By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 26, 2005

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt returned to Washington on April 9, 1935, tanned and rested from a two-week fishing trip off Florida, he learned that the House of Representatives was in turmoil over his Social Security legislation.

That night, House Speaker Joseph Wellington Byrns and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Robert L. Doughton met with the president at the White House to warn him that the plan risked being scuttled by both radical Democrats, who favored a vastly larger handout to the aged, and Republicans, who opposed any government pension plan. They told him they needed his help to get the plan through Congress.

Three days later, Roosevelt delivered. At a news conference, the popular president stepped up public pressure for passage of the entire plan, including the controversial payroll tax to pay old-age benefits. "This title is the most important thing in this bill," he said. "When you strike at this title, you strike at the keystone of the arch of the Social Security program."

A week later, the House easily passed Roosevelt's plan. A Washington Post article at the time described "window rattling cheers" in the chamber and blocs of lawmakers who shouted down one another's amendments as Roosevelt's "New Deal floor command" enacted Social Security.

Roosevelt's struggles in 1935 were in some ways similar to President Bush's attempt to steer a revised Social Security program through Congress in 2005 -- but their legislative styles are vastly different.

Like FDR's, Bush's party enjoys control of both chambers of Congress, though by smaller margins. Like FDR, Bush confronts a public that favors costlier alternatives to his plan. Like FDR, Bush is engaged in a major public relations effort to sell his plan. And, like Roosevelt, Bush faces a great challenge in unifying his own party in support of his proposal.

But Bush, trying to replace part of Social Security with individual accounts, is approaching the situation differently than Roosevelt did in 1935. Roosevelt presented Congress with a highly detailed proposal developed by a Cabinet-level committee, and it passed Congress relatively intact. Bush, by contrast, has left it to Congress to work out the details, providing it only with broad guidelines.

Also, FDR's proposal was a compromise that split the difference between a more radical plan favored by many in his own party and the business-generated opposition in the other party. Although many view Roosevelt's legislation as a triumph for the left, developing a vastly expanded concept of the federal government, it is fair to say that his plan prevented passage of a more radical scheme that had broad popular support. Bush, by contrast, has sided with those in his party who have proposed the most far-reaching changes to the program, pitting him against GOP moderates and virtually all Democrats.

Roosevelt sought to cool the passions in his own party, whereas Bush is trying to kindle passion in his party. "In 1934, Congress tilted decisively to the left [and] Roosevelt was more moderate than lots of people in Congress," historian Robert Dallek said. Bush, by contrast, "is more to the right" on Social Security than many of his GOP colleagues in the House.

Bush's challenge is to build public support for his private accounts. Roosevelt had the task of preventing a more radical Social Security plan from becoming law. Emerging from a depression in which unemployment hit 25 percent, 18 million sought public relief and 9 million remained jobless, the country was clamoring for retirement security. Populist Sen. Huey P. Long (D-La.) proposed a "Share Our Wealth" plan that would redistribute all private fortunes to Americans in need. Another populist, Francis Townsend, wanted to tax all business transactions to give $200 a month to elderly Americans if they agreed not to work.

Roosevelt, who ran on a "work and security" platform in 1932, wanted to avoid anything that looked like the handouts for those on the dole in Europe. That put him at odds with some of his own aides, such as Harry Hopkins, and liberal Democratic Senate leaders, such as Robert F. Wagner, who favored generous relief payments. Roosevelt, in the summer of 1934, formed a Committee on Economic Security to devise legislation for a self-sustaining, insurance-style program for the unemployed and the aged that would reduce the need for handouts.

"A program developed by a committee of the cabinet would be under his control," wrote Frances Perkins, who as labor secretary chaired the committee. "It would not be likely to get off into the kind of political discussion and publicity that might breed doubt and delay." Their instructions were to develop a largely self-financing program that would help the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled, and dependent mothers and children -- but avoid the extravagance of the Long and Townsend plans, which Roosevelt feared. "One hardly realizes nowadays how strong was the sentiment in favor of the Townsend plan," Perkins wrote in her 1946 memoir.

The administration worked for 18 months to build support for its approach. An ally, the Rockefeller Foundation, brought British experts to the United States to tour chambers of commerce, rotary clubs and church groups to soften objections from businesses and conservatives. The sales effort culminated in a large conference at Washington's Mayflower Hotel in November 1934.

Roosevelt used his pulpit to deflate the populist ideas and to lower expectations. "I don't know whether this is the time for any federal legislation on old-age security," he said in November 1934, even though the idea was on his list of "must" legislation. "Organizations promoting fantastic schemes have aroused hopes that cannot be fulfilled. Through their activities they have increased the difficulties of getting sound legislation, but I hope that in time we may be able to provide security for the aged." His Jan. 17, 1935, message to Congress unveiling his proposal warned against "attempting to apply it on too ambitious a scale."

Beneath his public ambivalence was a determination to get his Social Security bill through Congress in 1935, particularly because the 1934 midterm elections had given the Democrats lopsided majorities in Congress. FDR, worried about the 1936 election, told Perkins: "We have to have it. The Congress can't stand the pressure of the Townsend plan unless we have a real old-age insurance system, nor can I face the country."

Progress through Congress was slow, taking seven months. Townsend himself, appearing before the House Ways and Means Committee, taunted Roosevelt's brain trusters and their ideas and said his plan "attracted the signatures of millions of citizens."

"Having been shown this vision, do you think the people of America will be denied their right to attain it?" he continued. "I say to you that they will not."

Republicans complained that Roosevelt's program would "destroy old-age retirement systems set up by private industries, which in most instances provide more liberal benefits." Rep. Allen T. Treadway of Massachusetts, the ranking Republican on the committee, protested that the witnesses were stacked in favor of the administration.

By the time Social Security legislation reached the House floor in April, The Post reported that Democratic leaders "were known to believe supporters of the Townsend $200-a-month pension plan could whip up enough sentiment to put through a compromise unless they were forbidden to offer amendments. . . . It was an open secret, too, that [Ways and Means] committeemen feared a coalition of recalcitrant Democrats and Republicans would muster enough votes to strike from the bill provisions for a supplemental old-age pensions system because of the clauses asking pay roll taxes of 6 per cent."

The Townsend Democrats did try to thwart the FDR initiative, which they called insufficient. Rep. John S. McGroarty (D-Calif.) charged that Roosevelt's plan amounted to "nothing" and urged the chamber to pass the Townsend scheme for Americans older than 60 to leave their jobs and accept a $200 monthly handout. "Thirty million of your countrymen and countrywomen want this bill enacted," McGroarty argued. "For God's sake, think of these old people, so near to the heart of God, who need your help."

Doughton, a North Carolinian known as "Fighting Bob" who chaired Ways and Means, pleaded with fellow Democrats for restraint. "We cannot go all the way at one journey," he said. "We are doing more than has ever been done in any piece of legislation for unfortunate people."

Ultimately, with steady pressure from Roosevelt-aligned House leaders, the Townsend plan was voted down, 206 to 56.

The badly outnumbered Republicans argued that Roosevelt's plan went too far, violating the Constitution, hurting industry and instituting socialism. "You are placing a financial lash upon the backs of the people whose backs are breaking under a load of debts and taxes," said Rep. Thomas A. Jenkins of Ohio. The "nefarious" legislation, he continued, "is compulsion of the rankest kind."

Much of the debate focused on views of Roosevelt. "His voice is loud and clear. I am following him. The responsibility is his," said Archibald H. Carmichael (D-Ala.). Daniel Alden Reed (R-N.Y.) compared Roosevelt to a 14th-century English king. A Pennsylvania Republican accused Roosevelt of an "orgy of ruthless spending." On the other side, a radical Democrat said Roosevelt's was a "buck-passing bill" that offered only a "small amount to the aged."

The debate lasted from April 11 to April 19, and all 50 amendments that were offered were rejected. The measure cleared the House 372 to 33. The Post described the Roosevelt allies as "jubilant," confounding "critics who have detected a leftist tendency in the House."

After the House victory, Roosevelt prodded the Senate in an April 28 radio address in which he portrayed the legislation as fiscally responsible. "While our present and projected expenditures for work relief are wholly within the reasonable limits of our national credit resources, it is obvious that we cannot continue to create governmental deficits for that purpose year after year," he said in the fireside chat. "That is why our Social Security program is an important part of the complete picture."

On the Senate side, members of the Finance Committee were more skeptical of the populist alternatives than their House counterparts. Liberals such as Wagner were "disillusioned" that Roosevelt's plan was too stingy and favored more redistribution of wealth, wrote Wagner's biographer, J. Joseph Huthmacher. Although Wagner and his allies fought Roosevelt on other programs, Wagner concluded that "liberalizing amendments might conceivably result in killing social insurance altogether," Huthmacher wrote.

At the same time, the populist Democrats had less of a voice in the Senate, and the Townsend legislation was not seriously considered. Long's "Share Our Wealth" program was shouted down in a voice vote; fellow Democrats suspected Long, who was assassinated three months later, was plotting a challenge to Roosevelt in 1936. Long agreed to support the Roosevelt plan. "I would not have the public think this administration has in any respect been obstructed in what it claims to be a gesture of public service," he said, doubting "a single bit of good should come out of the bill."

Republicans again tried to derail the measure. Sen. Frederick Hale (Maine) condemned Roosevelt for creating "socialistic agencies." Sen. Daniel O. Hastings (Del.), protested that the legislation would "discriminate against the young in favor of the aged" and would "deceive the young." Hastings's effort to strike down the old-age insurance failed, 63 to 15. Social Security cleared the Senate, 77 to 6.

Signing the bill on Aug. 14, Roosevelt said it would help 30 million people and called it "a corner stone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete." Seventy years later, the building -- and rebuilding -- continues.