Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1921-07-15

activities of a hundred million people
"a plant designed for the general
welfare and growing more and more
expanded and involved as the re-
sources of the country develop and
the population increases.
In this plant many are prosperous,
happy, and contended; some are rest
less. moody, and impatient; while the
great mass perform their allotted
tasks with a dogged application,
neither prosperous nor overly happy,
nor yet moody and impatient. But
when these survive the actively pro-
ducing period, then they, too, learn
what it is to be bitter and despairing
For to outlive their economic useful
ness is to find themselves driftwood in
the social stream-hurled hither and
yon by their acute necessities, until
they sink from sight in death or the
almshouse.
Is this their fault? Or is it fault
inherent in the industrial system =?
Accident, sickness, occasional unem-
ployment, and other emergencies re-
duce the income and increase the out
go to an extent that makes accumula-
ton impossible. Hence any remedy
through thrift and saving becomes
for most of them impracticable and,
in many cases, impossible. Likewise,
insurance, voluntary or compulsory,
even when state-aided, proves un-
satisfactory. There are classes to
whom it cannot be applied and in any
case the present income of the in
dividual makes its application hard
ship if not an impossibility.
There remain, then, only the en-
ployers and the State to furnish a
remedy. The employers can do it
in only one of two ways-either by
increasing the compensation of the
employees so that ALL the persons
employed shall receive a wage suf-
ficient to enable them to clay by" for
old age, or else by themselves pro-
viding for the old age of those who
outlive their usefulness in their en-
ploy. The former would be by far
the more expensive, as large pro-
portion do not survive to the age Of
sixty-fve-and only the survivors
would need the old age provision.
Many manufacturing and trans
portation employers are already max
ing needed provision for the survivors
among their employees. The national,
State, and municipal governments are
doing the same thing. This provision
is termed pension and is granted on
the employees retirement from active
service. 1t brings comfort in old age
to large numbers of our citizens.
But there is difficulty here in that
there is still large class which these
industrial benefits do not reach. There
are millions who are not regular en-
ployes of any stated employer, private
or public. Their activities are diverse.
They are small farmers, day-laborers,
mechanics, artisans, professional men,
hucksters, teamsters, clerks, walters,
and "extra help" in large establish
ments. For these more or less tran
sient employees the pension systems
of the manufacturers and the Gov
ernment Civil Service do not provide
and cannot.
Since the state at large has had the
benefit Of their productive years, the
state owes them comfortable liveli-
hood. And just as retiring pension
has been found to be the most eff
ficacious method for doing justice to
a corporations longtime employees,
SO a state-paid old age pension seems
to be the most feasible method of
discharging the states obligation to
these workers who have spent their
vigorous years in useful though
humble and ill-paid service.
The business and the righteousness
of the method are emphasized by it's
success, wherever tried. Wherever the
old age pension has been inaugurated
it is come to stay-because it ought
to stay. There is nowhere the slight
est disposition to abandon the prin
ciple. Encouraged by this universal
testimony of approval, the advocates
Of the old age pension in the country
are confident that the time for press
ing it's adoption is now opportune.
Present social, industrial, and eco
nomic conditions point inevitably to
old age pensions as the BEST POS
SIBLE if not the ONLY solution of
old age dependency in the United
States.