Page:The Wisconsin idea (IA cu31924032449252).pdf/193

 employee shall constitute a separate risk within the meaning of section 1898d of the statutes."

It will be noticed that it was by making each employee a separate risk that the old mutual statute was applied to this act.

Under this section mutual companies are now being formed with a fair degree of rapidity.

Here then, we have two laws, the workmen's compensation act and the industrial commission act, based upon the fundamental Wisconsin idea and made practical by the devices which were used in the railroad commission and the public utility act. It will be seen that the same procedure by which the aggrieved party had his right in court under the earlier commission acts, gave the aggrieved party that same remedy under the industrial commission and the workmen's compensation act. After all, it is a court question, a matter of contract just as in the railroad and public utility acts. No matter how many rights may be given the employee under any modification of the fellow-servant or contributory negligence doctrine, the poor fellow was obliged to go into court and ask that compensation be given to him. Delay was the inevitable result of going into court. He could engage attorneys, to fight the case for him but meanwhile he could starve. The result has been that by the constant appeal from court to court and the slowness of justice, the man who apparently had justice