10—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, August 12, 1972
Three years ago, President Nixon offered
a program of welfare reform intended to
relieve the states of part of the welfare
burden. His program has been stalled in
Congress. Consequently, states seeing the
hope of federal assistance dwindling while
welfare rolls continued to soar have been
forced to take action on their own. Some of
the measures they have adopted have
been drastic—and not altogether suc
cessful.
Lois Wille of the Chicago Daily News
Service has devoted a special feature to
the attempt of the states to bring welfare
under control. She tells how,“ln California,
prosecuting attorneys have started a drive
to track down fathers of children of welfare
rolls—and garnish their wages ” She notes
the widely publicized New York
requirement that employable welfare
recipients must pick up their checks at
state employment offices and accept any
available jobs
“In Pennsylvania”, she says, “teams of
investigators called ‘Project Sweep’ are
methodically their way through
welfare records, visiting families and
checking Social Security numbers to find
cheaters. In Illinois, 4,000 welfare
recipients are moving into public service
jobs—and records of hospitalized
recipients are being scrutinized to
determine if there are any unnecessary
charges ”
These are merely samples of countless
state projects to hold the line on welfare
costs Currently, some 14.6 million persons
in the United States are public aid
recipients—twice the number of 1962
Fourteen billion dollars a year, mostly state
and local tax money, is going for welfare.
Ms. Wille points out that some of the
state “reform" measures produce either
undesirable results or merely shift the cost
to taxpayers from welfare to another form
of public aid. New Jersey, for example, in a
desperate move to counter a 150 percent
rise m welfare rolls over a five-year period,
stopped payments to all families with an
unemployed father in the home.
A likely result of this, Ms. Wille feels, is
that the unemployed father will disappear
so his family can eat Perhaps the home is
broken up permanently, and another costly
PORT GIBSON, MISS., REVEILLE: “If
welfare regulations are as some people say,
there is something wrong with the system
Several employers of labor say some of
their workmen will not be able to work
certain days, as their food stamps may be’
cut off In other words, as we understand it,
they are allowed to work so many hours,
but after those hours are up and they
continue to work, their stamps will be
reduced, so they won’t work. If this is true,
it seems to us some changes certainly
should be made ”
GREEN FOREST, ARK , TRIBUNE “It is
often difficult to maintain faith. Yet, in
today’s fast-moving world, faith in our
moral principles, in the future of our
country, in the goodness within our
fellowmen, and in ourselves, is a most vital
character asset For peace of mind, hap
piness and an understanding of life and
what is to be accomplished with it, faith
seems to be a key If you have none, or very
little, do something about it ”
WINSTED, CONN, CITIZEN: “We
wonder if the people responsible for the
many bomb scares we hear of these days
fully realize the seriousness of the act.
Bomb scares can be classified as a Class A
misdemeanor and a person apprehended
on such a charge could wind up in jail for a
period not to exceed one year. What a howl
there would be from some areas if some
young person was so sentenced, but when
one considers the overall impact, of such
Welfare
Grassroots Opinions'
Reform
social problem has been created in ad
dition to welfare. On the other hand, the
California drive to find absent fathers and
garnish their wages, she writes, “ ... seems
to have merit."
One problem of state welfare “reform”
moves is that they often cost more to
administer than they save in welfare
dollars. The Pennsylvania project em
ployed about 50 investigators. In the end,
they found remarkably few ineligible
welfare recipients—about 3.8 per cent.
It takes hundreds of welfare in
vestigators in New York to'follow up the
New York plan of forcing welfare claimants
to pick up checks at state employment
offices. A thousand or so malingerers are
lopped off the welfare rolls every month,
but a New York welfare authority says,
“They would have been weeded out
anyway in our regular reviews.”
Further complicating the welfare mess
are Washington directives that frequently
conflict. Connecticut as an illustration
must, according to the law, follow a
variable system of welfare payments based
on estimates of clothes, furniture, special
foods, transportation, school supplies, rent
and other essentials a family needs.
Following such a system, comments Ms.
Wille,“ . . means chaos for caseworkers
and inequality for welfare families.”
Connecticut has endeavored to adopt a
simplified "flat grant”, but welfare officials
in Washington have not approved it. Yet, a
flat grant system has been adopted in
Massachusetts and is working smoothly.
Why was Massachusetts able to adopt a
more workable welfare system while
Connecticut has been prohibited from
doing so?
Says Ms. Wille, “That is one of the many
mysteries and frustrations of a welfare
system that operates 50 different ways in
50 different states—subject to directives
from Washington that are not always
consistent or reasonable.”
Whether the Administration’s welfare
reforms are accepted or whether other
measures are devised to bring welfare
under control, no doubt remains in
anyone’s mind a solution must be found
before the states and the nation are
dragged into bankruptcy.
incidents, maybe one or two such terms
might provide a solution to a growing
nuisance."
BOONE, N. C., WATAUGA DEMOCRAT:
“Sixteen months ago, a Sacramento,
California businessman named William
Bailey started a new newspaper called The
Good News Paper,’ which dealt only with
happy tidings. His circulation increased
11,000 by listing only stocks that went up,
by banning ads for cigarettes and sex
movies and by using story leads such as—
‘ln the U S last year, 196,459,483 citizens
did not commit a crime.’ But the paper fell
into debt and had to discontinue
publication. Even to the end, Bailey stood
by his policy of good news. He never
printed the bad news of his failure in The
Good News Paper.”'
BASTROP, LA. ENTERPRISE: “Then we
have Congress considering a two dollar
minimum wage, from the present $1.60. If
this passes, and it probably will, it will
mean more inflation, more costs. And it
probably will mean more unemployment.
Don’t think that the $2 will apply only to
the lowest paid employes. As you know if
you have an_employe now making two
dollars an hour and someone below him
making $1.60, you will have to rsise the two
dollar an hour man to say $2.50 and all the
way up the line. This minimum wage law
would really turn on inflation with a bang.”
A A*
NOW IS
THE TIME . .
Max Smith
County Agr. Agent
Telephone 394-6851
To Consider Summer Liming
It has been said that liming can
be done whenever the soil is solid
enough to support the spreading
truck. However, there are good
advantages to applying lime at
this summer season. Doing the
job now beats both the usual fall
and spring rush periods. It gives
lime the needed time to react and
neutralize acid soil.
This summer it is more im
portant than ever to plan ahead in
the use of lime. Rains last spring
caused a lot of good liming in
tentions to run afoul of the
weather. Also, all those extra
inches of rainfall to date no doubt
leached the soil, to further in
crease the need for lime.
Right after harvest provides an
opportunity to get lime supplies -
following the harvest of small
grain, hay, corn, silage or
whatever.
To Control Nutsedge
Nutsedge, commonly known as
nutgrass, has been observed in
some fields and along the edges
and ends of the same. The grassy
weed is now flowering. Soon seed
heads will be maturing.
However, an even more serious
reproduction occurs underground
where little nutlets or small
tubers form. It is from these soil
sources that most of the new
infestations occur each year.
Failure to control nutsedge
foliage from early August to frost
will result in heavy nutlet for
mation; more of the weeds will
grow the next year. Since the
nutlets form after the long days
of summer, control of the nut
sedge foliage now will materially
reduce future infestations.
A FAMILY FAITH
Lesson for August 13,1972
lackground Scripture Deuteronomy 6 1 -
9 Psalms 78 1 8, 2 Timothy 13 7
Devotional Reading Psalms 78 1 8
In American church life today
there is nothing more deceptive
than the popular images of
“Christian family life ” Appear
ing on bulletin covers and in de
nominational periodicals are
those photographs of clean-cut,
well-scrubbed, middle class moth
ers and fathers,
boys and girls,
sitting either
around an easy
chair in a spotless
living room while
father reads the
Bible to a rapt
audience, or in
the “family pew”
Rev. Althouse m their church,
each member of
the family intently involved in
the sermon or ritual
Pictures that lie!
These images seldom inspire
anyone, let alone whole families,
because either people feel guilty
in not measuring up to those
pleasant images or they reject
them as being untrue Even in
the “best of families” what
ever they may be—families are
not like those images. Many chil
dren—perhaps most—do not lis
ten intently as father reads the
Bible; most families seldom look
like that on a Sunday morning;
mother is not always smiling, and
father is not always so regal (in
In fields which will allow it, use
tillage, plowing, mowing or apply
a contact herbicide to gain better
control of this weed.
To Note Grazing Habits
Each summer there is usually
a hot, dry period when the normal
pasture production drops-off.
Such a period is occuring now. At
this time grazing livestock will
start looking for greener
pastures. This means they seek
out wild plants along fence rows,
weedy areas of the pasture and
similar places. Here the animals
can eat harmful or perhaps
poisonous weeds; even woody
plants are browsed.
An inspection of the pasture
and bordering areas will reveal
the presence of possible
troublesome plants. Also, a few
bales of hay taken to the pasture
once or twice a week will help.
Animals seek a variation in their
diets. Wild plants may be con
sumed - not because they are
palatable but because the
animals are bored with the same
day-to-day diet.
To Beware of Johnsongrass
No weed at present carries a
bigger potential threat to county
farm fields than does John
songrass. Here is a weed which is
showing up m fields more each
year. The sad fact is that this
vicious plant often escapes
recognition until it is firmly
established in a field. Where
continuous corn is grown the
weed is especially apt to thrive.
Johnsongrass looks very much
like Sudangrass. The stems,
leaves and seed heads closely
resemble Sudan. However,
Johnsongrass has extensive
underground root-stocks short,
thick, pinkish-red scaly
rhizomes. It is thus a true
perennial in growth habit.
fact, there are times when moth
er is a bit grouchy and father oc
casionally sleeps during the ser
mon).
Many families have also found
that those oft-suggested family
rituals—grace at meals, family
Bible reading, and bedtime pray
ers—very often do not quite
“come off” and do not seem to
really affect the family life that
much For this reason, many fam
ilies have quietly dropped the
rituals and “family religion” for
many has come to mean the
weekly Sunday morning battle to
get the kids off to Sunday school
and church—a battle in which
many parents soon surrender af
ter token opposition
Beyond the rituals
The problem is not with the
rituals of family religion—empty
as they may seem—but with our
tendency to try to substitute
them for a vital family faith The
rituals all tend to be empty be
cause the rest of our lives—fam
ily life especially—are devoid of
spiritual content It matters little
how fanatical we are about always
“saying grace” so long as chil
dren sense that their parents
don’t really depend upon God’s
providence and don’t really feel
all that thankful.
If God is not a constant living
presence in the home, no rituals
can make him come alive there
The writer of Deuteronomy
seems to know this for he speaks,
not of occasional acknowledge
ments of God, but the continual
remembrance of his presence at
all places and at all hours- “. . .
and you shall teach them dili
gently to your children, and shall
talk of them when you sit in your
house, and when you walk by the
way, and when you lie down, and
when you rise” (6:7). That’s
where we find a real family faith.
&
$
&
&
$
::