of national legislation that are constitutionally competent.

The bill, I may say, is not a measure of my own except in the sense of its adaptation to the national subjects. It is the bill of the National Civic Federation, with which, doubtless, you are familiar. It is known as their model bill. Naturally, everyone interested in this subject has been very much distressed to learn of the decision of the New York Court of Appeals pronouncing invalid a workmen's compensation law in that State on the ground that it constitutes a taking of property without due process of law. In my judgment, with all due respect, of course, to the court and a decision of the court, in that particular case the judges have very much misapprehended this subject; and their decision, in my judgment, is a very striking illustration of the incompetency of a single class to pass upon matters of great national policy. I am a lawyer myself, and my strictures I trust, if they be so regarded, may have the strength which would spring from my experience as a lawyer. In my judgment, only lawyers could see the subject with the narrow vision that characterized the view of it by the Appellate Court of New York. That is manifest when we think that there is no pretense of compensating the workman for the contribution of his life or his. limb to the hazard of industry. Fire insurance covers one kind of hazard, life insurance covers another kind of hazard, but with regard to the contribution the workman necessarily makes of his own life and limb, his precious personality, there is no pretense that it has been paid for in this country in any way, and to say that a measure, therefore, that provides that this expenditure and contribution of the workman to industry shall be paid for is taking private property without due process of law, instead of regarding it as an obvious method of compensating him for an expenditure that he has made to the business, is, I repeat, the view of the matter that only the narrowness of technical vision could possibly take.

Now, with reference to the law. I may seem a little invidious to both sides in the treatment of that subject. It is unfortunately too well known by all men that in the railroad industry of the United States the ratio of accidents is terrifically high. I will file with the secretary, if permitted, a table giving a comparison of the ratio of accidents to the number employed in this country with respect to other important railroad countries of the world. Without stopping to read it, I may suggest that the ratio rises as high as 4 and 5 to 1 as against our country.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lewis, will you be good enough to tell the commission from what source you obtain your figures?

Mr. LEWIS. This source happens to be Prof. Parsons, who has written a book upon the Railways and the People. But I will suggest to the chairman that I am engaged at the present time in deriv

ing this information from its original source, and with the permission of the chairman, I will file a table more recent than the one now filed, derived from original sources, at a later hearing (see p. 42). Now, I mention this frightful ratío here with a view to suggesting the source of power to deal with the subject, and that is, of course, a source of constitutional power. It has been accepted now as part of our national judicial polity that Congress may provide legislation for the purpose of reducing casualties upon railroads, and while there has been-and I believe is now-pending, from what Mr. Thom said, a question as to the extent of that power, namely, whether it may be made to include intrastate as well as interstate accidents— there has not been of recent years any serious question that Congress has power to deal with some accidents upon railways through measures for their prevention. The bill which I have introduced proceeds upon that theory. Its title is "A bill to provide a system of compensation for accidents with a view to prevention of accidents." Its number is H. R. 8654. The idea for the prevention is to impose a specific financial consequence on the mere happening of the accident, so that the employer will be under the most urgent of financial motives to exert all possible measures to prevent accident.

Employers may perhaps resent this suggestion-resent it because it may seem to imply a criticism of their moral attitude toward a subject like this. I do not mean any such intimation, in fact, but it has been recognized all through the history of Anglo-Saxon legislation that parliamentary action may go to that subject and may exert itself through the action of damage, or, as I have previously indicated, by attaching a financial burden to the happening of the accident itself. I am not going to take the time of the committee to read over a study, the most careful I could make, of the subject of accidents in the United States and of their causes. The study will show that in the judgment of the authorities relied upon in this study the cause of the frightful disparity between our accidents and those of other countries is twofold-the cause that goes to the men themselves and the cause that goes to the management.

I believe there can be no question that there is a spirit in the United States among many railroad employees and employers which regards the rules of the road as permissive rather than as peremptory.

The roads themselves seem not to have taken the kind of police measures necessary to discover infractions of their rules and to punish them, without reference to the circumstances of a disaster following the infraction.

There is one exception, I may say, to this statement. Mr. Kruttschnitt-I hope I have pronounced his name correctly

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. That is the way to pronounce it. Mr. LEWIS. Employed a method which seems to have been highly efficacious. Let me say that they do not have-judging from the authorities that I have consulted-any such thing in American railway administration as an "out-on-the-road detective system," namely agencies which act as sentinels to discover and report violations of the rules by the men. Mr. Kruttschnitt's case is the exception:

Mr. Kruttschnitt (I will read for a moment) has gotten at the heart of the trouble, not by criticism, but by action. He introduced on his railroad a system of out-on-the-road detection and report, policing it by police of the roads, in 1904. He claims that by its introduction on the Union Pacific, a substantial reduction in deaths, and a reduction of more than one-third in the injuries 30169°-12-15

has resulted, while the traffic actually increased, and in a few months he succeeded in raising the efficiency of the employees in observance of rules to the number of 98.9, as per the table appended.

This, with the permission of the chair, I shall also file with the Secretary, as addenda to my remarks.

Now, coming back to the text, namely, attaching a financial obligation to every accident in such a way as to create a dominant motive for its prevention. The suggestion is that if the railroad is under absolute obligation to compensate for deaths and to compensate for injuries, they will introduce into their administration this out-onthe-road detective system, as well as other measures-probably, or at least perhaps, of even greater value, and that in the very near future, under the operation of a compensation act, we may look for the same comparative freedom from accident in the country of Washington as obtains in nearly all other countries of the globe.

In that connection I wish to refer to another authority which seems to be of a character sufficiently respectable and responsible for incorporation in this record. Three or four years ago the Prussian Government sent to the United States commissioners to investigate. our railway system, to formulate a report to the Government of Prussia that might be suggestive and of importance to the Prussian lines. Their report is a very elaborate affair. I think it can be obtained in English at the Library. In their report they make the statement that if the American railways were manned with the same reference to securing safety upon the lines that the Prussian railways are manned, under the obligation of the law, some 500,000 more employees would be required in the conduct of the American railway system. Now, I confess that that statement-and I think I am practically accurate as to the figures-impresses me as probably an exaggerated But whether exaggerated or not it has the fine sanction behind it of the German mind and the German method. I do not recall the bases upon which their computations were made, but at any rate that represents the judgment of the Prussian commissioners.

one.

And now, if the chairman will allow me to file a more methodical statement on this subject as I have it prepared here, I am ready to conclude, thanking the commission for this opportunity.

The CHAIRMAN. That may be done.

(The statement referred to is as follows:)

It has been well known for many years that American railroading is the most dangerous and destructive in the world.

Comparative summary of railway accidents for the years ending June 30, 1909 to 1900-United States.