The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1943-05-06
SOCIAL INSURANCE

POSTWAR planning must begin soon after
declaration of war, for whatever principles
we follow and whatever commitments we H make
will determine actions and decisions after the war
and at the peace table. We cannot begin afresh,
but must go forward from where we are. This fact
is the basis for labor's insistence upon the main
tenance of the principles and institutions of
democracy.
Even under the pressure of war, labor believes
it should have opportunity to give up rights, in
stead of having them torn away by arbitrary ac-
ton. And when freedom of action is given up,
labor representation in the governmental agency
making decisions should be provided as a matter
of right.
The problems that will arise at the end of
fighting will be so tremendous and so fateful that
we dare not wait until peace is actually here be-
fore considering the problems and trying to map
plans to solve them.
The American Federation of Labor, which
early foresaw the great revolution that would
come in our economic organization, as well
as the opportunity for democratic leadership in
world affairs, urges-as a buwark in our domestic
affairs-the establishment of a stable and ade-
quate social insurance system to carry workers
safely through the changes and emergencies that
lie ahead.
Insurance is our modern method Of providing
against personal emergencies that interrupt in
ome-earning. One must have the means of pay
ing the costs of living or else accept public or
private charity. Self-dependence is essential to
character and to personal integrity; it is there
fore essential to the national wel-being and fiber
that wage-earners have insurance to provide them
during emergencies with funds they may rightly
regard as their own.
Since workers earnings are generally too
small to enable them to buy individual insurance,
they look to society to set up machinery for col
lective insurance In making this provision society
benefits by decreasing the costs OF relief and by
increasing the opportunities for self-dependence,
thus raising the level of national capacity. EN-
poyers benefits by escaping high taxes which
heavy relief casts neceSSitate and by the improved
morale of workers who know they are protected
against the degeneration that comes with unem-
poyment and life on the dole.
Social insurance must be on a sound basis
paraeling the labor market and adequate to take
care of the workers covered Workers must have
basic income while looking for new jobs, when
their bodies no longer permit them to meet the
requirements of work. Already millions of work
ers have left peacetime jobs in which they had
built up equities, and they know that after the
war, when jobs may be scarce, they will have to
shift again. Other workers have left good jobs to
enter the armed forces. All these persons, as well
as business undertakings, are entitled to have the
stabilizing assurance that, thanks to their coun-
trys provision of adequate social insurance, they
are protected against fear want and hunger.
We must take action now, in time Of full en-
to accumulate the necessary reserves.
These reserves will be invested in federal bonds
uSable by the federal government as credit for
war purposes.
With equal care our government, IN cOOpera-
tion with our democratic allies, must make plans
now and enter into understandings which will
make it possible for us-this time-to win the
peace. Labor wants to see world mechaniSms es-
tablished that will deal with the causes of war
and enable all nations to have social, material and
spiritual growth, without any one nation Or COM
bnaion of nations imposing a philosophy of life
or method of government on other nations.