THE SUNDAY POST-JOURNAL, Jamestown, New York- Sunday, February 13, 2005
A-5
OPINION
~~Jackson's Voice Clear
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On Social Security Issues
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By JOHN Q. BARRETT
ing that he\ was, years before he
Feb. 13, 2005, ma rk_s the joined the iSupreme Court and
!13th anniversary of the birth of became at Nuremberg a founder
Jamestown 's Robert H. Jackson. of modem )international law and
Born in Spring Creek, Pa., in justice, an i[lsightful advocate-who
1892, Jac kson graduated from helped to }vin the political and
Frewsburg High School in 1909 legal battles for Social Security.
and Jamestown High School in
Social Security, which grew out
1910. He became a lawyer three the political leade rsh ip and
years later'and over the next 20 humane vision of Jackson's great
years developed into the great patrofl anp friend Franklin Delano
: . Ia:--vyer of this city and region and . Roosevelt,. has been a centerpiece
of American life and law since the
one of its leading Democrats.
! In early 1934, Jackson moved late 1930s. When Roosevelt took
to Was hington to serve' under office in .1933, the country was at
President Franklin D. Roosevelt. the depths of the Great DepresRising swiftly through a number sion. Tens of millions of people,
of important government offices, including many elderly, were livJackson was Solicitor General of ing in poverty and desperation.
In J anuary 1935, Roosevelt
the United States by 1938, Attorney General of the United States advocated the U.S. government
by 1940 and, in July 1941, an using tax payments from employAssociate Justice of the Supreme ers and workers to,insure, literally,
. the financial survival of both the
Court of the United States.
In 1945, President Truman unemployed and the elderly.
!< .appointed Justice Jackson to be
FDR sought legislat ion that
-~ •' the architect of, and later to serve would provide payments to people
::.·· as the chief United States prosecu- who had lost jobs and to senior
~-. : . tor before, the International Mili- citize ns whose working year s
.t· . tary Tribunal in Nuremberg, Ger- were behind them. Some, particu~ ~·· many, which tried the principal :larly b usinesses, objected, but
-: .. su~ v_i ving Nazi leaders for con- . most people and Congress sup:: •.. spmng to wage aggressive war ported Roosevelt's ideas that gov> and for committing war crimes , ernment could do muc h to
> ,. and crimes against humanity.
improve these basic aspects of
.
In this year marking the 60th -!'"social security. "
~'· .. annive rsary of the Nuremberg:
On August 14, 193 5 , Roo, · trial, the global focus on J ustiC? sevelt signed the Social Security
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·,. , Jackson sees, quite correctly, his Act" into law.
v is ion and s tellar work as lead
Businesses that were subject to
•. · prosecutor at Nuremberg to hold new taxes soon filed federal law~
.... individual leaders legally accQUnt- suits. They claimed the U.S , Con:> able for their war crimes.
stitution did not authmize the fedIn the United States, 2005 also era! governme nt to create a nd
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.. " .is a year to focus on Social Securi- administer the new unemployment
'· ty, P resident Bush recently has compensation and old age pension
started a process of intense politi- programs. These lawsuits reached
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•• cal activity and national focus on the Supreme Court which by then
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our public pension system for sen- had compiled quite a record of
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hostility to many New Deal laws
In that c·ontext-, and on this in spring 1937 .
Robert J ackson had left
. .. . Jackson amiiversary, it , bears not-
!> ior citizens:
Although Jackson's formal position,Jn
1937 was Assistant Attorney General
(the third tier of FDR's team at the
Department of Justice}, J_ackson .
became a' central player m the Socaal
Security cases as they headed for the
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Supreme Court..He was a co-author of
...
the government's brief in e~~h case
and, when it was time for the oral
arguments before the Court, Jackson
was one of the government'.~ pri~cipal
; .,.._ia~d~v~o~c.~
a~te~s~·---:-_...:,_ _-':_ __;,;__--'--
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Jamestown fo r Washington ·in
early 1934. By 1937,_he h~d
achieved Qreat successes m semor
New Deal legal positions, in leg~
islative battles, and in some of the
country's most high-profile government lawsuits. Jackson also
had become. thanks to his brilliance and skills and attractively
unpretentious personality, one of
President Roosevelt's most trusted
assistants.
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Al th ouo h Jackso n' s formal
position i~ 1937 was -:'ssi_stant
Attorney General (the tlmd t1er of
FOR's team at the Department of
Justice), Jackson became ~ central
player in the Social Sccunty cases
as they headed for the Supreme
Court. He was a co-author of the
Qovemment's brief in each case
and when it was time for the oral
arg~mems bcfor~ the Court, Jac~­
son was one of the government s
principal advocates.
On May 24, 1937, ~h.e
Supreme Court upheld the con~tJ­
tutionality of the Soc1al Secunty
Act. In one case, Steward
Machine Co. v. Davis, the Court
upheld the new unemployment
compensation system. ln ~nother
case Helverino v. Dav1s, the
Court upheld Social Security's ~ld
aoe pension system. The Soc1al
S~curity cases thus go ~o~n · as
two of Jackson 31 victones m 41
cases that he argued as a government advoca te before a · notalways-receptive Supreme Coll!l:
Many of Jackson's spec1f1c
arQuments to the Supreme Court
in-the 1937 cases concerned constitutional issues that no longer,
thanks to victories like his in th~se
very cases, perpl_ex us legally or
politically. But m the _course of
making his arguments m Helverino v. Davis (which were transc~ibed and publishec;t in the ~eg­
islative record on Soctal Secunty),
Jackson also made eloquent statements that have contemporary
importance.
The following selections from ,
his words to the Supreme Court
about Social Security for senior
citizens reveal five key under.standin!!Sof his time:
1. - We were, even then, an
aoin!! population:
o "The uncontradicted evidence
shows that there are developments
in the matter of the old-age problem which differentiate that problem as it exists today from the
problem as it existed in the past.
In 1870, out of a population of 38
million,· we had I, I 53,000 or less
than 3 percent of our people 65
and over. That proportion had
more than doubled bv 1936. and
but of 128 million we '•h;J
),700,000, or 6 pe'rcent of the
'population, tha_t had r~ached 65. It
~eems that sc1ence IS extendmg
'life, but that science is not stimulating the birth rate.·'
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2. The general experience of
Depression created a new public
understanding, embod1ed 111 the
Social Security Act, that senior
citize n poverty can come to
blameless individuals: ·
"Con!!ress came to the conclusion thatthe Qeneral welfare of the
United States would be served by
abando.n ing· the system under
which age looked fo rward to a
road that led over the hills to the
poorhouse. It came I? the c~nclu­
sion that poverty 111 age 1s no
longer a moral judgment against
the individual; that if the time has
been in our economy when we
could say that it was only indolence and prodigality that led one
to the poorhouse, that time was no
lonoer, and that if a povertystricken age was the judgment of a
wasted life at one time in· our history, it is ryot so today. The lesson
of the Depression broke that tradition."
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3. Titat new understanding was
founded in part on the facts that
personal wealth, private pensions,
private charities and state governments were not adequate to alleviate poverty among the elderly:
''The failure of private pension
plans is explored by the evidence, ·
and pointed out in our brief. The
fai lure of private charity to meet
this problem is conclusive ly
shown by the figures of the
Bureau of Internal Revenue. In
1928 the persons with $3 million
and up of income. c0ntributed an
average of $25,400 to purposes
for which they were entitled to the
charitable ded uction. By 1931
they had reduced those contributions, the same group, to $12,900
average, showing that the well-todo retrenched in their charitable
contri butions during the period of
Depression, although the need
was greater."
· 'The resources of the States
have been declining. Real estate
reserved to the States as a source
of taxation has been taxed to the
limit of its capacity to bear, and
. personalty has never been successfully taxed locally. The Federal Government, which is able to
tax incomes and to lay excises,
has sources of reven ue which
have been drying up for the States,
not because of any change in the
legal system but because the economic emphasis·on personal property ha.s left the Sta.tes wi_thout a
Jackson's general message,
however, took only one position
about Social Security for senior
citizens: it was ab()ut decent,
basic, reliable, public support to
·protect people from the dire
·pov~rty that life and turns of the
·economy ,otherwise will distribute.
comparative .source of revenue old-age-pension system was set up
such as they had at the beginning in the hope that it would make
of our constitutional system.''
true the promise to men that if
4. That new understanding of they were thrifty (lnd industrious
poverty also was grounded in the and self-di sciplined their age.
facts that personal sav ings and would be spared at least extreme
investments do not guarantee poverty. This plan does no-more
financial security:
than spare extreme poverty, and
The condition whiCh is prom- may not in many instances do that.
ised as an implication of our sys- This plan was that if the workman
tern, that th1ift would be followed during his productive years would
by plenty, failed in the De pres- contribute to the Treasury of the
sion, for the man who had United Srates, then the Treasury
responded to the inducements and of the United States in his unprohad accumulated a bank account ductive years would contribute to
and selected the wrong bank, or his necessities."
the man who had saved to pur***
chase a home, found himself in
As we in 2005 consider Social
the same position as the one who Security and its future, selected
had never saved at all. In fact. the words from Robert Jackson's
.man who had not tried to acquire a 193 7 Supreme Cvurt arguments
home perhaps was better off may prove useful to various per:.
because he was not faced with a spectives across the political and
deficiency judgment. The unfortu- policy spectrum.
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nate consequences of this DepresJackson's general message,
sion bring home to us the fact that however, took only. one position
self-denial had not assured com- about Social Security for senior
fonable aoe"
ci ti zens: it was about decent,
5. W~ therefore recognized in· basic, reliable, public support to
the Social Security Act that fight- protect people from the dire .
ing poverty among the elderly, poverty that life and turns 6f the
which histOiically had been a local economy otherwise will distribute.
issue, now was a matter of nation,Jackson's generation figured
al welfare:
this out - it really was burned
' ' [I]f we are to review in this into them - - during the depths of
Court the question whether Con- the Great Depression. . , . . .
gress has served the general wel- · We will, with reminders such
fare in fact, I am frank to admit as his fine words, no't forget today
that we face a tradition of 150 that a basic, government-guaranyears of practice that is against the teed ·social security is a defining
making of old-age relief a matter part of our national greatness.
of national welfare. But I would
Copyright ~ 2005 by John Q.
call your attention to the fact that
Barrett. All rights reserved.
old-age welfare has been a con(John Q. Barret(is Professor-of
stantly widening concern. The Law at St. John's University in
.matter of the care o: the old was at New York City and Elizabeth S.
one time a matter for the family Lenna Fellow at the Robert H.
only. It became gradually a matter Jackson Center in Jamestown: He
for the town poormaster if the discovered, edited and intrOduced
family failed. From the town hiStice Jackson's previously'
poonnaster it became a matter for unknown, neYer-published niemthe county with its poorhouse, and oir, That Man: An Insider's' ?orthen the State, because of failures ' trait of Franklin D. Roosevelt,
of counties, intervened, and now ,·which now is.available in paper~
y.;e argue that it.has become a mat- back from Oxford _U(livers ity
ter of national welfqr~ and this . Press.)
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