The Other America - Fifty Years Later

 In the fall of 1964 I walked into a Classic bookstore on Saint Catherine Street- now Rue Sainte Catherine in downtown Montreal . I had graduated  from McGill University the previous June with a degree in English but this wasn't helping me find a job. Meanwhile my parents bickered and argued over the lack of money in the apartment I shared with them and my younger sister.
     I spent part of my days reading works of literary criticism that left  me disappointed and cheated. "what am I doing with my life?" I asked myself with all the anger that any disappointed 22 year old could muster. "I need a change."
     And then I found what I needed. It was a read covered paperback with a poor child looking out of a very rundown building. The book was called "The Other America" and was by the American author Michael Harrington. "There is a familiar America," wrote Harrington in the book's opening sentence about his country's affluence. But hen he went to point out that there were 50 to 40 million  Americans who were poor and needed help - desperately.
      For thenext 170 pages or so, Harrington sketched out in east-to-read Jounalistic prose the main groups who were poor in the U.S. of A. Many poor Americans were black. Others were the aged, the alcoholic residents of Skid Rows. Then there were the beatniks, the heroin addicted and many working people.
      I was fascinated with Harrington's book. I read it then bought it. I couldn't find my family in the book but I knew we were poor. Harrington's book was and is a masterpiece of muckraking that even t-day is well worth reading. A former neighbour of mine once asked me "What were the 1950's like?" I should have told him "Read Harrington's book." Alas, I never did.
      Things changed rapidly after 1964. The Liberal government of Lester Pearson in Canada, brought in  Medicare that covered everybody. It also enacted the Canada Assistance Plan that granted five basic welfare rights to all Canadians. It rejigged the unemployment insurance system. Then it  beefed up the pension system for the aged  by setting up the Canada Pension Plan.
       In the United States president Lyndon Johnson  had economic advisers like Walter Heller who had read Harrington's book  and brought Harrington to the White House to help draft  what was called 'The War on Poverty'. Johnson in 1965 passes 86 bills that included a civil rights bill, a voting rights act, and medical care for the aged and the poor.     
       So much has changed since Harrington's book came out in l962. But who knows what lies ahead. A Mitt Romney presidency in November could wipe out lots of what a Lyndon Johnson and an Obama presidency brought in. In Canada, a new budget by the now majority Tory government of Stephen  Harper may scrap many social programs.
   Time will tell. But 'The Other America' is still worth reading. It's a message from a time capsul but a very infomative one.