In this respect the generosity of the United States towards its employees compares most unfavorably with that of every country in Europe--even the poorest.
Teddy Roosevelt
The Public Record
Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. A member of the Republican Party, he was born on October 27, 1858, in New York. Roosevelt was a prominent leader of the Progressive Movement, advocating for domestic policies that included trust-busting, regulation of corporations, and conservation of natural resources. His administration is noted for significant reforms and the establishment of national parks and forests.
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And in the event of death occurring, say, ten or eleven months after the accident, the family would only receive as compensation the equivalent of one or two months' earnings.
A year's compensation is not adequate for a wage-earner's family in the event of his death by accident in the course of his employment.
Perhaps one of the most striking omissions in the law is that it does not embrace peace officers and others whose lives may be sacrificed in enforcing the laws of the United States.
It is a grim logic which says to an injured employee or to the dependents of one killed that he or they are entitled to no compensation because very few people other than he have been injured or killed in that occupation.
Whether 1 per cent or 10 per cent of those following a given occupation actually suffer injury or death ought not to have any bearing on the question of their receiving compensation.
If a man is injured or killed in any line of work, it was hazardous in his case.
There is no good ground for the distinction made in the law between those engaged in hazardous occupations and those not so engaged.
The law, passed at the last session of the Congress, granting compensation to certain classes of employees of the Government, should be extended to include all employees of the Government and should be made more liberal in its terms.
The number of accidents which result in the death or crippling of wageworkers, in the Union at large, is simply appalling; in a very few years it runs up a total far in excess of the aggregate of the dead and wounded in any modern war.
When a workman is injured what he needs is not an expensive and doubtful lawsuit, but the certainty of relief through immediate administrative action.
Our present system, or rather no system, works dreadful wrong, and is of benefit to only one class of people--the lawyers.
To strengthen these practical measures should be our immediate duty; it is not at present necessary to consider the larger and more general governmental schemes that most European governments have found themselves obliged to adopt.
The majority of wageworkers must have their rights secured for them by State action; but the National Government should legislate in thoroughgoing and far-reaching fashion not only for all employees of the National Government, but for all…
There should no longer be any paltering with the question of taking care of the wage-workers who, under our present industrial system, become killed, crippled, or worn out as part of the regular incidents of a given business.
They rarely do good and they often do harm to those who inherit them in their entirety.
It is eminently right that the Nation should fix the terms upon which the great fortunes are inherited.
We should put a premium upon thrift, hard work, and business energy; but these qualities cease to be the main factors in accumulating a fortune long before that fortune reaches a point where it would be seriously affected by any…
As far as possible we should lighten the burden of taxation on the small man.
There should be a progressive inheritance tax on large fortunes.
There must be prohibition of child labor, diminution of woman labor, shortening of hours of all mechanical labor; stock watering should be prohibited, and stock gambling so far as is possible discouraged.
Corporate finances must be supervised so as to make it far safer than at present for the man of small means to invest his money in stocks.
The regulation of the national highways must be such that they shall serve all people with equal justice.
Postal savings banks will make it easy for the poorest to keep their savings in absolute safety.
Every increase in the number of small stockholders in corporations is a good thing, for the same reasons; and where the employees are the stockholders the result is particularly good.
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