Potosi journal. (Potosi, Mo.) 1894-1929, 1910-03-02

nop0Iy.
Old Age Pensions are not Revolu'
tionary.
Many of us in America have
been told that England was wrong
and foolish in granting pensions to
her old. The idea is called revo-
lutionary and socialistic; John Bull
has rushed in where angels and ac-
conntants feared to tread. And
anyway we don't need old age
pensions. We are too we'll off
in America for anything like that.
1t seems little incongruous to
think of placid John Bull rushing
into mad socialistic schemes. We
always thought of him as rather a
cautious old party who tapped
with his golden cane upon the
pavement before he made a for
ward step. We believed that the
British people were so ultra con-
servative that had they been alive
on the day of Creation, they would
have "besought the Creator to
preserve chaos"
As matter of fact, England
was not unduIy precipitate. For
almost a generation, ever since
1885, the British statesmen had
been discussing old age pensions,
gathering statistics, weighing
schemes, and presenting bills.
They had the German experience
before them, and knew all the facts
concerning that country, where an
old age pension plan had been in
existance since 1889, and where
fourteen million. one hundred
thousand men and women are now
insured. They had studied the
Danish system inaugurated in
1891, the New Zealand plan begun
in 1898, and also the old age pen
sions of New South Wales and
Victoria. The British statesmen
studied not only the plans of CON-
pulsory insurance, but also the
voluntary insurance of other coun-
tries, and as result of their twen-
ty years of deliberation and discus.
sion, the bill passed the House of
Commons by a vote of four hnn-
dred and seventeen to twenty. nine.
The measure was national, not
partisan.
But are not old age pensions
revolutionary and socialistic and
confscatory and all those hard
words that stand in the road of
progress? Public schools we're all
these at first, for had not a man a
right to keep his children at home,
and should bachelor be taxed for
the instruction of other peoples
offspring2 Child labor laws, tene-
ment house reform, and the distri-
button of agricultural information
by the Government were all called
socialistic. Old age pensions are
peculiarly socialistic. But is the
Emperor of Germany socialist9
Is the Pennsylvania Railroad a
demogogic revolutionary?
The Pennsylvania Railroad has
always been known as a sober
minded corporation, yet it has been
paying pensions since 1885. The
employees of the company had
been urging the railroad to take
up the subject ever since 1874, and
the railroad, after twelve wears of
corporate cogitation, consented.
How does the Pennsylvania
Railroad carry out its soclalistic
scheme of old age pensions9 In
the first place, it makes them uni
form. The president of the CON-
pany receives pension as does
the engineer, the conductor and
brakeman. All, from president to
brakeman, must retire ut sixty
five if superannuated, and no mat
ter how vigorous, active, and in
telligent, no man can continue to
work for the road after seventy.
Each man receives his pension,
which amounts to one per cent of
his average annual salary or wages
for each year of his service. Thus,
if a man is earning 81, 200 a year
and has been in the service forty
wears, he will receive an annual
pension of 1880. There are about