STUDIES FROM THE PROJECT ON THE FEDERAL SOCIAL ROLE 9 FORREST CHISMAN AND ALAN PIFER, SERIES DIRECTORS The Politics of Social Policy in the United States Edited by MaŕgäŕefWeir, Ann Shola Orloff, and Theda Skocpol Democracy and the Welfare State Edited by Amy Gutmann The Politics of Social Policy ill the United States EDITED BY margaret weir, ann shola orloff, and Theda skocpol PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 38 Ortoff tardy in arriving, or that U.S. social benefits will eventually "mature" into a European-style system. Not only is the contempqrary U.S. system of public social provision cross-nationally unusual, but also the trajectory along which the United States traveled to arrive at this system has been strikingly different from what students of European social policies have led us to believe is the inevitable course of welfare state development. The aim of this chapter is to describe and to explain the development of American social policies up through the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935. Because it is customary to treat U.S. national welfare programs as beginning in the 1930s, many people know little of what preceded this period. Thus, I will begin with a fresh overview of the overall trajectory of American social policy developments. An Overview of American Social Policy Histories of American social provision often presume that the federal government had no role in providing welfare benefits until the 1930s, when President Franklin Roosevelt introduced social security programs as part of his New Deal. Until then, the story goes, the needs of those Americans unable to care for themselves through participation in the labor market were addressed only, if at all, by the state and—especially— local levels of government. This account is superficially accurate but potentially quite misleading. For there was one rather spectacular exception to local predominance in the welfare field in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This was the Civil War pension system, remarkable in its own right and also consequential for later social policy developments in the United States. Originally, the federal government paid pensions only to veterans who had been disabled in the battles of the Civil War and to the dependents of soldiers killed in the war, as one might expect of a military pension system. But then, in the decades following Appomattox, the Civil War pensions were changed into de facto old-age and disability pensions that provided coverage for some one million elderly Americans, reaching about one half of all elderly, native-born men in the North around the turri of the century. While-analysts today tend to overlook the social welfare function of these pensions, it was well recognized by corttetnporaries. In 1917, prominent social reformer Edward Devine called Civil War pensions "a main national provision for old age."1 And University of Chicago sociologist Charles Henderson, a leading advocate of social insurance, noted in 1909 that "the military pension system has acted in great meas- 1 Edward Devine, quoted in John Gillen, Poverty and Dependency (New York: Century, 1926), p. 284. Origins of America's Welfare State k ure as a workingmen's pension system."2 Isaac Rubinpw, anpti^er leader in the U.S. social insurance movement, wrote of the Civil War pensions in 1913: After all, it is idle to speak of a popular system pf old-age pensioris as a radical departure from American traditions, when our pension roll numbers several hundred thousand more names than that of Great Britain. It is preposterous to claim that the cost of such á pension would be excessive, when the cost of our pensions is over $160,000,000, or more than three times as great as that of the British system. . . . We are clearly dealing here with an ecpnomic meásuíŕe which aims to solve the problem of dependent old age and Widovt'r hood.3 Indeed, in the period between the 1880s and World War L while reform^ ers, labor leaders, and politicians throughout the West initially were dj$-cussing the possibilities for adopting modern social insurance and old-age pensions to protect the "respectable" working class—and especially tjíá "worthy aged" among them—from the indignities of the traditional pópf laws, many elderly working and middle-cjass Americans were actually already so protected. Logically then, we might expect that U.S. reformers around the turn qf the century would have been interested in building upon the Civil War pension experience to extend old-age benefits to all elderly AiŕiericäriS, During the Progressive Era of about 1900 to 1919, Americans werp active participants in transnational debates over social insurance artfl pension proposals. Even so, only a few Progressive reformers advocated thfe extension of the Civil War pension system into a modern, universal system jbj: old-age protection. These pensions were allowed to pass from exjstencp with the dying of the Civil War cohorts, and there was no federal-level public replacement until the enactment of contributory old-age insurance plus assistance for the elderly poor under the 1935 Social Security Act, During the Progressive period, most states did adopt laws establishing workers' compensation and so-called widows' or mpthers' pensions-—this forerunner of today's Aid to Families with Dependent Children (Arbej^ This period of reform also witnessed the passage of many laws regulating a wide range of industrial conditions. Yet the more expensive arid ^dmiil? 2 Charles Henderson, Industrial Insurance in the United Stales (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1909), p. 277. ' "' 1 Isaac M. Rubinow, Social Insurance (New York: Henry Holt, 15(13), p. 4oi 4 Elizabeth Brandeis, "Labor Legislation," in Don Lescohier and Elizabeth Bŕandeis, Hfr tory of Labor in the United States, 1896-1932, vol. 3 (New York: MacmiJIari, ií>3$)| ŘP' 399—700; Mark Leff, "Consensus for Reform: The Mother's-Pension Movement ih the Prp^ gressive Era," Social Service Review 47 (1973): 397-417. 40 Orloff istratively demanding social spending programs that formed the core of nascent systems of social protection in Europe and some parts of the British Commonwealth—old-age pensions and insurance, health and unemployment insurance—were politically unsuccessful in the United States between the l&80rtnd World War I. And in the wake of the war, America decisively rejected new public social protections and embraced instead the ideal of "welfare capitalism."5 Only in the midst of a political crisis triggered by the Depression of the 1930s did Americans—belatedly, from the European perspective—initiate nationwide public social protections. Yet the delay was not without consequences for the character of the set of policies established by the 1935 Social Security Act, the "charter legislation" for the U.S. version of the modern welfare state. Two telling features of the 1935 legislation were the omission of national health insurance and the institutionalization of existing state-level differences in benefits and coverage for most programs. The Social Security Act did lead to the establishment of nationwide welfare programs, although they demonstrated varying levels of federal control. There was a fully national, compulsory system of contributory old-age insurance for those who worked in covered industries. Also established was a federal-state contributory insurance system for the unemployed in which the states were induced, but not mandated, to participate—and for which the states set benefit levels and eligibility requirements, In addition, there were optional prograhis of honcontributory, means-tested social assistance that remained under state-level administration, with costs to be shared by the states and the federal government. These public assistance programs, established at the discretion of the states, could aid dependent children in single-parent families and needy elderly people who did not qualify for insurance benefits. Significantly, the framers of the American social security system chose not to follow the European pattern of adding to the contributory insurance programs government subsidies financed from general revenues; nor did they establish national benefit programs financed entirely from the federal government's revenues. How are we to make sense of the historical development of the modern system of U.S. public social provision—the trajectory of its development and the character of the Social Security Act which established almost all of the programs that compose it? Three important dimensions of analysis have emerged from previous research on the development of the welfare state; taken together, they form the elements of an institutional-political process approach. At the most fundamental analytic level—the develop- 5 Stuart Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, 1880-1940 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976). Origins of America's Welfare State 41 ment of institutions—we attend to the ways in whjth U.S. State forrnati^fi shaped the American political universe, within which alliaŕlce^ wetp formed and policies were formulated. In particular, we fpctis pn the Sequence of bureaucratization and democratization, two fhndahitíni^j processes that transformed the political structure of America in tlít fôtó nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This changing political struchjtp formed the context in which modern social policies were debated arid iijet their initial legislative fate in the United States. Then, we fpciis oil tils' political process, which comprises the second and third elerhents of t|iis| approach: the character of the political alliances that helped to lavlnjth (and delay) the American version of a welfare state and the feedback (effects of earlier social policies on subsequent politics and polity debate^ Before developing an explanation for the American pattern of spcial-jWelr fare provision, let us first see how these analytic elements central tp; rH|S institutional-political process approach help to explain the éniérgericí öj modern welfare states more generally. Explaining the Emergence of Modern Welfare States In the last years of the nineteenth and the first years pf die twetitllpih century, social reformers, labor leaders, and political elites across Euŕlptíe and North America were actively debating social pplicy issues; Giyferi tpe new social and political conditions created by industrialization; ürb4hj* zation, the rise of capitalism, and the political incorporation pf the Wpck^ ing class, their questions centered on whether the deterrent fjopr layv sys* tern should be replaced (at least for sörne groups in the population) tyitn contributory social insurance or honcontributory pension pjrtjgrärrlš: Ut addition, in both Europe and North Americaj popular movement^ öftett based on labor organizations, pressed for new sdtial protections, p^rtjc* ularly for publicly funded old-age pensions that Would npt retiiiire t$X contributions from workers. Yet neither the concern of elites about the "social question" nor the actual initiation of new welfare prpgrafriS in Europe were responses simply to populär demands pr to spcjal prqplefn^ newly created by industrialization, urbánizatipn, arid cbncomltftflt changes in the family. Recent comparative research on the origins of welfare states in Europe suggests, instead, that political and bureaucratic elites instituted spcial insurance and pension programs, utilizing existing or readily created state administrative organizations, as part of efforts aimed at the "ähticipatcjtý political incorporation of the industrial working class,"6 The issiile ^f 6 Theda Skocpol and John Ikenberry, "The Political Formation of the American Welfare1 State," ComparativeSocialResearch 6 (1983): 90. ' 42 Orloff working-class participation in the polity—on whose terms and through which organizations—was of great concern to European elites and middle classes in this period, as extensions of the suffrage to non-propertied groups were occurring across that continent. This response suggests, in turn, that some element of political incentive, flowing from a threat to political control or from an opportunity to gain organizational or electqral advantage, especially in periods of electoral competitiveness or when new voters are entering the polity, must be operating in order to stimulate elite interest and coalition-building in the social welfare field. Indeed, a review of analyses of the initiation of social insurance and pensions suggests that the political force responsible for the introduction of new public protections was that of a cross-class coalition for new public social spending. The support of reformist elites and new middle-class groups as well as the working classes was a necessary condition for the political success of the hew programs in this early period. European reformers within and outside the státe suggested social insurance and pensions as a means for respectable members of the working classes to avoid the cruelties of the traditional poor law. These measures were also to serve as a means for governments and propertied classes to head off the threat to the social order and to their political hegemony posed by leaving no recourse to the lower classes in times of need but the poor law system. The poor law policy itself served as the starting point for debates about what should replace it. The broader analytic implications of this point are worth noting. Policy debates are regularly informed by ideas about how best to correct the perceived imperfections of past policy, rather than simply how best to respond to social conditions as such. This means that the goals and demands of politically active groups cannot be gauged simply from their current social positions or solely from ideological and value preferences. Meaningful reactions to existing policy—a part of what we have referred to in the introduction as policy feedback, and what Hugh Heclo has called "political learning" about the "policy inheritance"—color the very interests and goals that groups or politicians define for themselves in public policy struggles.7 To implement the proposed welfare programs, policy reformers looked to state administrative organizations. In late-nineteenth-century Europe, these agencies either had been recently rid of patronage practices and been professionalized through the passage of effective civil service statutes or had longstanding traditions of bureaucratic autonomy. The European experience suggests that processes of state formation had important implications for the development of systems of modern, public social 7 Hugh Heclo, Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974). Origins of America's Welfare State *$ provision. First, for the new social insurance and pension prpgt^rrié tej succeed, the state administration had to have the capacity fp pjärt grjcl administer relatively complex programs. Groups of influential public pf? ficials could then play key roles in formulating new sociál ppliciés ^jtf} existing administrative resources^ pressing them on political exeqtitiyeg and working out compromises with organized interest groups. This, p$1p tern of policy development was especially noticeable in the case qi Cprj* tributory social insurance. Because these programs, in addition to provide ing benefits, taxed workers and involved the state in activities previously within the domain of working-class voluntary asspciafidhs, thtey offofl were less popular initially than noncontributory old-age pensions1, í?qf)U<< lar movements frequently arose to demand nohcontrjbutotý pensípŕls^ which would not fax workers or threaten the autonomy of their órgahíí-zations. The substantial popular support for state sociaj spěndirig ifiltis* tives could sometimes be utilized by leaders of political coallticjns to qý^ come resistance to social insurances programs, especially if ýVell-pl4Cčd civil servants had laid the groundwork for those programs. Second, elite (and, to a lesser extent, popular) support foť social pqjicy initiatives was conditioned on there being a suitable instrhrnbnt jför administering the new programs efficiently and honestly. After all, cjfcjini» tions of what is feasible or desirable in politics depend in parf 0ri tjfjé capacities and qualities that political actors attribute to stäffe ptg^rijzer tions and to the officials who operate them. Just aS the|-e is political le^h)* ing about past policies, a kind of political learning about the ^ovpfnitl^iij: itself also occurs. Thus, the appeal of any given policy will depfenij} kj some extent on how well groups think it could be officially iríipleniejitčq) as well as on how it may affect the fortunes of groups struggling jniyjir' tříti control of official organizations. When state organizations adequate tčf the administrative tasks at hand are believed ,to be available* elites aire1 more likely to respond to political incentives arising from popular rnjpipl-; lization by building or joining a cross-class alliance to support new stjcíáj spending for income protection. ' t Finally, the process of state formation affects the operating rnqdefc df the very political organizations—especially parties and state adriiiiiisfra^ tive organs—through which public social policies can be collectively fofr mulated and socially supported. In particular, the sequence Jh which bd': reaucratization and electoral democratization occur is critical in1 this fe< gard, as the work of political scientist Martin Shefter orj patxpriag^ gild political parties would suggest.8 State bureaucratization preceded é\§& toral democratizatipn in most European absolute monarchies; in súd) lrj* stances, when political parties emerged and sought popular Sup'ppftj they 8 Martin Shefter, "Party and Patronage," Politics and Society 7 (1977): 4(jjk Haber, Beyond Sixty-Five (Hew York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 1Ü. " Ann Shola Orloff, "The Politics of Pehsions: A Comparative Analysis of rpe bfigihsi tjf Pensions and Old Age Insurance in Canada* Great Britain, arid the Uhited States, iBfjQs-« 1930s" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1985), p. 71. ' ' ' 'I ' . 48 Orloff pension system in the 1880s and 1890s. Not only were there the recurrent /egal liberalizations of the terms of eligibility for pensions, but, in addition, congressmen and senators devoted a large amount of time to helping their constituents establish their eligibility for pensions through personal intervention with the U.S. Pension Bureau and by sponsoring thousands of special ptivate^pension bills tailored to allow specific individuals to collect benefits even when they did not qualify under the very liberal legislated qualifications.17 The U.S. Pension Bureau itself was the "most uncompromisingly political branch of the late nineteenth century federal bureaucracy," where there was wide discretion in the processing of claims cjue to a huge backlog.18 Under such circumstances, control of the civil administration Was an important political resource. The partisan appointees in the Pension Bureau, most notably the Republicans, utilized this resource particularly at election time, when pension agents would be sent into the field to sign up pensioners—for their benefits and for the Grand Old Party!19 Given that a considerable proportion of men then in their twenties and thirties served in the Civil War regiments, and given that these men were in their sixties by 1890 to 1910, it is not surprising that at least one-half of all elderly, native-born men in the North, as well as many old and young widows, were receiving what were in effect federal old-age and survivors' pensions during this period. Of course, the post-Civil War pension system was uneven in its coverage of the American population, with the distribution of pensions favoring native-born men and pre—Civil War immigrants living in the North and Midwest. A majority of the elderly white Southern participants in the Civil War were veterans of the Confederate Army and therefore not eligible for federal benefits, although most of the Southern states began to give (relatively meager) state pensions to disabled or impoverished Confederate veterans in the 1890s.20 Also excluded were blacks and all post-Civil War immigrants; this meant that relatively few unskilled workers were among the system's beneficiaries. It seems clear that benefits under the Civil War pension system flowed primarily to members of the middle class and the upper strata of the working class, rather than to the neediest Americans. Yet in Europe it was precisely the "respectable" and better-off members of the working classes 17 McMurry, "Political Significance of the Pension Question," p. 28. '" Keller, Affairs of State, p. 311. " Sanders, "Paying for the 'Bloody Shirt.' " 20 William Glasson, "The South's Care for Her Confederate Veterans," American fylonthly Review of Reviews 36 (1907): 40-47; Rubinow, Social Insurance, pp. 408-9; Ann Shola Orloff and Théda Skocpol, " 'Why Not Equal Protection?': Explaining the Politics of Public Social Spending in Britain, 1900-1911, and the United States, 1880s-1920," American Sociological Review 49 (1984): 728. Origins of America's Welfare State ¥ who were of most concern to those reformers proposing social insurafifee1 and pensions. The problem of the pauperization of these "worthy" (ftjjpj often newly enfranchised) people through the operation of traditidříat poor laws, which left no alternative to destitution but degrading, iháuifj-cient, and disfranchising poor relief, was in fact a major stimuialtit tö tjjd consideration of social policy reform in Europe. Iri the Unified States^ riot every Civil War pensioner would have been a pauper without the ajtj of Ŕ federal pension, but as Charles Henderson wrote in his important }i?Ö9 work, Industrial Insurance in the United States, "Many of the olq riieji and women who, in Europe, would be in almshouses, are fpürifl in ffle United States living upon pensions with their chilplrfert or in horriejj tyj which paupers are not sent and they feel themselves tb bé the bonbrfetf guests of the nation for which they gave the last full measure of 4eV0* tion. Although Civil War pensions were a form of public aid expanded ($ meet the needs of some fortunate older Americans, hot all wjicj were eld* erly, disabled, or impoverished around the turn of the century received Civil War pensions. For some unemployed people, there Were pccasjPtii ally positions in work-relief projects funded by municipalities d^řj(i| business downturns, when the plight of the jobless was mošt visible,22 BUf for the non-able-bodied poor, the only alternative to dešpítfition1 wäŠ charity. Charity, whether dispensed by local public poor law authorities or private philanthropic agencies, was at best inadequate; At Wprst> it involved disfranchisement and residence in a semi-penal workhousp, Site nificantly, public poor relief was offered as an alternative tp, rather tli^H as a right of, citizenship.23 The financing and administration of the poor Jaws throughput nln^ teenth-century Europe and North America had several commonalities™-local administration was the rule, and poor relief everywhere vvás riiéag^ř and degrading.24 The distinguishing feature of late-nineteerith-cei)tm'ý U.S. poor relief administration was the predominance of patronage pf/áír tices. A wide variety of governmental forms existed ih Arnencan Idc^li* ties, but whatever the form, the patronage organizatiphs of perripbraisi 21 Henderson, Industrial Insurance, p. 277. 22 Leah Hannah Feder, Unemployment Relief in Periods of Depression (Njvf York) ftllé? sell Sage, 1936), pp. 168-88. ' ' , 23 Raymond Mohl, "Three Centuries of American Public Welfare," ty/rren^ Histórí, ^ (1973):'6-10,38-39. ' ' ' "" ' ' " By the latter half of the century, some central administrative supervision of poor ŕíáljef functions had emerged; in European countries, this was often1 at the level t>f the ŕiatjofjíjj government, while in the U.S., it was at the state level. On early U.S. poor relief adrnit)i9tfá-tive practices, see Josephine Brown, Public Relief, 1319-1939 (New Ypr|<: Henry Hqlfj 1940), chap. 1, and Michael Katz, //; the Shadow of the Pqqrhouse: A Social fiisiöh qf Welfare in America (New York: Basic Books, 1986), pt. Í. 50 Orloff and Republicans dominated city, town, and couhty goyernments.25 The partisan control of American local governments meant—as did the dominance of patronage politicians in the federal government—that administration was nonprofessional and "permeated ... to the core" by party politics.26 Control of poor relief provided politicians with opportunities for patronage appointments and for exercising partisan preference in the awarding of contracts for building and supplying poprhouses, asylums, and other welfare institutions.27 In addition, because Ideal officials had discretion in granting outdoor relief and work relief, electoral considerations could enter easily into the determination of eligibility for aid.28 Describing the Use of public works as a relief measure in New York City in the 1890s, sociologist Leah Feder noted that "partisaii pqlitics entered into its expenditure; workers referred by social agencies were dropped more quickly than those sent by politicians ... carelessness, extravagance, and misappropriation in administration were rife . .. [although] the fund undoubtedly provided an important resource in relieving unusual distress."29 Public charity was sometimes supplemented by the gifts of party bosses, who on occasion distributed food and fuel to the poor. Typically, they paid for this largesse out of the "private" funds they garnered through graft or "macing" (the practice of levying assessments on the salaries of public employees).30 Late-nineteenth-century patronage democracy was effective in mobilizing broad popular support, but it also produced serious opposition. Populists and labor groups denounced the links between politicians and the ''robber barons"—the capitalists dominating the economy through their control of raifroads, manufacturing, and banking, newly national in scope. At the same time, university-educated professionals criticized especially the "corruption" and "inefficiency" of thp personnel practices of the spoils system. They were dissatisfied as well with the kinds of policies fostered by patronage democracy, which, they charged, lacked any justification in terms of the "public interest." Instead, noted critics, the devel- 21 Keller, Affairs of State, p. 377. ;* Ari Hoogenboom, Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform Movement (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1968), p. 1. T Frank Bruno, Trends in Social Work, 1874-1956 (NewTork: Columbia University Press, 1957), p. 79; Sophonisba Breckinridge, Public Welfare Adtninistration in the United States: Select Documents (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1927), sec. 4; Harry C. Evans, The American Poorfarm and its Inmates (Des Moines, Iowa: Loyal Order of Moose, 1926): Keller, Affairs of State, p. 501. a Brown, Public Relief, p. 16. 2* Feder, Unemployment Relief, p. 188; see also pp. 22,158. '"John Pratt, "Boss Tweed's Welfare Program," New York Historical Quarterly 45 (1961): 396-411; William L. Riordan, Plunkett of Tammany Hall (New York: McClure, Phillips, 1905). Origins of America's Welfare State 51 opment of American public policy was above all tied to the partisan ppf litical exigencies of winning elections. These exigencies did not at all preclude—in fact, probably stimulated—out and pút corruption and fraud. Even the normal functioning of the patronage system Was corriing under fire as "political corruption." For example, the chairman^ of ttjSi committee on the merit system in public institutions of the National Cofi? ference of Charities and Correction (nccc), America's leading asspciatiqf) of charity workers and social reformers in the late 1800s, forcefully chaj? lenged the rationale and practices of the spoils system, calling tliät sysférj} "treasonable robbery, although not treason in the eyes of the layv,"31 The Civil War pension system was targeted as a particularly fegregipiis example of the problems to which patronage democracy led. By the 18^0^ and 1890s, the pension system's partisan uses were clear to many in th£ broad middle-class public, despite the attempts pf elected officials to lei gitimize the repeated expansions of the system through the use of p^l triotic rhetoric and waving the "bloody shirt." As one observer rioted íjŕj an investigatory article appearing in an 1884 issue of the feforrri-óŕleqtea magazine Century, "It is safe to assert that most of the legislation adopted] since the war closed, to pay money oh account of service in tlie Uriiorij armies, has had for its real motive not justice nor generosity, but a desire to cultivate the 'soldier vote' for party purposes."32 For the remainder Bf the nineteenth century and in the Progressive Era pf the twentieth, thtpsě "abuses" of the pension system and otr>er "perversions of detnqcracy ■ associated with mass patronage politics provided a pPntinuing stimulus for political reform, as well as a powerful symbol of all that was Considered to be amiss with existing political practices. The initial proponents of ending patronage through civijl service ŕeforiri in the United States were "Mugwumps," upper- and upper-middlé-c|äs$ reformers located in the Northeast, especially New York and Massačhh:* setts. Like their European counterparts of the late nineteenth cehtjiry, the Mugwumps wanted public administration taken out bf patronage p?o|Í-? tics, so that expertise and predictability could prevail.33 At firšt^ howeVéfy the Mugwumps' reform proposals made only limited headway, for Árneŕí ican party politicians had secure roots in the fully democratized,} tartly " Philip Garret, "The Merit System in Public Institutions," Proceedings of f he National Conference of Charities and Correction (Boston: George Ellis, 1896), p. 369. 32 Eugene Smalley, "The United States Pension Office," Century' Magazine 28 (1884)! 427. 33 Martin Schiesl, The Politics of Efficiency: Municipal Administration and RefornijH America, 1880-1920 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Pressj 1977), chap. 2; Martin Shefter, "Party, Bureaucracy and Political Change ih trie United Sthtpst" irt Louis Maisel and Joseph Cooper, eds., Political Parties: Development and Decay (BeVetly Hills: Sage, 1978), pp. 211-65. 52 Orloff mobilized mass white-male electorate. As Stephen Skowronek has pointed out in his study of American state-building, "to build a merit system in American government, government officers would have to move against resources and procedures vital to their power and position."^ *-^-\ Through the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the conflict between politicians and the various good government reformers resulted in overall defeat for the Mugwumps. Following the extremely close presidential election of 1880 and the patronage-related assassination of President James Garfield, the Republican administration of President Chester Alan Arthur and the Republican-controlled Congress in early 1883 approved the establishment of a Civil Service Commission under the Pendleton Act, largely as a concession to the Mugwumps to avoid losing their votes.35 Analysts agree that the impact of the law was quite limited; Skowronek riotes that it dried up "selected pockets of patronage so as to improve efficiency and, at the same time, serve strategic party goals ... ; [it] supplemented the dominant patronage relationship rather than supplanting it."36 In fact, because of the growth in federal employment, a larger number of jobs were available for patronage by the end of the century than had been before the enactment of the Pendleton Act, even with the growth in the proportion of classified (i.e., civil service) jobs. Thus, significant civil service reform was delayed until the Progressive Era, when electoral competitiveness declined somewhat, although even then, reformers never fully succeeded in uprooting patronage. Nevertheless, the crisis of the patronage system fqrmed the backdrop to the policy debates of the early twentieth century. The Progressive Era: Debate and Defeat of Proposed Social-Spending Measures Around the turn of the twentieth century, Americans, along with people in almost all the industrializing nations of the West, took part in debates over what the state should do in the face of the increasingly well-publicized problems of income insecurity. But the political legacies of nineteenth-century patronage democracy were far from conducive to the establishment of modern social insurance and pensions in Progressive-Era America. The incomplete success of civil service reform in the late nineteenth century had left the U.S. state with relatively underdeveloped capacities for regulating an industrial-capitalist economy and administering •" Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 3877-1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 68 and chap. 3 generally. 33 Shefter, "Party, Bureaucracy and Political Change," p. 228. ,6 Skowronek, Building a New American State, pp. 68-69. Origins of America's Welfare State S3 social programs designed to deal with its casualties. In addition, Progres: sive reformers were in the midst of battles against democratized "pplitjča(l corruption"; these overshadowed debates about social policies. At this point in American history, modern social-spending prpgran^s, \veré fiéjr ther governmental^ feasible nor politically acceptable, Workers' compensation legislation was the first modern yvělfare program to receive consideration in America, as it was across Europe, árií} jt was substantially successful, achieving passage in thirty-eighf: States by 1919.37 After the passage of workers' compensation laws, friany E|iťbl pean reformers had moved toward dealihg with the situatjqri df the aged poor, whose plight had helped to stimulate popular movemenfš for pensions. As pensions were established, reformers arid government orft<řiálk were concerned to add a contributory element to programs desighfetj to deal with unemplpyment, sickness, and dependency, and thé pbli^feäl support for pensions was utilized in the service of sqcial insurance; Pdt example, in Britain, the problems of the aged served as a unifying fqe|is for the political activities of reformers and some labor leaders,, helping tp cement a cross-class alliance in favor of new social^spending pfbgránjSi3^ In contrast, in the United States, the problems associated With the agejj^ poverty, but also mismanaged Civil War pensions^—served to djrive äjipŕt groups who might otherwise have cooperated politically tq push foť a modern system of social protection. Thus, the trajectory of events iri tlie United States was quite different from that in Eiirbpe, and the successful establishment of workers' compensation in many States was ftpt followed by similar successes in instituting old-äge pensions or social insurance, Although they hesitated to press for new social-spending meásijfääj Progressive reformers were not anti-statist in their oriehtátiorí. Oh tfle contrary, they saw the state as having the potential to be ah etliicp) agency, and this vision helped to inspire the moyetneht for civil service reform. Therefore, it is important to be very specific about eJchctlý Vyfiflt kind of cross-clasS coalitions were not possible in Progrešsivé-Jira Arrierr ica. Although middle-class reformers and organized labor yvére softer times at odds over the issue of political "reform'^-especially in Eastern cities where political machines had made inroads into working dass cöhr stituencies—they did manage to cooperate on cáfnpaijms fór yyorkmétťj? compensation, labor standards legislation, and mothers' pensions. In gfeh^ cral, middle-class reformers supported the expansion of the regulatpfy capacity of the government, which in fact kept pace with European developments.39 What can account for the American pattern of social reform legisla|ic|ii 31 Brandeis, "Labor Legislation," pp. 575-77, 38 Orloff, The Politics of Pensions, chap. 6. ' 39 Irwin Yellowitz, Labor and the Progressive Movement in New York Státe', 189J-1 ^| 6 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1965), p. 10. 54 Orloff in the years between the turn of the century and World War I? Why were social-spending initiatives so weakly supported by elites and ultimately unsgccessful? And why did other welfare innovations, such as workers' compensation and labor regulations, fare better? Conventional historical portraits show Americans äs culturally and ideologically opposed to new state welfare programs. The failure to enact new social insurance and pension programs is explained by invoking the strength of traditional U.S. liberalism among both educated elites and the population at large.40 In fact, similar ideas were employed in support of the reform proposals in both Europe and America, as early social scientists demonstrated empirically the social causes of poverty and income insecurity, and politically active innovators grappled with the problem of integrating industrial workers into the polity.41 In liberal-democratic countries such as Britain and the United States, support for new policy proposals came from a reworking of traditional liberal ideas away from pure self-help and distrust of state intervention toward "new liberal" or "progressive" conceptions.42 Those inspired by "new liberal" ideas came to see that" industrial society made people interdependent. Many noted that individual liberty could be thwarted as much by a lack of life's necessities as by the presence of governmental restrictions.43 In modern society, argued new liberals, government could be an indispensable support for individual liberty, providing security against socially caused misfortunes and regulating competition to allow for individual initiatives. Thus, new state welfare activities could be—and were, on both sides of tpe Atlantic—advocated without violating the traditional liberal aim of enhancing individual freedom.44 ■"' See, for one example among many, Gaston Rimlinger's Welfare Policy and Industrialization in Europe, America and Russia (New York: John Wiley, 1971). 41 Among the better-known social-scientific surveys were, in the United States, Jacob Rjis's How the Other Half Lives (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1890), and, in Britain, Charles Booth's Life and Labour of the People of London (London: Williams and Norgate, Í889 and 1891) and The Aged Poor in England and Wales (New York and London: Mac-millan, 1894). On the "social question"—that is, how to incorporate industrial workers into the democratic polity, see, for example, John Graham Brooks, The Social Unrest (New York: Macmillan, 1903), and J. A. Hobson, The Crisis of Liberalism: New Issues of Democracy (London: P. S. King and Son, 1909). 42 On the British "New Liberals," see Michael Freederi, The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978); P.F. Clarke4 "The Progressive Movement in England," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 24 (1974): 159-82; and Stefan Collini, Liberalism and Sociology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979). On their American counterparts, see Sidney Fine, Laissez-Faire and the General Welfare State (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 196S), and Robert Bremner, From the Depths (New York: New York University Press, 1956), chap. 8. 4i See, e.g., Hobson, The Crisis of Liberalism, pp. 92-113. 44 Orloff, The Politics of Pensions, chap. 3.; Collini, Liberalise and Sociology, p. 107; Origins of America's Welfare State 5* What is more, turn-of-the-century American popular support for riqvy welfare measures has been underestimated in conventional histqHcal qó> counts. Consider the voting in the presidential election of 1912. The Prd* gressive Party, led by former President Theodore Roosevelt, gairnpred tljo second-highest vote total, gaining four million votes to Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson's six million, and edging out incumbent RépjjpŤ lican President William Taft. The Progressives achieved this impressive vote total with a platform that endorsed "the protection qif home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular emplqytnent, aiid old age) through the adoption of a systém of social insurance adapted tef Afneřicán use."4i More precise and convincing evidence comes frb(ri MässachuséttSj where eight cities held popular referenda on old age pensipns in 1915( 4Jiq 1916. Pensions were approved by Bay State voters by a tnájrgin óf inibft* than four to one, belying the notion that American popular values pre^ eluded this policy innovation.46 Organized labor in the United States prior to thp New Deal also h^s been described as uniformly hostile to social welfare programs,^ |t is ttü£ that some national leaders of the American Federation of Laböf (afl)^ most notably afl President Samuel Gompers—opppsed contributory sp-* cial insurance, which would tax workers. Yet in the pre-New Deal éfify most legislative activity on labor and welfare matters took place at the; state and local levels, and it was here that labor unions arid federappnS pí labor exercised most of their political influence,48 In the moire in^ustri^l-! ized states, where organized labor was relatively mb^e weighty than ih trio United States as a whole, unions were often supportive of both p^ns,ipnij and contributory social insurance. Durif|g the Progressive Era, state ljáboiř federations endorsed a number of health and uneriiployriient insurant bills, along with workers' compensation, riiothers' pensions, and plcj-sif pensions. The recession of 1914-15 induced reformers and labdr orgäjif izations alike to support steps toward implementing uneriipjöyrrient ijta sürance in California, Massachusetts, and New York.''9 By 19lS, tiiriö Henderson, Industrial Insurance; Henry Seager, Social Insurance (New York: Jylacniillin; 1910), pp. 4-5,148-50. 45 Kirk Porter and Donald B. Johnson, eds., National Party Platforms (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970), p. 177; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics oftlie Uifft^ States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1960), p, 682. ' 4" Massachusetts Special Commission on Social Insurance, Report (Massachusetts Hous^ No. 1850) (Boston: Wright and Potter, 1917), p. 57. ' ' '''''' ''"' 47 See, for example, Rimlinger, Welfare Policy and Industrialization, pp. 80rjÍ4: 48 Phillip Taft, Organized Labor in American History (New York: Harper and RtUvj 1964), p. 233; Gary Fink, Labor's Search for Political Order: The Political Behavior pftjie Missouri Labor Movement, 1890-1940 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1973)^ pp. 161-82. ' ' ''" ' ' ' 49 "Unemployment Survey," A'merican Labor Legislation Reviettí 5 (1915): 59Ít-!?2í 56 Oriqff state labor federations had endorsed unemployment benefits proposals.50 Likewise, the labor federations from the industrialized states of Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Missouri, in addition to those from California, Massachusetts, and New York, endorsed health insurance proposals between 1915 and 1919.51 Interestingly, events in Britain (and elsewhere in Europe) reveal that it was not working-claSs groups who were responsible for the introduction of contributory social insurance. Instead, it was politicians and ministers who persuaded initially reluctant leaders of unions and other interest groups to go along with the new programs by negotiating about specific methods of implementing taxes and payments.52 Since U.S. state and local unions were at least as willing as British labor groups to support social insurance programs, it is quite likely that comparable co-optive efforts directed at them by state-level elected or appointed officials would have succeeded. In the United States, government leaders did not make such efforts—and it was surely this lack, rather than lack of demands and political support from the unions, that explains why the social insurances failed in America. In the case of old-age pensions, it is even clearer that the failure of this form of social provision in Progressive-Era America was not due to the failure of U.S. unions to support such measures. Leaders at all levels of the labor movement generally favored noncontributory old-age pensions. Even Samuel Gompérs favored noncontributory old-age pensions, stating in 1916 that pensions "carry with them the conviction of their self-evident necessity and justice."53 Moreover, national conventions of the afl passed resolutions in favor of pensions in 1908,1911,1912, and 1913.54 Daniel Nelson, Unemployment Insurance: The American Experience, 1915-1935 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), p. 18. 50 Nelson, Unemployment Insurance, pp. 70-71. 51 Ronald Numbers, Almost Persuaded: American Physicians á\\d Compulsory Health Insurance, 1912-1920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), p. 79; Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982), p. 250; Hace C. Tishler, Self-Reliance and Social Security, 1870-1917 (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1971), p. 173: "Labor Getting Behind Health Insurance," The Survey 39 (1918): 708-9. ' " On the British case, see C. L. Mowat, "Social Legislation in Britain and the United States in the Early Twentieth Century: A Problem in the History of Ideas," in J. C. Beckett, ed.. Historical Studies: Papers Read Before the Irish Conference of Historians (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1969), pp. 81-96; Bentley Gilbert, The Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain (London: Michael Joseph, 1966), chaps. 5-7; and Heclo, Modem Social Politics, pp. 78-90. 53 Louis Reed, The Labor Philosophy of Samuel Gompers (New York: Columbia University Press, 1930), p. 117. " American Federation of Labor, History, Encyclopedia, Reference Book (Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1919), pp. 303—4. Origins of America's Welfare State hi. Indeed, the first pension proposal introduced in the U.S. Congress cäriiö from former United Mine Workers leader William B. Wilson in 190?, arid it was soon endorsed by the AFL and by many state and local labpr lead' ers.55 The Wilson bill borrowed from the positive symbolism of Civil Wat pensions by proposing to deal with pqverty among the wbirking-cia^ aged through the creation of an "Old f-Iome Guard,'1 in which all Arheŕ1 icans aged sixty-five or over were invited to enlist if their annual incotné fell below $240; their sole duty would be to report to the War pepärt* ment on the state of patriotism in their communities, for wnjch thejf would be paid $120 per year.56 During the Progressive Era, it was not working-class groups, btíf mähý social reformers—and the middle-class and professional strata frdrii which they came and to whom they oriented their arguments—wip vferé reluctant to accept, let alone champion, social-spending measures sluch ás old-age pensions. These sorts of programs had been advocated by á crfiMA class alliance in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, but iri the United States» such a coalition was not politically possible. This can be seen iti tile wgy that U.S. reformers dealt with the issue of old-age ppverty—the issue that had brought together a cross-class coalition for social Spending ill ÍSritaiti The first serious official investigation of old-age poverty occurred Ü\ Massachusetts in the wake of the introduction of several old-a^jé jbensioh bills in the state legislature from 1903 to 1906. The Massachusetts Cbŕŕi^ mission on Old Age Pensions, Annuities, and Insurance was appqinted ti} 1907 and issued its report in 1910. This investigatory comriiission| staffed predominantly with professionals and upper-class Bpstohiarj^j gathered data on the elderly poor in Massachusetts, considered Various) pension proposals, arid reported that public pensions were neither neqásV sary nor morally desirable. Given that Massachusetts had lprij* béep á pioneer in social and labor legislation, serving as a gateway to the Urilti^cl States for British social policy innovations and as an example t0 other states, the setback in the Bay State was critical to developments evéry-t where in America. Indeed, the report dealt a virtual death blow tp whjit had previously been a promising movement toward old-age perislons iri that state and elsewhere.57 " David Fischer, Growing Old in America (New York: Oxford Univepity Press; 1978J, P. 171. '",','. t 56 The text of the bill is reprinted in the Report of the Massachusetts Commission on Old Age Pensions, Annuities, and Insurance (Massachusetts House Document No, 1400) (Basí ton: Wright and Potter, 1910), pp. 339-40. 17 On events in Massachusetts, see Alton Linford, Old Age Assistance in Mqssáchiisétlš (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), chap. 1; Massachusetts Commissidri on 01d Age Pensions, Annuities, and Insurance, Report; and Fischer, Growing Old iň fyin,ericaj p, 161. ' '..... 58 Orloff A labor representative, Arthur M. Huddell, expressed his disagreement with the commission's recommendations and questioned their arguments about the prefcrability of contributory pensions over noncontributory pensions, citing Civil War pensions as a favorable precedent: "The pension to the veterans of the Civil War has built up the American family . . . [arid] the old veteran and his widow are made comfortable in their old age .•;. and have a feeling of independence that old people should have."58 But thťvvillingness of Huddell and other reformers from labor's ranks to endorse noncontributory pensions for the "veterans of industry" was riot complemented by a similar attitude on the part of elites in Massachusetts or in the rest of the United States. Throughout Progřessive-Era America, old-age pensions were downplayed even by the most socially progressive elites, such as the members of the American Association for Labor Legislation (aáll). In 1913-14— just as the afl was solidifying its commitment to old-age pensions—the AALL made the decision to promote health insurance rather than old-age pensions as the "next great step" after workers' compensation in the "inevitable" progress tpward a comprehensive program of modern social protections in America.5' Following the massive unemployment in the recession of 1913-15, the aall also advocated a model bill for unemployment insurance, along with other measures to help the jobless.60 Yet leaders of the aall decided to forego a campaign for old-age pensions after their successes in promoting workers' compensation and industrial safety laws. Such a campaign assuredly would have appealed to organized labor and to broader working-class electorate—as pensions did in Britain, for example. A campaign for contributory social insurance was less able to appeal to all segments of the labor movement, particularly since there had been no momentum for new government social-spending programs built up from prior reform activities on behalf of pensions. Yet pensions Were unappealing to many of the leaders and members of the aall itself, as well as to the broader middle-class political public. Why did U.S. elites and middle-class people generally oppose new state social-spending initiatives? And why were the capacities and character of the U.S. state not conducive to the introduction of modern welfare meas^ urcs? To understand these facts, We must turn to the institutional context formed by the particular patterns of American state-biiilding, and to the ramifications this had for coalition-building and for the character of parties and the civil administration. In Progressive-Era America, civil service reform made some headway, ■" Massachusetts Commission on Old Age Pensions, Annuities, and Insurance, Report, p. 335. ' H "Social Insurance," American Labor Legislation Review 4 (1914): 578-79. *" "Unemployment Survey," American Labor Legislation Review 5 (1915): 573-75. Origins of America's Welfare State 59 though less at the national level than at the state and local levels.6' íhé demand for reforms in government broadened frorrl the yfery elite r^riks of Mugwumpry to include the growing ranks of the educated, professionalizing middle class and, in many places, farmers and qrgänizéd labor as well.62 In the newly noncompetitive political situation ushered in by thjä realigning election of 1896, there was increased freedom for officials i(i the executive branch, especially the president himself, to move1 against patronage practices, and to establish bureaucratic organizations jlséful in augmenting executive power.63 Yet the legacies of nineteenth-century patronage democracy and ihi crisis it precipitated in the Progressive Era created a relatively unfavorable context for the enactment of social reforms such as old-age pénsipii? ano! social insurance. At the most basic levelj the civil administration óf thp early twentieth-century American state Was quite weak, given the lack of an established state bureaucracy and the dispersion of authority inherent in U.S. federalism and division of powefs. Civil service reform, which might have enhanced the capacities of American goverhrneht for fcért^ji types of interventions in civil life, had still not achieved miich progress by the early 1900s. In contrast to the situatioh in many European coüiitHefl, there were in the United States no strategically placed officials to fiáýe thfe way for new social welfare programs. Thus, reforms hi this period did riöt have their source within the underdeveloped American bureaucracy. Instead, they were supported by broad cqálitions of interest grpups and pressed upon state legislatures.64 American political parties did not tend to be the vehicles of reform, either. They were not—as were many of their European ippunterplarts— programmatic parties looking for new policies to attract ŕiewlý eiifrari-chised working-class voters. Rather, they were patrotiäge parties yvith an already mobilized working-class following whose mode of operation w4£ under attack as "corruption" by many reformers. The clear chaljenge ipt party leaders in the Progressive Era was tq find ways to appeal to tfilddlé-class reformers and their Organizations While not alienating their tradir tional, patronage-oriented supporters. New social-spending measure!) tended not to meet that challenge, for elites ahd middle-class grqups Were still not convinced that officials in control of the state ädministratipii had been sufficiently cleansed of "corruption" to be entrusted with suťrj activities. 61 Schiesl, The Politics of Efficiency. « Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wahgj 1967), chap. 5; John D. Buenker, Urban Liberalism and Progressive Refqrm (New York; ty. W; Norton, 1978), chap. 6. 63 Skowronek, Building a New American State, chap. 6. 64 Buenker, Urban Liberalism. 60 Orloff The possibility of continuing "political corruption" in new government interventions worried elites and middle-class groups. The struggle against the patronage system was far from complete, and the debate over new social welfare spending programs was additionally entangled by issues of administrative probity and competence. By contrast, in most European countries, where bureaucratization was effectively implemented prior to mass extension of the suffrage and the emergence of debates over work-ingmen's insurance, such entanglements were avoided. Thus, even as proposals for new social insurance or pension schemes were being debated, Civil War pensions continued to be a symbol of all that was wrong with mass patronage democracy and public policy. In 1911 and 1912, Charles Francis Adams, a well-known journalist and reformer, carried out an investigation of the abuses of the military pension system which was published in the reform magazine World's Work.6S The series' title when reprinted as a book in 1912—The Civil War Pension Lack-of-System, a four-thousand million dollar record of legislative incompetence tending to political corruption—summarizes well the reformer's view of the link between patronage democracy and pensions. Although worries about political corruption undermined cross-class coalitions for sociál spending, especially on old-age pensions, some irn-portant social-welfare innovations did occur in many states during the Progressive Era. Labor regulations were strengthened, especially for women and children, and mothers' pension legislation, which provided means-tested allowances to widows outside of the poor law, was also widely successful. Workers' compensation laws, too, were enacted by numbers of state legislatures.66 Why was it possible for these to be enacted in a political dimate so hostile to public initiatives that involved social spending? Regulatory activities, unlike social^pending programs, could address the new needs of industrial society—and appeal tö both working- and middle-class voters—without adding to the potential for political ''corruption" or overtaxing U.S. administrative capacities. The two new welfare programs that were successful in Progressive-Era America, workmen's compensation and mothers' pensions, represented the reworking of government functions already being carried out in the courts, and they did. pox^significantly increase government spending. In Massachusetts and Wisconsin, reformers were able to overcome business op- 65 See Charles Francis Adams, "Pensions—Worse and More of Them," World's Work 23 (1911-12): 188-92, 327-33, 385-98. World's Work carried many articles on pension abuse even as it championed various social, political, and labor reforms during the years between the turn of the century and the outbreak of World War L 66 Leff, "Consensus for Reform"; the entire third volume of The History of Labor in the United States by Lescohier and Brandeis chronicles the progress of workers' compensation and legislation regulating work conditions, wages, hours, and related topics in this era. Origins of America's Welfare State 61 position to enact legislation establishing savings bank and göyernrt}et?t life insurance, programs that were not perceived to nave a high potential for abuse.67 Progressive social reformism quickly lost its momentum with the ttiitf of the United States into World War I. However, with tine creation pi centralized federal administrative agencies to mobilize Arrietícah ireV sources for the war effort, many reform-minded Americans expected th4t the new agencies could be reoriented to peacetime activities in the after-; math of the war. Of particular importance to reformers were t}ié United, States Employment Service (uses) and war risk insurance. Ťhě UŠeÍí lief up as an independent agency in 1918, was operating oyer eight hunqred field offices at its peak of operations in 1919. These offices prq sortie job referrals and also collected statistics on unemployment. Members fyf the AALL and others interested in problems of unemployment aiid liaibtif market organization hoped that the uses would come to serve ás y$ foundation for the administration of unemployment insurance* äs jhfttj been the case in Britain, where the world's first unémplpymeilt insurance system (initiated in 1911) had soon followed the'establishment cjf $%> tional labor exchanges (1909).68 War risk insurance (established by IŕM in 1917), explicitly designed to avoid thp pitfalls associated with tne pó&fc Civil War pension system,69 was also the cause for hopeful projections p|tj the part of progressive reformers. Samuel McCune Lindsay, ill nis }9, J9 presidential address to the aall, described soldiers' insurance as %$) striking a forward step that it may almost be said to atpne for out jjťe? vious backwardness," and he called on "those who believe in social |n-surance ... to see that our next step shall be to hold on to this gain ahtj to extend it to the civilian population.70 Yet reformers' hopes for extending wartime organizations and pťbs grams were dashed in the aftermath of the war. In Europa, tile effebt cif national mobilization for war was to stimulate political trentjš favöHhtj social insurance, but in the United States, the opposite happened. Cjčjjrlij gress—giving political expression to the oppositiqn of state^ löcalj ahij private interests to the extraordinary federal powers developed durirm me1 war—quickly dismantled the emergency war organizations, including tí/íe 67 John Commons and Jor}n Andrews, Principles of Labor Legislatfqn (New York: j-iaj'-pcr and Brothers, 1927), p. 471; Lee Welling Squier, Old Age Dependency in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1912), pp. 286-91. s» Roy Lubove, The Struggle for Social Security, 1900-1935 (Cambridge: Harvard tíhl' versity Press, 1968), pp. 149-57J on British unemployment insurance, see Jose Harris, ľj»J employment and Politics (London: Oxford University Press, 1972). s' Glasson, federal Military Pensions, p. 283. 70 Samuel McCune Liridsay, "Next Steps in Social Insurance in the United Spates," Amtf-ican Labor Legislation Review 9 (1919): 111. ' i S2 Orloff USES, after the Armistice. When Congress slashed the appropriations for USES in 1919, the agency was forced to disband its field offices and to depend for unemployment statistics on voluntary submissions of information from business, states, and localities.71 Without sufficient funding and support for the uses, there was little immediate chance for the development of an unemployment insurance program. And in the postwar reaction against federal government intervention in civil society, public old-age, disability, and survivors' insurance for civilians was not to be built up from war risk insurance. |n essence, the postwar United States opted not to institute the modern public social provision considered during the Progressive Era,, or to build upon and extend wartime government activities such as the uses or war risk insurance. Yet the Progressive-Era attempts to build new realms of public activity free from patronage were not without implications for the future of social policy. Two structural effects were the enhancement of the importance of sub-national governments and the intensification of administrative fragmentation inherent in a federal system. Partially because civil service reform had made most headway at the sub-national level, states were the locus of administration for successful labor arid welfare inhovations in the Progressive Era itself and into the 1920sj and interests in such state-level programs became institutionalized. When social reform again emerged on the policy agenda in the wake of the Great Depression, policymakers would have to contend with this Progressive state-building legacy as they designed new programs. In the postwar years, reformers and political leaders, as well as many average Americans, believed that businessmen could and would look after the American economy and Americans' economic well-being. To the extent that the problems of income insecurity associated with industrial capitalism were given any attention at all, they were to be addressed through "welfare capitalism"—programs run by employers for their workers—or through private and local charity. Welfare capitalist schemes reached only a tiny proportion of the work force, but they were important in the 1920s as a cultural ideal in opposition to public social efforts.72 The conservative Republican presidents of the 1920s were not at all interested in building a professionalized bureaucracy to administer social programs; rather, they embraced the vision of an anti-bureaucratic "as- ■' Carroll Woody, The Growth of federal Government, 1915-1932 (New York: Mc-Graw Hill, 1934), pfi. 371-72; I. W. Litchfield, "United States Employment Service and Demobilization," Annals of tlie American Academy of Political and Social Science 81 (1919): 19-27. 7- David Brody, "The Rise and Decline of Welfare Capitalism," in Brody, Workers in Industrial America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 61; see also Brandes, American WelfafeGtlpilalism. Origins of America's Welfare State 63 sociative state" developed by Herbert Hoover, who served as secretary of commerce for Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Cpolidge befpre becoming chief executive himself in 1928. Hoover worked in his capacity as a public servant to encourage research, planning, and cooperation oft the part of private groups; these activities would help citizens, under the "enlightened" leadership of corporate capitalists, tp "meet the heeds of industrial democracy without the interference of government tjüreaüT crats."73 A striking example of the "associative state" approach to social problems was the 1921 President's Conference on Unemployment; organized by Hoover to gain backing from the invited politicians, labor leaders, and social policy experts (including some from the aaLl) for pJanšwal-ready largely formulated—to deal with the severe recession of th^t yeah Harding and Hoover ruled out any kind of governmental action frpfh the beginning, and the conference was left to recommend better coordiriätioti of private and local charitable efforts.74 Social reformers recognized that the 1920s were a remarkably luiprq-pitious time for advocating public solutions to the problems of industrial capitalism.75 Many—most importantly the members pf the ÁALkrrac-commodated themselves to the new political climate by downplaying: state initiatives and emphasizing the so-called "preventive approach" associated with the work of University of Wisconsin feconqmist Jphh R.i Commons.76 Commons and his disciples called for labor and sociaj ifi^uř-ance legislation that would give individual businessmen tangible financial incentives for increasing workplace safety, stabilizing employment, and otherwise improving workers' and social Welfare. Expert^ coordinated administration of labor regulations at the state level was also ari impor-s tant part of the Commons approach to industrial relatipns.77 It was jn his home state of Wisconsin, with its unusually strong network bf ties between state government and state-research university, that this type cjf 73 Joan Hoff Wilson, Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive (Boston: Little, Ŕrbvyfi, 1975), p. 89 and chap. 4 generally; Ellis Hawley, "Herbert Hoover, the Commerce Secretariat, and the Vision of an 'Associative State,' 1921—28," Journal of American Histpfy 61 (1974): 116-40. ' 74 William Chenery, "Unemployment at Washington," Survey 37 (1921): 47; ibid., "The President's Conference and Unemployment in the United States," International Laboitr Review 5 (1922): 359—76; Carolyn Grin, "The Unemployment Conference of 1921: Ail Experiment in National Cooperative Planning," Mid-America 55 (1973): 83-107; Wilson, Herbert Hoover, pp. 90-93. 75 Clarke Chambers, Paul V. Kellogg and the Survey (Minneapolis: University öf Minnesota Press, 1971), p. 77. 76 Lafayette Harter, John R, Commons: His Assault on Laissez-Faire (Corva!lis| Oregon State University: Press, 1962); Nelson, Unemployment Insurance, chap. 6; Lubqye, The Struggle for Social Security, chap. 7. "John R. Commons, Labor arid Administration (New York: August Kelleý, [1913] 1964); Commons and Andrews, Principles of Labor Legislation, ' ' Orloff administration was best developed. The Wisconsin State Industrial Commission was staffed by labor economists schooled in the Commons philosophy. The commission engaged in research and was emppwered by the legislature to enforce-and adjust all the state's industrial regulations.78 In the absence of other reform activity, the AALL became increasingly oriented to the experiences and policy ideas of the Wisconsin State Industrial Commission, where—almost alone among state government agencies in the 1920s—social reform-minded "experts" (albeit of the "preventive" stripe) were still in a position of political influence. Only ih the state of Wisconsin was there continuing activity around proposed unemployment insurance legislation through the 1920s. In 1921, an unemployment insurance bill based on the preventive approach and including employers' incentives came close to passing in the state legislature. Tne reformers continued their campaign until a similar bill finally succeeded in 1932— the first in the United States.79 Outside Wisconsin, popular political activity for welfare reform in the 1920s consisted almost exclusively of state-level campaigns for noncon-tributory old-age pensions led by the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a predominantly working- and lower-middle-class, white fraternal order. At times, the Eagles worked in uneasy alliance with professional, middle-class reformers of the aall or the newly formed American Association for Old Age Security (later the American Association for Social Security); a handful of progressive Republican and Northern Democratic politicians supported the pension cause as well.80 But by 1928, the only fruits of the extensive campaigning for new public spending fpr old-age protection were six state-level pension laws, all of them "county-optiqnal," meaning that counties were allowed, but not-mandated, to pay pensions to some of their aged residents. As it turned out, not many counties exercised their option, and only about one thousand elderly people were receiving these pensions in 1928, fewer than those still collecting Civil War pensions!81 "" Lubove, The Struggle for Social Security, p. 33. "' SJelson, Unemployment Insurance, chap. 6. , "" Louis Leotta, "Abraham Epstein and the Movement for Old Age Security," Labor History 16 (1975): 359-78; Jackson Putnam, Old Age Politics in California (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1970), pp. 18—24; Fraternal Order of Eagles, The Fraternal Order of Eagles: What it Is, What it Does, What it Stands For (Kansas City, Mo.: Organization Department, Fraternal Order of Eagles, 1929); Fischer, Crowing Old in America, pp. 173— 74. "' U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the US., p. 738; Fischer, Crowing Old in America, pp. 173-74; Massachusetts Commission on Pensions, Report on Old Age Pensions (Boston: Wright and Potter, 1925), p. 37; U.S. Sociál Security Board, Social Security in America: The Factual Background of the Social Security Akt as Summarized from the Staff Reports to the Committee on Economic Security (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1937), p. 161. Origins of America's Welfare State 05 From Welfare Capitalism to the Welfare State It was in the years of the Great Depression that the United States lišiti* ated nationwide programs df social protection through the passage of thfe Social Security Act of 1935. The economic crisis transformed the Ámprií can political world as it had existed in the 1920s and set into fjiotitjfi political changes that allowed for the success of the New Deal social? welfare legislation. Nationally, the ideological and policy iriheŕitarictí represented by welfare capitalism was utterly discredited. And ÁrheHta(ri citizens, politically quiescent throughout the 1920s, becamp ppliticaljý engaged on a mass scale. The social insurance and assistance legjslatjqrj passed during the Depression era bears thp imprint of these factprsj bqt it was also shaped by institutional arrangements and policy feedbacks that were themselves the legacy of the struggles for civil service reform and social welfare innovation pf the late-nineteenth and earlyytweritieth cén^ turies. The Role of Popular Pressures in New Deal Social-Welfare Initiatives By the time of the 1932 election, close to four years of the Great Depression had shattered the ideas that businessmen Cduld guarantee the economic and social well-being of Americans, and that limited private and local charity and corporate welfare programs could serve as á substitute for public social provision in times of economic downturn. Presidpilt Hoover had responded to demonstrably increased need arid to rising déi mands for federal relief within the framework of his voluntarist philosc^ phy, in which the state's welfare" role was limited to encouragkméjit öf private philanthropic efforts.82 But with the persistence of the Depf£šsipiij and the blatant failure of voluntary efforts tq alleviate need, the demands for federal action to cope with the economic crisis mounted. Popular arid expert interest again turned toward public policy solutions to ecohbriiip and social problems. Franklin Roosevelt's mandate was hardly definitive in terms of What national policies he would pursue to achieve economit recpyery dir tp ehd economic insecurity; the 1932 platform of the Democrats pledged only old-age and unemployment insurance at the state level.83 Yet Roosevelt was known as a reformer—when he served as governpi of Nevy Ýprk, (le encouraged the initiation of public prograrhs for old-age protection^—ahd though he made no pledge as to what he would do beyond *'böld experi- 82 Wilson, Herbert Hoover, chap. 5. 83 Porter and Johnson, eds., National Party Platforms, p. 331. 66 Orloff mentation," his campaign promised to involve the federal government actively in dealing with the problems caused by the economic crisis.84 Frances Perkins, fdr's close advisor and labor secretary, later wrote that it was "basic in the appeal for votes that suffering would be relieved immediately" through federal action, a stance completely different from Hoover's.85 In this way, popular support for a new political orientation toward problem's of economic security, as expressed by the 1932 election, was critical in providing an opening for the Roosevelt administration or congressional Democrats to initiate new public social programs. The democratic upsurge in American politics did more than sweep Roosevelt into-office, of course. There was increased mass political activity throughout the decade—in addition to an increase in voting among new-stock urban dwellers, there were marches of the unemployed, sit-down strikes, and farmers' protests.86 Of critical importance to New Deal social policy developments were the social movements that arose demanding extended government welfare activities and new public social spending: Huey Long's "Share Our Wealth" movement, Father Cough-lin's National Union for Social Justice, and Dr. Francis, Townsend's old-age pension movement.87 Indeed, an explanation commonly offered for the New Deal social-welfare breakthroughs is that they resulted from popular pressures.88 It is certainly true that such pressures played a critical role in the formation of the American system of social insurance and welfare, but it is not the case that the Social Security Act was a direct product of mass movements. How, then, did popular demands for new state welfare activity affect the course of policy development? During the 1930s, the mass movements dedicated to expanded public social protection continued to press fqr state action—indeed, they made such action a political necessity. M James Holt, "The New Deal and the American Anti-Statist Tradition," in John Brae-man, Robert Bremner, and David Brody, eds., The New Deal: The National Level (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1975), p. 29; Daniel Fusfeld, The Economic Thought of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Origins of the New Deal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956), pp. 158-59. See also Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (New York: Viking, (19461 1964), pp. 166-67,182. ,s Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 182. K Two classics in a huge literature on the New Deal and fhc popular political upsurge include William Leuchtenberg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Dteal (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Politics of Upheaval, vol. 3 of The Age of Roosevelt (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960). 87 Abraham Holtzman, The Townsend Movement (New York: Bookman Associates, 1963); Alan Brinkley, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Cpughlin and the Great Depression (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982). '", See, especially, the work of Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, Regulating the Poor (New York: Random House, 1971), pt. 1, and ibid., Poor People's Movements (New York: Random House, 1977), pp. 30-31. Origins of America's Welfare State (57 Without popular pressure, and the electoral incentive it represented to congressmen, the policy initiatives taken by the Roosevelt administration probably would not have been successful. Secretary Of Labor Frances Par? kins, a key policymaker for social security, saw popular political activity as creating a unique political opening for the enactment of social ihsilr* ance programs.89 She later recalled, in reference to the passage of pldra^g protections in the New Deal, that "without the Townsend Plan it is pcjs* sible that the Old Age Insurance system would not have recejvpd the |ty tention which it did at the hands of Congress."30 Indeed, giveii the diári acter of the American state structure in the 1930s4 executjyf ppjHfy initiatives depended for their success ort mass pressure being exerted tjrj Congress. The divided authority of the American state meant that éki tremely broad coalitions had to come together to overcotne the many ppV tential vetoes and to achieve coordination among the various bliräiichek and levels of the government; this was especially the case in the říeW P£íaj] period, before the emergence of the bureaucracy as a substantial factor lij policymaking." Yet popular demands were not directly transmitted into the circles jpf policy formation. U.St. political parties Were still far fJrorn being1 pŕqgramŕ matic or committed to coherent social policies, and tney were riot Ofgah*-ized to channel the policy proposals of groups to trip elecped and apt pointed officials who actually made policy, as did many Híiropjékltj parties.92 In fact, the very strength of mass movements pressing fdr ttip extension of state welfare activities had, a somewhat paradoxical effect! jfc reinforced the fears of Roosevelt and his advisors that "unwise*! legisla^ tion might be enacted, and thereby intensified their cautiousness on' niiät' ters of social policy and their determination to exclude radical vpltfcp from policy discussions.93 . ř „ 89 George Martin, Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins (Boston: Houghton Miífljrj, 1976), p. 341. ' ' ..... ' 9,1 Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. vi. " Christopher Leman, "Patterns of Policy-Development: Social Security In Canada ani) the United States," Public Policy 25 (1977): 264; ibid., The Collapse of Welfare Refoľhi: Political Institutions, Policy, and the Poor in Canada and the United States (Cambrifj|ei mit Press, 1980),'pp. 135,165. 52 The fact that U.S. parties had not completely given up pátřoriage practices; or nióvěa toward thoroughly programmatic electoral appeals, reflected the uneven ariil iilcbrnpleté success of earlier attempts to reform the civil administration. Patronage politicians remaineq strong in many areas of the United States and coexisted with politicians making móre {ssti^i oriented appeals. On the character of American political parties^ see Theodore Lcjwi, "Party, Policy, and Constitution in America," in W. Chambers and W. Burnbam, eds.j jhe Aihäfľ-can Party Systems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 238-76. 93 This effect was reinforced by the fact that Roosevelt and his closest advispki had be'eh influenced quite negatively by European experiences with uneiTiploytnent insurance in tr)e 1920s; there—at least parfially in response to popular political pressure—béř|e(fts had |páf 68 Orloff This cautious approach in response to mass pressure is perhaps best illustrated in the case of old-age protection. The Townsendites were the largest and politically best connected of the various organizations pressing for new state welfare activities. The movement consisted of thousands of elderly Americans, many of them middle-class, organized into "Towns-end Clubs." The Townsend movement was especially influential in Congress, both because of the elderly's high propensity to vote and because of the organizational structure of the movement, with local clubs ih almost every congressional district.94 In contrast to the usual maximum monthly payments of about $30 under the state old-age assistance programs that had proliferated after 1929,95 the Townsendites advocated a father remarkable $200 monthly pension for all Americans aged sixty or more, given on the condition that they cease working and spend the pension payment within thirty days.56 The Townsend Plan and others like it, though clearly popular with many Americans, were completely dismissed by the Roosevelt administration officials drafting the Social Security Act's old-age pension and insurance provisions.'7 Roosevelt insisted to his advisors that any program instituted be on a sound actuarial basis—as opposed to the "unsound" Townsend plan and other popular "panaceas." This meant some sort of contributory scheme, as opposed to one drawing exclusively on general revenues.98 Noting that "Congress can't stand the pressure of the Townsend Plan unless we have a real old age insurance system," fdr resolved to take the initiative in the development of social programs, and to maintain careful control of the entire process of legislating social security.99 Looking toward the future, Roosevelt was espe- any cdnnectiorup.contributions and had become a "dole." Thus^ Roosevelt noted in a 1934 address, "Let us profit by the mistakes of foreign countries arid keep out of unemployment insurance every element which is actuarially unsound." See Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Addresses to the Advisory Council on Social Security" (November 14, 1934), in Samuel Ro-senman, ed., The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, vol. 3 (New York: Random House, 1938), pp. 453—54. On the issue of the effects of popular pressures, see also Skocpol and Ikenberry, "The Political Formation of the American Welfare State," pp. 123-26. '■" Irving Bernstein, A Caring Society: The New Deal Confronts the Great Depression (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985), p. 66; Holtzmán, The Townsend Movement, chaps. 1-6; W. Andrew Achenbaum, Old Age in a New Land (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, ,1978), pp. 129,132. 95 While only six states had passed old-age pension legislation prior to 1929, twenty-eight states had initiated programs by the beginning of 1935, when the Roosevelt administration's draft social security legislation was introduced in Congress. See U.S. Social Security Board, Social Security in America, pp. 161,166. 98 Achenbaum, Old Age in a New Land, p. 129. 97 Theron Schlabach, Edwin E. Witte: Cautious Reformer (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1969), pp. 109-10. 98 Mark Leff, "Taxing the 'Forgotten Man': The Politics of Social Security Finance in the New Deal," Journal of American History 70 (1983): 359-81. 99 Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 294. Origins of America's Welfare State Í cially concerned to insulate his legislation from popular and pplitki) pressure for expansion by including cpntribütions from beneficiaries^. I Roosevelt's timing in introducing permanent äs opposed fo ''errítírr gency" measures also reflects the cautiousness of his approach. Planing for social insurance initiatives was undertaken immediately, but nö lee? islation was proposed by the administration. In contrast, tlie president introduced federal emergency relief legislation almost immediately fipbf) taking office, thus responding to the plight of the unemployed—-alia to the not inconsiderable protests of state arid local welfare officials, wnqse agencies were overwhelmed financially by the proportions qf fieed pŕpŕ duced by the crisis.100 By 1934, the year Roosevelt appointed the ibc?n4* mittee on Economic Security (ces)—the group responsi pie for dräfjihg the administration's proposed social security legislation—the most urgent demands for relief had been satisfied by public works and relief programs, so that the permanent program to be designed |jy these acjyiijprs could more easily be kept separate from the "dole" so abhorred by fdr, buf bp politically necessary ih the first montfis of his administratiorii10^ What, then, can be said of the role pf mass pressures in stirriulatih|» ttjp development of new state social-spending measures in the United States? Given the character of the U.S. state structure, popular pressures vi€t§ critical in providing an opening for elite initiatives; Indeed, ppjjiilat political activity encouraged policymakers in the Rooseyelt adrfjinistrafjpri ib take initiatives, but, as we shall see below, they were largely able to ifistií late the process of formulating policy from popular derriands- There ij> ilo doubt that some kind of social-welfare initiative was politically necessary, but the specific form it took was shaped by the institutional artf rigéŕnerltš of the American state, the power of certain congressional groups,' ant} tilb reaction of New Deal policymakers tp the U.S. policy inheritance. Presidential Initiatives for Social Security I Roosevelt had long harbored political ambitions—for himself as ylffejl as for the Democratic party and the cause of progi-essiye reform—arid |l0 eagerly worked to build and lead a cross-class coalition for sociál polity reform at the national level. There was substantial legislative activity ph proposed pension and unemployment benefits legislation in Congress during 1933 and 1934, yet Roosevelt was interested in developing í iŕiljjrfti-prehensive approach to social security, as well as in taking political crědjt for any legislation that did succeed. Roosevelt seized the initiative jh fpr-mulating policy and wa$ able to maintain control over trip pplicymafcihg 100 Bernstein, A Caring Society, chap. 1; Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhptise, pp. 216r 22; Piven and Clowárd, Regulating the Poor, chap. 2. 101 Perkins, The Roosevelt 1 Knew, p. 284. Orloff process by setting up the ces.102 This group of cabinet officers, established in early June of 1934, was chaired by Secretary of Labor and longtime social reform advocate Frances Perkins, who had come to Washington with Roosevelt from the position of Industrial Commissioner in his gubernatorial administration in New York.103 The ces would study social insurance and assistance, aided by an expert staff, and have a legislative proposal ready for the start of the 1935 congressional session. The key position of executive director was filled by Edwin Witte, a former Commons student trained at the University of Wisconsin and a veteran of years of administrative service in Wisconsin with the State Industrial Commission and the Legislative Reference Library (another state agency with progressive origins).104 Roosevelt's choice of personnel for the important task of drafting the social security bill reflected his generally cautious approach to social policy. Roosevelt and the people he chose to be the architects of the Sqcial Security Act came of age politically in the Progressive Era; as products of the progressive movement, they shared its concerns with "good government" and fiscal "responsibility." Moreover, they had received their political training and developed their distinctive outlook in the "expert," state-level administrative agencies dealing with labor and social legislation that were the enduring result of progressive state-building and social reform efforts. In particular, Roosevelt's social policymakers came from backgrounds that ensured their concern with fiscal "soundness." They would attempt to build programs able to withstand what they perceived as the ever-present danger of democratic pressure for expansion of government benefits into fiscally irresponsible and politically motivated "handouts."105 Social policy experts who advocated more liberal policies were excluded from the inner circles of policy formulation, relegated to relatively powerless positions within advisory bodies, or left out of the official policy formation process altogether.106 The Deliberations of the Committee on Economic Security From the very outset of the deliberations of the ces, the tension between national standards and coordination and state-level autonomy and 1112 Bernstein, A Caring Society, pp. 41—42,51-J3; Edwin Witte, The Development of the Social Security Act (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962), pp. 4-7,18. "" Martin, Madame Secretary, pp. 205-6. "H Schlabach, Cautious Reformer, chaps. 2,3. "I! Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, chap. 1, 2; Bernstein, A Caring Society, pp. 43—45; Schlabach, Cautious Reformer. "" Lubove, The Struggle for Social Security, p. 176; Skocpol and Ikenberry, "The Political Formation of the American Welfare State," pp. 127-28. '-•:••■' «\ Origins of America's Welfare State ľ1 diversity was of overriding importance in debates over {he character of the programs it would propose.107 Although politics had acquired ä more national focus in the 1930s, there were substantial obstacles tq nátidhíil uniformity and centralized administration. Policymakers faced the threat of any national social insurance programs they recommended, being qé* dared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. In addition, they had ft) cope with the political exigencies represented by the distribution q1 f ppy/éf within the Democratic party, which favored the representatives of cortr servative and states'-rights viewpoints as much as or more than those <^f urban liberalism. In particular, the extraordinary political leverage of Southern representatives in Congress, out of proportion to the pqpúlatiph and economic might of their states, was 4 fact that could never be igrtq^cj as FDR and the ces formulated the bill.108 Moreover, the fact that stätejä had been the principal actors in social policy until tne mid-193Ps meaht that diverse programmatic and administrative interests in the varipti$ state programs were politically well entrenched and difficult tq bypass by the time the ces began its work. Indeed, Roosevelt, Witte, and PerkiHSj, all of whom had been involved in state-level labor and Welfare adfnihls* tration, actually preferred tp maintain the states as important administiäj' tive actors, even as they hoped to increase the uniformity arid adequacy of sqcial programs; Other politicians representing the interests of prtj* gressive Northern states, such as Senator Robert Wagner of l^ew Yprk, the Roosevelt administratipn's chief ally in the Seriate, alsd tboji sohip stances which undercut nationalizing trends for prögramrnatie liniforrt)* ity in qrder tq protect favored state legislation.109 One can see the working out of the tensions around national jiriiforfh-; ity and state-level autonomy especially clearly in the struggle^ qvér t\}Ů character qf unemplqymerit prqtectiqn. Despite the fnahy obstacles; to ú$i tional uniformity and administrative coordination, it is clear ixprn these debates that important nationalizing tendencies coexisted with tendencies favoring decentralization of administration and lack qf ständatpizatiqnj The pqlicy qptions fqr unemployment insurance being debated by the cEis and the U.S. community of social insurance experts included a puffery naf tional plan and a federal subsidy plan that výould allow the federal gb'Vr ernment substantial cqntrol over standards, in addition to the favorité plan of Roosevelt, Perkins, and Witte—á federal-state tax-offset schepie, in which states would retain complete decision-making power oyer many 107 Schlabach, Cautious Reformer, pp. 114—15. im See Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 291; Arthur Aitmeyer, The formative Years of Social Security (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968), pp. 14—15; and fhe parier by Jill Quadagno in this volume (Chapter 6). 109 J. Joseph Huthmacher, Senator Robert F. Wagner and the Rise of Urbqn Liberälištfi (New York: Atheneum, 1968). 71 Orloff aspects of their unemployment programs.110 Some sort of nationally standardized plan (either purely federal or a federal subsidy program that allowed substantial national control while addressing fears abput constitutionality) was the overwhelming choice of policy experts, including those serving in technical positions within the CES.111 Further, the more national approaches were favored by trade union leaders and the few businessmen who.had not already rejected the New Deal, and Social security along with it.112 Despite this support for national standards, Roosevelt, Perkins, and Witte managed—after considerable resistance from their own technical staff, members of the official advisory council, and outside experts—to get the CES to recommend the tax-offset approach that preserved the most state-level autonomy,113 Tlie tax-offset plan left to the states the politically difficult decisions about merit rating, employee contributions, and pooled versus individual reserves. This meant the CES could avoid taking stands on these tense issues, and Witte in particular would not have to undermine the Wisconsin experiment in "preventive" unemployment legislation.114 In the area of old-age protection, the tension between nationalizing and decentralizing tendencies played itself out slightly differently, and the debate was complicated by the politically sensitive issue of whether to include contributions from future beneficiaries. Policymakers in the ces had to contend with the growing strength of Towrlsendism and other movements calling for noncontributory federal pensions, and with the fact that members of Congress were far more supportive of pensions than of contributory insurance for the aged. Roosevelt and Witte, reacting to a policy inheritance which dramatized the dangers of politically motivated expansion of benefits, were determined to keep the federal gbvernment out of the business of giving direct grants to citizens, and they never wavered from a commitment to contributory features for whatever permanent old-age program was settled on. The arguments oi liberal New Dealers for a different approach found no favor. A vivid example of this intransigence came when Harry Hopkins, federal emergency relief administrator and member of the ces, eloquently argued for noncontributory old-age and unemployment benefits as a matter of right for citizens. Roosevelt saw "" Altmeyer, Formative Years, pp. 17-25; Nelson, Unemployment Insurance, chap. 9; Witte, The Development of the Social Security Act. 1,1 Schlabach, Cautious Reformer, pp. 117-26; Bernstein, A Caring Society, p. 55. 111 Skocpol and Ikenberry, "The Political Formation of the American Welfare State," pp. 126-31; Nelson, Unemployment Insurance, pp. 192-97,202-3. "' Schlabach, Cautious Reformer, p. 129. 1H Although Witte himself did not believe the preventive approach was satisfactory, neither did he wish to interfere with the operation of Wisconsin's law. See Schlabach, Cautious Reformer, pp. 119-31. Origins of America's Welfare State n this as being "the very thing he had been saying he was against for y^äi^**-the dole," and he vetoed any such proposals.115 Roosevelt, Perkins, and Witté preferred to develop wháf: they äsľyý j}6 the only reasonable and "fiscally sound" long-term solutipn to the prob? lem of old-age dependency: a contributory program of old-rage peliefU'Sj to be firmly distinguished from noncontributory social assistance, Evßn so, Witte and the members of the ces were willing to include $. gqVértir mental contribution to the old-age insurance fund once payroll tájcés í^rj the contributory principle were well established; the draft bill Us§d by tijö ces showed a subsidy from federal revenues beginning it} 1965^^ Vét Roosevelt, upon discovering at the last moment that the cés plan ííirjiiidíjq a future subsidy from general revenues) demanded a redrafting of tlie pj$7 posed legislation so that it would always be self-sustaining from erriBloVJät1 and beneficiary contributions alone. Even á governmental contribijtjpf} fjtj the social security fund was problematic for fDr, with his "prejüaijjß about the 'dole.' "117 In the end, Roosevelt's view prevailecj, ^iid thé JLJ.Íjj social insurance program for the aged received rio financia) input frpj}} federal coffers, a logical outcome of Roosevelťs concern tp préseřV^ jj sharp distinction between social assistance and social insurance pftj* grams. Given the preferences of the CES and fdr himself for state-Ifevel fti^H*1 istration, it is worth explaining the fact that the contributory old-řigé {jf* surance system was the only one of the several prograriis included iji j:H$ Social Security Act that was administered completely at tlie federal lera of government. To some extent this reflected the fact that Witte arte) j%r kins were preoccupied with resolving the disputes aboiit lihéhiplpýřHen): insurance, which by all accounts occasioned the most attenficjp froth tfw members of the ces and the;po]icy experts who advised therti,'l8 TJie Staff members in charge of developing the old-age security portipps of the plf^r gram were strongly in favor of establishing a natipnal pld^agé irfsürärjiCÖ system; they and the ces actuaries were unanimous in advising that; glyet| extensive labor mobility, a federal-state scheme involving cpntrib|dticjr)^ over workers' lifetimes would be unworkable from a technical ppjiit of view.113 Moreover, old-age insurance was the only äréa of policy in wliicq the states had not enacted legislation and, hence, the only pile in vybieli 115 Perkins, the Roosevelt I Knew, p. 284. 1,6 Schlabach, Cautious Reformer, pp. 127-28; Perkins, Tlie Ropsevelt t Knew, pp. 294-> 96. ' ' 117 Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 296; Leff, "Taxing the 'Forgotten Matt.''' 118 See, for example, Altmeyer, Formative Years, chap. 1; Witte, The Development pif tlie Social Security Act; Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, chap. 23; and Schlitbach, CjJilť/cfe Reformer, chap. 6. I "' Schlabach, Cautious Reformer, pp. 111-12; Altmeyer, Formative Years, pp. 25-2{i. 74 Orloff there were no state-level vested administrative and political interests to defend, as there were in the old-age assistance and unemployment programs. Despite their strpng commitment to establishing contributory old-age insurance, ces members believed that some sort of old-age assistance was needed to cöpe with existing poverty among the aged, at least until the contributory schemes matured.120 The fact that four times as many elderly people were collecting benefits under federal relief programs as under state old-age assistance systems worried Roosevelt adfninistration policymakers, who did not want to encourage Americans tb continue looking to the federal government to take care of the needs of aged citizens directly through noncontributory programs.121 State old-age assistance programs, with their inadequate financing and benefits, would have to be strengthened if the federal government was to be kept out of direct relief to the aged. The ces therefore recommended the enactment of the Old Age Assistance (oaa) program, a federal subsidy (of 50 percent) for state old-age assistance plans that met certain minimum requirements. Most importantly, the draft legislation required that plans be state-widé in operation, and that pensions be paid at a level that would ensure the "health and decency" of the elderly recipients.122 Though not seen by ces members as a long-term solution to poverty among the aged, oaa would please congressional Democrats and allow the popular enthusiasm for public old-age protection to be harnessed to the Social Security Act as a whole. The bill submitted to Congress by the ces also recommended that the federal government initiate a program of subsidies to state-level assistance schemes for fatherless families with dependent children—Aid to Dependent Children (adc). These state programs would be modified versions of the mothers' pension systems that had been enacted in most states in the Progressive Era and into the 1920s. As had been the case with oaa, the ces did not want to bypass state-level administration of existing programs and was opposed to establishing permanent federal assistance. Likewise, the CES saw a need to provide stronger financial backing of these programs, which were completely inadequate in the face of the economic crisis. The CES recommended the broadening of eligibility requirements, so that all children of single mothers could be aided; many mothers' pension schemes had extremely restrictive provisions.123 110 Achenbaum, Old Age in a Neiv Land, p. 134; Committee pri Economic Security, Report, to the President (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), pp. 4-5. I2' Committee on Economic Security, Report, p. 27; Schlabach, Cautious Reformer, p. 110. 122 Achenbaum, Old Age in a New Land, pp. 134-35. UJ It is.perhaps worth noting, in light of later developments, that policymakers deliberately designed this program to allow poor mothers to stay at home to care for their children, Origins of America's Welfare State 7k Policymakers deliberately opted not to mandate assistance to all rtlaedy children regardless of family situation, a decision which has, had faiS; reaching implications for the operations of and debates .oyer public äs> sistance to this day. In addition, the proportion of state expetišes to pe met by federal subsidy was substantially lower than tjtiat fpr OÁA-ŕ-ojip-i third as opposed to one-half. Policymakers, noting the far greater imprest: of Congress in aid to the aged and the resistance of congressiphal cisnšét« vatives to the bill as a whole, worried that more generous prpviši^njs would threaten passage of any prograrn for poor children.^24 ' The politically motivated decision to omit health insurance frořri jrltó legislation the ces proposed obviously had important consequences fb£ the future of American social provision1. Roosevelt and his advisors oh tlté ces looked on health insurance quite favorably, although they—alqr|g with most social insurance experts—saw unemployment an4 Olq-age prtí? vision as more pressing.125 Roosevelt had directed the ces to studylíéfllir insurance, and to develop a legislative proposal* But even thp decjsjrjf; merely to consider publicly run health insurance drew massive ppposititíí: from the medical profession. Although there was a brief mojrient ill 193f when Witte was "unsure that health insurance is out pf the question,*'-^ because the American Medical Association (ama) had been silented teitlr porarily-by some concessions from the ces and by a desire to OvercčIrftĚ internal dissension—fdr and the members of the ces ultimately decjděfi that including health insurance in the proposed Econoniic Security ^\ct was politically impossible.126 Witte wrote that he beljeved tlié incliisid^ of health insurance "would spell defeat for the. entire bill." Roosevelt yyáš of the same opinion, and he would not authorize a health iíisuŕánte title for the administration bill, or even the publication of £ ces report fáVOjíŕ ing health insurance.12! The hope of members of the; ces and of Fpk Hjfh> self that health insurance would be introduced at a láteř date Went utifiij.^ filled as the conservative coalition in Congress gained ground in the ýgájŕš following the passage of the Social Security Act.12^ just as better-off mothers were expected to do: See U.S. Social Security Board, Social Setltr rity in America, p. 233, and Irwin Garfinkel and Sara S. McLanahan, Single MotheH and Their Children: A New American Dilemma (Washington, D.Č.: Jhe Urban Institute; j.98,6), pp. 101-5. ' ' ''' ' ' '" Witte, The Development of the Social Security Act, pp. 163-65; "Výinifrecl Bell, Aid to Dependent Children (New York: Columbia University Press, Í965), pp. l7j-2St 123 Witte, The Development of the Social Security Act, p. 187; Schlabach; Cautious $i>-former, pp. 108,112; Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, chap. 13. 126 Schlabach, Cautious Reformer, pp. 112-14; Starr, The, Social Transfórmailpj) bf American Medicine, pp. 266-69. 127 Witte, The Development of the Social Security Act, p. 188. 128 James T. Patterson, Congressional Conservatism and the New, Deal (Lexirigtnt|: University of Kentucky Press, 1967): 76 Orloff The adoption of universal national health insurance during the New Deal was ultimately precluded by the failure jof social insurance in the Progressive Era. After the health insurance campaign of 1915-20 ended in failure, the field was left open for the foes of health insurance, principally the medical profession, to consolidate their position.129 The ama became virtually unopposable, given their capacity to pressure congressmen, especially in the absence of any significant and politically well-situated popular movement for health insurance (such as existed in the case of old-age protection). Thus, when the possibilities for social reform generally opened again in the 1930s, and despite public opinion favorable to new public health protections,130 even so popular and powerful a politician as Franklin Roosevelt was unwilling to risk the passage of his other proposed programs by including health insurance in the package. The fact that patronage practices continued unabated in many states, and had not been completely eradicated even from the federal government, meant that the ces faced a challenge in constructing realms of administration that could manage the new programs while avoiding entanglements in patronage politics. That it was willing to face the challenge, rather than await the development of a public administration more suited to its preferences, is testament to the crisis atmosphere produced by the Grpat Depression and to its conviction that the continuing popular pressure for sbmé kind of federal action on the social welfare front would produce "unwise" legislation if it did not act. Yet the ces carefully included as many guarantees against corruption, patronage, and mismanagement as possible in its proposed permanent social security legislation, and it tried-to design programs capable of withstanding periodic democratic onslaughts demanding "unwarranted" expansion. The Social Security Act; Charter Legislation of America's Welfare State i The legislative recommendations of the ces included a federal-state contributory unemployment system; federal subsidies to state programs for the needy aged, dependent children, and the blind; and a purely federal contributory old-age benefits program.131 The pragmatic formulators u" Lubove, The Struggle for Social Security, p. 89. "" U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Social Security Administration, Office of Research and Statistics, Public Attitudes Toward Social Security, 1935-1965, by Michael E. Schlitz, Research Report No. 33 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1970), pp. 128-29. '•'! To deal with concerns about the constitutionality of the fully national old-áge insurance program, separate titles were used to establish taxes and benefits; the ces was depending on the taxing power of the federal government to ensure the plan's constitutionality. See Achenbaum, Old Age in a New Land, pp. 136-37. Origins of America's Welfare State Tí of the ces social security proposals had opted for substantial state-li^el autonomy in most of the programs they recommencjed. Yet the Repörf tp the President of the Committee on Economic Security also recommer}tíet| the establishment of minimum national standards, such ás the ''heajjfl and decency" requirement for old-age assistance benefit levejs; and tyi$i tices that would lead to administrative regularity, such as the ŕeconirirtorb dation for merit personnel systems in state-levej administration p!f fhfe programs. Moreover, the ces hoped to see all social insurance aarjiifji^ tration united within a single social insurance board located in the Ü6-* partment of Labor, with the social assistance programs grouped together under the aegis of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. Fíhäj|yt the ces recommended continuing research and planning for nqtiprlaj coordination of the new social welfare activities, endorsing (he eštáplisív ment of a national planning board.13^ The ces proposal had been designed to propitiate important cpjigre^ sional interests, of course, especially thcjse representing the Squth. Thö^e had largely determined that an apprpach favoring state-leýel, äiitohojtlý would be taken. But even more concessions were wtestec) frprii the congressional sponsors of the administration bill by Southern lawrn^kers and other conservatives.133 Federal standards in general catne Under fjjrjfy and the. ces proposal that state programs be administered along fhéfft system lines had to be dropped. In addition, the administration of the insurance programs was taken away from the Department j}f Labor ^fld grouped with the assistance programs in an independent £|tfmini$tŕátiye agency, the Social Security Board.134 The ces recommendation that 4)1 employed persons be included in the unemployment and blď-age; iríš|ij> ance systems was not accepted by Congress, with the result ttiat ágríct||k tural and domestic workers-were excluded from coverage,13^ This rntäjlt that the insurance programs of the Social Security Act wqiilcj not redci most American blacks, who were still overwhelmingly cdneeritrated ji rural, agricultural regions of the South.136 Southern senators arid fcöjli gressmen led the fight for "states' rights" and against national standard! 132 Committee on Economic Security, Report, p. 9. . 131 On getting the Social Security Act through Congress, and the changes Ulis tjécesšírateq, see Witte, The Development of the Social Security Act; Perkins, The Rqoievfitt I Kn$k)\ pp. 296-301; Achenbaum, Old Age in a New Land, pp. 134-35; Altmeyer, iřofqíative ýétity p, 35; and the papers by Kenneth Finegold and Jill Quadagno in this volume (Chapters 5 and 6, respectively). l3A Witte, The Development of the Social Security Act, pp. 101, 1A4-45. 115 Witte, The Development of the Sociql Security Act, pp. 131,152-53. On RoosE^If'f preference for universal insurance coverage, see Perkins, The Roosevelt l Kifew, pp. 2(12-? 83. 136 Nancy J. Weiss, Farewell to the Party of Lincoln: Black Politics ih the Agf of (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983), 166-68. Orloff íiíiíJ universal coverage. They especially attacked the provision of oaa that mandated that states pay pensions sufficient to provide, "when added to the income of the aged recipient, a reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health," fearing it would represent an entering wedge for federal interference in their states' system of segregation and discrimination. In the end, the Southern-led bloc won on that fight and the requirement was dropped.137 After the compromises, the Social Security Act was finally signed into law in August of 1935. States soon acted to pass legislation establishing programs under the act, and by 1937, the prograrns were nationwide in operation. Also in 1937, the act was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court, and the first payroll taxes were taken out of covered employees' paychecks, though benefits under the old-age insurance program were not scheduled to begin until 1942. Yet before the first benefit check was ever mailed, important changes were made in the contributory old-age benefits part of social security. A new advisory counpl began discussions in 1937 on certain controversial aspects of the social security program.'•'8 In addition to dissatisfactions with some of the more technical aspects of the law, there was widespread support for adding survivors' benefits. As a result of the council's recommendations and new negotiations in Congress, the 1939 amendments to the Social Security Act were passed. The most notable changes included a shift from full reserves to a modified pay-as-you-go system, and, in an early demonstration of the potential for expansion that even contributory soda) insurance systems can Jiave in the United States, benefit payments became payable two years earlier (in 1940), payroll tax increases were delayed, and benefits for wage-earners' dependents and survivors were added.?39 Whatever its shortcomings as a system of social protection, it was already clear that social security represented an expandable set of social programs, despite the intentions of its formulators. While the 1939 amendments to the Social Security Act showed the channels along which the nascent U.S. welfare state might be expanded, other events in the late 1930s undermined the capacity of social security programs to ensure Americans' economic well-being. The ces had believed that the success of their package of social programs in guaranteeing social security for the American people depended upon "employment assurance"—the government's provision of suitable jobs for all who wanted to work.140 As the Report of the ces pointed but: IJ? Witte, The Development of the Social Security Act, pp. 144-45. u" Schlabach, Cautions Reformer, chap. 8. "' Achenbaum, Old Age in a New Land, pp. 136-37; Altmeyer, Formative Years, chap. 3. "" Committee on Economic Security, Report, pp. 3-4, 7-10. Origins of America's Welfare State J'9 Any program for economic security that is devised must pe rhpŕé comprehensive than unemployment compensation, which of necessity can be given only for a limited period. In proposing unemployment compensation we recognize that it is but a complementary paff of an adequate program for protection against the hazards, of uíÍt employment, in which stimulation of private employment afjd provision of public employment... are trie other major elements. B1 The ces expected that employment assurance would come thrqiigh the institutionalization of the Ne\v Deal public employment programs; as trji: papers by Margaret Weir and Theda Skocpol in this volume detail, however, this did not happen, and social insurance and assistance prbgfams-Tr-however inadequate to the task—were left to deal with problepis of eco> nomic and social insecurity.1''2 1935 turned out to have been dip high-point of congressional willingness to go along with R.oosevelt's s,bcial Reform initiatives, as a coalition of congressional conservatives gained strength in the late 1930s.143 During this period, fdr was ihwarted irj his attempts at administrative and judicial reform—which1 likely \yotlld havfe enhanced the capacity of the American state to undertake ečphdffiic ajrjd social interventions—and new social reforms were turned back aS Well.H4 It would be many years before Americans again enjoyed An era riqšpitable! to social reform. The Social Security Act represented one of the most important of all the New Deal reforms of American social and political life. Álojig With such legislation as the National Labor Relations (Wagríer) .Act: and tjig Fair Labor Standards Act, it established critical social rights for America1^ citizens. Yet these rights were compromised by uneven national started ards, the sharp distinction between assistance ark insurance^ and th£ omissions of health insurance; employment assurance; and allďvyaiices, fqť all needy children. This largely reflected the inability of the jSfew Pisa] social reform coalition, led by the Roosevelt administration, to pyprcqme the deep resistance of congressional cprtservatives and some cpngrějí-sional constituencies to the changes they wanted to effect iri Aifierícán social policy, but the policyrnakers themselves were resppnsibje fdr sortie of the choices that left the U.S. welfare system incojrhplete. Ultimately, It was the larger obstacles produced by the legacies of fJ.S; staté-tjuíIcjinMí state structure, and past policy that prevented the achievement of a more complete welfare state in New Deal America. 1,1 Committee on Economic Security, Report, pp. 7-8. 141 See also Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhoüse, pp. 227—33( on the problems of institutionalizing work relief ill the New Deal United States. M3 Patterson, Congressional Conservatism arid the New Deal. "4 Richard Polenberg, "The Decline of the New Deal, 193 7-1940," In Braemánj Ijrernrléŕ, and Brody, eds., The New Deal, pp. 24,6-66. Orloff and universal coverage. They especially attacked the provision of OAA that mandated that states pay pensions sufficient to provide, "when added to the income of the aged recipient, a reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health," fearing it would represent an entering wedge for federal interference in their states' system of segregation and discrimination. In the end, the Southern-led bloc won on that fight and the requirement was dropped.137 After the compromises, the Social Security Act was finally signed into law in August of 1^35. States soon acted to pass legislation establishing programs under the act, and by 1937, the programs were nationwide in operation. Also in 1937, the act was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court, and the first payroll taxes were taken out of covered employees' paychecks, though benefits under the old-age insurance program were not scheduled to begin until 1942. Yet before the first benefit check was ever mailed, important changes were made in the contributory old-age benefits part of social security. A new advisory council began discussions in 1937 on certain controversial aspects of the social security program.138 In addition to dissatisfactions with sortie of the more technical aspects of the law, there was widespread support for adding survivors' benefits. As a result of the council's recommendations and new negotiations in Congress, the 1939 amendments to the Social Security Act were passed. The most notable changes included a shift from full reserves to a modified pay-as-you-go system, and, in an early demonstration of the potential for expansion that even contributory soda) insurance systems can have in the United States, benefit payments became payable two years earlier (in 1940), payroll tax increases were delayed, and benefits for wage-earners' dependents and survivors were added;139 Whateyer its shortcomings as a system of social protection, it was already clear that social security represented an expandable set of social programs, despite the intentions of its formulators. While the 1939 amendments to the Social Security Act showed the channels along which the nascent U.S. welfare state might be expanded, other events in the late 1930s undermined the capacity of social security programs to ensure Americans' economic well-being. The CES had believed that the success of their package of social programs in guaranteeing social security for the American people depended upon "employment assurance"—the government's provision of suitable jobs for all who wanted to work.140 As the Report of the ces pointed out: '" Witte, The Development of the Social Security Act, pp. 144-45. i" Schlabach, Cautious Reformer, chap. 8. ,J' Achenbaum, Old Age in a Hew Land, pp. 136-37; Altmeyer, Formative Years, chap. i. 140 Committee on Economic Security, Report, pp. 3-4, 7-10. Origins of America's Welfare State n Any program for economic security that is devised musf be rhoŕé comprehensive than unemployment compensation, which of necessity can be given only for a limited period. In proposing unemployment compensation we recognize that it is but a complementary pair): of an adequate program for protection against the hazards of'unT employment, in which stimulation of private employment arid provision of public employment... are trie other major elements.!"!1 The CES expected that employment assurance would come thrqilgh tftp institutionalization of the New Deal public employment prqgrarns; as Ú\é papers by Margaret Weir and Theda Skocpol in this volume detail, however, this did not happen, and social insurance and assistance prpgjrams-st however inadequate to the task—were left to deal with problefiis of eco> nomic and social insecurity.142 1935 turned out to have been tlie high»-point of congressional willingness to go along with Roosevelty sjbdal fen form initiatives, as a coalition of congressional conservatives gäínéjd strength in the late 1930s.143 During this period, fdr was thwartetf in his attempts at administrative and judicial reform—which likely \youícl h'ay£ enhanced the capacity of the American state to undertake ecqhcjmic ahd social interventions—and new social reforms were turned back as well.W4 It would be many years before Americans again enjoyed ári era hospitable to social reform. The Social Security Act represented one of the most important of all the New Deal reforms of American social and political life. ÁÍofíg with such legislation as the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Acf arid the Fair Labor Standards Act, it established critical social rights for J^rrjjsrjcgri citizens. Yet these rights were compromised by uneven national standards, the sharp distinction between assistance aricj insurance^ arid th£ omissions of health insurance", employment assurance^ arid allo^aljces fqt all needy children. This largely reflected the inability of the tyerýy De4l social reform cpalitiori, led by the Roosevelt administration, to overcbhie the deep resistance of congressional conservatives and some cqngréS' sional constituencies to the changes they wanted to effect in Amencah social policy, but the policymakers themselves were responsible fdr spttife of the choices that left the U.S. welfare system incomplete. Ultimately * j): was the larger obstacles produced by the legacies of U.S. state-building state structure, and past policy that prevented tlie achievement pf á rtiöte complete welfare state in New Deal America. 141 Committee on Economic Security, Report, pp. 7—8. ' H2 See also Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse, pp. 227-33, on the problems of institutionalizing work relief in the New Deal United States. H3 Patterspn, Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal. M Richard Polenberg, "The Decline of the New Deal,lS37-1940," in Braeriji(Hi Bremnéi', and Brody, eds., The New Deal, pp. 246-66. ' TITMUS, R. M. : War-and Social Policy. In- Tatmuss, JLM., Essays on 'The Welfare State' , Beacon Press, Boston 1963, pp. 75 - 87. j~to*iu- y J.-7ÍO ří the forces of social and fiscal policy are moving raises fundamental issues of justice and equality; not simply issues of justice between taxpayers as a separate class, br between contributors as a separate class, but between all citizens. Already it is possible to see two nations in old age; greater inequalities in living standards after work than in work; two contrasting social services for distinct groups based on different principles, and operating in isolation of each other as separate, autonomous, social instrur ments of change. 74 UMMKI«« 9&MÍ-M ifó.'i«í*«ŕft&ii chaptír <* War and íSúqíuI p0lícyí pnoFEsson gibus, hi reappraising jthj (jd^H^flciji piHde hy Clausewitz to military studies,2 rjás jJbli$|jŕ fí\\[ ftl'tilty cpitlcjzed past histdriahs for bringing their historie^ $ íl äfbji wllfiH t|)0 guns started firing, and in openihg a ne^ gjjtó^ŕ örijy VYJt|l tljö return of peace—of normal cíípJpmäHd jM ijlstitMtltiíiíií relationships between sovereign States. l^JIbWlihiJ ptaH86i\VÍt2-*-fi much misunderstood thinker—frProfeSčojľ Píhhs deplfli^d this historical interregnum. He was faced ^Jtjj ft Já0Ít pí bít|äfjpe in the material available to him }n |-ěi](ícti|-ig: fthotit the ľlíjttire of war and society. He could hardly pqinjpjďljhi Hpv/evel,| ftbbut the quantity of historical studies at pis c|isßbkjfl-Military Öhrf tiaVtil documents, regimental histories^ the liylij bf ßrJf^rlMhtl HlfßS» political, diplomatic and even pjlildsbbjiifciaj WöfH« jostle each other for a place iq the crowded Vat1' !Í1^# jM l30^ Witriäös (.0 the energy ahd interests of past sfudiähtä df Wftŕ< Wtl tö thö endemic character of war in the history faf fyjittij By contrast, I ani doubly handicappefj j(| t||sbuj?s}ľig; fjltf relit-tionship of war and social polipy. So |i|ť afj i\)tí stbfy öf ihoderti war before 1939 is concerned^ little l^äij \)Qb\\ fetiqrdcitl in any systematic way about the social ahd ecblibrtjlo flifbcW of War on the populatipri as a \vhble. Oiily íoííg äiltt patiějlt research in out-of-the-way documentary places caii reVeal $o(tietllihg of the 1 Delivered at King's College, Lotiďort, Ón Marpíi 3, lj35^, ill a' Scfi'ea Of public lectures on 'War and Society'. A shortened verslqfi ^fts Mlblislltid 111 The Listener, November 3, 1055. * Printed in The Listener, October 6, ií!55. 75 Essays on 'The Welfare State' characteristics and flavour of social life during the experience of wars in the past. And these records are often undisciplined and unreliable. There are, for example, somewhat highly-coloured accounts of popular reactions on the south coasts of England to the threat of invasion when Napoleon Bonaparte was master of all Western Europe; of the effects of the Crimean and Boér Wars on poor law policy in those days; of a remarkable decline in criminal behaviour among civilians in Britain during the First World War and an equally remarkable outbreak of panic among the civilians of London when the first Zeppelins arrived with their primitive bombs, most of which failed to explode.1 But even such accounts, unreliable as they may be, are hard to come by. And, strangely enough, one often turns away-fi-om the novelists in disappointment; it is difficult to believe, for instance, that some of Jane Austen's rtpvels were written during one of the great wars in history; a war which signified for this country, if the late Professor Greenwood got his sums right, a proportionately greater loss of life among soldiers and sailors than during the First World War and, consequently, more widespread effects among the families of those who served in the Armed Forces.2 These are some of the reflections which I have recalled— though in a more tranquil mood—from ]the days when 1 was engaged on the Social Policy History of the Second World War. In studying the effects of the evacuation of civilians from London and other cities, I was led to wonder whether there were any recorded accounts of the movement of civilian populations in pást wars as a calculated element in war strategy. I had to go back to the Greeks—to the great Hellenic wars—before I was rewarded. Here is Plutarch's description of the evacuation of the civilian population of Athens as a military necessity during the Persian invasion in 480 bc. The Pelpponnesian city of Troezen, 1 See Titmuss, Richard M., Problems of Social Policy, 1950, and Trotter, W, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, 1916, and British Medical Journal (1940) i, 270. • Greenwood, M., 'British Loss of Life in the Wars of 1794-1815 and 1914-8', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. CV, Pt 1, Í942. 16 War and Social Policy on the far side of the Saronic Gulf, became (what yýě now call) a 'reception area'. According to Plutarch, 'The rtiQst p$rt of them £the Athenians j did convey their aged fathers and mothers, their wives and little children, into the city of Tröezäh, where the Troezenians received them very lovingly and gejitly> Fpť they gave order that they should be entertained of j|jg cqniitjoti charge, allowing them apiece, two pbqlbes of their filjStieý # Úfôt and suffered the young children tö gather frujt yvYikf^p^f they found it, and furthermore, did hire schpplniásteŕ^ |t tí$ pj}äf|ifß of the commonwealth, to bring them up ät school. 4 From this account it would seem that cc-nsciqus t}jq|jgiit tya$ given by the responsible authorities to the social ^rit teýfcllpltigH cal needs of the evacuated populatipn. There wääjj, if fäo{:, & jpl^íl» a concerted social policy; a deliberate public at.télript(tó forčseč events; to estimate behaviour; to minimize1 h4ŕdsjjíp1 #r|4 to control a sopial situation in the interests Of ä cpfritn|4tjít:y ftt War, It was this fragment of history, illuminating thiie way }tj wllipti war and social policy influence each other^ that hemfeq ta shjäpe the ideas for this essay i In discussing social polífeý, J W04ň those acts of Governments deliberately designed arid tajtjjiij to ittipťc-VÉÍ the welfare of the civil population in tirhé of yíkb t Hhl ftot» therefore, simply concerned with the social and jbíjojogioft} tíon-sequences of war; my main interest, then, if! with $$ Wg4hi^ed attempts of Governments to control these p0nš£qu£fij3es|( tyf tloj) of what I have to say will be Confined to the éxp^řjetjtíés of tbiä country since the middle of the nineteenth tíehtiíry, Ff?ť é, tföffni* tion of 'social', I take, for convenience, the šcqjb$ Of the $V/ö published volumes on social policy during the Secptlfi ^Öfl4 War. There is, however, a difficulty here whifcjl ,MWfit be sp lightly resolved. In essence, it is the problem of distinguishing between policies related to peace-time needs aiidl Jibjüöies; concerned only with the immediate ware-time situation, ft is bound up with the assumption that war is an abnormal sitUatiPn! that peace is—or ought to be—the normal lot pf hlartltind, In considering, however, the results of deliberate ftttejrtpts to 1 Vita Thtmistoclis, 10, 5 (North's translation). 77 Essays on ' Tint Welfare State' organise 8. Society for War—either in the military, economic or social SpjlereS-^--\Ye are confronted with one of the major characteristics öf Jáŕge^scáljs, modern war; the fact that modern war cast# its S%dO\Y lopg before it happens and that its social effects afe felt for Iphgter arid longer periods after armed conflict has ceäSédi Íri the timě^scalě of these effects, modern war stretches oVét á gŕfsatpr sp'an of men's lives, unlike the wars of religion Slid thosk -vyars which Ťoynbee called in his studies of War and Cipfti&áliQHi 'The sP°rt of Kings'.1 Many of them started abruptly^ í|VÍtf1t>út plárinirig; without any preparatory action to provide for tjié needs of th£ civilian population; without any con-qíd0r#ticjh, of how1 \\iar might affect the social and economic life of tlljä c^jitiiry. They 1/vere, in fact, organized military wars; otherwise} 'jmi apürt frojn the particular territories bver which battles y/éf$ fpjjgjit, norrrial life proceeded—and was assumed to pro-pé^d^^bjTnälly. J3^ contrast, however, as the plans and policies Of t^VpHtiyifh-^cpntury Governments for war and peace have be-cotnfc itlprÖ jnter-rrelated it is, in consequence, increasingly difficult to 4fei#čty the 'abnormal' from the 'normal', and to attribute precisely th| acts; of Government to one or other of these situates,' I tJL)frj tiôW to consider how developments in modern war have piffeptfet ö'pfcjEtl policy. It is ä commonplace among students of the Siipjept tfj^j; iri oiif recent Western history war has been follow-|tijaf, wif if} f*1 aöGending Order of intensity. In scale, in depth árjd it} tte^i waf has been waged more intensively and fero-clg-JLjsjyj TJ}js čresbenďo in the organization of war has enveloped % Jaľgff* bf Ofjortión of the total population and, as I said earlier, h|ß l§fji ui jjfifirks on thérn for a longer period of time. These de-veloptíietlťs' during the past hundred years have affected social $j4i|$ |H Í Variety of ways. Among theses perhaps the dominating One fils pfe^n the increasing concern of the State in time of war with th£ tjiOlbgical characteristics of its people. The growing scale and intensity of war Has stimulated a growing concern about the quantity and quality of the Population. »Toýnbéét A,-r Wo* i,r.d Civilization, 1951. 78 War and Social Policy We may mark certain well-defined stages in this progression of biological interests. The first stage of organized interest was with quantity; with the number of men available for battle. This, of course, developed as the scale upon which war was fought increased, and it was rio longer safe for the authorities to assume that there were abundant supplies of men available. This growing concern with quantity at different periods and in different societies has been one Of the forces which has stimulated the interest of Governments in population trends and in the taking öf national censuses. As we know from our own history of vital statistics, opposition was raised in the nineteenth century to census operations because of a fear that they were being carried out for military reasons. The second stage in this progression is marked by the increasing adoption of qualitative standards applied to military and naval recruits. No doubt a connection can be traced between secular changes in these standards as to what constitutes 'fitness for service' and the increasing mechanization and division of labour in the armed forces. The standards demanded have risen enormously in this country since the day, just over one hundred years ago, when Florence Nightingale discovered that the British Army Medical Service was staffed by a few clerks and an odd messenger boy or two. We now have the most complex system of standards comprising a variety of physical, functional, psychological and social attributes. According to the Editor- of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 'It was riot love but war-tirhe necessity which made American psychiatry turn towards Freud'.1 He suggests that one of the principal reasons why psychiatry occupies such a commanding position in the American social scéne today is because of what he calls the 'unforgettable role' that psychiatrists played in the organization of the war effort. All this has {wo important implications for social policy; first, that increasingly higher demands are made upon society for those who are physically and psychologically fit, intellectually 'Hoffer, W., Lancet (1954), ii, 1234. 79 ; Essays on ' The Welfare State' bright, and socially acceptable on grounds of personality and character; second, that, as a result, the proportion of men rejected and invalided frorn tlie Armed Forces tends to rise rather than fall. Many then become the clients of the social services. This is one example which shows that what is done in the name of'defence' determines, in substantial measure, some of the roles and functions of the social services. The social costs of the Boer War and the First World War, as measured by expenditure on pensions, widows' benefits, medical care, rehabilitation, sickness claims, rent subsidies, and national assistance, represent a substantial proportion of tiie social service budget today. The third stage of interest is reached when public concern about the standard of fitness of men of military age moves out, in a widening circle of policy, to embrace concern about the health and well-being of the whole population and, in particular, of children—the next generation of recruits. This stage was reached in Britain at; the beginning of the century, and it is worth inquiring a little more closely into events at that time because of their importance for the subsequent development of public health policies. It was the South African War, not one of the notable wars in human history to change the affairs of man, that touched off tine personal health movement whiph led eventually to the National Health Service in 1948. Public concern was aroused at the end of the war by the facts that were published about sickness and mortality among the troops, and by a report from the Inspector-General of Recruiting which spoke of 'the gradual deterioration of the physique of the working classes from whom the bulk of the recruits must always bé drawn'.1 At a time when many leaders of opinion still held to the nineteenth-century doctrine of the inevitably of social progress, this report from the Inspector-General came as a shock. Gould it be, at the end of a century of unprecedented material progress, that the health and fitness of the bulk of the population was deteriorating? There followed, in rapid succession, one commission of inquiry after another into 1 See Iteport of the Inter-departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, Vol. 1, especially App. 1, p. 90, Cd 2175í 1Í>0*, 80 IVar qnd Social Policy these questions of physical deterioration^ systems of medical inspection, the causes of high íhfantíríPt'ttttity and many other matters affecting the well-beijig of tliÍ3 population, As a consequence of this fermebt of jpqtiiry we may trace the establishment in WOG of the school jptj^al service;, the school feeding of children In elcnlerjtfiry sclitJQJijj ft oíltrípalgľt to reduce infant mortality and many other koti$\ Hidiisilfes. All these elements of social policy £ tailed djWtty frdjn the Boer War ahd show how, in irjoderrjí jilrtjjsfy bí-íí1 pbtlCäál fp'ť co|i> munal fitness has followed1 cíos'ély títípH'j)^ ttfWillBör WV t)lW* tary fortunes. The' Story repels }tsfejf Jji 'fy first; World War. In 1917, for example, we may npté fy ířj^Otliiotíqri üf the Oťat instalment of a free national health 0y\§í wfeíi fjßHltM Were offered, to (civilians and soldiers i}\\^ fpf fhß trei|tjilier|t lind prevention of venereal diseaäf:. At tlití kffjijj? $ tl|ei WW tt new phrase 'a Cg nation' crept into pqnt^típ^ťiiifyjquttlélifitti after the Report öf the Ministry of Nätiopaí ^jtý^hM Nld the country that only one man in three pf qéa|l|ŕ tvyp^tl-a-lntlf million examined was completely fit for itiflilaf^ SäťVito»1 Most of these men are now in their sixties find ácobjiijqfy |í} Substantia} measure, for die high proportion who are fČtÍHbk fi^ W^lt today on grounds of ill-health—á mřitt^r to WbpŤÍ íl geeilt report from the Ministry of Rensioqs áhej Ňaj:|t|ild íliijiirtlrice has drawii attention.? It is possible that; arnc^ IpÄ #fyv Jasons, t|iü age of retirement for men ih the tíatipflft} pHlWIÖÖ loltémä has not been raised because of tlie lünjMj^gjJ effects of {lie First World War. The ancient Greeks, in attaching; $p|fl0 nigral significance to the idea of keeping fit. áhpbst as tjíOtíg|í thi5y bad, Convinced themselves that vigour pf bpcly ^ ^|1 ftbgqlütö gpoift, had, we may now remember; spun 4 reasons; föj< keeping jít, Their civilization involved the m in continuous >Vars} and so, vye must admit, has our civilization of the twentieth cferttUjys When we consider the effects or the Second World War, a war in Britain which depended not ölt the efforts Of a fraction of 1 Report of the Ministry; of National Service, ÍO/JM&, Vpi. L * Reasons for Retiring or Continuing at 81 .«./j juj j v;ii írmrrr eijanmiaie"~™"" the population but on virtually the efforts of all citizens, we reach a fourth stage in our ascending scale of interest. Not only was it necessary for tile State to take positive steps in all spheres of the national economy to safeguard the physical health of the people; it was also an imperative for war strategy for the authorities to concern themselves with that elusive concept 'civilian morale'; with what Professor Cyril Falls called, in his Lees Knowles lectures in 1941, 'demostrategy'.1 By this he meant, in military j\ terms, that the war could riot be won unless millions of ordinary 1 people, in Britain and overseas, were convinced that we had ' something better to offer than had our enemies—not only during but after the war. This requirement of war strategy was stated, more explicitly, in a njemorable leader in The Times1 soon after the last British troops had left the Dunkirk beaches. It was a call for social justice; for the abolition pf privilege, for a more equitable distribution of income and wealth; for drastic changes in the economic and social life of the country. The effect on social policy of thesejdeas about war strategy was profound. It was increasingly sharpened as the war went on, for not until three years had passed, and victory was at last a rational—rather than an emotional—conception, could the enemy claim that he had killed as many British soldiers as women and children. Much of the story of the war effort in terms of applied social policies is told in the series of volumes in the Official War History by myself and my colleagues. I shall not attempt to recount the 'story here, except to draw out of it one or two general conclusions. , The social measures that were developed during the war ) centred round the primary needs of the whole population irrespective of class, creed br military category. The distinctions and privileges, accorded to those in uniform in previous wars, were greatly diminished. Comprehensive systems of medical care and rehabilitation, for example, had to be organized by the State for those who were injured and disabled. They could not be ex- 1 Falls, C, The Nature of Modern Warfare, 19*1, p. 13. «July 1, 1940. 82 """" ***"- ^^arp^^^f'ŕolicý.........■................ clusivply reserved for soldiers ruicf Ääjlqpjj, äS Ír» tbß past, but had to he extended tp include civiji^if ílíj Well—to those injured in the factories as well as the; Victims öf böinbitig- The organization and structure of the £ťŕtergefiey jvíedioal Service, initially designed to cater for a special sectioii pf t)ie population, became in the end the pf-ototype, pf a liietijctil Service for the whole-population. In the sphere of food policy, it WliS HP longOť thought appropriate for members of the Aimed Forces to receive better diets than the civilian prtpujation. The scalps of ťationing— as in many other spheres of nped as: we ji—hadi \a pe Itept in balance between civilian and non-ciyjlian. This war-tiírie trend towards Urijvfefsalizllig public provision for certain basic needs did nfii ppjrh|é about AS a result of the traffic of ideas in one direpitip'n p^ly, H alsO Worked the other way; from civilians to noh-ctyjliaris, |?]t|üC|lt!oiial facilities jn the form of music, drama and the artSi pptíri to ciVt!l?uis in time of war, could not be Withheld frpm rriejťflflt) Women: If) tjle Forces. No longer could it tje said tliaf spjtiití|'$ '\VdUJd got itbpvé themselves' if, instead of drinking; tl^eý fp|fl |jpo|i3 ítrlcl flit|3éťs( and that army discipline would thereby M .fitóalig eroij-^'itll \Vf)3 aald in Máy í 855 by the War Office pa lmm\P& J^igbiilgHle when she opened a reading roorh fpr injury S$ltjip|tá it) ÖßUtali1 By the 1.940's the military authorities |(| litiřlltt jltM <#Ptt t° héílrt —no doubt unwittingly—Ari^íptífe^ e^|ttÍF>|i Ott tll0 'Ljychťgeftn' system óf Spartan training for yú^'i Ť\\\ä \^ä tlijj Wfly he summed it up: 'Peoples ought not tp train IÍJéfTi^lVP^ \t\ tli0 ftlt't of war with an eye to subjugating heighb.pUŕS who tjp riot deserve to be subjugated. t j . The paranipiln|t jft|i) pf iifiy Social system should be tp frame rhilitafy' insijtUtjtWiii Ijkfi all its other institutions, with an eye tp the fjir^ihíii^íiqéä pf Jlöflce-time, when the soldier is oil'duty; anjj this; bfO^t^jtibli |s borne out by the facts of experience, For ihjjijräfrjkfic) states tire apt to survive only so íphg as they ŕertiaifj ítt W^fy WÍlílä they go to 1 Woodham-Smith, C„ Flofetice Nightingale, J^tj» p.< pSi 83 1 Essays on * The Welfare State' ruin as soon as they have finished making their conquests. ■■ Peace causes their metal to lose its temper; and the fault lies witli a social system which does not teach its soldiers what to make of their lives when they are ofTduty.' To apply this Aristotelian precept to the modem world means, in effect, that a spcial system must be so organized as to enable all citizens (and nor only soldiers) to learn what to make of their lives in peace-time. In this context, the Education Act of 1944 becomes intelligible; so does the Beveridge Report of 1942 and the National Insurance, Family Allowances and National Health Service Acts. All these measures of social policy were in part an expressipn of the needs of war-time strategy to fuse and unify the conditions of life of civilians and non-civilians alike. In practice, as we have seen, this involved the whole community in accepting an enlargement of obligations—an extension of social discipline—to attend to the primary needs of all citizens. In no particular sphere of need is the imprint of war on social policy more vividly illustrated than in respect to dependant needs—the needs of wives, children and other relatives for income-maintenance allowances when husbands and fathers are serving in the Forces. Ťq trace in detail the system of Service pay and allowances from the Napoleonic Wars to the Second World War is to see how, as war has followed war in an ascending order of intensity, so have the dependant needs of wives and children been increasingly recognized. The more, in fact, that the waging of war lias come to require a total effort by the nation the more have the dependant needs of the family been recognized and accepted as a social responsibility. This trend in the war-time recognition of family dependencies has also profoundly influenced social security policies in general. New systems of Service pay and allowances threw into sharper prominence the fact that in industrial society money rewards take no account of family responsibilities. Nor, until 19S9, did many of the payments made under various social services. Thus, one immediate effect was that dependants' allowances were added to Workmen's Compensation and other schemes. Another 84 Way and Sočídí Pojity was that in many respects wä^ptníiiqri? ítfld industrial injury pensions had to be brought intq lihe, Ťlilíi Wftfi done—-ás So many other things were done—b^dse it ^(rled inappropriate to make distinctions between war and Jfjea^ clvítiatls and non-civilians. Lpoking back over the Yílřioijts ppjptis t have made about the relationship between tlie war effort pf ä community and its social policies in peace as Well as in win* ope general conclusion may, I think, be ventured. The waging of modern War presupposes and imposes a great increase in social discipline; moreover, this discipline is only tolerable if—ari4 only if~^social inequalities are not intolerable. The need for less inequality is expressed, for example, in the changes that take place itt What is Socially approved behaviour—marked differences, in standards of living, in dress, in luxury entertainment and >P inditljjßrjcius, of many kinds are disapproved. They were npf ohly disapproved in war-time Britain but, in fact, there is evidence1 <;Q sjlDW that they were greatly reduced. It follows that the ácceptaiipé of tjipflfi Social disciplines—of obligations as well as rights-r-made Hej3t!£isüry by WfU't by preparations for war, arid by the ljarígŕtILirj feppSeritierices of war, must influence the aims and cpntetjt Of SQcjaj policies not o|ily during the war itself but in peace- time1 aij >yjill. |rJľjie t|ist|plinö of the army,' wrote Max Wfe^ íjjives hlrflj (:p j})í disciplineři IP some senses he was npt far wrapg, bilt it sjitjU)d fo fenlOthbored that this thesis res fed on án analysis jjf jjtjljtitry organization from the days of Sparta down to $P pfdfe.ssjörjid '$Hťopeaii armies at the begiHnijig of the tweqtlejilj'pentyry, ßHtoJP's war effort in 1939 did not rest on a prpfessioMl pillít^'y lWSc( nevertheless, it is, I think, a tenable própc-síjipli tíiat military Wars demand a military discipline, a«d that tfjlS jilpd öf discipline (or 'warrior communism' as Weber described it) tlöm^Utls Certain kinds of perfected conduct froni á small Rgttftlri of the population. We have some classic examples of, this perfection pf discipline in the infantry drill Of Spärtaŕi Spldifíréj 4pd tjld exquisite JrioVe- 1 Gerth, H. H„ and Wriglit kills, p., Fhfo Jif't* tt'ttyfi $#\ biology, 1047, p. 261. ' ' ' 80 Essays on '• The Welfare 'State' ments of Lord Cardigan's cavalry in the Crimean War. Both inevitably required—and this, was the point of Weber's analysis —an 'aristocractic' structure in military organization and in society as a whole. Both essays in war came to a bad end. The social disciplines demanded by the civilians' war in Britain of 1939 were very different; tjiey derived their strength from internal sources rather than from external commands, and had to rest on a social system which sought to teach all its soldiers what to make of their lives wjien oÍMuty. The aims and content of social policy, both in peace and in war, are thus determined—at least tö a substantial extent—by how far the co-operation of the masses is essential to the success-, ful prosecution of war. If this co-operation is thought to be essential, then inequalities must be reduced and the pyramid of social '■''■ stratification must be flattened. This; in part, is the thesis ad-, vanced by Andrzejewski in a sweeping, untidy but brilliant study recently published under the title -Military Organization and Society'.1 In analysing the character of war and its conduct from pastoral and pré-literate societies down to the advent of atomic war, he argues that what he calls the military participation ratio determines the social stratification of a society. Mass , war, involving a high proportion of the total population, tends > to a levelling in social class differences. On the other hand, pro-I fessional wars, conducted by military leaders recruited from a social elite and depending on support from only a small proportion of the population, tend to heighten existing social inequalities. This study, in my view, effectively answers Herbert Spencer's theory that war conduces to greater social inequalities. It may have been true of sbme wars in some periods and cultures but not of all wars. However, we must fairly admit that Spencer was writing before the advent of the mass wars of the twentieth century. The work of these sociologists does, in general, support the arguments I have advanced: that modern war has had—at least in Britain—a profound influence on social policy and that, reci- 'Aiidrzejewslti, S., Military Organization and Society, 1954. 86 War and Sooty &$$ pfocally, the direction of social policy |l^ IftftiJeHceq' tlie way in , which war is prosecuted. But tliis^ í ftífl pöHfiJeiit—-nlöre per-j haps by faith than py reásbii-r-ig höf: thb Whojti of the story in the evolution of social pplicy, Mäfi dbäis hot live by Wflľ alone, To explain the social life of a cqmrhunjty jj) tertiis qf aggression and struggle is to explaip only part of 'tills S0ttý Scheme of things entire'. 87