Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 213, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1917 — Insurance for Men Who Go to War to Replace Old Pension System [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Insurance for Men Who Go to War to Replace Old Pension System

By W. G. McAdoo, Secretary

' of the Treasury

For the first time in the history of the United States a concerted effort on governmental initiative is now being made to provide adequate and scientific financial protection for the officers and enlisted men of the army and navy for their dependents.Instead of proceeding along the old course of fighting a war first, and caring afterwards for injured soldiers and sailors and the families of those killed, the government is now at the very outset of America’s entry into the war laying plans for insuring and indemnifying its fighting men. The plan is intended to take the

place of the pension system so far as concerns men and women engaged in the present war. It is based upon the fundamental idea that the government should, as a matter of justice, protect its soldiers and sailors, and their dependent families, and should do this with due regard for conditions as they exist today. Workmen’s compensation laws, pension laws in the United States and foreign countries, insurance practice, and other related questions have been investigated during the preparation of the plans, and as a result information will be presented to congress which it is hoped will lead to the enactment of legislation both just and humane. The necessity for such legislation is admittedly more pressing in this war tha£ in. any other to which the United States was a party, because -at the outset the government has adopted the selective draft system. It is generally admitted that under such conditions the government has a solemn duty to perform to those selected. In working out the new system, it is deemed essential that a system for re-education "and rehabilitation be established, so that injured men may be fitted as far as possible for lives of usefulness either in their former or some other vocations.