[Footnote 38:  Proceedings of the Seventh Biennial Convention, 1905 (Cleveland, n.d.); Report of Secretary-Treasurer, p. 124.]

The decrease in the ratio of disability to death claims paid is due primarily to a stricter definition of disability and to better administration.  The number of disability claims paid per 1000 of membership shows also, however, a slight decrease.

The records of the Trainmen which separate claims resulting from accidents still farther emphasize the need for disability insurance.

Death and disability claims in brotherhood
   of trainmen (1886-1904).
============================================================
==========
Kind of |Number |Number from|Percentage of|Percentage of|Percentage
Claims |from | Accidental| Claims from | Claims from | of Claims
           |Natural| Causes | Natural | Accidental | from all
           |Causes | | Causes | Causes. | Causes.
-----------+-------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
----------
Disability.| 526 | 2,610 | 16.77 | 83.23 | 32-1/3
Death | 2,033 | 4,522 | 31. | 69. | 67-2/3
-----------+-------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
----------
Total | 2,559 | 7,322 | 26-1/3 | 73-2/3 | 100
-----------+-------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
----------

The data show the place disability insurance has occupied among the Railway Trainmen during twenty years.  For this period disability claims for all causes were 32-1/3 per cent. of all claims paid.  The percentage of claims from accidental causes—­including both disability and death—­was 73-2/3 of the whole number of claims paid, while the percentage from natural causes was only 26-1/2.  In other words, these statistics show that the Trainmen’s accidental disability and death claims, as compared with those due to natural causes, have averaged almost three claims paid as the result of accidental causes to one as the result of natural causes.[39]

[Footnote 39:  Proceedings of the Seventh Biennial Convention, 1905 (Cleveland, n.d.), pp. 65-66.]

The old-line companies do not offer the form of disability insurance required by railway employees.  These companies issue accident policies against death and total or partial disability from accident while on duty; but there are two defects in the form of this insurance.  In the first place, the definition of total disability adopted by the companies is much stricter than that of the insurance departments of the railway brotherhoods.  A typical insurance company’s definition of total disability is incapacity for “prosecuting any and every kind of business pertaining to a regular occupation from the loss of both eyes, both hands, both feet, or one hand and one foot;” while partial disability is “the loss of one hand or one foot or any