ESTION

The two specimens that immediately follow are analyses of the same
question by students of the same university. The first is a selection
from the speech made by Mr. Raymond S. Pruitt in the Towle Debate of
Northwestern University Law School in 1911. The second is the
introduction to the speech made by Mr. Charles Watson of the
Northwestern University Law School in the 1911 debate with the Law
School of the University of Southern California. Students should
observe how the two speakers determine somewhat different issues.

_Resolved_, That in actions against an employer for death or injury of
an employee sustained in the course of an industrial employment the
fellow-servant rule and the rule of the assumption of risk as defined
and interpreted by the common law, should be abolished.

Mr. Pruitt, speaking for the affirmative:

The question which we discuss tonight is partly economic and partly
legal. By that I mean that viewing it from the standpoint of legal
liability, we possibly can agree with the gentlemen of the Negative
that the employer should respond in damages to his injured employee,
only when the injury has been caused by the employer's own fault.
But, on the other hand, viewing the same problem from an economic
standpoint, you cannot deny, that, when through no fault of his own,
a worker is injured in the course of an industrial employment, that
industry should compensate him for the loss.

Here then is the issue--the world-old-problem--established
principles of law in conflict with changing social and economic
conditions; and, as history shows, there can in such cases be but
one solution. The decision of the court, the statute of the
legislature, yes, even the constitution of the nation, must in turn
yield to the march of progress and adapt itself to changing
conditions until once more it shall reflect the sense of public
justice in its own time. Hence, I say that in our discussion this
evening, there can be no confusion of issues. The Affirmative,
according to the wording of the question, are to advocate a change
in our common law, while the Negative in duty bound are to oppose
the proposition for change, and to defend as the Negative always
defend, the order of things as they are.

The Affirmative are to advocate such a change, the abolition of the
common-law defenses of the employer. For the purpos