Page:The Wisconsin idea (IA cu31924032449252).pdf/181

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LABOR, HEALTH AND PUBLIC WELFARE
157

tended to stimulate activity for betterment. The inadequacy of all old remedies for personal injuries was apparent to all. The labor bureau under the direction of an expert from the university, made a scientific study of this question, which revealed such startling results that there was evidently but one course to follow, namely, to adopt some form of workmen's compensation or industrial insurance. As Chief Justice Winslow of the supreme court said in the decision recently rendered, in which the constitutionality of this law was upheld:—


"Legislate as we may in the line of stringent requirements for safety devices or the abolition of employers' common law defenses, the army of the injured will still increase, the price of our manufacturing greatness will still have to be paid in human blood and tears. To speak of the common law personal injury action as a remedy for this problem is to jest with serious subjects, to give a stone to one who asks for bread. The terrible economic waste, the overwhelming temptation to the commission of perjury and the relatively small proportion of the sums recovered which comes to the injured parties in such actions, condemn them as wholly inadequate to meet the difficulty."


The Wisconsin workmen's compensation act is an excellent example of the careful way in which the leaders in Wisconsin work. The agitation was started by the labor element. After several years of discussion a committee, headed by an able attorney, A. W. Sanborn, was appointed by the legislature of 1909. This com-