JUSTICE FOR MARINE WORKERS
Mackenzie, Frederick W.
Justice For Marine Workers Congress Restores Benefits of State Workmen's Compensation Laws to Longshoremen By FREDERICK W. MAC KENZIE THE STORY of "K. H." is but one of many thousands, similarly...
...He left a widow and two small children...
...Owing to irregularity of employment, these men live close to the bare margin of existence...
...He was employed, temporarily, helping to prepare a ship in New York to carry supplies for the European War...
...Workers at the docks perform arduous tasks...
...The effect of'this legislation will be far-reaching...
...Congressmen who stand for this principle may be voted down nov but they will have another opportunity at the no: session, when additional revenue will have to 1 provided...
...H." received compensation until the United States Supreme Court's decision in the Jensen case was rendered...
...I guess it Was very good," said the boy, "but there were three mighty fine places where he could have stopped...
...It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that such an opinion could be handed down in the face of the fact that four-fifths of the .states, and Porto Rico, Alaska, and Hawaii, not to mention the United States Government for its half million civilian employees, have adopted workmen's compensation...
...Such measures.as workmen's compensation for protection in time of accident, and universal workmen's health insurance for protection in time of sickness and childbirth...
...The era t>i humane consideration inaugurated by the Seamen's Law is opening the way to the full measure of protection which is due ail workers in water transportation...
...According to Mr...
...Another barrier ito industrial injustice has been removed...
...On October 0 it was passed by Congress and signed by the President...
...Wherever I turn I sec ShakespcaK...
...The $9.79 each week kept the wolf from the door— for a little while...
...The words 'admiralty jurisdiction" became of sinister meaning in the little homes of these men...
...Why do you make such an infernal fuss over this one...
...To this en he urged that fifty per cent, of the war burden I met with bond issues, and fifty per cent, by taxe "If the young men of this, country," he said, "are willing to risk their lives on...
...are at last gaining general recognition as the vital and indispensable foundation of industrial strength and human well-being...
...Society is coming to appreciate—as /lever before—the supreme value of its toilers, the producers...
...Jensen was a "stevedore," while "K...
...Danger is ever-present...
...oh, no, sir,' sr.id the aged villager...
...A slim chance...
...What was this Jensen decision...
...Just because of the nature of their work—like railroad workers engaged in any work the courts may label "interstate" commerce—they were placed in the position of innocent bystanders in the time-old legal feud between Federal control and State control...
...And note this: The Jensen case had many ramifications...
...He was taken to a hos-' pital where he remained six weeks...
...Injured men, or their dependents, are left at the mercy of expensive, slow-moving, inadequate and uncertain litigation which so frequently leaves them worse off than at the outset—meanwhile compelled to resort to private charity...
...Conscription of wealth logically—and in a democracy inevitable—must accompany the conscription of men...
...Usually1 they toil under highest pressure...
...A bill was prepared by the Association, on official request, as an emergency measure...
...Serious accidents are a matter of daily occurrence...
...To relieve this injustice, the American Association for Labor Legislation(on August 20, 1917, caljed upon Congress to pass immediately a law restoring to workers engaged in loading and unloading vessels the protection of state workmen's compensation laws, saying: "It i; a matter of great national importance that the daily occupation of these workmen—hazardous at all times and now imperatively essential to the successful conduct of our shipping in the great war—be not surrounded with additional anxieties' and sources of personal friction...
...Relief came, quickly...
...H." is a "carpenter...
...I Understand he writ for the Bible, sir.'" Three Shopping Places A Philadelphia divine' was entertaining a couple of clergymen from New York at dinner...
...Compensation to the family was promptly awarded under the state law by the Industrial Commission...
...Courts have been more reluctant to accept the enlightened and humane principle of workmen's compensation than have legislatures or Congress...
...He has a wife and three children, and another child is expected'soon...
...The holders of wealth look askance at such a proposal merely because it is new...
...The host's soh was at the table and one of the New York clergymen said to him: "My lad, what did you think of your father's sermon...
...contusions about the body...
...Two months •after the Jensen decision he came to the hospital in a shockingly emaciated condition, threatening to jump off the bridge...
...Milk is supplied for the children and $4.00 a week to the family through private charity—the only support which they have received since the Supreme Court's decision...
...Pillsbury, there were no practical difficulties in the way of relinquishing Federal jurisdiction in such cases to the State...
...John Mitchell, chairman of the New York Industrial Commission...
...What the deuce did-he write—magazine stories, attacks on the Government, shady novels?' "'No, sir...
...This measure amends the Judicial Code relating to the jurisdiction of federal district courts so as fo save to these victims of industrial accidents the tights and remedies under the compensation law of any state...
...Court trials to establish liability for injuries in the course of duty and to win indemnities are—as the whole world has learned—a most tragically futile way for incapacitated workmen to attempt to secure the benefits to which they are justly entitled...
...As expressed by A. J. Pillsbury, chairman of the Industrial Accident Commission of California: "Compensation for industrial injuries, however and wherever suffered, has, and should have, no essential constitutional connection with commerce^ either interstate or intrastate, but is one department of, and belongs to, a general scheme of local, domestic, social insurance against the hazards of poverty with which the Federal Government should have only an incidental concern...
...The guests spoke in praise of a sermon, their host had delivered the Sunday before...
...The family of five are living in two rooms in a low grade tenement...
...Operating a small electric truck used for unloading lumber from one of the company's steamships at a New York dock, he was accidentally killed...
...growing in* favor...
...On January 5,1917, he fell from the deck down into the hold, suffering a fractured pelvis and coccyx, and general...
...The conditions surrounding their labor are readily conducive to ill-health...
...Wliat Shakespeare Did William Dean Howells is credited by London 7 7-bits with telling this Shakespeare story: "In Stratford," he says, "during one of the Shake peare jubilees, :an American tourist approached ii aged villager in .a smock, and said: "'Who is this chap Shakespeare, anyway?' " 'He were a writer, sir,' "'Oh, but there are lots of wroters...
...This means that the individual states may now freely determine for themselves the extent to which their compensation laws tire adapted— or arc to be shaped—to cover the longshoremen...
...hotels, Shakespeare cakes, Shakespeare chocolates, Shakespeare shoes...
...Jensen was a stevedore, employed by the Southern Pacific Company...
...These workers were legally tagged "maritime...
...He is still under the care of a physician...
...Champ Clark's Stand That good can come out of Nazareth is once mor-demonstrated by Speaker Clark's plea for a revenu bill based upon more taxes and less bonds...
...The hindrances are all technical, artificial, leg-listic," he asserts, "and would not have existed if the -fifth man on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States had held with the dissenting four who had the weight of argument and reasonableness on their side, but unfortunately for hundreds of thousands of toilers in hazardous industries, lacked one vote...
...The Jensen^ decision placed these workers in a cruel "No Man's Land" of legal jurisdiction...
...He is not yet able to work...
...The hours arc long and the loads arc staggering...
...Th Speaker's reputation for conservatism and his oppt sition or indifference to progressive legislation make a dramatic setting for his appeal on the floor c the House fo:%an apportionment of bonds and taxc that willindicate an appreciation of the fact the the present war is of this generation, and shouTd n be saddbd upon succeeding gencratidns...
...the battlefield, the people who stay at home ought to be willing to 'jay their share in dollars...
...Individual profiting is-intolerable in a w:> that means national sacrifice.—The Public...
...Conservation of the workers is the basis of na tional effectiveness, both in war and peace...
...And it was to relieve distress and suffering such as this among the families of injured workingmen that - Congress was moved, in the closing days of the last session, to pass a law restoring to injured longshoremen and other water-front workers the benefits of state workmen's compensation laws...
...He was entirely without funds . and really starving...
...But the railroad-steamship company fought the case in the courts...
...The state courts upheld the award of the Commission...
...To deny them certain and adequate indemnities, was repugnant to the progressive policy' of accident compensation that has come, to prevail in this country...
...This is but another evidenpe that conscription of wealth...
...According to Secretary John B. Andrews of the American Association for Labor Legislation, "it opens the way for the comprehensive application of state compensation laws to industrial accidents in marine employment...
...But, finally, the United States Supreme Court, in a five-to-four opinion, declared such compensation invalid...
...The need for corrective legislation wa«s urgent...
...H." is a carpenter...
...H." is but one of many thousands, similarly pathetic...
...Protective standards for labor have been so firmly entrenched in national understanding that they are being successfully upheld against misguided or sordid demands to break them down behind the mask of "war necessity...
...In New York state alone some five thousand "dock workers" are seriously hurt in the course of their employment every year...
...A large army of workers, in many states, were crushed under the heavy hand of this decision...
...Among those interested in its passage were Grant Hamilton of the American Federation of Labor...
...All laborers were affected whose employment at the time of injury might be classed as "marine" by the courts...
...and Commissioner lloyal Meeker of the United States-Bureau of Labor Statistics...
...Not only the "dock laborers"-—those who constitute the transportation link between land and water—but also seamen and all others "engaged in moving the nation's commerce should be similarly protected...
...Which meant that thjir only chance of securing indemnities from their employers, when injured, was through actions at law under admiralty jurisdiction...
Vol. 9 • December 1917 • No. 12
