RIGGING THE RECORD
Neuberger, Richard L.
Rigging the Record by RICHARD L. NEUBERGER ONE OF my favorite stanzas in literature runs this way: The moving finger writes; and having writ, Moves on; nor all your piety nor wit Shall lure it...
...Yet, it might have been about as logical for a cannibal to send a telegram of condolences to the family of a victim he has just eaten for supper...
...Thirty-eight Democrats supported this amendment, and eight opposed it...
...has massed all its public-relations battalions to lure back and cancel out memory of the Republican record in the vital field of Social Security legislation...
...Women annuitants were given the option of retiring at 62 rather than at the age of 65, a proposal I originally sponsored in the Senate— although in a slightly broader form than that in which it passed...
...The President described the event as a symbol that his government's "prime concern is the welfare of its people...
...Look as I might, I detected comparatively little effort in the press to acquaint the American public with the facts about the actual Republican record on Social Security legislation...
...But when the widow of a war hero named Mrs...
...There just would not have been any Social Security program at all...
...Played straight and with solemnity was President Eisenhower's praise for a program which his party had savagely fought against—horse, foot, and dragoon...
...One of the most merited changes made in the bill in the Senate was the amendment by Senator Paul H. Douglas of Illinois to allow recipients of direct old-age assistance to earn up to $50 without having this amount subtracted from their relatively meager subsistence grants...
...It is significant too that the Eisenhower Administration threw the full weight of its influence and prestige against both the amendment to provide disability benefits under Social Security and the provision to lower the retirement age for women...
...When he was the Republican nominee for President in 1936, Alf Landon of Kansas made this speech at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, concerning the then new program: "This is the largest tax bill in history...
...The amendment passed by a vote of 56 to 34, although later it was unfortunately eliminated in conference...
...In 1956 two fundamental reforms were added to the Social Security law...
...How many remembered that, if the Republican Party had prevailed in the council...
...Eighteen Republicans backed this amendment, and 26 opposed it...
...And to call it 'Social Security' is a fraud on the workingman...
...Has the G.O.P...
...had really succeeded in repealing the wisdom of the Rubaiyat...
...Second, a system of disability benefits was provided at the age of 50 for workers of either sex who become permanently or totally disabled...
...With the aid of a cooperative press, the G.O.P...
...I am not exaggerating the folly of this legislation...
...Jane Gavin became the 10,000,000th Social Security annuitant, the President and Secretary Folsom pulled out all the stops in heralding the occasion...
...The saving it forces on our workers is a cruel hoax...
...And so I wondered if the G.O.P...
...In June of this year the 10,000,-000th person qualified for Social Se-curity benefits...
...Thus saith the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a work of wisdom which belongs to the ages...
...During that same campaign a Republican Party pamphlet ventured this charge about the embryonic Social Security act: "The way they've rigged this thing and rushed it through Congress, it appears to me that they figure a lot of us are willing to trade our votes for a counterfeit insurance policy...
...invention...
...This meant that, while 85 per cent of the Democrats in the Senate supported the proposition that Social Security benefits should go to a worker no longer physically able to support himself and his family, 86 per cent of the Republicans voted against such an idea...
...really been able to cancel its record in this realm...
...Despite the sagacity of the Rubaiyat, however, the Republican Party is doing its utmost to prove the Rubaiyat wrong...
...If one listened to President Eisenhower and Secretary Marion B. Folsom on this occasion, one inevitably would have concluded that Social Security was wholly and totally a G.O.P...
...One had to admire the audacity of Mr...
...nor all your piety nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wash out a word of it...
...One wonders if the 10,000,000 Americans drawing Social Security benefits regard as "counterfeit" this protection in their old age...
...Eisenhower and Secretary Folsom in harvesting Republican political capital out of this great anniversary date of the Social Security program...
...six Republican Senators voted for disability benefits and 38 against...
...Forty-one Democratic Senators voted for disability benefits and seven against...
...The vote on the second proposal was particularly close in the Senate, where it passed only by the narrow margin of 47 to 45...
...of the nation, there never would have been a 10,000,000th citizen to qualify for Social Security payments...
...Their enthusiasm knew no bounds...
...Because Social Security is now as much a part of American life as night baseball or self-starters on automobiles, the words of the President and his Cabinet member were favorably received throughout the land...
Vol. 21 • September 1957 • No. 9
