WAGNER, ROBERT F.

Robert F. Wagner (June 8, 1877–May 4, 1953), the United States senator widely regarded as the "legislative pilot of the New Deal" and the "architect of social justice in America," was born in Nastatten, Germany, the youngest of seven children. Immigrating with his parents to the highly Teutonic Yorkville section of New York City at the age of nine, he worked his way through the City College of New York and New York Law School, graduating from the latter with honors in 1900. While practicing law among the people of his neighborhood, Wagner became increasingly involved in ward-level politics, where he soon drew favorable attention from the Tammany Hall leadership of the local Democratic Party. Elected to the state assembly in 1904 and to the state senate in 1908, he became the latter body's youngest ever president pro tempore in 1911, teaming with his assembly counterpart, Alfred E. Smith, to head the commission investigating the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that year. Based upon that experience, Wagner and Smith sponsored fifty-six factory health and safety laws, as well as numerous other progressive measures. Widowed with a young son (future New York City mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr.) in 1919, he accepted an appointment to the state supreme court, where he gained an impressive reputation as a champion of labor unions, consumers, renters, and government regulation of the economy.

Elected to the United States Senate in 1926, Wagner soon established himself as an outspoken critic of the Republican administrations of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. In March 1928, he gained national attention through the introduction of his "Three Bills," which provided for more accurate government gathering of unemployment statistics, the establishment of an effective system of public employment agencies, and the creation of a federal employment stabilization board that would oversee counter-cyclical government spending on public works projects. Although the Three Bills were tabled by the Republican Congress, they provided a preview of the greatly revised role that the federal government would come to play during the New Deal. Wagner also pushed for the abolition of "yellow-dog" contracts (by which employees were required to pledge they would not join a union), national unemployment insurance, and federal farm relief. When the Great Depression struck in 1929, Wagner joined with such progressive lawmakers as Robert M. La Follette, Jr., George W. Norris, David I. Walsh, Edward P. Costigan, and Fiorello La Guardia in advocating numerous measures to combat unemployment and to aid workers and farmers. In 1933, philosopher John Dewey, head of the People's Lobby and the Joint Committee on Unemployment, identified Wagner as "the key man in Congress."

With the advent of the New Deal, Wagner consistently pressured Congress and the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration to intervene more directly into the socioeconomic order on behalf of those most disadvantaged by the Depression. He was instrumental in adding Section 7a to the National Industrial Recovery Act, giving workers a voice in formulating and implementing the law's "codes of fair competition." Two years later, he succeeded in enacting the National Labor Relations Act that still bears his name, guaranteeing "the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection." He also was a major force behind the eventual passage of the Social Security Act of 1935, and he crusaded for public housing, national healthcare, veteran's benefits, and federal anti-lynching legislation. Forced to resign from the Senate in 1949 due to deteriorating health, he lived in relative seclusion until his death. In his obituary, the New York Times lauded Wagner's "deep-seated humanitarianism" and "sympathy for those handicapped in the race for life." Pick any law designed to help the common people, the Times proclaimed, "and the chances are that Bob Wagner's name is attached to it."

See Also: COLLECTIVE BARGAINING; LABOR'S NON-PARTISAN LEAGUE; NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT OF 1935 (WAGNER ACT); NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD (NLRB).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gross, James A. The Making of the National Labor Relations Board: A Study in Economics, Politics, and the Law, 2 vols. 1974–1981.

Huthmacher, J. Joseph. Senator Robert F. Wagner and the Rise of Urban Liberalism. 1968.

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Age of Roosevelt, 3 vols. 1957–1960.

JOHN D. BUENKER