St. Paul recorder., 1963-05-30
Full EmPlOyment-A
National Necessity

welfare" has become In some quarters a dirty
word 1t is concerned not with the public veal but
with the public AS the welfare function Of gov
ernment has grown has the grown with it.
All kinds Of experts and non-experts now busiy
engaged in examining welfare policies, principles
and practices. great body Of legend, fiction and
fact, has grown up around 1t.
One reason for many Of the difficulties
encounterng in the welfare field is the curious con-
tradiction that exists in public policy respecting the
needy We reject, a matter of public policy, the
idea that the world owes me a living" when it
comes to governmental responsibility for the avail
ability of employment, but at the same time we ac-
cept responsibility for providing subsistence for the
jobless. Then we worry about the fact that able
bodied people are loafng away on the dole! Then we
try to put these people to work earning their dole on
specially created jobs at wages carefully scaled so
that they won't go penny above bare subsistence.
Finally we worry about the fact that people so
used losing their initiative and industry and
becoming unemployabe!
1t seems apparent that much Of the difficulty
experiencing stems from unwiIingness to
face the reality that in this age of shifting echnol-
ogies, mobile industry vast population shifts, and
rapidly changing employment prospects, greatly in
creased government action to maintain job oppor-
tunities is absolutely necessary.
Up to this time the brnt Of governmental
failure in this field is being borne by Americans with
little education and limited sls. This is reflected
in the fact that when unemployment reached per
cent for the country as a whole, the rate among
Negroes was 20 per cent, Negroes being an inden-
tifiable group who have suffered social educational
and job discrimination.
A program Of government action to take up the
job slack would not only avoid much Of the welfare
difficulties being faced. 1t would not only les
the great and widespread misery resulting from
the chronological destruction Of millions of jobs It
would also help to neutralize the Social dynamite
Ito use the phrase Of distinguished observer) of
the vast migration Of displaced workers to big
northern cities.
1t would in addition, prepare us with policy
and with administrative machinery that would i'm
mediately become necessary If a world situation
should develop that would make disarmament posi-
BILE and catastrophe unemployment in the defense
industries inevitable.
A number Of gestures have been made by our
lawmakers in the direction Of government action in
this field and these have been good Senator Hubert
Humphreys efforts in this field have been notable,
But limited program will not get the result
that we need and must have. Our goal should be to
wipe out the welfare problem so far as it exists
among people able and willing to work. This calls
for sweeping heroic effort, beginning with pont-
cal action to put men in Congress who understand
the problem and have the courage to act upon 1t,
This political action ought to begin with the i'm
mediate victims of unemployment and eventually
involve all Of these in proxmate danger.