82 ChaPter 2
Wobblies. By making some concessions to the poor and disaffected, the
Capitalists would remain firmly in power, the economy would grow, and
workers and farmers would be less likely to revolt. Corporate liberals were
also concerned about the competition that was growing among businesses
themselves. Though the people were told that competition was the basis of
capitalism and it would motivate companies to produce better goods at lower
prices in order to draw in consumers, in reality corporations did not like com-
petition. Competition, especially from smaller firms in the same field, could
be destructive and larger companies went to the government for a solution to
what they believed was too much competition. Some examples will explain
these concepts better.
If a worker was injured or killed on the job due to unsafe conditions, there
were no “workers compensation” laws to help his or her family get any ben-
efits from the company responsible for the workers plight. This was not a
small problem as, between 1888-1908 alone, there were about 35,000 worker
deaths, and over 500,000 injuries, per year, especially in the railroad and min-
ing industries. The worker or survivors could only go to court to seek com-
pensation, and judges ruled against the workers who sued in the majority of
cases, not surprisingly. Labor organizations naturally wanted laws to protect
them against dangerous labor conditions and had no faith in the courts to
serve them well. That comes as no surprise. But businesses, corporate liberals,
began to support laws for workers compensation as well because they began
to see more judges practicing judicial progressivism and feared that the courts
would begin ruling against manufacturers and force them to pay large dam-
ages to the workers or families filing the lawsuits. They also believed that
workers, if laws for compensation were in place, would be more content and
less likely to file suits or seek radical labor alternatives like those Debs or the
IWW advocated. By 1912, 42 states had workers compensation laws, with
the system organized and run by the state with heavy input from the compa-
nies. Now, both corporations and workers had a stable process for handling
workplace injuries and it was accomplished without riots or militiamen being
called out.
Still, corporations were alarmed by other conditions, including basic capi-
talist competition. Examples from three areas show how this developed. In
the banking industry, smaller state and local banks, which had contributed to
local politicians and in a sense controlled them, were operating without much