SECURITY VERSUS INSECURITY 



maid, the family which had employed her having 

 decided to move to another part of suburban New 

 York. As far as I can judge, through no fault of their 

 own but merely because of their blind reliance and 

 dependence upon the scheme of living which is con- 

 ventional in our industrial civilization, this family is 

 going to become an object of public charity. In that 

 respect their problem is the problem of millions of 

 equally sober, decent, and useful human beings today. 



Or take the case of the Smythes, which also is not 

 their name, but suggests the two of them. 



The Smythes were a rather proud couple in their 

 fifties. They had no children. They had a nice home 

 of their own in one of the most fashionable sections 

 of northern Jersey. They drove a Chrysler, purchased 

 when that meant more than it does today. Their home 

 was much more than comfortably furnished. Smythe 

 had been cashier and confidential man in some kind 

 of brokerage business for over twenty years. His firm 

 decided to liquidate, owing to the losses sustained 

 when commodity prices slumped early in the depres- 

 sion. Through no fault of his own, Smythe found 

 himself at fifty trying to secure any sort of position 

 at all in which his knowledge of bookkeeping might 

 be used. But not only was there an oversupply of 

 bookkeepers there was no demand at all for book- 

 keepers of his age. In spite of his efforts to locate him- 

 self for a period of nearly two years, the time finally 

 came when the Smythes were reduced to a state in 



