The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-11-17
BY Marguerite Young
DAILY Worker WASHINGTON Bureaul

to sponsor state unemployment in
surance reserve funds" which would
force those still employed to insure
their own jobs, would bar all those
now unemployed from as much as
one penny's benefit, and would
threaten participating workers with
! 9nger company union bonds -
I fas receiving the finishing touches
oday in the hands of an advisory
council dominated by fascist-inclined
big business men.
Before the national conference
on economic security, President
Roosevelt disclosed his program
Wednesday with fiat declaration
that it must not be financed by
taxes and must not affect anyone
now on relief. The 200 bourgeois
students" assembled in the confer
ence, supposedly to advise the gov
eminent, had not yet finished for
mulating their opinions. Thus dra-
matically, the Presidents action
bore out the Daily Workers fore
cast that the gathering would serve
merely to create false impression
of scientific" backing for the Gov
ernment's fake security" program
One thing made the conference
significant. Despite the fact that it
was composed chiefly of experts
culled from the most resctionary
leadership of labor, social welfare
Ind powerful business groups, they
puld not shut out the voice of the
Nationwide working class demand
4or real unemployment insurance.
On the whole the conference was
devoted to quibbling over details OF
the very program Roosevelt later
proposed for preventing the enact
ment Of true social insurance and
for legalizing a pauper status for
millions now jobless. And yet the
bourgeois experts repeatedly were
forced to listen to direct and in
direct expressions of the working
class demand for a measure of Sc
curity at once.
Benjamin Gives Program
There was Herbert Benjamin,
leader of the National Hunger
marches, unlimited and dramatic in
presenting the program for which
thousands of workers and profess
SIGNALS representatives will hold a
congress for unemployment and So
cial insurance here in January.
Gt,tfFod e1i,-te e4ifFAYaJ a-J ILL., -.
tire assemblage was enlivened when
Benjamin insisted that genuine unS
employment insurance means com
pensation equal to average wages
pr all workers now losing pay for
Involuntary joblessness, old age.
Maternity, accident or sickness, and
this compensation must be paid for
by taxing surplus wealth and adj
ministered by workers.
There was Grace Abbott, former
director of the United States Chill
dren's Bureau, speaking as a mem
Der of the big American Associa-
ton of Social Workers and de-
manding decent, Self-respecting Sc
curity for everyone.
Her speech reflected the social
workers wide experience with fall
ing professional standards, and
with organized unemployed work
ers' demands for human standards.
There was Harry Lurie, of the
same social workers association,
bluntly pointing out that program
such as that later proposed by
Roosevelt will further lower the
standard of living by leVying pay
ments for insurance on budget
(the workers. already too low"
There was country doctor from
Georgia, who, serving the starving
Negro shareoroppers Of that A. A.
A.-ridden countryside, answered an
attack which a wealthy Baltimore
brain specialist leveled at sickness
benefits. The specialist feared such
public aids might interfere with
sigh-priced surgeons fees. The
puntry doctor passionately replied
9omething must be done at once,
for how can we expect people like
my patients, Negro tenants with an
income of less than $500 year, to
pay doctors anything?"
Confesses Pressure
Finally there was Mayor La
Guardia of New York, who has re-
peatedly executed anti-unemployed
policies such as sending police to
club demonstrators, but who con-
fessed that the pressure of these
organized unemployed is too strong
TO meet in that way any longer.
He blocked action by the confer
ence to approve the principles of
the Wagner-Lewis bill-the very
principles later approved, only with
more threatening features, by Presi-
dent Roosevelt. LaGuardia also de-
clared that, "if we wait on actu-
aries i. +. We won't get any legisla-
ton" President Roosevelt bluntly
said any plan adopted must keep
out every element that is ac-
tuarily unsound" This actuarial
principle is the nub of the differ
ence b tween company-reserves
alans such as will be developed un-
Ter the Roosevelt schemes, and real
unemployment insurance such as
that demanded by the National I'm
employment Councils and the Com
munist Party. Actuarial plans de-
pend on contributions by those ben
efitting; genuine insurance depends
on taxing surplus wealth.
Federal relief Administrator Har-
ry L. Hopkins pulled the only 'bon-
er" in the carefully staged show.
He said that any plan worth its
salt" must provide for those not
unemployed President Roosevelt
said fatty the first concern" must
be to bring people now on relief
back into productive employment"
which merely means that the
Presidents first concern is to slim
ulate private industry's profits. In
fact, President Roosevelt said this.