FDR - Jean Edward Smith [221]
In the House, the Democratic majority increased from 310 to 322 (against 103 Republicans), and in the Senate the Democrats held 69 seats—5 more than a two-thirds majority.68 Never in the history of the Republican party had its percentage in either House been so low. In the statehouses and governor’s mansions across the nation the rout was equally great. When the dust settled from the 1934 election, the GOP retained only seven governorships, as opposed to thirty-nine for the Democrats and one each for the Progressives and Farmer-Laborites.
In The New York Times, Arthur Krock said the New Deal had won “the most overwhelming victory in the history of American politics.” William Allen White proclaimed that FDR had been “all but crowned by the people.” William Randolph Hearst said simply, “The forgotten man does not forget.”69
At the end of 1934 the recovery had yet to gain traction. The nation’s GDP registered a 17 percent increase over the dismal figures for 1932 and 1933, but national income was still little better than half of what it had been in 1929. And while more than 2 million persons had found jobs, the unemployment rate remained at an uncomfortable 21.7 percent.70 Yet as the November election results showed, the mood of the country was on the upswing. Broadway, which had dimmed its lights in 1933, had its best season in five years.71 Sixteen new plays (plus six new musicals) opened on the Great White Way, featuring a who’s who of theatrical talent: James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Jean Arthur, Walter Huston, Melvyn Douglas, Tallulah Bankhead, Judith Anderson, Claude Rains, and Ethel Merman. Clark Gable sent men’s underwear sales plunging when he removed his shirt and revealed a bare chest in It Happened One Night—for which he, Claudette Colbert, and director Frank Capra all won Academy Awards. Albert Einstein made his musical debut, playing second violin (Bach’s “Concerto for Two Violins”) in a benefit performance for displaced scientists in Nazi Berlin. In California, Ernest and Julio Gallo invested $5,900 to enter the wine business, and Sears, Roebuck commenced carrying contraceptive devices in its catalog.72
The Seventy-fourth Congress, swept into office on an enormous wave of support for the New Deal, was more than ready to follow Roosevelt’s lead. First on the president’s agenda was a comprehensive social insurance program that would provide unemployment compensation and old-age and survivor benefits, as well as aid for dependent children and the handicapped. In June 1934, FDR had announced his intention to provide for social security but said he would wait until the new Congress convened before sending up a specific proposal.73 To draft that proposal, he appointed a special cabinet committee chaired by Secretary of Labor Perkins.* “Keep it simple,” Roosevelt told Perkins. “So simple that everybody will understand it.” The basic concept was universal coverage. “I see no reason why every child, from the day he is born, shouldn’t be a member of the social security system,” said FDR.
When he begins to grow up, he should know he will have old-age benefits direct from the insurance system to which he will belong all his life. If he is out of work, he gets a benefit. If he is sick or crippled, he gets a benefit.… Cradle to the grave—from the cradle to the grave everyone ought to be in the social security system.74
Frances Perkins said Roosevelt looked on social security as his personal project, and he knew that if it were going to be enacted he had to move quickly during the early days of the session. Members of Congress were spooked by the Townsend Plan, and FDR had to steal the march or be overwhelmed.
The cabinet committee submitted its report to FDR on January 15, 1935, and two days later he sent the draft bill for social security to Congress.75