Some things just never change
Gazette advertising sales representative Marci McCarten forwarded to me a large newsletter that an acquaintance passed to her.
The U.S. senator who created the newsletter reflected on several problems facing our nation. Among them:
“Balance the federal budget. The time has come to end … deficit spending—paying government expenses and making contributions to all sorts of enterprises and peoples with borrowed money. The war boosted federal deficits. … We must stop going farther into debt. And certainly we must stop loaning money to foreign countries.”
“Formulate a labor policy. The rights of the workers must be preserved. But along with the exercise of those rights, workers should assume the responsibilities that go with them. Autocratic power of labor leaders should be whittled down. All-important decisions should be made by secret ballot of the workers. The government cannot permit ambitious labor leaders to throw the economy of the nation into chaos whenever they have a mind to do so.”
“Work out a better Social Security program. The whole matter of Social Security and unemployment relief should be studied. ... Changes should be made in the law to assure that those unable to take care of themselves should be adequately provided for without breaking the backs of workers to support those who can work but who do not want to do so. The possibility of extending benefits of Social Security, on a sound basis, to workers ... who do not now have this protection, also should be studied.”
Just who is this senator? Why, none other than Arthur Capper.
What’s that you say? You’ve never heard of him? Well, perhaps that’s because he served in the U.S. Senate from the state of Kansas from 1919 to 1949. He was born in 1865 and died in 1951. This Republican was known not only as a politician but also a newspaperman and children’s advocate.
The above “problems” were included in his 86-page Capper's Farmer publication, which cost just 10 cents in February 1947. The publication, by the way, advertised such products as Ethyl gasoline with its antiknock compound and Fletcher’s Castoria, “the laxative made especially for infants and children.”
Some “problems,” it seems, just never seem to go away, do they?
Greg Peck can be reached at (608) 755-8278 or gpeck@gazettextra.com. Or follow him on Twitter or Facebook
Dec 14, 2012 at 6:47 a.m.
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Remove the cap on Social Security taxes on income over the current $110,000, and the Social Security 'problem' goes away--at least until my childrens' grandkids are ready to retire. It only remains a 'problem' because we choose to keep electing people who are more interested in their own future, than they are in ours.
Dec 14, 2012 at 6:24 a.m.
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Very little changes. If one could subscribe to The Janesville Gazette from 1963-1968 one would read news that is very much the same as the news we are reading today.
Dec 14, 2012 at 4:26 a.m.
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So he didn't like the Marshall plan, doesn't like Social Security, and doesn't like representative democracy?
Sounds like a real thinker!
Dec 13, 2012 at 9:04 p.m.
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Sounds like Ron Johnson to me. He hasn't had an original thought yet that I can see. Just more code words for further enriching himself and pushing costs onto the middle class.
BTW Sen. Johnson, so you got your wars and tax cuts for the wealthy under Bush (and I am sure you did quite well as a result while not putting yourself or your family in harms way)...now how and whom do you plan on paying for them? Our service men and women who actually sacrifice and fought your wars? The elderly by taking away their medicare? Their Social Security? The children by taking away their education? The poor by taking away what little they have? The information is there...please tie it all together in a simple response for us before you ask for more from those who can least affort it.
Dec 13, 2012 at 5:29 p.m.
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Perhaps, a good dose of Fletcher's Castoria will help the children of that era work out their Social Security worries. They are now the current Baby Boomers. I sincerely doubt his concern for the future as a "children's advocate." At some times I wax poetic and have a hankering for the good old days of isolationist America. Is the problem that we are too much with the ways of a modern world?
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