The Kalispell bee. [volume] (Kalispell, Mont.) 1900-192?, 1902-12-12
Pensions for the AGED.


three score he must either have some
thing laid up for rainy day that is
at hand, be dependent upon some
relative or the state, or be an object
of charity. His days for securing
an income from his hands and brain
are about gone.
And yet there is no question but
that man who has been Industrious
a living for the rest of it if he is not
able to find active employment. The
mere fact that sickness and misfor-
tune have taken away his savings
does not make him less deserving of
support than his more fortunate
brother
How to utilize this great PROPOSE
ton of equity and justice in law and
social custom has long been the prob
lem of statesmen. Bismarck made it
a life study. 1t has been the favorite
hobby of Joseph Chamberlain for
many years, and he does not despair
of solving it yet Almost every great
on an income without work is inter
ested in it. The late Herr Krupp,
the famous gun maker, spent enor-
nous sums in pensions for old men
| in his employ, and was much alb
| sorbed in the work of making every
Industrious old workingman a legiti-
mate pensioner of the state.
Tn h af% ~ 70 ID
by charity and endowments what Eu-
ropean statesmen are bent on accom-
plishing by fixed pension laws incor-
porated into the national constitu-
ton. There are said to be scores of
worthy old men who devoted their
whole lives to making Carnegie rich,
yet who today are objects of charity
through sickness and bad luck. Car
negie has been going about the coun-
try giving away books, while these
worthy old men have been on the
verge Of starvation. They ought to
have been receiving old age pensions
out of the colossal profits of his steel
manufacture. After these worthy
workingmen have been supplied with
board and shelter it will be time
enough to supply the world with
| books.
Yet the problem of pensions for
worthy aged workers is by no means
an easy one. Bismarck found it up
hill work at every step, the working
men themselves even being suspi
cious of his schemes. The trouble
with Chamberlain's scheme, over
which he has been working for sc
many years, is that he raises toe
many distinctions among those whom
he would pension, dividing them into
the higher class, the lower class, the
upper middle class, the lower middle
class, the middle lower class, the
lower higher class, the higher lower
class and the middle middle class
all of which so reeks with feudalisn
as to disgust Americans.
In New Zealand they have evolved
a very unique system of old age pen
sions. Edward Everett Hale, WHIT
has been a long and tireless SUDDEN
of this problem, believes that the pol
tax is one that should be reserved
exclusively for old age settlements
The United States civil service com
mission in its annual report has jus
devoted a chapter to this subject
looking to a system of compulsor,
annuity insurance, to be deducte,
from the salaries of government EN-
ployes for the benefit of the. super
anuated in the public service, which
means life pensions after the servic
limit.
AS we said in the beginning, it
a perfectly fair and rational propose
ton that every sober and industriou
man who has worked faithfully up
the allotted time of man deserves SUI
port for the rest of his life, not as
pauper, but as having earned it. TIL
subject OF old age pensions is comm
more and more to the front in al
countries 1t is true that it is some
what complicated. but 1t will yet fin
a solution. Most charity is degrat
ing.-Boston Globe.