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GITT MEMORANDUM ON THE STONE CIRCULAR DATED AUGUST 5, 1948 It is always a matter of gratification to the Interim Retirement Committee to hear that the plan which we have formulated is the subject of the widest discussion among ALPA members. Among the requisites for a successful plan are that everybody know about it, everybody be interested in it, and that every possible suggestion for improvement be made. But there are a few things in this connection which are to be borne in mind. Congress has legislated many times in the field of old age and disability insurance. There is the Social Security Act, the Railroad Retirement Act, the Civil Service Retirement Act, the Canal Zone Retirement Act, the Alaska Railroad Retirement Act, Foreign Service Officers' Retirement System, and so on; and Congress has given certain Government agencies like the Federal Reserve Board and the Comptroller of the Currency the authority to formulate retirement systems for various groups. Whenever Congress considers proposals for legislation in this field, it will undoubtedly compare such proposals with what has been done in other similar legislation. If a new proposal involves changes in the precedents, the Congress will want to know the reason why. It is in particular to be remembered that Congress has enacted legislation providing old age and permanent disability insurance for themselves--legislation in some respects less generous than ALPA proposes for air line pilots. Therefore, you can be sure that our proposition will receive particular and personal attention from any Congressional committee. We are told by those with long experience that we would be well advised to look very carefully at all these precedents and make sure that the legislation we propose doesn't get too far out of line. Unless we are careful to do this, we may not only not get what we ask for, but we may so prejudice our position that it will be difficult for us to persuade the Congress that we are capable of being reasonable. In view of a great many of the rather wild kinds of proposals which are floating around among the members now, we thought it well to put ourselves on record as warning that these will not help us with a reasonable proposal, and may very well wreck any prospect of a sound air line pilots' retirement system. This Committee has been studying retirement proposals now for about a year and a half. Probably better than most members of ALPA, we realize how much we don't know about retirement systems. Nevertheless, we have collected a great many facts and we think that any one who is really interested in helping develop a sound retirement system should at least give us the opportunity of checking any statement to be sent to the members so that at least it would contain correct statements of fact about the bill that we have worked out. We have received a circular dated August 5, 1948, from Captain Robert A. Stone of United which was not checked with us and which