The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-03-03
HEARING ON TEACHERS
PENSION BILL BRINGS
OUT SOME OPPOSITION
Many Cities of State Represented at Big Hearing Before
Committee on Education, and Lengthy Arguments in
Behalf of Bill Are Presented Teachers Opposed to
Plan That Would Require Assessments on Salaries.


Hartford, March s.Teachers from
all corners Of the State were present
at a hearing before the committee.
on Education yesterday in behalf of
the bill for teachers, pensions
There was little opposition, the most
notable being on the part of DR.. r.
M. Griswo1d. representative from Ber-
lin, who said that he had a daughter
who was school teacher, but who
ibid not want to be put in the same
class with paupers, indigents and Civil
War veterans
The committee questioned most of
the speakers who were in favor of
the bill as to whether they would IA
Yor substitute bill providing for PEN
sions that would be in part paid by
the teachers through assessments i'm
posed upon them It became clear
that the State Teachers Association,
which is back Of the BILL is not In
favor Of the assessment plan, but that
some of the advocates of the bill fa-
vored the inclusion Of that plan If a
pension law could not be obtained
otherwise.
Ex-senator Patrick McGovern was
the first speaker. He said that
teachers had been neglected in legis-
1ation which had otherwise favored
the advancement of education in the
state The teachers, he said, get moth
ing even when broken down in health
citizens and institutions of the state.
Comp ensation Commissioner George
B. Chandler said that he was unalter-
ably opposed to certain types of So
cialistfc legislation In the form of old
age pensions and similar methods of
relieving families OF supporting their
own burdens. He did not want this
bill confused with that type Of pen
sion as the two are different in that
a teache pension would be in the
nature OF a reward for services req
dered to the state.
Carefully Drawn Up.
strong Comstock of Danbury said
had been presented in twenty-four
other states He said that the bill
had been drawn up after careful COM
partson with other bills by a special
committee of the State Teachers as
ISOLATION, of which he was acting
chair The bill is conservative =
he said.
ut is not as liberal as the pension
law Of the city of New York. A good
pension system, according to authori-
ties, does not decrease salaries under
an insurance system of assessments
Such a method is nothing more than
the tontine system, which has been
condemned as unsound and has been
abandoned by the insurance conpa-
MES. In practice, the assessment plan
1 has ben found in New Jersey to come
back upon the people, as teachers
there demand the normal salary plus
the assessment cost 1t is unfair
also, to assess 96 per cent. of the
teachers who teach only a few years
for the benefit of the other per
cent.
''I think the bill will commend IT.
self to you on account of its simple
| ity- We believe that we have embod-
led the best and only the best features
of similar bills adopted or considered
in other states.
I'VE are not presenting this bill
simply for the sake of the teachers
but for the sake of the child and this
state and the general efficiency of our
educational system
Ubiquitous LegfsIatfon.''
Mr.. Comstock admitted, in answer
to a question. that Massachusetts, had
adopted an assessment plan of pen
sioning of a. type that he did not
favor. Miss Mary L. Linehan of the
South School, Hartford, volunteered
the opinion that this bill was the most
Ubiquitous piece of legislation ever
passed in Massachusetts
She explained that a teacher has to
wait until she is so years old before
she gets a paltry pension of $500,
meanwhile paying 3 per cent. of her
salary, whether she expects to bene-
Mt by a pension or not. She said
had had no part in the passage of the
bill and that they were dissatisfied
with it.
Rhode Island Outfit.
Walter e. Ranger, commissioner of