The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1938-10-06
District Claims Attorney Was
Guest Speaker Last Week.
Several Visitors.


ment of history-making significance
to Americans. for without forsaking
this country's traditional ideas of
individual initiative and thrift, it as
SertS for the first time in a COM
prehensive national program, the
federal governments responsibility
under the constitution for the eco
nomic security of the people, Louis
H. Clement, claims attorney of the
district Social Security office in Sal
isbury told members Of the Jeffer-
sons Rotary club last Thursday
night.
After making a comprehensive
discussion of the program, Mr.. Gle
ment answered a number of ques-
tions relative to the Act. He highly
praised Congressman r. L. Dough-
ton, one of the fathers of the bill.
Gwyn Gambill had charge of the
program and the speaker was intro
duced by Ed M. Anderson. Three
visiting Rotarians from the Galax
C1uO were pISSSuI.
Economic insecurity is not new
to America" Mr.. Clement said.
"Fear of want and homelessness
have haunted the people in. every
country and in every age. Even be-
fore the depression, millions of our
families lived in constant dread of
unemployment, sickness and penni-
less old-age. Some national plan
designed to make life more secure
against the hazards of our increas-
ingly complex industrial system was
long overdue The depression only
dramatized these hazards and
stirred the collective conscience of
the people to act through their Gov
eminent to build ramparts against
them.
"The Social Security Act gather
ed, in such defense, the old and the
new policies to cure economic inse-
curity. States were, to more or
less degree, taking care of child well
fare and public health; were giving
aid to mothers of dependent chill
dren, to the needy blind, and the
needy aged. In November, 1887, a
summary showed, for instance, that
Z million people were then in the
U. S. over IS years of age and of
those over one-half of them were
dependent upon others for support.
Many States had undertaken to pass
unemployment insurance Law s,
though only one (Wisconsir1l had
succeeded in enacting such law
prior to Congressional consideration
of the Social Security Act. Govern
ment Old-Age insurance, long fea-
ture of workers security system in
other lands, was new to the United
States. However, the method adopt
ed here, of gearing old-age retire
ment benefits to workers own wag-
es, is in line with our typically
American philosophy of Individual
ism.
What is new in the Social Securi-
ty Act and the far-fung systems set
up under its mandate is that the
Federal Government has undertake
en- to unite with the States in a CO.
operative national attack upon prob
lens that heretofore had been left
to- private charity or to piecemeal
haphazard provisions by individual
cities, counties and States.
"Of the programs provided under
the Act, not considering taxes, only
one is exclusively Federal. It is the
Bureau of Old-Age Insurance, Gre
ated under Title II of the Social Sc
curity Act. No element of charity
is considered here in the benefits
paid to wage-earrrers or to their
next of kin in event of their death.
Such benefits are paid as a matter
of right, and when the recipient
reaches the retirement age there are
no new taxes Impressed upon him or