narily, too, a weekly payment is deemed wiser
than a lump sum, since the aged member cannot very well manage property,
and the chances are that he will lose his capital. The British trade
unions uniformly pay the benefit in the form of a weekly or monthly
pension.

The earliest attempt made by any American trade union to make provision
for the support of aged members was that of the Typographical Union in
1857. The National Convention of that year appointed a committee to
consider the proposal of the Philadelphia printers for the establishment
of an "Asylum for Superannuated and Indigent Printers." This plan was
defeated at the ninth convention in 1860.[200] The Iron Molders' Union
as early as 1874 provided for the establishment of a "superannuated
fund," from which superannuated members of twenty years' standing were
to receive three hundred dollars and those of twenty-five years' four
hundred, if permanently disabled and unable to earn a living at their
trade. Membership was to date from July 5, 1859, and no benefit was to
be paid until August, 1879.[201] Because of the failure to accumulate
sufficient reserve for its support, the regulations were repealed in
1878 before any benefit fell due.[202] The superannuation benefit
adopted by the Granite Cutters early in their history met a similar
fate.

[Footnote 200: Proceedings of the Seventh Convention, Chicago, 1858 (New
York, 1858), p. 11; Proceedings of the Ninth Convention, Nashville, 1860
(Boston, 1860), pp. 53-54.]

[Footnote 201: Constitution, 1876 (Cincinnati, 1876), Art. 18.]

[Footnote 202: Constitution, 1878 (Cincinnati, 1878), Art. 17; Iron
Molders' Journal, August, 1878, p. 4; October, 1878, p. 30.]

In recent years agitation for the establishment of some form of
superannuation benefit has been carried forward in several of the more
important unions. In 1893 Mr. Gompers proposed the establishment of this
form of beneficiary relief in the Cigar Makers' Union. In June, 1904, a
plan was discussed for the payment of a monthly benefit of six dollars
to members sixty years of age and twenty-five years in good standing.
Larger benefits were to be paid to members older and of longer standing.
Up to the present, however, the Cigar Makers have not adopted any of the
plans for a superannuation benefit. The Brotherhood of Carpenters and
Joiners, at the 1900 convention, provided for the payment to members of
twenty-five years' continuous membership and over sixty ye