South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-03-15
Out-of-Work Insurance
Proposed as One ''Cure"
for Unemployment Ills
Rabbi Abraham Cronbach Says Manufacturers Should Help
Solve Problems by Arranging System to
Keep Men Busy All Year.

vacation every year for 10000 peo-
pie.
ITO this class IF non-employed
might be added artists. lawyers. ply
sicians, plumbers, contractors, and the
like-people who live not on wages
bat on fees There may be long pc
RODS between calls for these services
and still we do not have the evil Of un-
employment While waiting for calls
these people may be nOn-emplOyed
without being unemployed.
"A final type or unemployment
which is not unemployment are such
as firemen, soldiers, police reserves,
wrecking and repair crews for rail-
road and telegraph companies. These
people, when they are not working,
are pad to stand in readiness TO be
called upon in case Of emergency. II
firemen had TO live off Of fees re-
ceived for extinguishing fires, there
would either be no firemen at all or,
to say the least. the temptation to-
ward incendiarism might become
/ strong with the firemen.
Experts tell tnat vast num-
I Der if not a majority of the unem-
| ployed are somewhat in the position
/ in which firemen would find them
| selvese If they were paid only for the
| fires at which they function.
Reserve Army Necdeu.
+" Modern industry is said to require
\ a reserve army. There are those rush
| seasons in ever so many lines where
] extra men are needed by the hundreds
/ and the thousands. 1t may be the
/ harvest fields Of the west or the lum-
/ Der camps of the north, or the gar
ment shops of the east or the Panama
canal or railroad construction work.
The work while it lasts, employs
L. eF mil of Cd
! wages, but the season is soon over and
| the contracts soon finished. The wages
paid are not large enough TO tide the
person over until the next job, hence
1 the jObless applicant 20 the public
| charitie3.
! Resembling these seasonal employ
/ ments are the periodic fluctuations in
/ nearly all industries There is hard.
/ " factory in the world that needs
/ the same number of workers all the
/ time. There is a recurrent rise and
| fall according to the conditions of the
market.
"At Studebaker's this winter they
/ have been on the high grade: at Sing
ers' on the low grade. The hordes of
workers tempted out in rush periC DIS
/ are dropped when the rush Is over,
4 and that is where the army OF the I'M
! employed starts.
To Tide Over Idle Period.
"The various schemes for handling
unemployment are, at bottom, at
tempts to make the casual job so re-
munerative or SO frequent that the
worker will not find it impossible to
I tide himself over from one job TO the
next
lone very obvious way would be
| better wages. We pay the hack man
a price - cover the time when he is
not in demand. Why not pay the
Loo "a 81 GA
erati1s or railroad hand for the time
4 that Dc is not in demand?
Then there is such a thing as out
of-work insurance. In some Eu-
ropeaE co-ntties, such insurance IS
compulsory. 1t may involve delicate
and complicated machinery; all kinds
/ % regU]atiVe intricacies may be nee
| essary, but apparently it works
Sometimes the labor unions pay
| Out-of-wOrk benefits. Sometimes it is
! the labor unions subsidized by the
state. Sometimes the government
alone handles the insurance, the cost
being borne Jointly by the workers,
/ eminent. ! have heard Mr.. Marvin
Campbell speak of organizing Out-of-
} work insurance for South Bend.
You can see that insurance, like
any other measure against unemploy-
ment is helpful not in one way. but
in several ways. 1t helps directly
those that receive the insurance. It
| helps indirectly those commercial and
industrial interests which the receiv-
ers of the insurance are enabled TO
patrOnize. If unemployment is self ag
| gravating, it is also self diminishing
J IT is not only the disease that can
spread-the Guns IAN also spread.
Would Induce Thrift.
! we might mention yet a third
/ Al.
! The very creation of such an insur-
ance fund calls for thrift, and thrift
is good. Thrift is one of the deeper
| economic safeguards against unem-
| ployment If scarcity of capital is a
| cause of scarcity of jobs as undOubt-
edly ii is, thrift which is the para
mount measure against scarcity of
| capital must count accordingly as q
measure against scarcity of jobs.
Now besides making casual labor
more remunerative either through
| better wages, as Ford has done, or
! through out-Of-wOrk insurance., as
| they have been doing in Germany,
England and Belgium. there is yet q
great deal more that can be done.
"J0bs can be made more frequent.
Modern industry has exhibited a de-
piorable tendency here. When jobs
do come. they have a way of coming
all at once; coming in such an over
whelming pack that, for a brief sea-
son, people are worked nigh 10 death.
An intelligent and syste matte distribu-
ton of calls for labor over the entire
year and over extended series of years,
has gotten to be a vigorous demand
of unemployment prOpagandists.
study Ways and Means.
1T is urged upon the manufacturers
that they study out ways and means
OF taking some of the pressure of
OF the rush seasons and putting il in
TO the slack seasons Manufacturers
themselves have a great deal 10 gain.
because there are times when. en-
ployers suffer from lack of help just