of the state that they do not violate the state law or its public policy. How different with a municipal corporation! Its every act can be and often is dictated and directed by the state and what should be limited to a broad general supervision for public purpose degenerates into partisan meddling.

The dawn of the new day, however, is breaking. The demand for home rule is growing. Already substantial progress is to be noted. In California the cities can draft their own charters. While it is true the legislature has the last say, its power is a veto power only, and at most it can forbid. It cannot compel the city to take what it does not want, although it may keep the city from getting what it does want. A recent Kentucky amendment which proposed to permit towns and cities to raise their own revenues in a manner which should suit them best was a step in the right direction. In Ohio the supreme court has courageously risen to the situation, and a new uniform municipal code has been framed.

California refused to adopt an amendment to its constitution which would have nullified the right of the cities to frame their own charters and which declared that "the protection and safety of life, liberty, property, health and morals, the securing of freedom and fairness in and at elections; the protection and regulation of commerce; the maintenance and execution of measures for the suppression of crime and vice, are state and not municipal affairs." Colorado adopted the "Rush" amendment and now Denver has the right to draft and adopt its own

charter.

The vetoes of franchise legislation in New York and Massachusetts by Governors Roosevelt and Crane have materially aided in the movements for municipal home rule. The veto power vested in the mayors of New York cities by the constitution of 1894 is a long step toward this end. It is not a full and final recognition of the principle, but it is materially helping to demonstrate the right of cities to be taken into consideration where their own affairs are concerned.

The National Municipal League's Municipal Program is based upon the principle of local self-government, which lies at the very foundation of our form of government. It insists that our

municipalities must be given sufficient power to govern themselves. In place of a long enumeration of delegated powers, it proposes to confer upon our cities sufficient power to meet its needs. It substitutes a positive, affirmative grant of power for the negative policy of petty limitation, while at all times recognizing and preserving the rights of the state in all matters of a purely state character. It recognizes the principle that in state matters there should be centralization and uniformity and in municipal affairs, local autonomy and home rule. As one friendly critic said: "Possibly we may not be ready for such complete local discretion of freedom, but at least we are better prepared than an outside assembly to know just what we do and do not want. Legislatures might possibly prescribe limitations, but it is a violation of democratic ideas of government that such bodies should go further and undertake direct affirmative legislation in matters of purely local significance."

The voter is told that he must divorce municipal affairs from state and national politics at the polls, and I am ready to subscribe to the statement as herein defined, but the separation to be complete, permanent and effective must begin further back. We must elect our United States senators by a direct vote of the people. This will take national politics out of the state legislature and out of local affairs. Then we must confine the state legislature to state affairs and give our municipalities sufficient power and opportunity to govern themselves. Then and not till then will they stand forth regenerated centers of happiness and efficiency, and examples of the success of true democratic govern

ment.

Philadelphia.

CLINTON ROGERS WOODRUFF.

WORKMEN'S INSURANCE IN GERMANY.

I

TWENTY years have now passed since the first law on

compulsory workmen's insurance in Germany went into operation. It represented the first step towards the realization of that broad scheme whose outlines were put forth by the Emperor William I in his well-known "Message" (Botschaft) of November 17th, 1881,-the "Magna Charta of German Social Policy," as it is called by some, not altogether undeservedly, for of subsequent legislative measures following in its steps none has overstepped the limits which it describes. Such deliberate and direct evolution adds much to the interest connected with the problem itself; it considerably simplifies the investigation of the question as to what has been the success of the scheme. in its contact with life's reality, and how far the wish of the law-giver was realized "that the cure of social evils be sought for not exclusively in the repression of social-democratic excesses, but also in the active furthering of the workmen's well being."1

While discussing the value of compulsory insurance as a means of combating poverty, we shall consider poverty not as a definite economic state in general, but as a social phenomenon. The legislator's prime concern should not be with those causes of empoverishment that rest in human weakness and vice, but with those that lie outside of the individual; that are called forth by the contradictions between life and law; that make of the healthy "pedestrian" a loser in favour of the "lame and the hunchback" that drive on the cart-Capital.2

Neither should any explanation be required why this sketch attempts not only a valuation of workmen's insurance from an economic point of view, but also tries to enlarge upon its moral and sanitary influence; the rôle it plays not only in the life of

'Dass die Heilung Sozialer Schäden nicht ausschliesslich auf dem Wege der Repression Sozial-demokratischer Ausschreitungen, sondern gleichmässig auf dem der positiven Förderung des Wohles der Arbeiter zu suchen sein werde.

'A. Loria, Problèmes sociaux contemporains, No. 6.

the workman, but also in that of the employer and, generally, of the whole community. Social ailments spread not exclusively within those layers where they appear first; they diffuse themselves throughout the whole social structure, influencing its life in many and various ways.

This, then, the scope of workmen's insurance in Germany and its financial results, on one side, and its influence upon the circles lying outside the sphere of its immediate action, will form the subjects of our critical survey.

Those who visited the Palais de l'Économie Sociale at the Universal Paris Exhibition of 1900 were certainly very much impressed by the obelisk, representing the mass of gold equivalent to the insurance benefits that were paid out in Germany to workmen between the years 1885 and 1899. Such an obelisk would have weighed 961,000 kilogrammes, of a nominal value of 2,400,000,000 marks (about $600,000,000), a truly imposing figure which exceeded all expectations; the labels with the inscriptions "Grand Prix," that were displayed everywhere on the walls of this particular pavilion, bore witness to the full expert appreciation.

A few figures will give a more comprehensive idea of this gigantic organization. In 1900 there were 23,021 (1899, 22,872) sick benefit clubs (Krankenkassen1); the number of insured, 9,520,763 (1899, 9,155,582), i. e., to one club 423.0 insured (1899, 409.4). Accident business was done by one hundred and thirteen professional associations (Berufsgenossenschaften, of these forty-eight rural), four hundred and seventyeight governmental, provincial and communal executive authorities (Ausführungsbehörden), and thirteen insurance offices of builders' associations (Versicherunganstalten der Baugewerksberufsgenossenschaften). No exact data can be obtained as to the activity of these latter.2 Accordingly any correct estimate as to the number of persons insured would be possible only

'The difficulty of rendering similar expressions into English rests in the different formation of these organizations in Germany on the one hand and in America and England on the other.

Cf. Amtliche Nachrichten d. R. V. A. 1902, p. 114, Angaben über die Organisation lassen sich bei den eigenartigen Verhältnissen der von den Berufsgenossenchaften mitverwalteten Versicherungsanstalten nicht bringen.

By

with reference to associations and to executive authorities. the former were insured in 1901 18,073,174 persons; by the latter 793,565. However, the first figure is excessive, as persons occupied both in industry and in agriculture simultaneously are insured and quoted twice; in 1895 they numbered about 1,600,000.1 Bringing in these corrections, we should not be wrong in assuming the number of those insured against accident to be 18,000,000.

Invalid and old age insurance is done by thirty-one insurance institutions (Versicherungsanstalten) and by nine special establishments (Besondere Kasseneinrichtungen). The number of those compulsorily insured was in 1895 11,813,259, but now, especially after the reforms of 1899, it should be considerably larger; this, among others, is shown by the returns from the sale of invalid insurance stamps2 that are showing an increase from 93,000,000 marks in 1891 to 134,000,000 in 1901. As regards those insured for invalidity and old age not on the compulsory basis, an attempt towards an exact estimation of their number would meet almost insuperable difficulties.3

From 1885 up to 1897 for workmen's insurance 2,908,200,000 marks have been collected. The individual items composing this

The years from 1898-1900 show returns: From sick insurance, 584,800,000; accidents, 277,800,000; invalidity and old age, about 441,000,000 marks, which brings the total up to 4,311,900,000 marks; by this time this sum will, beyond doubt, exceed 5,000,000,000 marks.

2

1Cf. Amtliche Nachrichten, 1902, p. 5, and ib., 1903, p. 5.

Cf. ib., p. 126, where are also indicated the causes why this increase, though uninterrupted, proceeds seemingly irregularly.

Cf. Woedtke in Handw. d. Staatsw., II ed., vol. iv, p. 1365. References to 1895 may be found in "Amtl. Nachr." of the first of August, 1901, and in the "Statistik d. Heilbeh.", p. 32.