Edwin E. Witte
Encyclopedia
Edwin E. Witte was an economist who focused on social insurance
Social insurance
Social insurance is any government-sponsored program with the following four characteristics:* the benefits, eligibility requirements and other aspects of the program are defined by statute;...

 issues for the state of Wisconsin and for the Committee on Economic Security. While the executive director of the President's Committee on Economic Security under United States President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Franklin D. Roosevelt, he developed during 1934 the policies and the legislation that became the Social Security Act of 1935. Because of this he is sometimes called "the father of Social Security".

Education and family life

Witte was born in the Moravian community of Ebenezer, Wisconsin
Ebenezer, Wisconsin
Ebenezer is an unincorporated community located in the town of Watertown in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, United States.-Notes:...

, about four miles south of Watertown
Watertown, Wisconsin
Watertown is a city in Dodge and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Most of the city's population is in Jefferson County. Division Street, several blocks north of downtown, marks the county line. The population of Watertown was 21,598 at the 2000 census...

. He was recognized from an early age as having remarkable intelligence, such that his parents sent him to high school in Watertown. He graduated as the valedictorian of his class and also became the first person in his family to attend college.

He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1909 with a B.A. in history and immediately began graduate work. His adviser, Frederick Jackson Turner
Frederick Jackson Turner
Frederick Jackson Turner was an American historian in the early 20th century. He is best known for his essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", whose ideas are referred to as the Frontier Thesis. He is also known for his theories of geographical sectionalism...

, left Madison in 1910 for Harvard, but recommended that Witte continue studying history under John R. Commons
John R. Commons
John Rogers Commons was an American institutional economist and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.-Biography:Born in Hollansburg, Ohio, John R. Commons had a religious upbringing which led him to be an advocate for social justice early in life...

 of the economics department. This advice turned Witte to the study of economics. Because Commons at this time was heavily involved in advising Robert M. LaFollette, Sr., and the government of Wisconsin (see Wisconsin Idea
Wisconsin Idea
The Wisconsin Idea is the political philosophy developed in the American state of Wisconsin that fosters public universities' contributions to the state: "to the government in the forms of serving in office, offering advice about public policy, providing information and exercising technical skill,...

), Witte easily found work with the state upon completion of his coursework in 1911. Witte was soon overwhelmed with work; he completed his qualifying exams in 1916 but did not return to his dissertation studies until the mid-1920s. He eventually completed his doctorate in ecenomics in 1927.

Witte married Florence Rimsnider a librarian at the Legislative Reference Library. The couple lived on Madison Street. They had one son and two daughters.

As government social reformer

Witte's first job for the state of Wisconsin was as a statistician of workmen's compensation insurance rates for the Wisconsin Industrial Commission. His work here led the Wisconsin Legislature
Wisconsin Legislature
The Wisconsin Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The Legislature is a bicameral body composed of the upper house Wisconsin Senate and the lower Wisconsin Assembly...

 to grant the Commission authority to regulate those rates.

In 1912, Witte accepted the job of personal secretary to Congressman John M. Nelson
John M. Nelson
John Mandt Nelson was a U.S. Representative from Wisconsin.Born in Burke, Wisconsin, Nelson attended the public schools and was graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1892....

. Nelson served on the House Judiciary Committee which was then considering the Clayton Antitrust Act
Clayton Antitrust Act
The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 , was enacted in the United States to add further substance to the U.S. antitrust law regime by seeking to prevent anticompetitive practices in their incipiency. That regime started with the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, the first Federal law outlawing practices...

. Witte wrote Nelson's minority report opposing approval of the Clayton Act because its language did not provide a strong anti-injunction clause favored by Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was an English-born American cigar maker who became a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor , and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924...

 and organized labor. Witte's views were validated in Duplex Printing Press Company v. Deering (254 U.S. 443 [1921]) which struck down the labor protection clauses of the act.

When Commons was appointed to the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, he brought Witte along. Witte's main focus here was on the use of the labor injunction, which became the topic of his dissertation. By the time he published this research, he was noted as the foremost authority on the anti-labor injunction and served as an adviser (along with Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.-Early life:Frankfurter was born into a Jewish family on November 15, 1882, in Vienna, Austria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Europe. He was the third of six children of Leopold and Emma Frankfurter...

, Donald Richberg
Donald Richberg
Donald Randall Richberg was an American attorney, civil servant, and author who was one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's key aides and who played a critical role in the New Deal. He co-wrote the National Industrial Recovery Act, was general counsel and executive director of the National...

, Francis Sayre, and Herman Oliphant
Herman Oliphant
Herman Oliphant was a professor of law. He started at the University of Chicago, going to Columbia University in 1922. Shortly after arriving there, he wrote to the university's president, Nicholas Murray Butler, outlining some plans he had for reorganizing the curriculum of the law school...

) to the Senate Judiciary Committee drafting the Norris-La Guardia Anti-Injunction Act of 1932.

In January 1917, he was appointed the executive secretary of the Wisconsin Industrial Commission. Here he added labor and safety regulatory policies to his list of progressive social insurance concerns.

In 1921, he accepted the position of chief of the Wisconsin Legislative Research Library a position that was mostly helping legislators draft legislation.

In all of these positions, Witte developed his skills at using research as a tool for persuasion in the development of social insurance policy. Working closely with legislators at both the state and national level, Witte had a keen sense for the process. As a government social reformer, David B. Johnson describe Witte as "neither a politician nor an activist. Rather he was a facilitator, a creative draftsman of public programs, a compromiser, and a tireless mediator who devoted his efforts towards bringing divergent sides together and to working out mutually acceptable solutions."

Professor at the University of Wisconsin

From 1922 to 1933, he served as chief of the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Library, an agency now known as the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau.Joining the faculty at Wisconsin, he worked with Commons, and Selig Perlman
Selig Perlman
Selig Perlman was an economist and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.-Early life and education:Perlman was born in Białystok in Congress Poland in 1888...

, Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Robert Marion "Fighting Bob" La Follette, Sr. , was an American Republican politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, was the Governor of Wisconsin, and was also a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin...

, Robert M. La Follette, Jr.
Robert M. La Follette, Jr.
Robert Marion "Young Bob" La Follette, Jr. was an American senator from Wisconsin from 1925 to 1947, the son of Robert M. La Follette, Sr., the brother of Philip La Follette, and Fola La Follette, whose husband was the playwright George Middleton.- Early life:La Follette was born in Madison,...

, E. A. Ross, and Arthur J. Altmeyer
Arthur J. Altmeyer
Arthur J. Altmeyer was the United States Commissioner for Social Security from 1946 to 1953, and chairman of the Social Security Board from 1937 to 1946. He was a key figure in the design and implementation of the U.S...

 (who became the chairman of the Social Security Board) who were developing the Wisconsin progressive movement and working on public policy issues of the day.

In 1933, Witte was appointed full professor in the economics department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, while serving as an administrator, Witte managed to publish consistently. This, coupled with his reputation as an expert on labor economics explain the unusual appointment. Following this appointment, Witte served on the unemployment insurance section of the Wisconsin Industrial Commission.

As a professor of economics, one of his central beliefs (taught in his "Government and Business" courses) was that the economics discipline, because of its focus on markets, deprecated the role of government in regulating, promoting, and protecting the economy. He preferred "political economics" to "economics" as the truer descriptor of his discipline. Also trained by Commons, Witte preferred the institutional economics
Institutional economics
Institutional economics focuses on understanding the role of the evolutionary process and the role of institutions in shaping economic behaviour. Its original focus lay in Thorstein Veblen's instinct-oriented dichotomy between technology on the one side and the "ceremonial" sphere of society on the...

 approach to problems.

Social Security

Because of Witte's expertise in both legislation and social insurance, and his national reputation as an expert in the area of social insurance, he was selected to lead the President's Committee on Economic Security to propose legislation that would eventually become the Social Security Act of 1935. Witte also was an acquaintance of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins
Frances Perkins
Frances Perkins , born Fannie Coralie Perkins, was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition...

, and her assistant secretary, Arthur J. Altmeyer
Arthur J. Altmeyer
Arthur J. Altmeyer was the United States Commissioner for Social Security from 1946 to 1953, and chairman of the Social Security Board from 1937 to 1946. He was a key figure in the design and implementation of the U.S...

 was a colleague of Witte's while at graduate school and on the Wisconsin Industrial Commission.

The major problem facing Witte was time. He was appointed in late July and President Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

 wanted legislative proposals to hand the new congress when it convened in January 1935. Witte was able to meet this deadline. He and his staff (which included one of his undergraduate students Wilbur J. Cohen
Wilbur J. Cohen
Wilbur Joseph Cohen was an American social scientist and federal civil servant. He was one of the key architects in the creation and expansion of the American welfare state and was involved in the creation of both the New Deal and Great Society programs.Wilbur Cohen was known by several nicknames...

) had a set of legislative proposals that covered unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, disability compensation, aid to families with dependent children. His committee also for a time worked on a national health insurance plan but this was dropped from the final bill as being too much too soon. It was also strongly opposed by the American Medical Association
American Medical Association
The American Medical Association , founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, is the largest association of medical doctors and medical students in the United States.-Scope and operations:...

.

When hearings began in January 1935, Witte as the principal author of the Social Security Act of 1935 was questioned for four days before the House Ways and Means Committee explaining the operation of the bill, its costs and benefits, and using his research to make a persuasive case. He performed the same act for three days before the Senate Finance Committee. He remained in Washington during the Spring and Summer of 1935, working with Congress towards the final legislation. It was signed by Roosevelt on August 18, 1935. Witte returned to his teaching but remained for many years a consultant to the Social Security Administration as a member of the first Advisory Council on Social Security, as a member of the Federal Advisory Council on Social Security, and as a member of the President's Committee on Administrative Management.

Father of social security

Witte has long been credited as the "Father of Social Security," but Witte himself denied this claim. He believed that he deserved "this title less than many others." Witte pointed out that the Social Security Act was a collaborative undertaking:

Social Security, like most other major social advances, has been the product of the endeavors and work of many people over a long period of time. The contributions made by any one person have been so commingled with those of many others that the end-product cannot be attributed to any individual or group of individuals.


Then, also, Arthur J. Altmeyer
Arthur J. Altmeyer
Arthur J. Altmeyer was the United States Commissioner for Social Security from 1946 to 1953, and chairman of the Social Security Board from 1937 to 1946. He was a key figure in the design and implementation of the U.S...

 is often referred to as the "Father of Social Security." See the remarks of Congressman Robert Kastenmeier
Robert Kastenmeier
Robert William Kastenmeier is a United States politician. He represented Wisconsin in the United States House of Representatives from 1959 to 1991, and is a member of the Democratic Party.-Education:...

 (D-WI) on the death of Altmeyer.

The son of Abraham Epstein
Abraham Epstein
Abraham Epstein was a Russo-Austrian rabbinical scholar born in Staro Constantinov, Volhynia.Epstein diligently studied the works of Levinsohn, Krochmal, and S. D. Luzzatto, and when he traveled in western Europe for the first time in 1861, he made the acquaintance of J. L. Rapoport, Z. Frankel,...

 has called his father the "Forgotten Father of Social Security" in a recent book.

Later life

Witte continued to advise legislators both in Wisconsin and Washington for many years afterwards. In 1935, he consulted with Senators Robert M. LaFollette Jr. and Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...

 on the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act , is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions , engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in...

). In addition to guiding the Social Security Act through the United States Congress,
Witte also worked on other labor legislation including (with George William Norris
George William Norris
George William Norris was a U.S. politician from the state of Nebraska and a leader of progressive and liberal causes in Congress...

 and Fiorello H. La Guardia) the Norris La Guardia anti-injunction act. Also during the 1930s he served on the Wisconsin State Planning Board and the Wisconsin Labor Relations Board. He continued to teach and publish as well. During his tenure at the University of Wisconsin, he advised fifty six Ph.D. candidates.

During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Witte served as a labor-management mediator under the Defense Mobilization Act and then for the War Labor Board. Once the war was over Witte returned to his teaching.

In 1947, he created the Industrial Relations Center at Madison. He was also one of the founding members of the Industrial Relations Research Association and was its first president in 1948. He was also involved with the National Association of Arbiters, the Atomic Energy Labor Relations Panel as well as continuing to advise Wisconsin lawmakers on various bills. During the academic year of 1953-54, he was a visiting scholar at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. In 1956, Witte was elected to the presidency of the American Economics Association.

Witte retired in 1957, and like millions of other Americans, received Social Security benefits, while he continued to teach regularly as a visiting professor.

Edwin E. Witte died on May 20, 1960, of a stroke complicated by cardio-vascular issues.

Further reading

  • Cohen, Wilbur J. "Edwin E. Witte (1887-1960): Father of Social Security", Industrial and Labor Relations Review vol. 14, no.1 (October 1960), pp. 7-9.
  • Johnson, David B. "The 'government man': Edwin E. Witte of the University of Wisconsin" Wisconsin Magazine of History, vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 32-51.
  • Schlabach, Theron F. Edwin E. Witte, Cautious Reformer. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1969.

External links

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