American Social Security: A Governmental Story of Harmony and Secular Coherence
With all of these visionary statements about harmony and coherence, I wish to offer two real-life narratives concerning the engagement of a harmony of interest and the appearance of secular coherence in the United States. One of these narratives occurs at the level of governance and at the national level, while the second narrative is about the engagement of harmony and coherence at the level of one organization operating in the State of Maine. The first narrative takes place during the early 1930s, when the United States was in the midst of a major depression, while the second narrative takes place in 2020, as Americans face the equally as great challenge of coping with the COVID-19 virus. Both narratives have featured players as well as a supporting cast.
Protecting the Five Freedoms
I begin with the declaration made in 1941 by then President, Franklyn D. Roosevelt, regarding what he identified as the four (and later expanded to five) freedoms. I begin at this point because Roosevelt is articulating a vision that I believe is directly aligned with my own more modest and less finely phrases proposing that true freedom only comes when there is a mutuality of interests (as well as a balance between individual rights and collective responsibilities, as well as a compelling vision of the future – propositions I am offering in my other two essays on true freedom).
Roosevelt is saying that true freedom requires a freedom from fear, freedom from financial dependence, freedom from financial obligations, freedom from our own wants – and freedom to use our time as we wish. All of these freedoms require collaboration among citizens based on a harmony of interests. A level of what Bellah identified as coherence is also requires if members of a society are to seek freedom not just for themselves, but also for all other members of their community.
For Roosevelt to offer these freedoms with some degree of justification, he must have established a track record of engaging government to provide when Anonymous identifies as the protection of a mutuality of interests. He can thank one person, in particular, for helping him build a credibile record of political and legislative achievement during the 1930s that provided this protection (labled “social security”). This person was Frances Perkins, who was not only the first woman to serve in the U.S. cabinet, but is also the longest serving member of any cabinet (1933-1945). Perkins was the primary architect (along with Francis Townsend and several visionary members of Congress) of Social Secuirty Act of 1935. This act produced not only the now widely recognized protection of older Americans, but established unemployment insurance, assistance for homeless, dependetand neglected children (tragically prevalent during the depression), funds for matternal and child welfare, and publich health services (Richardson, 2021).
Individualims and the Role of Government
The wide-ranging social security enactments envisioned by Perkins were swimming against the focus on individual rights that had been dominant in previous administrations and frankly most of American culture during the late 19th and early 20th Century. It took not only the Great Depression to shake up this anti-governmental socio-economic policy, but also the diligent and skillful work of Francis Perkins who pushed hard to get the eventually overwhelming support for the Social Security Act (371 to 33 in the House of Representatives and 77 to 6 in the US Senate). As Richardson (2021), an American historian has noted:
“[Perkins] brought to the position a vision of government very different from that of the Republicans who had run it in the 1920s. While men like President Herbert Hoover had harped on the idea of a “ruged individualism” in which men worked theri way up, providing for their familie on their own, Perkins recognized that peole in communities had always supported each other. The vision of a hardworking man supporting his wife and children was more myth than reality.
