THE WELFARE STATE

...We can begin at no better place than with the soul-stirring Declaration of Independence composed by the young Jefferson...

...Secondly, we need much larger hospital facilities, particularly for the farming regions and the lower and middle income groups of our towns and cities...

...I should like to suggest that here is a middle ground upon which the American Medical Association and Mr...

...I hope that this discussion of the historical background of the welfare concept and of some of the practical methods of administration whereby the good can be maximized and the possible abuses minimized, may take some of the heat out of the intellectual atmosphere and make it possible for us to deal in an open-minded manner with the concrete questions of what, if anything, should be done next...

...He was formerly president of the American Economic Association, and is the author of a number of works on economics, including "Wages and the Family," "Controlling Depressions," and "Social Security in the United States...

...The questions at stake are instead prudential issues...

...We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America...

...This is more than 76% of the national budget...

...The system of federal aid permits the federal government to collect taxes, primarily on the basis of ability to pay, and to distribute this money on the basis of need to the states to be administered by them...

...They argue that the power of Congress to spend for the general welfare does not extend to any purposes other than those which are later enumerated in Article I, Section 8. In effect therefore, what these men are saying is that it is not enough for the "general welfare" to be specifically mentioned in the preamble as one of the basic purposes of the new union and also placed in the lead-off position among the enumerated powers as an object for which taxes could be levied, but it is also necessary that it should be mentioned a third time...

...It has been the fashion to disparage these Articles because of their manifest weakness in failing to create a sufficiently strong central government...

...not merely for white men, for Jefferson did not so restrict himself, but for black men as well...

...It will help reclaim for productive lives many who would otherwise be largely lost...

...The following facts may be of some significance: One—The total amount spent by public agencies at all levels for education, health and public assistance amounts to about 8.6 billions of dollars or 4% of the national income and 43% of what the national government spends for military and economic preparations against war...

...These have been enabled to expand and at the same time private contributions and interest have not only been retained but on the whole have been increased...

...I should like to advance the thesis that this not only should be one of the purposes of government, but that throughout the history of our nation that has been one of the primary aims—perhaps, the most primary—of our national government...

...But what Jefferson was asserting is that men should have not only the right but the chance "to pursue" happiness—namely, to chase it...

...When critics of the welfare state are confronted with this fact, they commonly reply that the preamble is merely rhetoric and that it confers no specific powers...

...It is not the small sicknesses which wreck families financially...

...The slums of our cities where the urban portion of this group have to live are breeding places for juvenile delinquency, crime, and disease...

...They can generally care for these...

...The number who are totally and more or less permanently disabled is probably close to half a million, while the number of severely handicapped is probably three times this number...

...Now it is true that this is the theoretical position which Madison took in his later days, when he was alarmed by Hamilton's use of this clause to justify the chartering of the First Bank of the United States, and his use of the taxing power to justify a protective tariff, and by the general Federalist policy of favoring the rich and powerful...

...PAUL H. DOUGLAS DURING this last year many derisive criticisms have been made of federal and state action to improve the people and the term "welfare state" has been used as a derogatory term to describe these activities...

...It is only recently that we have begun to awaken to the very large number of severely handicapped people in this country...

...But the preamble is nevertheless of value, along with the debates and actions of the Constitutional Convention, in showing what was the actual legislative intent of the Founding Fathers...

...It was one of the many integrated solutions which enabled the new Constitution to come into being...

...Of this total, 5.8 billions is spent for education and 2.3 billions for assistance to the aged, for mothers of dependent children and those on relief, and only 1/2 billion for health...

...To the degree that there is substance to their position, it seems to be compounded of two parts: First, that while we should keep the present welfare activities of our state and federal government, we should spend less money upon them, and hence relieve the taxpayers of much of the heavy burden which they are bearing...

...Rather than the legislative branch being given the power to legislate for the general welfare, it was, instead, given the power to spend for the general welfare...

...Thus, the weight of the proceedings shows that the founding fathers did not intend the words of the preamble as idle rhetoric...

...It is eloquently re-stated by Lincoln, who at Gettysburg declared that ours was a government not only "of" and "by" the people but also "for" the people...

...The heavens would still stand if we were to spend slightly more money for these purposes provided everything else in our economy remained the same...

...The middle income families can be helped not only by the lower construction costs which I have outlined, but also by lowering interest and maintenance costs...

...I do not want to minimize the importance of these questions but I would like to suggest that they are of a lower order of magnitude than the ideological issues, which, though vague, nevertheless disturb men's minds...

...It is implied that initiative and self-reliance are being badly injured by governmental action to help people and that unless this dangerous trend is reversed or at least halted, the character of our citizens will be almost totally undermined...

...In default of this, it is argued that Congress has no Constitutional powers to spend money for the general welfare...

...To help bear these burdens and to help remove these evils, it is proper for the government, as one of the agencies for collective betterment, to act...

...The Ewing Plan goes altogether too far in my judgment in providing for insurance against the cost of headaches, backaches, stomach aches, the common cold and other minor ailments for which the major responsibility should fall upon the individual...

...Instead of confining federal aid solely to public hospitals, aid is also given to other non-profit hospitals managed by churches and by philanthropic groups...

...This is in sharp contrast with the thirty and one-half billions which we are spending on arms for ourselves and our allies and for atomic energy, the four and one-half billions on foreign economic aid and occupation costs which we are spending to ward off Communism, or a total of thirty five billions to prepare us more effectively against a future war...

...Suppose we consider now whether the functions of government should include the promotion of human welfare...

...I hope that this discussion should establish both the legitimate American paternity of the doctrine that it is proper for our government to concern itself with human welfare and that it is constitutional for it to spend money in furtherance of these ends...

...But from Madison's own notes of the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention and from the Official Journal of the Convention itself, it can be shown that this was not Madison's position at the time the Constitution was drafted nor was it the intent of the Convention itself...

...In a strict legal sense, this is of course true...

...not merely for the planters, but also for the small farmers and artisans—yes, and for the field-hands...

...22, the Committee brought in a further recommendation that the 7th article should have a clause added to it which would give to the Congress the power "to provide, as becomes necessary from time to time, for the well-managing and securing the common property and general interests and welfare of the United States in such manner as shall not interfere with the governments of individual states in matters which respect only their interHal police or for which their individual authorities may be competent...

...Since the Blue Cross and Blue Shield merely insure against the first portion of hospital and medical costs and since their coverage is at best imperfect, there is a real need for insurance against the catastrophic costs of sickness when costs run above 5% of a family's income or, say, $150, whichever is smaller...

...Even this, however, would not bring housing down within reach of the lowest income third of the population...

...This would call for the poorer states receiving a larger federal contribution than the wealthier and for their own required contributions to be less...

...That is perhaps beyond the power of mortal man to attain by himself and certainly beyond the power of human government to guarantee...

...Having canvassed the situation, they came to the conclusion that the general welfare should be promoted by public expenditures if not by direct legislation...

...From the hands of one of the most unlikely of persons, peg-legged Gouverneur Morris, who out-Hamiltoned Hamilton in his devotion to the few, the rich, the wellborn, and the well-educated, came the preamble summing up the decisions of nearly four months of heated and sharp debate...

...This would use insurance for its real purpose, namely as a protection against heavy and unforeseeable losses...

...For one thing, slum land costs too much, and in the second place the incomes of the poor are still below the amount required for decent housing on low-cost land with adequate space per- family...

...It is, indeed, hard to arrive at the precise position of this group for it is as misty as the Great Boy with which Ibsen's Peer Gynt contended...

...There remains of course the practical question of what measures actually do serve human welfare and for how much welfare we can afford at any given time to pay...

...There remains the question of insurance against the cost of medical care...

...It was the fact that such a provision was indeed already imbedded in the text of the Constitution that the Committee on Style, building on both the text and the Articles of Confederation, explicitly mentioned it in the preamble as one of the five basic purposes of the more perfect union which was being formed...

...Then when we try to probe further and suggest that perhaps they do not believe in old age security or unemployment compensation, they say we are misrepresenting their position...

...not merely for Protestants, but for Catholics, Jews, and free-thinkers in equal measure...

...Finally, we need more physicians, especially to serve farm families and those with incomes under $3,500 or $4,000 a year in cities and towns...

...When we inquire whether we should lock the doors of our hospitals and medical research centers, they say we are caricaturing them...

...It has sprung from the well-springs of the American people themselves, the hardy frontiersmen and farmers, handicraftsmen, manual workers, and professional men— and never forgetting them, the women...

...Farm organizations can help in providing a market for the services of these doctors...

...That is why the public housing law passed last year by the 81st Congress will be of help, since it will permit the localities to launch projects for 810,000 families in this group...

...So, far from being in the Marxist tradition, this is one of the very factors which has helped to give the lie to his predictions of an inevitable class struggle...

...These, they say, must instead be sought within the body of the Constitution itself...

...that their true father is either Karl Marx or Lenin, and that it is the duty of all red-blooded Americans to spurn these works of the evil one and, even more, to reject their present advocates...

...Certain it is that, wherever practicable, cooperative housing is better than public housing and cooperative or mutual insurance better than government insurance...

...For with all their proper emphasis upon individualism and self-reliance, the American people have always known that there are some burdens too heavy to be borne alone and some evils which can be removed only by collective action...

...It is always hinted and, indeed, sometimes directly stated that such welfare activities have their ideological origins outside the United States...

...Now let me hasten to say that I, too, am opposed to both the Ewing and the Brannan Plans, for reasons which I have not time fully to develop here...

...This new clause was agreed to on the same day, apparently without discussion and without a roll-call...

...Agricultural credit, for example, is more and more being put upon a cooperative basis and the government is gradually withdrawing as its original advances of capital are being repaid...

...Ewing might well meet, since it is the core of the real economic problem of sickness...

...For the inalienable rights of men which Jefferson proclaimed and which stirred the pulses of the world were not life, liberty, and property, as John Locke had held, but rather Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness...

...And let us note also that according to Jefferson, the only purpose of government, indeed the purpose for which government was instituted, was to secure these rights for all men—not only for the rich and well-born, but also for the poor and humble...

...That is proper, for they should not...

...It thus combines federal finance with decentralized administration...

...Said Article III: "The said states hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common defense, the security of their Liberties and their mutual and general welfare...

...They stand firm here because they are rooted in the hearts of the people who see in government, not an instrument of oppression, or an icy institution indifferent to their needs, but an agency which is carrying into effect at least some of the principles of human brotherhood...

...Two—The areas where unmet needs are greatest are probably the rehabilitation of the physically handicapped, housing, and health...

...expenditures for pensions to the aged, to mothers and to the blind, for education, health, and housing comes to about 21/2 billions of dollars a year, or about 6% of the Federal budget...

...There will still be differences of opinion, but they will not shatter men's souls nor rend the heavens...

...We could deal with this problem at a third of the cost which the Ewing plan would entail and with a minimum of red tape if we could get the present contestants to get together on a constructive program such as I have suggested...

...The Blue Cross and Blue Shield have been making real headway in dealing with this problem, partially stimulated, perhaps, by the threat of the so-called Ewing Plan for insurance against all medical and hospital costs...

...A lowering of building costs is badly needed through improved methods such as fabrication and assembly on the job, pre-fabrication, the giving up of unreasonable restrictions by unions and of price agreements by the manufacturers and distributors of building materials...

...And "to secure these rights," Jefferson declared, "governments are instituted amongst men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

...It certainly aids in giving significance to the specific powers granted to Congress by the Constitution in Article I, Section 8, which states in its first paragraph: "The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises to pay the Debts and provide for the Common Defense and General Welfare of the United States...

...In particular, it is urged that the federal government should not aid education in the states, should not help to make it easier for low and middle-income folks to get better housing, and under no conditions should it carry out the Ewing Plan for medical care or the Brannan Plan for farming...

...An Illinois Democrat, Douglas is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago in the periods he is not in politics...

...Like cancer they need to be removed by a major surgical operation...

...The effect of this new provision is obvious...

...If we add the costs of past wars in the form of five and one-quarter billions for interest on the war-incurred public debt and six billions for veterans, we come to a total of about forty-six billions which is being spent yearly for past and present wars...

...6, submitted a rather full draft, which did not contain a general welfare clause, but on Aug...

...When one presses for particulars, the fog seems to thicken...

...Perhaps a similar program, modeled in part upon the old Schulze-Delitsch banks of Germany, may turn out to be the best solution for the vexing problem of providing adequate credit for small business and in certain localities rural health can be improved in this manner...

...By far the largest proportion of these unfortunates were not crippled in industry, but as a result of such diseases as infantile paralysis, cerebral palsy, arthritis, etc...

...IV In the carrying out of any such program, we should guard against building up a centralized administrative bureaucracy and should instead decentralize decisions and administration to the fullest possible degree...

...It is a striking fact that we are graduating no more doctors today for our population of 150 million than we did a half century ago for a population which was only half as large...

...In a similar fashion, cooperatives can be utilized to do many of the functions which government would otherwise be driven to perform...

...This clause, along with other points which had not been definitely approved, was referred on August 31 to a committee, which brought in a recommendation that the first clause of the first section of the 7th article should be as follows: "The Legislature shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare...

...This is a costly affair...

...But the opponents of the so-called welfare state have still another defense when this paragraph is quoted...

...It is instead the costs of catastrophic illness which cause the real trouble...

...The welfare concept should not, therefore, be relegated to a Cinderella role...

...What is this but the right to seek human welfare...

...The replacement of the slums by decent housing would reduce juvenile delinquency and crime, improve health, raise personal productivity, and immeasurably strengthen family life...

...Second, that the federal and state governments should not take on any new welfare projects...

...And in the first clause of Article I, Section 8 there is provided an effective way of promoting this general welfare, namely, to spend for it...

...It is interesting that Jefferson did not say the "right to happiness...

...But the slums cannot be replaced with decent housing for the low-income groups by private capital...

...But since newly born states, like persons, must creep before they can walk, so the adoption of the Constitution in 1787 would have been impossible had there not been the Articles of Confederation upon which to build...

...These are horrendous if somewhat foggy charges...

...Certainly it would be worthwhile for us to finance the medical education of an additional 2,500 doctors a year for a period of 10 years on condition that at least nine-tenths of these spend a minimum of five years service in under-doctored areas and not more than a tenth in medical research as a return for the help thus given to them...

...They are at once a health hazard and an economic waste...

...This criticism is well-founded...

...It is 67% of the nation's combined bill for spiritous liquors and tobacco...

...Thus, even though the "first, fine, careless rapture" of the Declaration of Independence had passsed and the Continental Congress, in the terrible period of Valley Forge and after, was faced with the difficult task of getting the 13 separate states to work together, it kept a steady view of what it and the people were trying to do, namely to provide for their "common defense" (or to protect their lives), to "secure their liberties" and for their "mutual and general welfare...

...First, more research is needed into the causes of such diseases as cancer, cerebral palsy, arthritis, rheumatic heart trouble, etc...

...And what did the all too neglected Articles of Confederation say were the purposes of the new confederacy—the United States of America —which was being born...

...Far from springing from Marx and Lenin, it instead comes down to us from George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and the younger Madison...

...It would not seem as though this total is excessive...

...One of the best ways of effecting this reduction is through the formation of cooperatives, which, since they engage in wholesale operations, should be helped to obtain access to the capital market at wholesale interest rates and also be given the chance to maintain the properties in part by the personal services of the co-operators...

...Finally, in the field of health, there are three admitted needs...

...So, far from the welfare state being of alien origin, it is a vital and integral part of the American tradition and ideal...

...For when the castigators of the welfare state are asked if they would have us close down our schools and colleges and put barricades across our roads they indignantly ask us not to be absurd...

...But I would like to point out, if I may, that so far as the federal budget is concerned, our total PAUL H. DOUGLAS, though only a "freshman" in the U. S. Senate, is one of that body's most universally respect-ed and listened-to members...

...II Let us turn now to the Constitution itself...

...The Declaration of Independence was followed up two years later in 1778 by the adoption of the Articles of Confederation...

...This clause, therefore, specifically gave to the Congress the power to legislate for the general welfare, thus carrying out the recommendations which had been made at the opening of the Convention by the Virginia Plan...

...Finally, in the distribution of grants-in-aid to states, the formula which is used should be such as to permit the size of the federal grant to vary inversely with the relative financial ability of the people of the various states...

...Adequate rehabilitation which will combine medical and surgical care, psychological stimulus, the provision of special apparatus, occupational training and placement will be a good investment...

...Such an approach can be utilized in the fields of health, rehabilitation, and housing by the use of private agencies...

...The Committee of Detail, named July 26, 1787, to bring in a draft of the Constitution by Aug...

...It is in the forefront as an equal partner of Justice, Domestic Tranquillity, Defense, and Liberty...

...III Housing is another pressing need for both low-income and middle income families...

...For federal grants should only be in addition to previous private and local contributions and, if the localities can afford it, should seek to get more and not less in local contributions...

...The Hill-Burton hospital Construction Act is an important illustration of what can be done...

...This can be done both through the system of federal aid to the states and localities and by utilizing private and voluntary organizations which can stand midway between the individual and the state...

...They are issues of fact and of judgment upon which men of probity may differ but about which disputes ought not to become too bitter...

...Because the state has concerned itself with the troubles and difficulties of average people who have little property and low incomes, it has helped to win and retain their loyalty and devotion to the democratic principles, which, though under attack in most of the world, stand firm in America...

...Per capita income is probably still the best measure of this ability...

...Thus the promotion of the general welfare was listed as one of the five fundamental purposes of that more perfect union which was being formed...

...But when we ask if it would not be well to save government money by cutting outlays for rivers and harbors, and doing away with the postal subsidies to newspapers, magazines, direct mail advertisers, mail order houses, airlines, and railways, these opponents of the welfare state commonly become apoplectic in their indignation that we should even think of taking away such legitimate aid to free enterprise...

...The Articles were not adequate...

...It is the warfare world, therefore, and not the welfare state which causes our federal expenditures and taxes to be high...