ABSTRACT
The administration's arguments in Helvering v. Davis are highly revealing of its efforts to create a false consciousness about Social Security. In large measure, they flatly contradicted both the testimony of administration figures to Congress and the promotion of Social Security thus far given to the public. The Supreme Court and the Roosevelt administration had been moving toward a confrontation for years. Since 1933, Franklin Roosevelt had had things very much his own way. The Court's validation of the Social Security Act was big news, reported in the New York Times and the Washington Post with huge headlines, long articles, and reprints of the full texts of the majority and minority opinions of the three decisions, and greeted by the administration with almost frantic jubilation. The Post editorialized: the Supreme Court, by approving the Social Security Act in its entirety, has driven another nail in the coffin of the President's plan to enlarge the court's membership.
