This panel documents events during the Depression. It features
displays on some of the radical alternative economic proposals popular
during the era, especially the Townsend Movement and the Share The
Wealth movement of Senator Huey Long.
The Depression Provokes Action
The problem of economic security is an eternal and universal
human problem. So the Social Security program is not a "Depression
program" whose relevance is somehow to a bygone era. Even so,
the Great Depression was the "triggering event" which finally
persuaded a reticent America that concerted governmental action was
appropriate and necessary.
In the America of the 1930s, 25% of the nation was unemployed; 9,000
banks failed, taking with them the life savings of millions of people;
the stock market lost 40% of its value; the Gross National Product
was cut in half; and the majority of the elderly were living in dependency.
In this climate, radical proposals and angry mass movements swept
the nation. On the political left, there were plans to seize the wealth
of the rich and redistribute it to the elderly and the unemployed;
there were calls to nationalize the banks and other industries; and
schemes and dreams from the well-intentioned and the unscrupulous
alike. On the political right, the preference was for reliance on
State-run welfare programs to see the nation through, or for a "do-nothing"
posture in hopes the economy would right itself soon enough. In the
context of the time, President Roosevelt's call for a social insurance
system was thus a moderate response to a nation in crisis. |
www.socialsecurity.gov
