North Dakota and Minnesota. The movement is already well under
way in Missouri and Oklahoma. Unless we get action soon, Kansas may
be the last state in the Union to recognize worker rights for its own
school employees. :

So far America has concerned itself about old-age retirement on a
business basis for wage earners only. Farmers and independent busi-
ness men are not included. Whether or not they want retirement for
which they have to pay aS wage earners do, is a question. If they do,
it seems probable that all they will need to do is to ask Congress for it.
- The farmer seems to prefer what he is already getting in many ways
through government aid. He gets more and he gets it now instead of
paying out and waiting until he is old, as the wage earner does with
his retirement.

If all the workers of Kansas who are already protected under retire-
ment provisions of the business type, and all the farmers who are be-
ing helped by the government, will favor giving the school employees
retirement rights comparable to other workers, this movement will
succeed quickly.

The teachers can sympathize with the other groups forgotten by
the federal retirement laws, the farm hands and the hired girls, and
other state employees, but they can hardly assume to plan or to speak
for them.

The retirement system is one application of the modern American
theory that the employer and the government both bear a responsi-
bility for the welfare of employees. This theory is also taking form in
vacations with pay, sick leave on pay, cooperative hospitalization,
extra pay for overtime, compensation for injuries, tenure protection
against discharge without adequate cause, unemployment insurance,
minimum wages, maximum hours, etc. The United States Government
and the “soulless corporations” have gone far on these lines. The
state of Kansas as a big employer has so far practically ignored this
movement. Most of its school employees have not been granted a single
one of the worker welfare rights listed above.

This may be partly the fault of the teachers, because they have not
pressed their case. So the teachers are now asking for just one item
in this broad program, retirement. Inevitably, as other worker rights
get generally established, the teachers will ask to be attached to the
tail end of the procession again.

The State Has the Responsibility

It should be clear who is the employer of the teachers. Kansas has a
state school system. The local schools are merely local agents for the
state, without authority to open a school, to levy a tax, to employ a
teacher or to retire anyone on an annuity, or to do anything at all
except as authorized and directed by the state which is the real author-
ity. The local railroad shop or station does not put employees on re-
tirement, nor the local post office or telephone office. Other states
have generally learned to treat school retirement as a state and not a
local function, to be managed and financed by the state directly. About
three-fourths of the school employees of Kansas are in the rural
schools and small towns, which have few employees per district and
change them often. Outside the larger cities, only a state system
seems capable of handling the situation. Seven of the larger cities
now operate local systems and may wish to continue independently.
Their systems are neither modern nor adequate. Just how they would