The Connecticut labor news., 1924-08-30
OLD AGE PENSION ACTD DEAD, WORKERS OF PENNSYLVANIA
 BEGIN FIGHT FOR NEW LAW

cent Atlantic City meeting, organized
 labor has begun a campaign for a new
 and better old age pension law, to take
 the place of the law just declared un- ; constitutional by the Dauphin County Court
 The old age pension law was killed
 by legal quibble, the Dauphin County
 Court declaring 1t unconstitutional on
 the ground that the title of the law did
 not properly decide what is contained
 in the substance of the act. The action of the court was denounced as unhu-
 man and unj just by the executive coun-
 cil of the A. F. of L., which promised its support to the citizens of Pennsyl-
 vania in their continued struggle for a
 safe and adequate old age pension law.
 The decision of the court was also
 strongly denounced by James H. Mau-
 Ter, chairman of the Old Age Assist
 ance Commission and President of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor.
 The decision of the Dauphin Coun-
 ty Court declaring the Old Age Assist
 ance Act unconstitutional follows blind
 ly legalistic course and ignores en-
 tirely all consideration of humanity and justice," said MT. Maurer, who con- | tinued:
 ! "The legistic mind is unconcerned
 with the shattered hopes and dreams of
 thousands of worn-out aged men and women in Pennsylvania whose wretched
 existence has been frightened of late
 only by their hopes for some assistance | frome the State for whose welfare they
 have spent their lives. The decision, If allowed to stand, will not permit them
 to remain respectable and happy in their own homes but insist upon sending them to our unfriendly poorhouses as
 paupers. Although 1t cost two or three
 times as much to support a poor per
 son in an almshouse, we would rather do that than permit them to end their
 sunset days amidst their beloved ones as respected citizens by paying them one dollar per day
 For years our judges who receive salaries ranging from $8,OOO to $l8, GOO a year have, by clever phrasing of their retirement law, been drawing pen sions for life amounting to half their salaries. So laborious are their servi- CeS and so meager are tne1r salaries Our teachers receive pensions from the State Our State employees now receive half their pension from the State But when the legislature, by overwhel- ming majorities, declared the State i1 debt to the worthy aged persons who have given their lives to the welfare of the State by bringing up large faml~ lies and by valuable toll, but who have fallen dependent due to circumstances not of their own making the Dauphin County Court is unable to find a syll- able in the Constitution which author l izes a system of benevolence for the care and maintenance of aged lndlg- nant residents of the state "What is sauce for the gander is apparently not sauce for the goose," according to Court
 ''The logic of our courts i'll lnterpre- ting social and labor legislation IS in deed mysterious The court declares il cannot uphold the Old Age Assistance Act, because the framers of the Con stitution made no provisions eVldenc1ng such intentions. In other words, the l framers of the Constitution should have | foreseen 100 years ago all our future forms of legislation. One wonders whether the framers of the Constitution | had foreseen the automobile. If not, our traffic laws must all be void. And certainly we must declare out of con stitutional existence the aerOplanes and radio which our fathers could not have | fOreseen.
 We are aware, however, that the op- position to this good law does not come
 from the masses of the people. The blind forces of reaction in this State,
 especially those few misguided by the l Manufacturers Association, were impa- tient and were not going to permit the successful promotion of this most hu-
 man and just law. Certain manufac-
 turers stimulated by their class agita
 tors, who have used up the energies of
 these men and women for 30 or even 1 50 years and have thrown out upon
 the scrapheap, now stand in the way of even permitting the State to have their own wreckage by pittance of one dol lar day Such depravity is indeed be- yond human imagination.
 Let me assure these gentlemen that tn cir challenge will not be ignored. Their days of absolute autocracy in this State are numbered Organized l,'bor ard every humanity-loving man anu woman i'll this State will not forSake these decrepit i'll their most critical days Our decent citizens will not per