A Milestone for Workers’ Rights
A tragic accident at the Clough-Hartley mill highlights the life-saving impact of Washington's early workmen's compensation law.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The terrible accident befalling B. N. Sweum, a man employed at the Clough-Hartley mill, which will permanently disable the man for life, brings into bold relief the humanitarian principle upon which the workmen's compensation law is based. An official of the insurance commission who investigated the case gave it as his opinion that under the common law, the man had not one chance in a thousand of ever collecting a cent of damages. It was one of those accidents which no mill company could possibly guard against, and no court would hold it liable. But now, the state steps in and pays to that injured workman $4,000. It means the family will have support and the children can be kept in school. The casualty companies, in their vicious attacks upon the law, lay great stress upon its imperfections, but they are silent as the grave on the humanitarian side—the fundamental issue that industry shall bear the cost of industry.
“The casualty companies are silent as the grave on the humanitarian side of the law... they want the act repealed so that they may again mulct both the employer and you, the employe, out of an annual toll of blood money.”
This reflects the birth of the modern social contract in Washington, where industrial danger was finally acknowledged as a societal cost rather than an individual misfortune. Today, the struggle for worker protections continues, though it has shifted from basic injury coverage to debates over gig-economy rights and wage theft.
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