"Workmen's Compensation Insurance should be transferred to Social
Security, and unscrupulous doctors, lawyers, Workmen Compensation
Insurance Companies, undertakers, and other parasites, should not be
allowed to consume the major part of the insurance paid to the worker
who is injured at work.
"Workmen Compensation Insurance Companies, voluntary health
agencies, charitable hospitals, clinics, and welfare services should
be completely abolished. Contributions to them should be legally
forbidden. The contributors to these charitable institutions then could
transfer their financial aid in the form of an extra tax to Social
Security. The work done now by these charitable activities should be
solely handled by Social Security, not as charity, but as a right due
us. Once and for all, we would do away with a deplorable, ancient
custom, the curse of charity which nobody willingly wants. A large part
of voluntary contributions goes for other purposes than to benefit the
beneficiaries.
"All these should come directly under a new system--The Federal Social
Protection and Security Board.
"Your observation of our miseries and destitution should be a warning
to you. Your generation may become the victim of your own neglect and
folly. You have no guarantee that circumstances (may God forbid) will
not become worse for you, and you do not know how your children will
treat you.
"I am appealing to all of you to make a concerted effort to have
Congress change the Social Security Act so that it will perform what
its name means, and let it become a real security for us, for you, and
for your future generations. _Fiat justitia ruat caelum_ (let justice
be done though the heavens fall)."
"Then you are interested only in the aged and the disabled?" I asked
him. He answered, "not at all. We will not have economic safety and
stability until society once and for all seriously starts war against
unemployment, want, and charity.
"The trend nowadays is charged with danger. I dare say, our young
men who have come back from the wars may not be as meek as those who
came back from the last war to face unemployment, street corner apple
selling and poverty. Our veterans today justly demand employment, the
chance to marry, and the right to a decent livelihood for themselves,
their families, and their parents.
"In my opinion, our large country is still in its infancy; it
has as yet not reached twenty-five per cent of the zenith of its
possible development. With progress in air travel and transportation
distribution, a renaissance of unprecedented prosperity is near and can
quickly be accelerated. We cannot attain this prosperity so long as we
do extravagant things, at public expense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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