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after all, our objectives.

I myself was sold on that originally. It seemed like a very good idea. There was a man named Carl Somebody-or-Other, an insurance economist and expert, a scientist, but never working for an insurance company, who had developed the plan. At least, when I first heard of it it was through his mouth. One by one we all fell for it. When I say “all,” I mean most people. It sounded like a very good idea as encouraging the prevention of accidents.

This all came to a head in the Roosevelt administration while I was Industrial Commissioner. We had many accidents and we came to discover that what was going on was intensification of medical examinations - pre-employment medical examinations. This was again like Maynard Keynes trying to explain to him the economic theories which he was supposed to be responsible for and finding a dead spot in the President's mind. So did I in reference to this.

Roosevelt didn't really follow you on all this. He didn't have any special arguments against my plan, but he wasn't endorsing it. I was proposing that we introduce legislation to prevent merit rating on the ground that it had actually interfered with the beneficent effects of the workmen's compensation act in that it made it impossible for a man with a hernia, or a phlebitis, or varicose veins