Why can't someone organize a broad-based professional and crafts agency offering ALL services business or industry might require? A small business operation might not be able to afford a full-time bookkeeper, advertising manager, public relations man, artist or engineer, but it could utilize the services of a specialist from an all-inclusive agency.

We also have another opportunity: We have "junior achievers" offering limited work opportunities for teenagers. Why not a "senior achievers" for our over-65 residents? Make use of proven skills at a moderate expenditure. The problem is real, the solutions challenging but limitless, I believe. Life in the golden years should be something more than a waiting room for eternity.

[From the Germantown Courier. Mar. 5, 1959]

ONE SMALL VOICE

(By Wallace W. Knief)

My recent column comments, on the plight of the senior citizen forced to retire at 65 even though he's willing and able to continue working, have drawn a great deal of response.

I have heard from many senior citizens who like the idea of forming an agency-type service to pool professional know-how and offer it to businesses or industries not able to maintain that type of service on a staff basis.

I have heard from people who have been trying to do something on their own for the worker in this predicament.

I have heard from State officials who have told me of the problem of these older people and the real problem of persons 45 to 65.

It seems that not all the discrimination in this society of ours follows racial or religious lines. A more cruel and more senseless discrimination follows the calender.

This is unsound not only from a humanitarian standpoint but from an economic standpoint as well.

From State officials attempting to place older workers or retain the older worker whose craft or profession has fallen into disuse in these changing times, I have gotten information on how they hope to convince industry that it is good business to hire a man on the basis of what he can do and not how many summers he's seen.

I have found that this problem of age barriers is not limited to those over 65. The critical bracket for obtaining employment on the market today, I'm told, is the 45-65 age spread. In Germantown, 45 percent of the 4,100 people on the rolls of the Bureau of Employment Security seeking employment are in this category.

This problem of discrimination of the aging and senior citizen is going to create an economic situation within 15 to 20 years, experts say, where onethird of the population will be between the ages of 18 and 40. The other twothirds, according to present hiring procedures, would be unacceptable since they are under 18 or over 40.

Thus, in 15 or 20 years, unless we do something, we will be facing an era where one-third of the population will be supporting (or trying to support) the other two-thirds.

Strangely enough, the white collar worker between the ages of 45 and 65 or above is in a rougher spot than is his counterpart in the construction industry, according to a State official who talked to me on this subject.

A man is expected to pass a physical to push a pencil, walk to and from a filing cabinet or carry out the duties of a clerk, but he can do many heavier jobs in the construction industry as long as he is in apparent good health without his age being held against him.

Germantown, with what is said to be the largest percentage of over-65 residents in the city, offers some hope for the older worker.

Several of the community's department stores are lauded for the fact that they provide work for persons normally considered too old to work by other employers. This applies principally to retaining faithful employes who have years and years of service, however, rather than to hiring of new personnel in the senior citizen group.

But employment officials in Germantown are thankful for that bright spot in the picture.

In today's highly competitive labor market, the worker over 45—and especially the one over 65-has a rough battle ahead.

Everyone is in agreement that something has to be done. And the State department of labor and industry is shortly going to announce a parley with Pennsylvania's biggest employers to try to persuade them to hire more and more workers in the critical age groups.

The DLI makes some very good points why these workers should be hired. They include:

(1) Older workers are more productive than younger workers in many cases. making up in steadiness, reliability, and accuracy what they may lack in speed and physical power.

(2) It doesn't cost appreciably more in the "fringe benefits" to hire older workers.

(3) They have the stability that comes with maturity.

(4) Less time is wasted on the job by the older worker.

(5) They have a definite desire to work and change jobs less frequently. (6) They have a sense of responsibility and loyalty to their job and employer. (7) They generally have steady work habits and a serious attitude toward their job.

(8) They have less accidents (in number) but have more time off per accident. This balances itself out.

(9) They can adjust to a new job. Turnover among younger workers attests to this.

(10) Chronological age is no indicator to measuring a person's adjustment. Walter D. Fuller, retired president of the Curtis Publishing Co., 2 years ago formed the Walter D. Fuller Co. and now has a list of nearly 1,500 specialists over the age of 50 offering part- or full-time executive or management staff services in more than 175 varieties of business endeavor.

Fuller's is a national activity, outside the scope of many senior citizens who face the real problem of what to do with their still-active years, but is organized on the lines of what older workers have told me they would like to have right here in Germantown.

In essence, the Fuller Co.'s service consists of "finding" of specialists for clients.

Fuller, incidentally, took time to write a letter and say he liked the "one small voice" treatment of the problem of the senior citizens.

Another senior citizen who thought enough of the idea to write me was Robert I. Erlichman, vice president of enterprise development for Mayer and Dibrell & Co., Inc., management consultants.

He said he had broached the idea of a "senior achievers" with Fuller before this column suggested the possibility February 19.

I particularly like a couple of paragraphs Erlichman used to end his letter: "You may want to know how we older men feel about ourselves with respect to important undertakings. I shall speak entirely for myself and tell you that, while we know we are not fleet of foot and cannot waste energy, we also know that it isn't always important to get too far ahead of oneself in making a business decision.

"Finally, I would like to say that the lack of use of the abilities and experience of senior citizens may very well, in the course of time, throw our economy into imbalance and put many a useful man into his grave before Mother Earth is prepared to receive him."

If there are any more senior citizens with ideas on how they can further the idea of a local organization dedicated to putting more and more of their numbers into active roles in the business world, please let me know.

I have the names of several persons interested in this type of activity.

SENIOR ENTERPRISES, INC., STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

Senior Enterprises, Inc., is a private nonprofit organization dedicated to the proposition that age barriers in employment are unrealistic, uneconomical, and sociologically harmful.

Senior Enterprises, Inc., to perpetuate the truism that experience and dedication represent industry's greatest assets in a free economy, is formed to demonstrate-in publicity and in practice that the most fitting climax to a productive life is to be encouraged to continue to aid the growth of the economy and promote the welfare of the community.

Senior Enterprises, Inc., will be an "open end" for opportunity, allowing workers in the community to maintain the high level of respectability and responsibility their earlier years of productivity in their chosen calling have earned for them.

Senior Enterprises, Inc., will achieve these goals without usurping the existing opportunities for other persons of different age groups in the community, but by supplementing the existing work force with selected applications of enterprisers' varied skills.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF FRED LAULERWASSER, LEGISLATIVE CHAIRMAN OF THE SENIOR CITIZENS CENTRAL ASSOCIATION OF PENNSLYVANIA

The following brief is being submitted by the above organization which is composed of golden age clubs, senior citizens clubs, labor unions and civic groups in the Philadelphia area.

To your committee of the Senate on the problems of the aged, in the hope that these problems can be dealt with realistically, and not from statistics, which take as a criterion, a cross section approximating about 5 percent coverage, and use this base as a guide for their deliberations. As in the case of State of Pennsylvania in their Philadelphia older workers pilot project, the older workers taken into consideration were from the age groups 40 to 62, and no real coverage of those workers 65 years or over on social security, of which there are 12 million or over were considered.

In the opinion of these older citizens, the only good of these serveys is to give employment to statisticians and research workers, and not one job that could not be filled by the present State employment office, is created by statistics or boards or commissions set up to aid older workers, has any value to senior citizens over 65. As this is the only project employment for the older worker 40 to 62 that the State is carrying on, with the exception of a pilot project in Philadelphia on mental health of citizens on social security, where if a condition needing medical care is found to be necessary, refers the patient to a hospital clinic or their own doctor. The State program for the older citizen is woefully lacking to this group of citizens which comprises almost 1 million citizens of the State of Pennsylvania. We feel that as part of a group who are 65 and over, who are receiving social security pensions, and for whom these boards are attempting to speak, we should have representation on these commissions and boards so that our views could be given consideration.

RECREATION

While some recreation facilities have been supplied by the bureau of recreation in Philadelphia in which some of the golden age clubs meet, some of the recreation halls provided are unsafe, firetraps, and not adapted to use by older people, as in most cases they must climb one or two flights of stairs to reach the meeting room.

This is especially hard on those people who must rely on a cane, or suffer other handicaps, and in many cases keeps them from attendance at meetings.

There is a vital need for additional meeting rooms in the Philadelphia area, and the city should look into this matter and examine the facilities available for senior citizens groups, first to make them safe, second to make them practical by having them on the ground floor.

The Philadelphia Older Citizen Association is sponsoring legislation for medical care, both ambulatory and hospitalization; raising the levels of payments of social security, especially in the lower brackets, with $50 a month minimum, higher payments at death; housing for the elderly, a problem that is acute in the State of Pennsylvania where only two projects for housing of the elderly are in the report of the Federal Housing & Finance Co., one in Bethlehem Muhlenburg Medical Center, 100 units, and Philadelphia Jewish Welfare Federation, 206 units, for which in the Philadelphia project, 1,700 applications were received the first week. As can be seen, both of these projects are sponsored by denominational groups and cannot be classed as housing for the elderly. The Philadelphia Housing Authority has had no housing projects for the elderly, but erected some housing projects consisting of about 14,000 units of which some 400 have been designated for the elderly. No housing for the 43350-60-pt. 3-13

elderly is available at present in the Philadelphia projects, and the authority has a waiting list that will preclude any vacancies for the elderly in the next 5 years. On the national scene, Federal aided housing for the elderly in 1958 consisted of 37 projects with a little over 5,039 units and sponsored housing by individual groups also showed 37 projects with 4,602 units, less than 10,000 units in the United States in 1958, which is about 1 unit for every 1,200 older citizens in the United States. On a national basis we respectfully suggest that your committee immediately on the convening of Congress, work for the enactment of the Forand bill, more Federal aided housing, and an increase in social security payments, especially in the lower brackets.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HOPE MCDERMOTT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN SERVICE INSTITUTE OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY

The American Service Institute is a community chest-united fund agency which serves the community by assisting individuals of foreign birth or foreign parentage in their efforts to adjust to the American way of life and to become participating members in the community. Because of the deep-rooted permeating influence that foreign culture plays in the individual's adjustment and integration into the community and the significant numbers of foreign stock in Allegheny County, we believe it is important to bring to the attention of this committee the special needs of the foreign born aged.

Of a total population of 1,515,237 in 1950, 9.6 percent are foreign born and 27.5 percent have parents of foreign birth. In the standard metropolitan area which includes Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, 58.4 percent of the white population 60 years of age and over in 1950 were foreign stock. Professional workers who have direct contact with immigrants and American citizens of more recent origin know through experience that the influence of culture is a tenacious one which is not abolished by a magic melting pot process.

Although needs of the aging are basically the same, cultural differences tend to enhance the normal human problems of the foreign born. The foreign born who have not become integrated into the American culture have the problem of being socially isolated when faced with the prospect of old age whether it be spent in a public institution or in the outside community. Often unable to communicate in English, the individual is separated from the companionship and fellowship so vital to his mental, emotional, and physical well-being. He feels no sense of belonging because he has little in common with the social groups that are not part of his ethnic culture. Frequently, foreign born aged prfer to exist in poor housing facilities at the lowest subsistence level in order to retain other satisfactions, such as the ability to communiciate in the language that is most familiar; satisfying social outlets; ethnic identity, the freedom to eat what he likes and according to his own eating habits; to worship in the church or synagogue where he feels comfortable and belongs; to pursue the leisure time activities that bring him the greatest pleasures and satisfactions.

Experience has shown there are frequent instances of resistance to public institutions by foreign born ill or aged because of these culturally conditioned attitudes. While the language barrier is a significant factor, diet also plays an important role in how the individual adjusts to a different environment. People want the foods to which they are accustomed and which are prepared according to the ways of the ethnic group with which the individual identifies. Foreign born patients in hospitals have been known to reject foods that are American in taste and character preferring to deprive themselves of nutritional needs rather than eat foods which are not palatable to them.

It is to meet such specific needs as these that nationality organizations, through their beneficial fraternities, have established their own institutions for the aged which they support and maintain themselves. These organizations, in their programs for the aged, provide the manifold props of common language, cultural and ethnic identification, familiar diet, and social interests. According to a Pittsburgh Bicentennial Workshop Committee of doctors and social workers exploring the application of mental health principles to the rehabilitation of the aging, nationality organizations "helped ward off the older persons's breakdown in identity vis-a-vis his family and community as these latter failed him

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in the characteristic way of our culture." For here the aged immigrant is not among strangers. There is recognition of the impact of cultural background and awareness of the patterns of emotional behavior characteristic of the nationality group, all of which make the transference from family and community life to institutional care an easier, happier adjustment.

Of 17 nationality organizations in Allegheny County with national headquarters in Pittsburgh, 7 support or maintain their own institutions for the aged and are planning their own health and welfare facilities. These organizations not only recognize the continuing need for such a facility but also are looking toward the expansion or modernization of their programs. While it is their prerogative to support such projects if they feel the need, the real crux of the problem lies in why they feel the need in view of existing community resources with similar functions. Therefore, the beneficial organizations can make an important contribution to the welfare community by interpreting the special needs of foreign born among the aging in the community as well as in institutions. Their leadership should be involved in the research, study, and planning of overall health and welfare programs if the needs of all in the community are to be effectively and adequately met.

In summary, the American Service Institute recommends that in the consideration of any studies or planning affecting health, welfare, and recreation services for the aged:

(1) recognition be given to the strong impact of cultural factors and ethnic patterns on the foreign born and their children which affect their ability to make effective use of community resources;

(2) The beneficial societies of nationality organizations, because of their knowledge and experience, should be used as a resource in interpreting and meeting the special needs and problems of foreign-born aged:

(3) the leadership of nationality groups and organizations should be involved in the planning of health and welfare services. These organizations can make an important contribution to the welfare community by sharing ideas and working jointly with social welfare planners in developing effective programs for meeting needs in the community;

(4) intensive research should include a study of the effect of ethnic culture on the aging and their problems.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ALLEGHENY COUNTY INSTITUTION DISTRICT'S NEW

HOSPITAL

No where in the world is there another hospital like the new Allegheny County Institution District Hospital.

But it is more a matter of imaginative design than of money that distinguishes it from all others you have seen.

For instance, over 1,300 of the hospital's 2,088 patients are on ground floor level because of the wise selection of a site and use of its topography.

Also, it is possible in this hospital for 80 percent of the patients to have freedom of motion in all directions without use of stairs or ramps. This 80 percent also has access to the auditorium without using stairways. Almost as many have similar ingress to the church.

Both church and auditorium are designed not only for ambulatory patients, but for wheelchair and litter patients as well, because of the rehabilitation program here demands and encourages patient activity.

The biggest challenge facing a hospital of this kind is to put new life in the hearts of aging bodies and to change the despair and apathy of old people who are sick and poor into a new desire to live healthy lives again and to return to their homes. To meet this challenge, a great deal of attention has been given to those things that nourish people's souls as well as their bodies.

The use of color, the variety of building materials, the design of hospital buildings, the utilization of courts and patios, services for patients these things, although not expensive, offer important treatment for the patients of the institution district. The total environment of this new hospital has been planned to restore our patients speedily to health and return them to the community.

1 Report of Bicentennial Workshop No. 1, "How Can Mental Health Principles Be Applied to Rehabilitation of the Aging?" Jan. 22, 1959. Pittsburgh, Pa.