Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/904

868 868 HARVARD LAW REVIEW made a complete new start at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Amer- ican judges then did their share in working out conceptions that are now re- ceived among English-speaking peoples. They helped to incorporate the law merchant in the common law. Kent and Story helped to develop and syste- matize equity while Eldon was still chancellor. In 1850, while the EngUsh cases were still going on the forms of action, Chief Justice Shaw worked out the mod- ern doctrine as to negUgence in advance of the common-law world and in enduring fashion. The achievements of the classical period of American law, the period of the great appointive state courts prior to the Civil War, will stand with those of any period of growth and adjustment in legal history. The courts of to-day, with abundant experience at hand in the reports, with an appa- ratus of organized legal knowledge easily accessible, are externally much better equipped to meet problems that are relatively no more difficvilt. If they do not meet them adequately, may we not with good reason inquire as to the men behind the machinery? This is no place to argue the point. It is enough to say that if no one but a lawyer is competent to treat it, no one but a lawyer is competent to complacently wave it aside. And as to the voucher of Borgnis V. Folk, 147 Wis. 377, one might suggest a comparison with State v. Kreutzberg, 114 Wis. 530, ^^7,3.116. Nunemachery. State, 129 Wis. 190, 198-203, andaquery whether the moral of these decisions may not be Mr. Dooley's proposition that "The Supreme Coort follows th' iliction rethums." Some recent opinions in North Dakota and the marked increase in opinions written for the news- paper rather than for the law report since the advent of the direct primary, might also be studied profitably in this connection. ' It is not fair to Dr. Carpenter, who has done his work well from the political side, to hold him too rigidly for an incidental incursion into strictly legal his- tory. And yet this inability of the student of politics apart from law to appre- ciate the most significant of his materials deserves to be emphasized quite as much as the inability of the lawyer simpliciter to use valuable materials for his purpose, of which we have heard so much. RoscoE Pound. State of Connecticut: Fourth Report of the Board of Compensation Commissioners FOR THE Years 1917 AND 1918. Hartford. 1918. pp.34- The recognition of industrial accidents as a legitimate part of the expense of industry brings many things in its train: a new relation between employer and employed, care for the safety of the workman; and as that proves to be rather profitable, care of his general health as well, and of his social welfare. This report shows part of the process. In a state having more than half a million workmen, with over twenty thousand accidents coming under the act (nearly 95 per cent of which were amicably settled), voluntary aid was given by the employers in about three-quarters of a million accidents. Nearly two million dollars were paid out in compensations; but three-fourths as much was paid in medical or surgical aid, in cases where no compensation was due. One-half of all the employers reporting on the subject had an emergency hospital at the place of employment; almost every large plant furnished first aid; about seventy nurses were reported as in constant attendance. These facilities would hardly have been furnished in such large measure unless they paid; they minimized accidents, prevented infection, and kept the employees at work. This report does not show the great extent of other similar agencies. What is broadly called "welfare work," preventive work, not curative, is widely employed in the industries today; and it pays. The weakest part of the work- men's compensation acts is the employment of the unfortunate word "accident," or whatever phrase takes its place. If an industrial accident is part of the cost of industry, so surely is an industrial disease. The Connecticut Commissioners