Montana labor news., 1938-09-15
Labor and The Problem
Of Security
Great Falls Labor Day Celebra-
ton, September 5, 1888; Ad-
dress Delivered by Heber P.
Harper, Director Social Sc
curity Board for Montana,
Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colo
RADIO, Arizona.

49,
Fifty-six years ago the first Labor
Day celebration was held in New
York City clarifying the achieve
ments of the American worker and
revealing the growing strength and
spirit of the then young labor move
ment. This annual celebration
spread rapidly, state after state
making the day a legal holiday and
the occasion more significant. This
holiday seems to me an especially
significant occasion in the Western
states because we remember and
honor both the achievements of or
ganized labor and of the rugged
pioneers who, passing the old from
tiers, struggled to carve new oppor-
tunities and new types of security
out of the wilderness.
Now in a very literal ems the
individual worker and organized
labor find themselves in a new
wilderness with new frontiers which
they must conquer, or die. The
character of this wilderness was
graphically portrayed in the Presi-
dents address last month on the
occasion of the third anniversary of
the Social Security Act. Said he:
"As the nation has developed, as
invention, industry and commerce
have grown more complex, the
hazards of life have become more
complex. Man has discovered
that his individual strength and wits
are no longer enough. This was true
not only of the worker at shop
bench or ledger; it was true also of
the merchant or manufacturer who
employed him. Where heretofore
men had turned to neighbors for
help and advice, they now turned
to government. Now this is inter
esting to consider. The first to turn
to government, the first to receive
protection from government, were
not the poor and the lowly-those
who had no resources other than
their daily earnings-but the rich
and the strong" (The President was
referring among other things to the
financial assistance and protection
given to the employers through pro-
tective tariffs. To quote again, 1T
was not until workers became more
articulate through organization that
protective labor legislation was
passed. While such laws raised the
standards of life, they still gave no
assurance of economic security.
Strength or skill Of arm or brain
did not guarantee a man a job; it
did not guarantee him a roof; it did
not guarantee him the opportunity
to provide for those dependent upon
him or to take care of himself when
he was too old to work"
This continent is a graphic picture
of the new and terrifying economic
and social wilderness in which the
American worker finds himself after
he has conquered the natural wilder
ness. But the American worker has
no intention of lying down and dy-
ing in this new wilderness. He in
tends to conquer it and to carve out
of it a better life for himself and
his children than his forebears ever
knew.
Necessity is still the mother of
invention. Necessity still makes men
think, and usually the harder the
necessities are the harder they make
men think. The cruel necessities of
our recent depressions, Of this new
wilderness, have made men think
hard, deep, and resolutely about the
new insecurity that has come with
our new type of industrialized state.
This thinking has produced some
results-some new social inventions
as far as America is concerned.
These new social devices are not
fully adequate-far from that-but
they are a good start. They are
courageous efforts to gain that mini
mum of economic security without
which life is intolerable. Including
these new programs but also going
beyond them, l wish to consider
with you six major planks that ]
believe must be built into any ade-
quate security platform for the
American worker. l also want to
mention at least briefly four of the
main foundation posts on which /
believe such a platform must rest.
/. SECURITY FOR CHILDREN
The first plank / mention is the
plank of adequate security for our
children. Children are now as
always a nations greatest asset, and
how the nations have s%quandered
that asset! Americans, comparative
ly speaking, have done well by their
children. One of the best features
of the Social Security Act is that it
recognizes a national responsibility
for the well-being Of children. AS a
result, through federal-state CO.
operative programs, more children
than in the past will have a chance
to grow up with healthy bodies,
trained minds, in wholesome homes.
The Social Security Act set up
four cooperative federal-state chill
dren's programs, which shall men
ton briefly.
A.. MATERNAL AND CHILD
HEALTH SERVICES
First is its program for the ex-
Dopc;op Of ,oatorno1 op1 child haalfh