Charity workers whose function had been hitherto to gather up the wrecks of civilization and smooth their dying days began to talk of "a war for the prevention of poverty," and an examination of their concrete legislation proposals revealed the acceptance of some of the principles of state socialism. Unrestricted competition and private property had produced a mass of poverty and wretchedness in the great cities which constituted a growing menace to society, and furnished themes for socialist orators. Social workers of every kind began the detailed analysis of the causes of specific cases of poverty and arrived at the conclusion that elaborate programs of "social legislation" were necessary to the elimination of a vast mass of undeserved poverty.
Under the stimulus of these and other forces, state legislatures in the more industrially advanced commonwealths began to pour out a stream of laws dealing with social problems. These measures included employers' liability and workmen's compensation laws, the prohibition of child labor, minimum hours for dangerous trades like mining and railroading, minimum wages for women and girls, employment bureaus, and pensions for widows with children to support. While none of the states went so far as to establish old-age pensions and general sickness and accident insurance, it was apparent from an examination of the legislation of the first decade of the twentieth century that they were well in the paths of nations like Germany, England, and Australia.
All this unsettlement in economics and politics could not fail to bring about a reconsideration of the fundamentals in the American constitutional system--particularly the distribution of powers between the Federal and state governments, which is made by a constitution drafted when economic conditions were totally different from what they are to-day. In fact, during the closing years of the nineteenth century there appeared, here and there in American political literature, evidence of a discontent with the Federal system scarcely less keen and critical than that which was manifested with the Articles of Confederation during those years of our history which John Fiske has denominated "The Critical Period."