But this is only the beginning. The big possibility is what the almshouses of the nation can do to ascertain the more remote causes of poverty and destitution, for, as in the case of the insane, when we know the causes of destitution, we can carry out our most effective work before the pauper becomes a pauper--before he comes slinking, wretched and despondent, to the door of the county farm. Tuberculosis will never be eradicated by merely treating the sick; yellow fever could not have been stamped out by simply caring for the afflicted; pauperism will never be materially affected by what we do when the pauper has reached his last ditch. We must fight tuberculosis by striking at its causes; we have already eliminated yellow fever by the same sane process. We would have gone further in our battle against pauperism, perhaps, were it not that pauperism is the only disease that has never invaded the home of the rich. No multi-millionaire has ever endowed a research laboratory for the study of destitution in memory of a petted child struck dead by its poisonous fangs. But every almshouse has its clinic in poverty and I am convinced that if every inmate in every poorhouse throughout the nation could be made to tell the story of how he came to be there; if every one could be examined for physical and mental causes, and if all these data could be gathered together in systematic form, a great stride would have been made in formulating an intelligent campaign against dependence. COMPENSATION FOR OCCUPATIONAL DISEASES JOHN B. ANDREWS SECRETARY AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR LABOR LEGISLATION The introduction in Congress of a bill which extends the workmen's compensation principle to embrace occupational diseases places before the American people an entirely new range of problems in the field of social insurance. The federal government since 1908, and fifteen states during the past two years, have recognized the wisdom and justice of the compensation principle in dealing with the victims of industrial accidents. Now comes the demand that the American people, through Congress, adopt exactly the same principle in dealing with federal employees who are incapacitated for work by occupational diseases. What is the present situation? "The government gives no compensation for lead poisoning because, technically, it is not an accident, which is true, for under the circumstances it is a dead certainty." --This quotation from the report of an investigator for the New York State Factory Investigating Commission is neither a playful nor an exaggerated statement. On the contrary, we now have complete confirmation of its truth in the official report and in the sober legal phrase of the solicitor for the Department of Commerce and Labor.[6] [6] Opinions of the Solicitor for the Department of Commerce and Labor dealing with Workmen's Compensation. 1912.