Viewing page 42 of 45

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

COMPULSORY RETIREMENT

Mr. WILLIAMS of New Jersey.  Mr. President, I have long been a fan of a certain baseball team that comes from New York City and is called the Yankees.  But today I wish to speak about the Atlanta Braves, a ball team with lots and lots of heart for a great man of baseball, Satchel Paige.
Mr. Paige has been part of the base ball scene in the United States for decades rather than years.  He happened every spring for as long as I can remember.  He also happens to be past age 60.  Mr. Paige therefore faces enforced retirement.  It is true that he lasted many, many more years than most baseball players, but is is also true that the date fixed for his retirement fell short of the time required for him to collect a pension.  It looked for awhile as if arbitrary retirement were about to claim another victim, but the Atlanta Braves management has stepped in and granted Mr. Paige 158 more working days so that he will meet the pension plan requirements.
We can rejoice about the last-minute save, but we should also pause for a few moments of thought about compulsory retirement.  We who work on the Senate Special Committee on Aging hear the same old story: men and women, many of them at the peak of work capacity and experience, find themselves unwillingly idled because of fixed management retirement rules.
For this reason, I believe Federal and private employers should develop policies that will provide a greater variety of choice in planning the final years in employees work lifetimes.  For example, why can there not be more widespread use of part-time work plans for sabbaticals for study or rest during the course of a career?
We shall continue to work toward such ends.  In the meantime, each one of us, baseball fan or not, can take some satisfaction in the decision by the Atlanta Braves.  Dr. Howard A. Rusk, the authoritative medical columnist for the New York Times, has added to that satisfaction by writing, in his column of August 25, about the latest chapter in the Satchel Paige story and its meaning to each one of us.  I commend to everyone the final paragraphs giving Satchel Paige's advice to everyone who wants a long and happy life.  I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
THE WASTE OF THE AGED: RETURN ON SATCHEL PAIGE POINTS UP THE PROBLEMS OF FORCE RETIREMENT
(By Howard A. Rusk, M.D.)

In this last week of international tensions and sadness, the return of Satchel Paige to baseball was at least one heartwarming item in the news.  It made one feel that compassion, sensitivity and human interest still exists in the world, it also illustrates and emphasizes the truism that age is psychological and not chronological.
Satchel Paige really doesn't know his age.  It is certainly 60-plus.  As he states, "The midwife died and all the books burned up," and no one seems to know how old he is.
It has long been recognized that some persons are old at 50 and others are young at 80.  The turn of the page in the calendar at that magic 65th birthday does not really signify one's ability or inability.
There have been many discussions on how the magic age of 65 was determined.  Why not 60 or 68 or 70?  The most logical explanation this write has heard was that given many years ago by a student of geriatrics with a sense of humor.
He said: "I can only think of one logical way this magic age of 65 was reached.  A hypothetical company has a board meeting some 50 years ago.  Everyone on the board disliked and feared the president of the company.  At this meeting someone suddenly remembered it was his 65 birthday so they promptly passed a resolution that there would be compulsory retirement at age 65."

UTILIZATION OF THE OLD
I well remember a meeting at the Department of Defense War College in Washington during the Korean War.  A course was being given to more than 200 senior officers from all branches of the armed forces to study ways and means of obtaining better manpower utilization in the war effort.  The problem of utilization of older workers was discussed this day.
Studies in this country and in Great Britain have shown that while the older worker may not be as fast as the younger in some instances, he is more accurate, reliable, and usually more dedicated than his junior counterpart.
After the meeting the commanding general, a tall wiry, 62-year-old man, said: "Never in the history of my country has manpower been more important nor has production been more needed.  I established and organized this special section of the War College to meet this specific need.  I know more about this program than anyone today.  It has been my 'baby' from the beginning.
"Last week I passed my annual physical examination with a perfect record and yet by regulations I must retire in six months.  Ironically, at the same age the average Senator becomes eligible for committee chairmanship."
Because of our lack of understanding in meeting the aging problems squarely and logically, we are wasting our most precious human resource and that is wisdom.  Wisdom only comes from experience and experience only comes with time.

PRAISE FOR THE BRAVES
Satchel Paige's muscle fibers are old but the pitching wisdom he has developed through the years has made him a canny operator and for his period of physical tolerance a formidable foe.
In this "devil-take-the-hind-most" world, Satchel Paige's return to organized baseball was heartwarming event.  The Atlanta Braves are to be congratulated on their truly humanitarian gesture, which proved to be really enlightened self-interest, certainly from a public relations standpoint.
Satchel was 158 days short of the time needed to qualify for his pension.  It seemed ironical that one of the most colorful figures in baseball and one who had done so much for the game as well as race relations should be disqualified on a technicality.
In the days to come, regardless of what team partisan baseball fans support, everyone will be pulling for Satch whenever he takes the mound for he will be pitching not only for his team but for senior citizens who want not just pension by an opportunity to be members of the community, to feel wanted and to have dignity.
The key to Satchel Paige's character is his simply philosophy of life published many years ago, which reads as follows:
"Avoid fried foods which anger the blood.  If your stomach disputes you, like down and pacify it with cooling thoughts.  Keep the juice flowing by jangling around gently as you move.  Go very lightly on  the vices such as carrying on in society-the social ramble ain't restful.  Avoiding running at all times.  Don't look back.  Something may be gaining on you."
In these tense and trying times one could go further and do worse than to follow this homespun philosophy that has made "Old Satch" symbolic and great.