Milford chronicle., 1959-03-20
SHARPENING THE AXE


legiSlate increases in retirement and unem-
ployment benefits and load vast new expenses
ON this weakened industry. These bills would
amount to whopping $102 million increase
the first year and ultimately 1928 million
more fringe" per year for rail workers.
Railroad witnesses have told Congress
that the industry could not possibly support
such unrealistic proposals. But the real
question involved is whether labor's appetite
for higher benefits on all fronts will u1tl-
mately bankrupt this indispensable industry.
How long, we should ask, can it provide jobs
and give Americans the kind of transporta-
tion service the nation must have 1t, IN addl-
tion to being regulated and taxed to death
by Government the industry must also be
featherbedded and lobbied to deathby labor?
Railroad workers are already getting
so per cent higher maximum retirement ben
eft than workers in other industries. And
supporting taxes on railroads and their en-
ployees are already more than double those
paid by other industries for similar bene-
fits
AS for unemployment compensation, the
changes really needed are those which would
eliminate unjustified payments from funds
which are maintained solely by railroads.
These glaring defects include payments to
strikers and those fired for cause, unemploy-
ment pay for women employees on matern
ity leave and sickness benefits for ex-em-
Today 725,000 people are drawing bene-
fits from the railroad retirement system. By
contrast, less than one million employees are
paying into the fund. The gap between these
two groups has been rapidly closing as more
employees join the ranks of benefciaries.
Can an impoverished industry support more
and more retired employees and survivors
with fewer and fewer workers? Or must the
public treasury ultimately bear this burden
as well?
These are not idle questions. After all, it
is Congress which legislates higher benefits
of this sort and imposes higher and higher
supporting costs on the railroads. One day
Congress may also have to assume the re-
sponsibility for paying the bill for its open
hand iberality.
There is no better time than the present
to begin cracking down on these parasitic |
proposals that are sucking the life-blood from
the railroads
AN AMERICAN CUSTOM
1t has long been recognized that Ameri-
cans are youthful people, full of vim and
vigor, and uninhibited, relatively, when COM
pared with, say, Europeans. This is still
true, today for the United States and its
people are still young nation.
One of the traits of youth is to know all
the answers. We Americans, especially the
CT abroad in World War |, World War II
and the Korean war, certainly knew all the
answers. We may not have been good diplo-
mats as result, but we knew the answers
and we let the other countries of the world,
and their inhabitants, know that the Ameri-
can way of life was best.
The conduct of Americans abroad is an
important factor in our foreign relations
Attention has been given to it in the military
and by the State Department The idea is
now to teach Americans not to ridicule every
fCrT11 70 o1x IL
talking big-Ikes when among Europeans or
AsianS.
This situation has parallel in our every
day life in the United States. We are often
too eager to criticize the fellow in another
section of the country because we don't un-
derstand the problem he faces.
There is lesson to be learned in all this
The lesson is simple. Here it is: There is
ma ollty of good people in every section of
the country, who try to do what is right. No
section, state or county has monopoly on
virtue, brains,Or intelligence.
1t would be we'll for us to always remem-
ber that we do not have the facility for un-
derstanding eVeryOne's problems, and GER
tainly we cannot expect to solve problems
about which we know little or on which we
are only haf-informed.
NSw~=S
A THOUGHT ON EDUCATION
1t has always seemed to us as though our
educational system is a little out of joint
when the heroes of campus and school1yard
are those whose glory is recorded in batting
averages, yards gained on the gridiron or
the number of times ball is tossed or drop
ped through an iron hoop And when one
of these heroes can achieve passing grades
without extensive aid from those less gifted
in physical prowess, it is something to mar
vel upon and the subject of further accolade
1t is human and natural, of course, that all of
us, young and old, like our heroes virile, ro- {
bust and no less than six feet high But, even
so, we believe our institutions of learning are
guilty of pandering to this human weakness l
when they should be making reasonable
effort to glorify scholarship. Wherefore it is
most refreshing to discover that the schools