National Affairs: God Bless the Day

In the United Mine Workers' elegant Washington headquarters last week, an arthritic, ruptured coal miner received the first old-age pension check issued from the union's welfare fund.

White-haired Horace M. Ainscough, 62, first went down the pits in 1895 in Lancashire, England, and finally retired from the Union Pacific Coal Co.'s mines in Rock Springs, Wyo. last February. His pension, retroactive to the day he retired: $100-a-month. Said Ainscough: "God bless the day John L. Lewis was born."

To John L. it was a demonstration that the coal industry can and should take care of its injured and aged. Said he: "We are setting up America's best insurance policy against Communism or any other kind of 'ism' and against those who believe that it is the function of the State to regulate completely the lives of all men who are citizens of that State."