"The whole country grows older," Tom went on, after nodding to himself. "The American landscape will soon be cluttered with human antiques. Pension-seeking, vengeful, dogmatic, persecuting, bloc-voting, parasitic millions. An ocean of wasteful protoplasm--Old Men of the Sea--and old Women--riding on the backs of everybody. Is a thing like that humane?" "It is richly sentimental." "In the labs, thousands of my colleagues are sweating to bring it about. Studying the degenerative diseases. Trying to lick cancer and heart trouble and hypertension. Trying to lick aging itself--to keep the old, old indefinitely! Geriatrics--a whole science for the maintenance of second childhood! Sometimes, Phil, I actually think the world is as crazy as you say it is. Sometimes--when I run into a bright kid whose parents can't afford to have its legs straightened--and then when I visit my ward--I'd like to sweep the place clean with a Thompson gun and move in the kids who need it." "There is the Townsend Plan," I offered. "Two hundred dollars a month for everybody who's old, if they spend it right away--and millions are too stupid to see the catch. In fifty years--Pensioned Old Age may be the great goal that progress and prosperity are today. Of course, there isn't enough stuff to go around, and there will never be, so two hundred bucks, if you gave it to the gaffers to spend, soon wouldn't buy a good-sized roast. But they may try for it." Tom laughed somberly. "They are trying. You should see the pension literature in my ward. The letters they write. The voting they do. Should I shoot them? What the hell do you really believe about it?" "There is the death wish," I said. "They don't want to die! Not one in a dozen! Even if they're blind, vomiting on the hour, spoon-fed, and in pain--they want to go on living--and are proud of it."