Milford chronicle., 1962-07-20
Why Welfare?

| A less OIlSIIld1 IlII0 Udld1l Ulld
would be hard ito find but it's still
a good question.
There have been all kinds of at
tempts ito answer that question :
studies, analyses, surveys, treat
ises, magazine articles. Not Ions
ago, right here in Delaware, {
whole days conference struggled
with it and maybe didn't answer
Lit.
You hear about automation, SO
cial dislOcation, school drop-outs
| Industrial obsolescence and sucf
on the one hand and do-gooders
/ bleeding hearts, starry-eyed social
workers and stuff like that on THE
other hand.
All these things are part of the
answer to the question why Wei
fare?" But it's more basic thar
| that.
Who can deny the frustrating
complexity of modern American
life? AS we prepare ito shoot fol
the moon and contemplate the
amazing scientific and industrial
developments that have brought US
to this point, we can see the dis,
ruptive effect of all this on oul
social organization. Observing
/ from this vantage point we see
and are not particularly surprised
by, a huge structure of industrial
governmental and social complex
+ ity that is no more like the life ot
so years ago than an electronit
, computer is like an abacus.
| At the same time, we haven't
thank heaven outgrOwn Oul
| Judaeo-Christian reverence for the
dignity of the human being, oul
concern and compassion for oul
fellow men and our markedly
| American faith in rugged individu
alism
So there's conflict.
! The highly mechanical, elec,
tronified, nuclearized, solar-orbit
ing economy that we have created
wants in the worst way to deny
the value and sometimes, i
seems, the necessity of the hu
man being. Speed, automation
movement, production all these
are basically anti-individual. They
disrupt, they displace, they wrecl
our social organization and rob us
! of our capacity for individual self
| sufficiency and sometimes ever
! Self-determinatiOn.
But we value people, we Low,
people, we are people We treasure
| our concepts of what humanity il
and what it should strive to be
/ With a mixture of nostalgia ant
proud determination to maintain
ourselves as individual human be
ings we fight, not against tbs
mechanisms we have created fo
| our own benefit, but against thei-
| built-in tendency to dominate ou
physical beings and our spiritua
| values.
AS our material environment
| changes at an ever acceleratine
rate some of us get hurt or ge
pushed aside or get forgotten o.
| displaced. AT the very least, al
awful lot of us get confused ant
in our confusion get temporaril.
or permanently dislocated from
the means of holding on to ou
| place in the rushing stream o
| progress.
And so = Welfare.
It is our response as people
| holding on to the values We
! cherish as people, to the crushing
impersonal, unfeeling advance o
our technology. And even in thi.
we find the Older, more satisfying
methods outmoded and unequal tx
the task of keeping abreast of thu
movement and change and grow
| ing complexity of our society. Gu
welfare is organized and govern
mentalized; it is collective re
sponse to a situation that no long
er permits an effective individual
response. lit is itself more compile,
than lit ought to be. 1t tends a
| times to become too mechanioa
and we try and try to keep j
from becoming too impersonal. |
has its defects but it is our human
response to the unhuman condi
tions we have created.
We deplore it, we attack lit, w,
blame it, we don't support it wei
enough but we couldn't and W,
| wouldn't do without it.
Why Welfare? :.
| Because we are a good peopl
and we hate misery and suffering
and poverty. Because we have, ii
creating a scientific and industrial
apparatus that lifts most of us II
undreamed of heights of comfort
| luxury and convenience, not ye
found the means ito keep this crea
ture from turning out by-produc
of the things we hate. AS we streal