<<I always thought that Social Security was a response to Huey Long's "Share the Wealth" Clubs and the Townsend Movement, as well as the Bonus Marchers. The idea was to inject money into the economy so people would have something to spend, not unlike our recent "bonus" checks.>>
You know, I'd totally forgotten about the Townsend Plan, which was enormously influential during the Great Depression, and I'm sure was a big factor in the birth of Social Security. There were literally millions of members of Townsend Clubs all over the U.S. and the pressure from them must have been huge, so you are undoubtedly correct. The Bonus Marchers were a more direct threat as most of them were Army veterans and had a much greater potential for violence than the Townsend clubs, which were mainly composed of senior citizens.
My dad's comments were actually made with the influence of organized labour in mind and were not focused exclusively on Social Security but on the New Deal reforms as a whole.
My dad certainly would have been much more <<tuned into European politics than the average US factory worker or sharecropper,>> but he was also (as a manufacturer and a businessman) very aware of the North American scene and particularly the North American labour scene. The fact is that there was very active left-wing agitation going on in the U.S. during the Depression, and both sharecroppers (white and black) and factory workers were actively targeted by organizers not only from organized labour but also from Trotskyite and Communist Party agitprop cadres. There was an undeniable appeal to the stories, true or not, of the "workers' and peasants' paradise" that were being reported at the time. But I think possibly he over-estimated the indirect contribution of the U.S.S.R. and underestimated both the Townsend Plan and the Kingfish. Although he seemed to know an awful lot about Huey Long, I don't think I ever heard him talking about Dr. Townsend at all.
Huey Long certainly seems to have had Presidential aspirations and "Share the Wealth" had obvious Depression-era appeal, but I think he would have been a pretty hard sell outside the South. FDR and his supporters had done a pretty good job of portraying him as a hick and a bumpkin on the outside and a crook and a thug on the inside - - sort of like a scary clown - - although of course he was a very intelligent man and a shrewd and savvy politician. Incidentally, if you subscribe to Turner Classic Movies, they were showing All the King's Men again last week (or maybe it was the week before.)
