Ernest Lundeen – a mystery wrapped in irony.
The name Ernest Lundeer most likely registers a blank stare when his name comes up in connection with U.S. involvement in World War 2. A controversial figure who voted against American involvement in both World War 1 and 2.
A South Dakota native who graduated from Carleton College and the University of Minnesota Law School, Lundeen had a passion for politics. He was elected as a Republican to the Minnesota state House and in 1916 to represent a Hennepin County-based district in the House of Representatives.
Lundeen was adamantly opposed to the United States’ involvement in World War I and campaigned on that stance.
While Lundeen lost reelection, he did not stop pursuing political office, running for state Legislature, governor, Minnesota Supreme Court chief justice, U.S. Senate and other offices. In the process the perennial candidate switched party allegiances to independent, then became a member of the Minnesota Farmer Labor Party, a precursor to the DFL.
He eventually won a seat in the U.S. House again, as a Farmer Laborite, and was accused by Republican rivals of being a Communist sympathizer for sponsoring the Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill and addressing a meeting of “Friends of the Soviet Union” at Madison Square Garden. No matter, in 1936, Lundeen won a special election to the Senate.
Although he switched party affiliations several times, Lundeen remain an isolationist and opposed U.S. involvement in World War II. It was during this time that the matter of Social Security was the forefront issue with the American voter.
Initially, the bill called The Workers Social Insurance Bill which provided old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, workers compensation, and aid to dependent children. Roosevelt’s proposals were deeply influenced by the American experience. For example, several key components of the plan were to be operated by the states, which gave them the power to determine the amount and accessibility of the benefits. The old-age pension and unemployment insurance plans were to be funded in part by the workers themselves.
A competing social insurance bill sponsored by Congressmember Ernest Lundeen, a Democrat from Minnesota, had also garnered considerable support. Senator Lynn Frazier (Rep., N. Dak.) and Representative Ernest Lundeen (Farmer -Labor, Minn.) introduced identical drafts in their respectively branches of Congress. The Lundeen bill (H.R. 2827) was a more comprehensive and progressive plan than Roosevelt¹s Economic Security Act since it (a) provided coverage for all workers; (b) offered a federal, rather than federal-state, system for unemployment insurance and aid to dependent children; (c) covered the workers who were then unemployed; (d) offered immediate compensation to workers at their average weekly wages, and guaranteed it until a job was found; (e) provided a sixteen-week paid maternity leave for women; (f) offered national criteria for unemployment and welfare; and (g) was funded by an inheritance tax on upper-middle-class and rich individuals and corporations.
Ironically, Ernest Lundeen was allegedly aligned with the Communist Party and the bill he introduced was almost identical to the one the Communist Party had introduced in 1930. Despite the bill’s Communist origins, the Party mustered considerable support for it, including from union locals, international unions, and state labor federations. The bill attracted support from liberals dissatisfied with the less generous and much less radical Wagner-Lewis Bill (which became the Social Security Act). With Lundeen’s help, a subcommittee of the Labor Committee heard testimony from 80 witnesses on the benefits of the bill and the suffering of the unemployed. Many were Communists, including Party chairman Earl Browder. The bill was narrowly voted out of the Labor Committee, but it was killed by House leadership, which wanted no competition for Wagner-Lewis.
In the years leading up to World War 2, Ernest Lundeen became associated with George Sylvester Viereck, a leading Nazi agent in the U.S. During his first term in the House of Representatives, Lundeen had contributed to Viereck’s American Weekly. After giving Sen. Lundeen millions of dollars in bribes, Viereck often used the Senator’s office and “sometimes dictated speeches for Lundeen, openly using the Senator’s telephones to obtain material from Hans Thomsen at the [German] embassy.” Some of these speeches were markedly pro-German and pro-isolationist. Viereck would have Lundeen’s staff print thousands, and in certain cases, millions of copies of the speeches, which would then be distributed to the public.
This address by Ernest Lundeen is from the radio series Peoples Lobby from January 18, 1936.
Caveat: There is, at times, a loud whistle that goes through much of Lundeen’s address – it’s on the original discs. And despite diligent attempts at “tamping it down” it’s still there. The noise is the result of either defective original discs or the disc cutter used at the time. But it’s a rare recording from a figure who was surrounded by much controversy in the 1930s.
I also want to thank Minnpost for their 2023 article on Ernest Lundeen as well as an excerpt from the book Social Solutions To Poverty by Scott Myers-Lupton.
And while you’re here (click on the link below):