Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 27

Wednesday. Oct. 27. 1982 THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS Philadelphia Dally New Sam S. McKeel President Zachary Stalberg Executive Editor F.

Gilman Spencer Editor Thomas E. Livingston Managing Editor Chuck Stone Senior Editor Richard Aregood Editor. Editorial Page An shemoar. newspaper pubkshed Dy PhMaddproa Newspapers, 400 N. Broad P.O.

Box 7788. Pa. 19 101 854-2600 ik 0 Jm MEANS NEVER mJ9 mv having to say i i -iy Tirf amiwi Unemployment: The Day Dad Lost His Job Not a Statistic, it's a Wcundl Happy Birthday to Us Fie had a dream. When William Penn looked out from aboard the HMS Welcome, he saw not a wilderness but a great city, a hub of commerce and industry, dedicated to human dignity and mutual respect. That was three centuries ago, and although he couldn't conceive of what a late 20th century city would be like, of course, Penn probably wouldn't be all that surprised at the metropolis now fanning out from the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers.

He knew he had chosen a perfect site for a city because, dreamer that he was, William Penn was a practical man. He knew that it was possible for a viable community to maintain individual freedoms because, practical man that he was, William Penn was a dreamer. He knew that a dream can become reality if you work at it. What undoubtedly would have given him special pleasure would be to know that the city he was founding would become the birthplace of a republic dedicated to principles of freedom, with a constitution of laws and a bill of rights that future generations would struggle ceaselessly to maintain a symbol throughout the world, inspiring and giving hope. He certainly wouldn't have been surprised to learn that the city he founded had become one of the world's great ports or that it would be a major world center of industry and trade or that cultural, educational and scientific enterprise would thrive in his "greene countrie towne." He'd probably be thrilled that his city's population had become as diverse and cosmopolitan as it has.

Like the rest of us, he would be appalled at some of our current problems the decline of the port, the flight of industry, the crime, the plight of the schools, the ineffective leadership but dreamers are never really discouraged. And dreamers who are practical people know that problems can be solved if you work at it Ceremonies are fine. Festivals are fun. Century IV has been upbeat and worthwhile. This is the climactic week, commemorating the actual events surrounding the founding of our city and state.

By all means, let's congratulate ourselves, and pay tribute to the man who left us this legacy. But 300 years isn't really very long. The way things look today, the next 300 years may be 300 times tougher. To meet the challenge, we'll have to be practical, as our founder was, but we must never lose sight of his dream. To the Aid of the Party? Once upon a time, there were two political parties, and it was easy to identify candidates that way.

For better or worse, them days are gone at least in Philadelphia. Three Congressmen represent Philadelphia in Washington. Rep. Tom Foglietta, of the 1st District, is a Democrat who once served in City Council as a Republican; his Republican opponent, Michael Marino, is a former Democrat. In the 2d District, Rep.

William Gray 3d is a Democrat, but he hasn't officially endorsed all the Democratic candidates in his district; his opponent, state Senator Milton Street, is a former Democrat who turned Republican but isn't running as one he's the candidate of the Milton Street Party. The 3d District's Rep. Charles Dougherty is a Republican who has seriously considered switching parties in the'past; as far as anyone knows, his Democratic opponent. Bob Borski, has been a Democrat all along, which makes him an oddity. This is a pattern running through the Legislature races, too.

In the 4th state Senate District, for example, there are three candidates: incumbent Phil Price, a Republican who often makes like a Democrat and has considerable Democratic support, state Rep. Joe Rocks, a Democrat whose previous service in the Legislature has been as a Republican; and Consumer Party candidate C. DeLores Tucker, a past president of the National Federation of Democratic What ever happened to the Whigs and Tories? change in my life that would mean no college, no move up the ladder of American success. All that year, he would sit in bleak silence in what I know now was a deep depression. All over America today there must be families like ours, enduring what we endured.

It is no comfort to any of them to say that somehow it works out in the end. For many, it doesn't work out. Many of the current American unemployed will never work again, casualties of the if- VI Pete Hamill Bwas 16 when my father lost his job. I came up from the street after playing ball all afternoon, and there he was, sitting at the kitchen table, my mother at the stove, the other kids running around, and I knew there was something terribly wrong. He was staring at a cup of tea as if it were miles away, and his face looked ruined.

"Is something wrong?" I asked my parents. My mother answered, "Your father's been laid off." The words hung in the air. Laid off? That meant fired, right? Yes, it meant fired. "They didn't even warn us," my father said. "We didn't even know it was coming." "Was everybody fired "No," he said.

"About half." That seemed to make it worse. We talked through dinner. The younger kids weren't quite aware of what had happened; my brother Tommy, who was 14, understood better. We knew this would be a hard time for all of us, and it was. My father had lost his leg playing soccer in the 1920s; there had been a kick, a double compound fracture, gangrene, an amputation.

The better-paying physical jobs in the shipyards and the construction trades those jobs that had gone to so many other immigrants were never his. But he always worked. Usually in factories. The jobs paid little; but work was important to him as a man, and to us as his children. And now he was out of work, and the immediate future yawned ominously like some deep and mysterious canyon.

My mother worked part time in a movie house; I had a part-time job in a grocery store. But they weren't enough. There were simply too many of us. Two adults and six kids. For a while, we ran an account in the grocery store; the landlord let the rent slide.

But we couldn't accept welfare; and by the end of the summer, I had dropped out of high school and, as the oldest of the kids, had gone to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard as an apprentice sheet-metal worker. For us, it all eventually worked out. But when I look in the newspaper today, and read that 10.1 percent of working Americans are now without jobs, I remember my father during that terrible year. Each day was a humiliation. When 1 started bringing a paycheck home, this too was a humiliation; it upset his sense of the Tightness of things that a son should support a father.

He also felt responsible for my leaving school for the drastic collapse of industries. Many such Americans will live lives of permanent humiliation. Why doesn't Ronald Reagan realize what his policies are doing to this country? Instead of doing something practical slashing the defense budget to free money for job-producing programs Reagan is whining that it was all Jimmy Carter's fault. Or Harry Truman's fault. Or John F.

Kennedy's fault. It's the fault of the unions, or of the liberals, or the socialists, or the workers. It's never ever Ronald Reagan's fault, even if he is the president of the United States under whom unemployment has reached its highest level since the Depression. Somebody has to tell him that unemployment is not a statistic, it's a wound. The wound bleeds, and then festers, and sometimes it kills.

Men and women who have been unemployed carry around scars that never go away. The fear is always there. The fear of humiliation. The fear that they will somehow fail their children. That fear can turn some human beings to crime and others to suicide.

Right now, Americans are being destroyed in larger numbers than in any war in our history. Reagan must face his responsibilities, stop whining and blaming, and do the job that now can be done only by the president of the United States. Pete Hamill is a syndicated columnist..