,YE social-security bill was signed by the President on
August 14 with a succession of pens andunder flood lights-as if to make up for the previous lack
of publicityaccorded it, Never before in the history
of this bill of suchgreat scope and oranyothercountryhasa import been passed with public opinion in such a daze about the issues. Unfortunatelythepresentlaw seems doomed from the start by its complex, slovenly, and mangled character. T h e subject of social insurance, in which economics, politics, statistics, social policy, trade unionism, wages, and industrial production are intertwined, was barely discussed inthe United States prior to the Presidents message to Congress in June, 1934, when he promised to undertake the great task of furthering the security of the citizen and his family through social insurance. For more than half a century social-insurance programshave been keen political issues throughoutEurope,butheretherehasnot been evenacademic interest;ournewspapersgavethesubject no noticeuntilayear ago andhavegivenitverylittle since. Everywhere abroad social-insurance measures have been championed chiefly by organized labor. O u r labor movementhaseither opposed themorgivenhalf-hearted and uninformed support. N o wonder,therefore,thatthePresidents speech of June 8, 1934, fell like a bombshell on the country. T h e most ardent advocates of social insurance in America were bewildered by its boldness and political audacity. Even more deluding was the almost universal approval which greeted the speech. Everybody jumped on the social-security bandwagon. Governors made their it campaign issues. Congressmen it a spoke for it. Candidatesforstatelegislaturesmade plank in their platforms. Even candidates for city councils andsheriffs offices felt compelled todeclare themselves in favor of social security. And when, o n November 6, 1931, the American electorate gave the President the most Democratic Congress in two generations, hopes were raised sky-high. Likeallnine days wonders,itwastoo good to be true. T h e President spoke of social security,andwho could be against that?True,he did mentionkocial int o discover themeaning of so surance,butwhybother strange a term? Of several hundred articles and newspaper stories on social security zppearing during the past year, less thana score attemptedan analysis of social insurance. S o cialsecuritywasidentifiedwithold-age pensions, foran ardent twenty-year campaign for old-age security had broughtaboutatremendouspopulardemandfor old-age protection. More than half the states had actually adopted pension laws. T h i s movementhadgainedsuchpopularity that it attracted a galaxy of nondescript promoters rangiog of Eagles t o the messianic Dr. fromtheFraternalOrder Townsend.Thecountrywasthusclamoringforold-age pensions. ButtheAdministration, symbolized by Madame SecretaryPerkins, seemed for awhilealmosttotallyunbeen principally aware of this uproar. M i s s Perkinshad concerned with theproblem of unemploymentinsurance.
As late as November 14, 1934, there was an attempt to confine thefederalprogrzmtounemploymentinsurance.
At thattimethePresident,ina speech admittedlyprepared underMissPerkinsssupervision,said, I donotknow whether this is the time for any federal legislation on oldage security. T h i s conflict in basic objectivesmarkedonlythe beginning of the confusion. Difficultieswereinherentinthe very make-up of the Presidents Committee on Economic Security. For increating a committee to studythissubject andpreparelegislation,thePresident,instead of setting up an expert commission, intrustedthesubjectto five of hisbusiest Cabinet-members,alreadydriventodistraction by themanytasks of theNewDealprogram. T h e responsibilityforformulatingthe concise andcomprehensive legislation fell naturally upon the chairman of the committee, Miss Perkins.Forone reason oranotherMissPerlrins ignored the recognized American students of the circus was staged in Washington problem. A one-day on November 14 withover 300 expertsinattendance and with theformal speeches so arrangedastofrustrate one another. A staff composed largely of complete novices in social insuranceor of persons connectedwith some fringes of theproblemwasrecruitedto advise theCabinet coma TechnicalAdvisoryCommittee mittee.Therewerealso of variousgovernment office-holders, some . fourteen other committees,andan.AdvisoryCouncil of prominentrepresentatives of the public, employers, and workers. T h e direction of the committees staff came exclusively fromthechairman of theCabinetcommittee.SinceMiss Perkinshadnoparticular panacea for old-agedependency, the staff was comparatively free to work out this phase of the program. Had their recommendations been followed, we of meeting the probmight have had a constructive method lem of old-age dependency. ButMissPerkinshadapalliative for unemployment. Early in 1934 shesponsoredthe of unWagner-Lewis bill providing for the encouragement employmentinsurancethroughthe tax-offset method. T h i s involved a federal tax on employers payrolls throughout the nation,to be remittedtoemployerswhopaidaduplicating taxunderstateunemployment-insurance systems. When,afterthe nations reactiontothePresidents speech of November 14, it became clearthatactionon old-agesecuritycouldnot bepostponed,old-agepensions were added to the security program. Since the old opponents of laborlegidationwere busy fightingthe NRA and other Mew Dea! activities, theiroppositionto the measure was palsied. Theywere also convincedthatitwas useless to fighttheswellingtide of enthusiasmfor old-agepensions, and they were not much worried about the cumbersome taxoffset methodproposed, since theyfeltthiswouldeither be heldunconstitutional or prove so complicatedand irksomeas to nullify itself. There remained only the question of healthinsurance.HerethereactionaryAmericanMedical Association got busy at once and succeeded in suppressing any suggestion for health insurance made by the Cabinet
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T h e Nation
Committee, as well as the committees staff report on health
insurance, promised for March 15, 1935. T h e Administration hadprobablyneverdreamedthat itwouldhaveto domorefor old-agesecurity than establishasystem of federal subsidies tostatesenactingstandardized pension laws. Such bills had been before Congress for many years, andcommittees intwo successive Congresses had reported them favorably. T h i s legislation would have passed the Seventy-thirdCongresshad not the President promisedamorecomprehensive programfor 1935. But when the Cabinet committee learned of the future expense invoIved-considerably exaggerated by the staff because of unfamiliarity with the problern-it indorsed the logicalplan of institutingsimultaneouslya system of contributory compulsory old-age insurance. Althoughhandicapped by a total lack of information on a subject requiring years of study, the staff did draft areasonableplan,which was approved by the Cabinet committee and incorporated in th e original bill. This plan pro.vided for payroll contributions from employersand employees t o reach 2% per cent each within thenexttwenty years. Pensions toallinsuredwereto begin in 1942 out of money borrowed from the accumulated fund.Afterthirtyor thirty-fiveyears thefederal governmentwasto reimburse theloan.ButwhenthePresident learned thatthefederalgovernmentwouldowethe.fund morethana billiondollars by 1970 he ordered his Secretary of the Treasury-amember of the Cabinet committee, who apparently had approved this scheme before it was introduced-to insist thatunderno circumstances would thefederalgovernment assume any financialresponsibility. T h e plan must be made self-sustaining. UnderWhiteHouse pressuretheHousecommittee stepped up the contributions to a total of 6 per cent within twelve years. T h i s transfers the entire burden of oldage dependency after 1942 to the backs of the young workers andtheir employers, to the exclusion of thewell-to-do, who have shared in the maintenance of the aged poor since the establishment of the Elizabethan poor-lawsystem three centuries ago. Since industrywillmake every effortto pass on its levy to the consumers, it means that the young employees-in their dual role of workers and consumerswillbearthemajor cost of theaccumulatedproblem of old-age dependency. No othernationhaseverput into operationaplan of thisnaturewithoutgovernmentcontributions derived from the higher-income groups. T h e old-age contributory insurance plan is fraught with many other dangers. Enormous reserves, estimated at more than $10,000,000,000 by 1948 and at more than $40,000,000,000 in 1980, arecontemplated. Thesewillcreate a stupendousproblem of investment.Experienceeverywhere indicates that politicians willhardly be able to keep their hands off such easy money. T h e cold-storaging of so much sorely needed purchasing power no< only frustrates the expressed aims of theNewDealbut maydefinitelyhamper recovery. T h e constitutionality of theentire scheme is also extremelydoubtful. In thematter of unemploymentinsurancethe staffs taskwas evenmoreonerous. Despiteviolent criticism no - ~-~ other--plan- except-thetax-offset method--was-countenanced,W h en the staffs expert on unemploymentinsurance opposed thisplanas ineffective, he waspromptly dismissed. H i s
report was never published. Every effort was artfully made
to have the Advisory Council indorse the tax-offset method. This body also was ignored and dismissed as of no further use when, aftercareful deliberation, alltherepresentatives of theemployers and of organizedlaborand some of the outstanding members of the public decided by majority vote againstthisplan. Onlythe clumsy, duplicating tax-offset method permittingindividual company reserves andmaking possible a miscellany of forty-eightcontradictorystate lawswithgraveconstitutionaldi6cultieswaspermittedto emerge. The work of theCabinet committeewasshroudedin mystery untilthe day the bill wasintroduced. It was prepared in great haste by an inexperienced young Harvard graduatewithoutconsultationeitherwithstudentsofthe problem or the experienced Congressional draftsmen. It is even doubtfulwhetherallthe members of theCabinet committee examined it. So incompetently and loosely dTawn was the bill that its introduction caused a sensation. Although it was completelyunintelligible,Administration impatiencerushedCongressi6nalhearings at which official spokesmen attempted to explain away the meaninglessness of , the drafted bill. Administration spokesmen consumedmore than 1,000 of thenearly 2,500 pages of testimony inboth houses. Only after these spokesmen werethroughwere others who persistedintheir attempts allowed t o speak. T h e HouseWaysandMeansCommitteeattempted to limit all outside witnesses to five minutes and on one occasion forcibly ejected a Communist spokesman when he overstepped thetime limit-a procedureunknowninCongress in many years. The House committeecould not proceed with the bill as presented and ordered its draftsmen to make it intelligible. Thelatter,unable properly andconstitutionallytoretain theunernployment-insurance provisions permittingall kinds of individual schemes, limited all state plans to the pooled fund. Angered by the slipshod job presented to it, the committeetook the SocialSecurityAdministrationBoardout of theDepartment of Labor andmadeitindependent. Outside of the contributory old-ageinsuranceplaninsisted upon by theWhiteHouseandthe questionabletax-offset scheme theHouse bill wassound in itsfederalgrantsto states for the aged,dependentmothers,andchildwelfare. T h e proponents of social insurancewereencouraged by theimprovementsmadein theHouse. They looked forwardtothe removal of otherfaultyfeaturesinthe Senate. But thiswasnotto be. T h e Administration was insistent, and few members in either house had time to master thelengthyand complicated billcovering tendifferent subjects. Convinced thattheAdministrations choice was all or nothing, theymade up their mind to vote for all. Thus during five full days of Senate discussion n o t even half acolumn of the Congressional Record wasdevoted to the ptodigious andunprecedented scheme of unemployment insurance,outside of explqnatoryremarks by the committee chairman and Senator Wagner, the sponsor of the bill. T h e economically unwise and socially menacing contributory oldape insuranceplanwas given less thana column inthehundreds of pages of Congressional debate, and that only toward che--ver-y- -end.-.-Qnlg-its ronstitutionality.-was .thoro.ughly- ._ discussed. SenatorafterSenator declared that this part of the bill is unconstitutional but no onemade an effort to I
Clark amendment to exempt private pension schemes from contributoryinsurance a number of Senatorspointedout that thiswouldfurther complicate theconstitutionaldi5culties. T o this Senator Clark replied in typical vein: The constitutionality of the proposed act is already so doubtful that it would seem to me to be a work of supererogation to bringupthe question of constitutionalityinregard t o the pendingamendment. T h e Senate bill not only differed much from the original proposal but destroyedeveryimprovementmade in the House. T h e Clarkameudmentfurtherruinedtheoldage contributory plan. T h e House improvements on unemployment insurance were wiped out by restoring most of theoriginal questionable provisions. Even the simple subsidy panswereundermined by theRussellamendment granting federal pensions- instateswhichhave no pensions as yet, therebypitchingtheentiresubjectintothe political arenaandhalting state action for old-agesecurity. At the insistence of theHouse conferees theClarkamendment waseliminatedandthe Social SecurityBoard,whichthe Senxtehadreinstatedin theDepartment of Labor,was again made independent. The United States thus possesses a new Social Security
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Act,just as a shortwhile ago it also possessed a National
IndustrialRecoveryAct and aRailroadRetirementAct. Its fatenow lies withthe courts. T h e federalgrants for pensions in old age, to dependent mothers, to the blind, and to varied child-welfare and public-health activities are sound andconstitutional. Theymarktruly advancedsteps and genuine progress. T h e unemployment-insurance and oldage contributoryinsuranceplans, however, areadrninistratively and socially unwise. T h e effect this billmayhave on the American socialinsurance movement is of vital importance. Social insurance is recognizedtodayasoffering theonlypracticable instrumentformeetingthe problem of insecurityarising from modern industrial development. It is used in communist as well as capitalistand fascistcountries. Its chief asset liesin its powerto distribute the costover all groups in society-the rich as well as the poor. , But in placing the entile burden of insecurity upon theworkersandindustry, tothe exclusion of the well-to-do in thenation, e the presentsocid-securitybillviolatesthe most essential modern principles of socialinsurance, There is also gravedanger thattheadministrative perplexities inherent in the bill, to say nothing of possible court nullification, may deal a death blow to the entire movement in the United States.
By EMIL LENGYEL Berlin, August 15 ERMAN criminal law has been one of the pet ob-
official commentators of theamendmenthavepointedout,
thelawandits accessory stipulatipnsmake it incumbent upon theGermanjudge to accept fullythepartyline sf jects of Nazi vociferations. TheNazijournals havepointed outtheanomaly of livingunder a National Socialism. If he should fail to see thelight according to Nazi wishes, he may be promptly called to order heroic Teutonic regime while at the same time having to is given theright to appeal apply a system of laws conceived by such French sob-sisters by theStateAttorney,who as the Encyclopedists and Rousseau. Evenimpartial ob- against judicial decisions that do not stretch the law in such servers saw the inconsistency of protecting the defendants in, a way as to convict a defendant. criminal trials with constitutional safeguards while exposing It was a red-letter dqy in the history of mankind when the rest of Germany to unmitigated tyranny. This anomaly the legal axiom, NOpunishment without law (nulla goena is now at an end, and if it should occur to some Nazi leaders sine Zege), became the keystone of thejudicialstructure. to stage another Reichstag fire, they could be sure that the Under systems based on it the citizen knows what actions the defendants would be condemned whatever the evidence. state considers offenses againstthe community. T h e principle which the Nazi law announces is expressed in theaxiom, T h e change was effected throughthePenalCode law (nullurn crimen sine p o e n a ) . Amendment Law, whichwaspromulgated onJuly 5 and NO crimewithout will go into effect on September 1. It has been described by Under the oId system the defendant was supposed to be innocent until found guilty; under the new he may be found Dr. HansFrank,President of the Academy forGerman Law and Reichsminister WithoutPortfolio, as revolution- guilty even if he hasbroken no law fitting the case. T h e legal means to ary. T h el a w codifies Nazi lynchjustice,divorces juris- newlaw, in short, gives the Nazi state the prudence from impartiality, and makes the National Socialist crush political opposition of every imaginable kind. Already the law hascast its shadow over the criminal TYeltanschauung theguidingstar of criminaltrials. This revolution in German law is accomplished, first, by making courts of the Reich, and judges anxious to please the regime io apply its principles. T o whattyrannyit thejudgesentirelysubservienttoNazi ideology and, sec- havebegun ond, by freeingthemfromthetrammels of ,objective ap- mayleadcan be illustrated by a few recent cases. One of them, reported in the ultra-Nazi Frankfurter Yolksblatt, is plication of the law. Article I of the amendment provides: Punishment will be meted out to anyone who commits a particularly noteworthy because of the judges comments. deed madepunishable by lawor deservingpunishment in An Aryan of Wetzlar wanted to marry a Jewess who accordance with the basic principles of the criminal code or had been his sweetheartfor five years. H e applied tothe soundpublicsentiment. If no definite criminal law applies town registrar, who refused to marry them on the ground to the deed, it must be punished in accordance with the law that as a National Socialist he considered suchmixed marthe basic ideas of which best fit it. As official and semi- riages harmful to the community. T h e -Aryan took his case 1
Social Media Very Likely Used To Spread Tradecraft Techniques To Impede Law Enforcement Detection Efforts of Illegal Activity in Central Florida Civil Rights Protests, As of 4 June 2020