Social Security

Unemployment.

Though unemployment compensation bills had been introduced in many State legislatures, only one State, Wisconsin, had enacted such a law by 1932. Since unemployment funds for payment of benefits are built up by taxes on employers' payrolls, many States feared that enactment of such legislation, would impose a handicap on businessmen in competition wit} those in States not having such laws. During the early depression years, the number of unemployed reached an unprecedented total and the Federal Government was called upon to provide huge sums for relief. These factors led to inclusion in the Social Secur ity Act of provisions designed to aid the States in adoption of unemployment insurance systems. By 1937 all the States had enacted legislation for this purpose. As the States developed sys tems of unemployment insurance, the United States Employment Service, which had been set up in 1933 on a co-operative Federal State basis to provide free placement service for the unemployed, was expanded to meet the needs arising out of their administration. An importantfpart of the reorganization plan creating the Federal Security Agency was the co-ordination of Federal employment service activities with those relating to unemployment compensa tion. These two services form a new Bureau of Employment Security under the Social Security Board.

Health.

In addition to the programs for which the Social Security Board is the Federal agency, the Social Security Act provides for Federal co-operation and financial aid to the States for public health and vocational rehabilitation—both within the Federal Security Agency—and for maternal and child health and welfare under the Children's Bureau of the Department of Labor. It is noteworthy not only for the specific services which it pro motes, but also as the first step taken in the U.S. to supplant the fragmentary welfare provisions of the past.

A comprehensive national program looking toward the prevention of future need as well as provision for present need, it represents a long forward step in national social legislation. The creation of the Federal Security Agency represents a comparable step in the admin istration of such legislation. It brings together both the new activi ties created by the Social Security Act and others in which the Fed eral Government has had some concern since 1800 and earlier.

The Public Health Service is an outgrowth of the Marine Hospital Service established by Congress in 1798 for the care of American seamen. After the formation of the National Government, the right to jurisdiction over health measures such as quarantine and sanitary control was held to belong to the States. So long as epidemics were confined mainly to seaport towns, the States left control of disease to the local communities. However, as methods of communication developed and transportation of people and goods increased, com municable diseases could not be controlled on a local basis, and the States began to establish State Boards of Health to aid the local or county Governments. Because of a growing realization that protection

against epidemic diseases could best be provided on a national basis, this function was gradually transferred to the Federal Government, and placed under the jurisdiction of its Public Health Service.

While its responsibility for national and interstate quarantine was expanding, this agency also engaged increasingly in the collection of public health reports and statistics. In 1912 an act was passed giving it increased powers of scientific investigation. As progress in medicine has revealed the methods by which epidemic diseases are transmitted and has developed methods of immunization, quarantine measures have become increasingly less necessary, and emphasis among the various duties of the Public Health Service has shifted. Acting for the Federal Government under the public health provisions of the Social Security Act, it now makes grants to the States for the pro motion of State and local health services. Under a separate act it also makes grants to the States for the control of the venereal diseases.

One of its major functions is to aid the States in strengthening and expanding their organizations. The advice and assistance of the Federal health service is made available to the States for the many forms of health measures which they maintain such as: inspection of food, milk, and water ; control and treatment of venereal disease ; industrial hygiene immunization against typhoid fever, smallpox, and diphtheria ; infant and maternal hygiene ; and general sanitation. Another im portant contribution to the public health is the scientific research con ducted by the Public Health Service, the results of which are made available to both public and private organizations.

Up to 1940, public health measures in the United States have been almost entirely preventive. The need for a still more comprehensive national health program has already been recognized and its develop ment is one of the advances still to be made in social legislation.

public education has been and is a State and local concern, Federal co-operation in this field dates back even further than it does in public health. The first action by the Federal Government in aid of public education was an ordinance passed in 1785 providing for land grants to the States for public grade schooLs and universities. After a lapse of nearly three-quarters of a century, the next step, taken in 1862, was a provision granting Federal lands to the States for agricultural colleges ; later authorizations provided additional grants for the same purpose.