SOCIAL SECURITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 September 1939, Page 7

SOCIAL SECURITY

RECENT PROPOSALS IN TEXAS. AN ASTONISHING CAMPAIGN. These are unhappy days for dependent persons of matured years in Texas, notes an Rmerican correspondent. They were the principal driyi.ig power that propelled Mr W. Lee O'Daniel into the governorship of the State in the most astonishing campaign Texas had ever seen in a long nistory of astonishing campaigns. Mr O'Daniel promised to pay them the allotted pensions that the State Constitution said they should have —15 dollars a month. With an equal amount from the Federal Government this was to give 30 dollars a month to every needy person over 65. It was a rosy dream. But now, sadly, Governor O'Daniel has been in office six months, and not only have the needy ones failed to got the mcreased pensions that were promised thm. but they are in danger of losing a part of what they already had. Neither Legislatiure nor Governor is to be wholly blamed for the unhappy plight of the needy in Texas; the truth is that pensions are still so disputed a political issue, and so involved with other political issues, that although matured persons have won a legal right to their pensions they are far from secure in the possession of them. It is vital to any pension system that its beneficiaries shall be secure in the small amounts they receive. Otherwise it has no meaning. If a pensioner never knows from one month to another, whether his allowance will continue, if he must watch the mail every day for his cheque in the fear that it will not come, or even if his cheque is only delayed a week or two while the flour in the bin sinks lower and lower, then the whole system is a mockery. Yet that is what has happened in Texas.