1935 Congressional Debates on Social Security

The Social Security Act of 1935 was vigorously debated on the floor of both the House and Senate.

The Senate debates began on May 20, 1935 and concluded with the final vote for passage on June 19, 1935. This debate filled 126 pages in the Congressional Record of that time.

The House debates were even more extensive. The debate began on April 5, 1935 and was concluded on April 19, 1935. About 350 pages of the Congressional Record was filled with the House consideration of the bill.

We are reproducing the full text of the Senate and House debates from the Congressional Record of 1935, in Adobe PDF format.


NOTE: The quality of some of these scanned images is not high. However, these materials are relatively rare and hard to find for users who do not have ready access to a large library. We hope that reproducing them here, even in this limited form, will make them much more accessible to a wider audience of researchers.

SENATE DEBATE
May 20, May 27 and June 12th
(4 pgs.--510kb pdf file)

June 14th (23 pgs.--5,185kb pdf file)

June 15th (14 pgs.--2,804kb pdf file)

June 17th (25 pgs.--5,729kb pdf file)

June 18th (34 pgs.--7,719kb pdf file)

Debate and Final Passage on June 19th (26 pgs.--6,271kb pdf file)

HOUSE DEBATE
April 5th
(2 pgs.--69kb pdf file)

April 10th (2 pgs.--160kb pdf file)

April 11th (22 pgs.--4,571kb pdf file)

April 12th (40 pgs.--8,721kb pdf file)

April 13th (28 pgs.--6,438kb pdf file)

April 15th
(42 pgs.--9,479kb pdf file)

April 16th
(53 pgs.--12,330kb pdf file)

April 17th (56 pgs.--12,838kb pdf file)

April 18th (47 pgs.--10,930kb pdf file)

April 19th (54 pgs.--12,252kb pdf file)