Roosevelt's Unfulfilled Legacy: Ideas That Failed To Become Law

Franklin D. Roosevelt's Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, commonly referred to as the court-packing plan, was a legislative initiative proposed by the president to add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court in order to obtain favourable rulings regarding New Deal legislation that the Court had ruled unconstitutional. Roosevelt's proposal was met with instant opposition and was never voted on in Congress.

The Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937

The bill was unveiled on February 5, 1937, and was the subject of Roosevelt's ninth fireside chat on March 9, 1937. In his address, Roosevelt criticised the Supreme Court's majority for "reading into the Constitution words and implications which are not there, and which were never intended to be there". He argued that the Bill was needed to overcome the Supreme Court's opposition to the New Deal, stating that the nation had reached a point where it "must take action to save the Constitution from the Court, and the Court from itself".

The proposal drew opposition from both Republicans and key Democratic leaders, including the chairs of both House and Senate judiciary committees. Roosevelt's own Vice President, John Nance Garner, also expressed disapproval of the bill. The public reaction was split, and a series of Gallup Polls conducted between February and May 1937 showed that the public opposed the proposed bill by a fluctuating majority.

The bill was ultimately defeated in Congress. Henry F. Ashurst, the Democratic chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, held up the bill by delaying hearings, and opponents of the bill credited him as instrumental in its defeat. The bill was further undermined by the untimely death of its chief advocate in the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson. Additionally, members of Roosevelt's own Democratic Party believed the bill to be unconstitutional, and the Judiciary Committee released a scathing report calling it "a needless, futile and utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle... without precedent or justification".

The failure of the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill exposed the limits of Roosevelt's abilities to push forward legislation through direct public appeal, and it resulted in a loss of political support for the president. However, during the political fight over Roosevelt's proposed reforms, the Supreme Court began to uphold various New Deal policies. Roosevelt ultimately prevailed in establishing a majority on the Court that was friendly to his New Deal legislation, although some scholars view this victory as pyrrhic.

The National Recovery Administration

The NRA was popular with workers, and businesses that supported the agency put its symbol, the Blue Eagle, in their shop windows and on their packages. Membership was voluntary, but businesses that did not display the eagle were often boycotted, making it seem mandatory for survival. The NRA reflected divergent goals and suffered from widespread criticism. Business people who dominated the code-drafting process wanted guaranteed profits and insisted on security for their investments and future production. Congressional critics wanted continued open pricing and saw the NRA codes as a means of making the market fair and orderly. Intellectuals wanted an even more extensive government role in the form of central economic planning. Labor union representatives fought with little success for the collective bargaining promised by the NIRA.

The NRA was famous for its bureaucracy. Journalist Raymond Clapper reported that between 4,000 and 5,000 business practices were prohibited by NRA orders that carried the force of law. These were contained in some 3,000 administrative orders running to over 10 million pages, and supplemented by innumerable opinions and directions from national, regional, and code boards.

The NRA failed to live up to hopes that it would fundamentally reform the economy and lead to recovery with full employment. One problem was that the chief administrator, Hugh Johnson, chosen because of his energetic service in the War Industries Board during World War I, proved to be unstable and failed to inspire cooperation. As Johnson engaged in promotional campaigns, feuds, and drinking bouts, businessmen exerted their advantage within the councils. They knew their industries' operations far better than government officials and consumer advocates and were well-organized to advance their self-interest. As a result, the 541 codes eventually completed tended to maintain high prices, low wages, and long hours.

In May 1935, in the case of Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the compulsory-code system on the grounds that the NIRA improperly delegated legislative powers to the executive and that the provisions of the poultry code did not constitute a regulation of interstate commerce. The NRA quickly stopped operations, but many of its labor provisions reappeared in the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act), passed later that year. The long-term result was a surge in the growth and power of unions, which became a core of the New Deal Coalition that dominated national politics for the next three decades.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act

In May 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) into law as part of his New Deal domestic program. The law was designed to provide immediate economic relief to farmers during the Great Depression by increasing their purchasing power. This was to be achieved by reducing surpluses of agricultural products, thus encouraging prices to rise to sustainable levels.

The Act created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) to oversee the program and distribute subsidies and a national income to farmers as emergency relief. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land. The money for these subsidies was generated through a tax on companies that processed farm products.

The AAA identified seven commodities that qualified for subsidies: wheat, corn, hogs, cotton, tobacco, rice, and milk. The Act also dealt with regulating exports and foreign trade and introduced a processing tax. This was calculated based on the difference between the current price of farm goods and the price those goods would have fetched in the target years, said to be the “fair exchange value” of the goods.

The AAA was largely successful at raising crop prices, but it disproportionately benefited large landowners over sharecroppers. In 1935, two years after the introduction of the Act, farmers’ incomes were reported to be 50% higher than in 1932. However, for some farmers, particularly Black sharecroppers in the South, the AAA caused deeper poverty when it halted planting. It was the landowners who received the subsidies for not planting, and they did not distribute this money to their tenant farmers.

In January 1936, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the AAA unconstitutional in United States v. Butler, deeming that it unduly burdened processors with taxes, which were then used to fund the subsidies for farmers. The Court decided that this power should have been reserved for the states. However, the AAA's goals were later achieved through the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936, and then a modified version of the AAA was fully reauthorized in 1938.

The Wagner Act

The Act gave employees the right to form and join unions, and it required employers to bargain collectively with unions selected by a majority of employees. It endorsed the principles of exclusive representation and majority rule, and it covered most workers in industries whose operations affected interstate commerce.

Impact of the Wagner Act

However, the Act did not extend to all workers. Agricultural workers, domestic service workers, independent contractors, and those employed by a parent or spouse were excluded from the legal right to participate in labour unions and bargain collectively with employers.

Over time, the Wagner Act was weakened by subsequent legislation, including the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and "right to work" laws, which prohibited closed shops, narrowed the definition of unfair labour practices, and forbade various union-security measures.

The Social Security Act

History

By 1930, the United States was one of the few industrialized countries without any national social security system. During the Great Depression, the physician Francis Townsend galvanized support behind a proposal to issue direct payments to older people. Roosevelt responded by organizing a committee led by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins to develop a major social welfare program proposal. Roosevelt presented the plan in early 1935 and signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935. The law established the Social Security program, funded by payroll taxes. Over the ensuing decades, it contributed to a dramatic decline in poverty among older people, and spending on Social Security became a significant part of the federal budget.

The initial act had ten major titles, with Title XI outlining definitions and regulations. More titles were added as the Social Security Act was amended.

• Title I is designed to give money to states to provide assistance to aged individuals.
• Title II establishes the Treasury account used to pay for Social Security benefits and gives the Secretary of the Treasury the authority to invest excess reserves from the account.
• Title III concerns unemployment insurance.
• Title IV concerns Aid to Families with Dependent Children.
• Title V concerns maternal and child welfare.
• Title VI concerns public health services (investigation of disease and problems of sanitation). It grants the Surgeon General the power to distribute money to the States for that purpose with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury.
• Title VII establishes the Social Security Board and outlines that it is to be composed of three appointees chosen by the President and approved by the Senate and serving for six years.
• Title VIII establishes a payroll tax used to fund Social Security.
• Title IX establishes an excise tax to be paid on the first day of every year by employers proportional to the total wages of their employees. It also establishes the first federal unemployment insurance program in the United States.
• Title X concerns support for blind people.

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