Dr. Townsend's Evil Days

To Long Beach, Calif., where he founded his famed pension movement nine years ago, Dr. Francis E. Townsend returned last week to rally his followers--and at the fountainhead to try to refresh his own optimism. For Townsendism, thanks to the thousands of jobs that war has opened to oldsters, had fallen on discouraging times.

All around him, in a California which once had been a fertile breeding ground for panaceas like his, Dr. Townsend could see what was wrong. In Long Beach and San Diego, up to 40% of Townsend Club members had gone back to work: as salesmen, plant guards, time clerks, as wrappers, packers and stackers. In Los Angeles, Western Union had hired oldsters as messengers. (The two oldest, 84 and 82, had found the work too tiring; the present seniors, both 78, are doing fine.)

Case histories in point :

>Sturdy little Owen S. Gibson, 69, onetime Chautauqua performer, onetime plumber and builder, used to think that Townsendism was the biggest thing in his life. But now Owen Gibson works at Douglas Aircraft's big Long Beach plant, on a "burr bench," where he files the rough edges off machined airplane parts. Says he: "I haven't been so active in the club since working here. This is all-important--the other isn't so important now."

>Jovial, snow-thatched Albert J. McCray, 71, was not only a Townsendite but a Ham 'n' Egger ("Oh, boy, was I a booster for that!"). Now he runs a drill press at the Douglas plant, earns $51 a week with Sunday overtime, complains only that his foreman refuses to let him work every Sunday. Says Albert McCray: "I haven't been to the club there in some little bit. I'd rather have a job than a pension any time. Why, I'm making better than $175 a month here, more money than I ever made in my life at wage work. Anyway, when you're working you're not idling around and liable to get into some meanness."

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