28o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



industry be purchased at the cost of the welfare of the workers ? This 

 is the problem that often confronts the voter. How have the Pacific 

 coast states met this dilemma? 



The first modern labor laws protecting the wage-earner were those 

 dealing with child labor. California was one of the first states to pro- 

 vide child-labor legislation. Such legislation was passed in 1889, 

 amended in 1901 and greatly improved in 1907. Washington and 

 Oregon passed excellent laws in 1903. There have been further amend- 

 ments so that the laws in these three states have a general age-limit of 

 fourteen years, prohibitions of night-work by children, compulsory 

 school attendance and highly important provisions for adequate en- 

 forcement. Suggested improvements are to raise the general age-limits 

 and to provide a broader foundation of education through a longer 

 period of compulsory school attendance. 



Society is very much interested in the labor laws known as employ- 

 er's liability and workmen's compensation. Modern industry bears only 

 a slight resemblance to the craft and the rural work dealt with by the 

 common law. Modem industry is a huge machine for which there must 

 be workmen. Every year men, like machinery, are cast on the scrap heap. 

 Under the common law there is no adequate financial aid for widow 

 and children or for a dragged-out life as a cripple. California, Wash- 

 ington and Oregon early developed laws making employers financially 

 liable by recourse to the courts to the employees for accidents. But the 

 courts were slow and strange to the workmen ; lawyers were expensive, 

 and a thriving insurance consumed funds. Hence workmen's compen- 

 sation laws making payments definite and automatic were passed. Cali- 

 fornia passed a workmen's compensation law in 1911, being the fifth ' 

 state to put it into effect. Washington passed a similar law the same 

 year, and Oregon also in 1913. At the close of 1914 there are twenty- 

 four states thus protecting workmen. Washington and California com- 

 pel employers to operate under the law, while Oregon's law is elective, 

 the alternative being employer's liability. 



Of equal consequence to workmen are occupational diseases, such as 

 anthrax, compressed-air illness and lead poisoning. California in 1911 

 was the second state to put into effect a law requiring the reporting of 

 occupational diseases, and her law has served as a model for many of the 

 fifteen other states which now make such requirements. 



Labor has also been attacking its problems without the aid of legis- 

 lation, namely, through the labor union. The methods of unions have 

 been severely criticized, perhaps more than their aims. This is to be 

 expected because labor is on the firing line of conflict, that has for its 

 stakes bread and butter and housing. The daily labor of workmen is 

 rough, direct and concrete; the efforts of their organization are of the 

 same nature. The Pacific coast has had its share of labor-union activities. 



