The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-08-30
OLD AGE PENSIONS
Victor l.. Berger's Speech in Congress, August
 7, 1911


 sion bill which I introduced last Mon day
 l Within a year you will have tt make up your minds on this subject 1 You will have to determine where you stand. A mighty wave of de | law will roll in from every section ot | the country and the issue will have tc | be met
 America Backward in Social LegisIa- | The working men and working wom. | en of this country are entitled to be | taken care in their old age. Most o1 | them receive in return for their la i Dor, so small part of what they produce that all of it is expended ir merely keeping alive. Since the aver not more than s4oO a year, it is ob- vious that it is impossible for al | least half of the popula tion to save uI 1 anything for old age. The working class is not better off in the matter of wages in any other | country. But in many of the other | countries the duty of society to the | aged is recognized. Old age pension | laws have been passed in the princi- | pal nations of Europe, in the Anti podes, and even in one American na- | tion. Germany, Denmark, Italy, Aus tria, Great Britain, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have all enacted such laws.
 As usual, where legislation for the protection of the working class is con- cerned, the United States is tagging behind. The Republican party put such a plank in it's platform of 1900, but the Republican Congress did noth- ing in the matter and the plank has disappeared from subsequent plat forms.
 Condition of Aged Workers Growing
 Worse
 There can be no doubt that the con- dition of the aged workers has grown worse in this country during the last thirty years.
 And for this reason:
 Our country is rapidly changing from an agricultural to a manufac- turing country.
 to take care of the aged. Especially was it so in former days when living was cheap.
 There is plenty of room on the farm. And even old people can usually do some chores-enough to make up for the slight expense of their keep.
 It is thus no special hardship for their friends and relatives to take care of them.
 The case is entirely different with the urban workers. The maintenance of their old folks by the wage work CTS of the cities especially where these men and women have children to take care offs nowadays simply impossi- ble.
 Aged working men and working women therefore soon become objects of private Or public charity.
 After having lived a life of useful ness the Gorking men and working
 xl, women who create all wealth-are us- ually subject to all the indignities, the sordidness and misery of the poor house or the system of "outdoor re- lief.''
 No wonder there are So many trag- edies Men and women of finer sen- abilities prefer death to this humilia- tion.
 The Tragedy of Destitute Age
 The aim of every normal man and woman is an old age free from care and want To that end most of them toll patiently and live closely, seeking to save something against the day when they can earn no more. And yet the same fate awaits the overwhelm- ing mass of them. Tn the life of the toiler there are weeks and sometimes unavoidable illness losses from cheating and swindling and then, as age creeps on, from about his 45th year, a constantly declining capacity to earn, until at 55 Or 60 he finds himself helpless and destitute. These the lot of the toiler who has strug- gled all his life to gain competence and who at 60 years faces the poor house.
 The black slave had no such trag- edy as this. It is tragedy reserved for the free worker in ''the freest na- tion on the globe.''
 right of these men and women to be taken care of decently in their old age. They have made civilization possible for everybody, and especially for the comfortable classes.
 AS I said before, from their earn ings-the average is about s40O-it is absolutely impossible for them to save anything for their old age. Even if they should descend to Chinese stan dard of living, they could not, as a mass, lay by a competence. They would thereby diminish trade, cause hard times and change our civiliza- tion. But they could not, under our present system, secure themselves against want in their old age. Military Veterans and Industrial Vet
 erans ESVerYDOQy III Am0rlCd r6dully un- derstands why soldiers are entitled to pensions It is because soldiers rem der service on the field of battle which is considered dangerous to life and limb. But very few realize that the number of wage earers killed and maimed every year on the railroads, | in the mines, factories and other in- dustries in our country is approXi- | mately equal to the number of sol- | diers killed and wounded in any one l year of our great Civil War, with all | it's terrible battles. Moreover there are any number of | diseases which are the | natural result of certain kinds of nec- essary work. but which make total or | partial invalids of hundreds of thou 1 sands of wage earners. The work of the soldier of industry in infinitely more necessary than the | bloody work of the soldier on the bat tlefield. Most of the labor performed | must be performed every day and | every hour, Or our civilization would | stop.
 The aged working men and work | ing women have therefore a claim on society that is even better than the claim of the soldier
 The Pension a RecOmpense for Un-
 paid Work
 Any toiler who has faithfully la bored for meager wage for twenty years or more has created more wealth than a pension in old age can repay Every toiler produces more thaD is paid Otherwise 10 would l