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Historic photo taken at signing of Social Security act by FDR in 1935. Identification of numbered individual is below.

SOCIAL SECURITY: Republicans Overwhelmingly Favored Bill When Adopted

Michigan Democrat John Dingell was at the Signing by FDR in 1935

January 16, 2015       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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Congressional Republicans mounting the latest short-sighted, mean-spirited attempt to trash Social Security should read the history of why it was adopted in the midst of the Great Depression.

It is a great mystery why the GOP has been on a jihad to kill the program for the past 80 years. Social Security benefits all Americans no matter what the party. It is not endangered financially although Congress has borrowed from it periodically; a small adjustment upward in the income qualifications would secure it for half a century.

In the Depression era that spawned Social Security, many people, especially old people, were impoverished; some were no doubt starving. Let's just guess that some of the poor oldsters were Republicans.

Poverty knows no political affiliation; neither does prosperity. Lets guess that some Americans receiving Social Security today also are Republicans.

The need for government social programs was illustrated by a Connecticut survey of 1932 that found that 33.5 percent of the old people over 65 years old in that state had no income whatsoever.

A Wisconsin report in 1915 indicated that 21 percent of the old people over 60 had incomes below $100 a year. Only 29 percent of the old people surveyed in Wisconsin had incomes above $500 annually.

It's interesting to note that Republicans were overwhelmingly in favor of Social Security; only a handful of Republicans in both chambers voted against passage of Social Security -- just 15 House members and 5 senators were opposed.

Observers of photos of the signing of the act by President Franklin D. Roosevelt are amazed to find that U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Michigan, was in the historic photo.

No, not the John Dingell who recently retired from Congress, but his father, John Dingell Sr., 1894-1955. John Dingell Junior's wife, Debbie, has succeeded him in representing the Detroit area district.

The man who wasn't in the picture, but should have been, was Paul Douglas of the University of Chicago, a co-author with social activist Florence Tye Jennison of Bay City on economics studies laying the groundwork for Social Security and other progressive measures.

Photo identification (image above) with brief biographical information from the Social Security Administration:

1. Rep. Jere Cooper (D-TN). Cooper was a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and would go on in subsequent years to become something of an expert on Social Security topics and he was a major force in Social Security legislative developments during the 1940s to the mid-1950s.

2. Rep. Claude Fuller (D-AR). Fuller was a member of the Ways & Means Committee and was generally opposed to the Administration's bill. During Committee consideration he made motions seeking to strike key provisions of the legislation. But when his efforts failed, he compromised with the Administration and joined in voting for passage of the bill.

3 . Rep. Robert Doughton (D-NC) was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. As such he was the principal official sponsor of the legislation in the House.

4. Rep. Frank Buck (D-CA) was a second-generation industrialist and fruit grower from California. He was a member of the House Ways & Means Committee, which had jurisdiction of the bill in the House.

5. Rep. John Boehne, Jr.(D-IN) succeeded his father as a representative from Indiana. He was first swept into office in the 1932 elections with President Roosevelt and strongly supported FDR's programs. At first, he was against the Social Security bill and wanted to exempt industrial employers with their own pension systems.

6 . Sen. Robert Wagner (D-NY) was born in Germany, immigrated to New York City, attended law school and was elected to the Senate in 1926. He served four terms. He was a close associate of Frances Perkins and helped draft several early New Deal measures. Wagner introduced the bill into the Senate. His son, Robert F. Wagner, was mayor of New York City for 16 years.

7 . Sen. Alben Barkley (D-KY) was a seven-term Congressman before being elected to the Senate in 1926. By 1937, he was Senate Majority Leader and a decade later, Vice President of the United States. He was an ardent New Dealer and helped shepherd the Social Security Act through the Senate. He argued for "a universal and uniform program in general." He didn't want to exempt certain private groups merely because they already had pension systems, as was proposed by some conservatives in the Congress.

8 . This individual is presently unknown.

9 . Sen. Robert LaFollette, Jr., (PROG-WI) was the eldest son of Robert LaFollette, a progressive Senator from Wisconsin and one-time presidential candidate. LaFollette served on the House-Senate conference committee that drafted the final version of the Social Security bill. He served in the Senate until 1946, when he was defeated by Joseph McCarthy.

10 . Rep. John Dingell, Sr. (D-MI). Rep. Dingell was a member of the House Ways & Means Committee. He was a prominent leader in Congress in sponsoring social insurance legislation and teamed with Senator Wagner he authored a couple of important precursor bills to the Social Security Act. (Several authors have identified Dingell as "unidentified man" in some versions of the signing photo.)

11. Sen. Augustine Lonergan (D-CT) was a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale University. Although he was a four-term Congressman, he served only one term in the Senate. During the discussions on the Social Security bill, Lonergan gave information about various private insurance annuities to show how they compared to the social insurance program that was being proposed.

12 . Frances Perkins was appointed Secretary of Labor in 1933, making her the first woman to hold a cabinet-level position. Like FDR, she was a child of privilege, but became a strong advocate for the poor and working class. She began her career in New York City as a social worker and held several responsible State government jobs. She served as head of Roosevelt's Committee on Economic Security, set up in 1934. The Social Security legislation sprang from this committee.

13. Rep. Frank Crowther (R-NY) was a Republican member of the House Ways & Means Committee;

14. Sen. William H. King (D-UT). King was a conservative Democrat and member of the Senate Finance Committee. King expressed persistent opposition to many features of the bill as it was being considered, and his support of the legislation was in doubt until the last possible minute. In the end, he voted for passage of the Social Security Act.

15. Rep. David J. Lewis (D-MD) was a member of the House Ways & Means Committee and was probably the leading expert on social insurance legislation on the Committee. It was Lewis, a former coal miner and self-taught lawyer, who introduced the Social Security bill into the House on January 17, 1935. However, Chairman Doughton, exercising what he took to be the Chairman's privileges, made a copy of Lewis' bill and submitted it himself. Then he persuaded the House clerk to give him a lower number than Lewis' copy. Newspapers then began calling the bill "The Wagner-Doughton bill." When Lewis found out, he sputtered and swore, then went to work to understand every sentence and master the arguments in favor of the bill. And when David Lewis walked down the aisle of the House to debate on the bill's behalf, he received a standing ovation -- a subtle rebuke to Chairman Doughton's high-handed treatment.

16 . Sen. Byron Patton "Pat" Harrison (D-MS) was a Congressman for 8 years before being elected to the Senate in 1918. In his book "The Development of the Social Security Act," Edwin Witte gives Harrison credit for his "adroit" handling of the Social Security bill in the Senate Finance Committee. According to Witte, Title II would not have been approved by the Committee without Sen. Harrison's help.

17. Sen. Joseph Guffey (D-PA) was 65 years old at the time the Social Security Act was passed, although he was only a first-term Senator. From Pennsylvania, he served two terms before being defeated in 1946. His vote on the Social Security bill was in doubt until the final roll call.

18. Senator Edward Costigan (D-CO), a member of the Finance Committee.

19. Rep. Samuel B. Hill (D-WA) was a member of the House Ways & Means Committee.

20. Rep. Fred Vinson (D-KY) was a member of the House Ways & Means Committee. He would go on to serve as Secretary of the Treasury and as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

21 . President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

NOTE: Opposition to Social Security often is based on misinformation. Snopes.com clarifies SSA: "No one -- whether he be a citizen, immigrant, or illegal alien -- is eligible to collect Social Security benefits unless he (or someone else, such as a parent or spouse) has paid into the system. Someone has confused Social Security itself with Supplemental Security Income (SSI) -- the latter is a federal welfare program "designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income" by providing "cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter." Immigrants can qualify for SSI benefits under certain conditions, but SSI is financed by general revenues and not Social Security taxes." Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/socialsecurity/changes.asp#oP8mrwERWUUeacf3.99



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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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