So it seems that my fellow “Socialist agitators” and I are leading
around by their noses such staid and proper citizens as are to be found
in the City Club of New York, the New York Federation of Labor and the
American Association for Labor Legislation.[5] And because some of us
are advocating here and now in New York that employers shall be
permitted self-insurance, mutual insurance or contribution to a state
managed fund, we are “seeking to destroy private business in all its
forms.” But F. Robertson Jones, who is one of those “employes of the
casualty companies who have their bread and butter at stake,” really
need not be so perturbed. No one really proposes “to transfer their jobs
to political appointees and to leave them out in the cold.” That is a
“pure figment of the imagination” to make use of Mr. Jones’ own
restrained language. There are many good men working for the state now
and there will be more when Mr. Jones and his fellow-employes are taken
over to apply to the public good the experience and knowledge gained in
private enterprises. And if public service is too contaminating, there
will still be the self insurers, and the mutuals in which those left
“out in the cold” may find ready employment. Let me hasten to add that I
do not make this statement “sneeringly” and that I hope a sober
consideration of it will carry conviction that if untrue, at least it is
not “unqualifiedly untrue.”
One example will do as well as a dozen to illustrate my point about the
attitude of the casualty companies toward “elective” acts. It is well
known that those companies opposed the New Jersey “elective” act at the
start. Seeing its tremendous advantages they then became active in its
support. As illustrating this point, I need only refer to the energy and
insistence with which the officers and counsel of various casualty
companies tried to put through, in the closing days of the session last
year in New York, a bill fashioned on the New Jersey model. A special
message from the governor and a special session of the Legislature were
talked of and only the uncompromising persistence of the State
Federation of Labor and the American Association for Labor Legislation
saved the employes of this state from something even worse than the New
Jersey act. The author of that proposed New York bill, when it emerged
from the conference called by certain casualty officials and attorneys
disowned it, it was so bad.
The Pennsylvania commission is an example of a commission advised by
more than casualty company _actuaries_. Of that act a commissioner from
another state writes: “The Pennsylvania act is calculated to turn the
employe over to the “Shylocks” and loan sharks in the liability
business. The report of the Pennsylvania commission outlines the most
abominable act that it has been my privilege to examine, and it fully
maintains the reputation of the state of Pennsylvania as being the
‘rotten borough’ of the world.”
No facts are quoted to prove that my statement as to the club feature is
“diametrically the opposite of the truth.” If the scheme does not work
out to the advantage of the casualty companies it would be interesting
to know why not. We would all agree that what the companies most desire
is that they shall get the employers, “or all large employers,” to “come
permanently under the compensation feature or to stay out
permanently”—exactly my point. Under such happy circumstances
prospective profits are beyond the dreams of avarice. Maybe the profits
have not been made yet, certainly I have not so stated, It is the
prospect which is so alluring, the profits so nearly within grasp which
are now slipping through their very fingers, because of these
“ill-advised enthusiasts” and other undesirable citizens.
And is it, then, “a purely gratuitous misstatement of the fact” that the
casualty companies opposed, tooth and nail, the Ohio compulsory act
which, by the way, does not give a monopoly to political boards? Do they
not oppose such an act here in New York today? Have they not opposed it
in Iowa, California and Washington?
As to the casualty companies having been most active “for a
constitutional amendment in New York,” so far as I have observed, that
activity has been very largely confined, as has that of certain lawyers,
to advocating such changes in the amendment as would defeat the whole
broad purpose of last year’s amendment. If listened to by the
Legislature these advocates would have put off for another three years
the much to be desired amendment to our constitution.
The objections to the fixing of rates by the insurance department are
two-fold. First, that that department is not “composed of officials
expert” in casualty insurance; second, that Senator Foley at the public
hearing at Albany, in order to meet the criticism of the American
Federation of Labor, proposed a state fund divorced from the state
insurance department. This was an important concession to labor and was
so intended. Labor and many others had fears of the state insurance
department, remembering the influence of the insurance interests before
Superintendent Emmett took charge and fearing their influence after his
retirement. That the “constitutional objections have been carefully
considered and that the overwhelming weight of opinion is that they are
not valid” is, as Mr. Jones would say, “a purely gratuitous misstatement
of the facts,” “a figment of the imagination,” if not, indeed, “a
gratuitous insult” to our intelligence. A few lawyers retained by the
casualty insurance companies may disagree with us, but that hardly makes
such a weight of opinion as to be overwhelming. As to bar associations,
all that is needed is to look up the clients of some of these
association committeemen. If what is wanted is a duly attested power of
attorney of the casualty companies, I must admit that I cannot produce
it.
If the Foley bill be studied with a little more care and with some
understanding of the lengths to which insurance agents will go and have
recently been going in Wisconsin, to misrepresent the state fund, the
statement about turning over the rich New York field may not appear as
such “nonsense.” It is to be remembered, too, that at the time the Foley
bill was introduced, the accompanying bill providing for the
organization of mutuals made such organization a matter of extreme
difficulty. This has been somewhat remedied lately, more or less at the
instigation, I fear, of the aforementioned enthusiasts and Socialists.
The men who were openly planning the rout of the casualty companies at
the time I wrote were the State Federation of Labor, of course. To that
valiant and determined host has now been added the American Association
for Labor Legislation, the Progressive Party in which ex-Superintendent
of Insurance Hotchkiss is so important a figure and Colonel Roosevelt.