Edwin E. Witte--economist, authority on labor legislation, and “father” of the Social Security Act--was a product of Wisconsin. Born in Jefferson County, he was educated at the University of Wisconsin, and throughout his professional life was employed chiefly by the state and the university. During his long and impressive career he held many federal appointments on boards and committees, and was frequently a guest lecturer at other universities; but each of these positions was of comparatively short duration. Professor Witte never failed to return to Wisconsin to continue his work, resuming lectures at the university even after his official retirement.
Edwin E. Witte was born January 4, 1887, in a rural community in Jefferson County, the son of Emil and Anna (Yaeck) Witte, and graduated from Watertown High School. He first entered the University of Wisconsin in 1905, and in 1909 was granted the A.B. degree, majoring in history. Coming under the influence of John R. Commons, he changed his major to economics when he became a graduate student, and while serving as a teaching assistant expressed a desire to specialize in labor legislation.
After spending two years in graduate school, Witte entered the field that was to make him an economist of national reputation--highly regarded by both Labor and Management and frequently consulted by Government. Appointments were many and varied; the institutions and agencies he influenced were important and far-reaching. (In Box 88 is a folder containing lists showing positions and appointments, dates, and institutions or agencies served.) In 1912, he accepted his first full-time position, as statistician for the Industrial Commission of Wisconsin. He resigned to become secretary to Congressman John M. Nelson that same year. He served as special investigator for the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations between 1914 and 1915,[1] and was secretary of the Industrial Commission of Wisconsin from 1917 to 1922. Between 1922 and 1933 he was chief of the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Library. Then and later he wrote many Wisconsin laws relating to industry and job insurance.
In 1920 Witte became a lecturer in economics at the University of Wisconsin, and continued these classes until his full-time appointment as Professor of Economics in 1933. He had received his Ph.D. degree from Wisconsin in 1927. Between 1933 and 1957 he served as chairman of his department during three different periods.
Throughout his career Witte combined or interspersed service to state and national agencies with his teaching duties. In Wisconsin he assisted the State Planning Board and the Wisconsin Labor Relations Board in the 1930s, and sat as arbitrator for the federal Defense Mediation Board and the National War Labor Board, 1941-1942, hearing cases chiefly affecting Wisconsin industries. He held many full-time positions with the federal government, chief of these being appointments as executive director of the President's Committee on Economic Security, 1934-1935; as chairman and director of the Detroit Regional War Labor Board, 1943-1944; and as public member of the National War Labor Board, 1944-1945.
Witte followed his initial service to the social security system with membership on the Social Security Advisory Council, 1937-1938, and the Federal Advisory Council on Employment Security, 1939-1942, and 1949-1952. In addition, he was consultant or arbitrator for numerous United States agencies, such as fact-finding boards in the meat packing industry, the U.S. Commission on Administrative Management, the War Manpower planning division, the Economic Stabilization Administration, the National Mediation Board, the National Wage Stabilization Board, the National Recovery Administration, the National Railway Labor Panel, the Atomic Energy Labor Relations panel, and the Social Security Board.
In addition to government work, Dr. Witte gave some service to private organizations, particularly those connected with labor. Examples of these are his membership on the boards of the National Electrical Benefit Fund of the AFL and the UAW Public Review Board. In later years he showed an interest in working with private groups concerned with problems of the aged, such as Retirement Counsellors Inc.
Between 1937 and 1956 Professor Witte was frequently absent from Madison, not only serving the government, hearing arbitration cases, or working for private organizations, but also acting as a visiting professor at other universities. These included the University of Washington, Harvard, Cornell, the University of California and UCLA, the University of Pittsburgh, Michigan State University, the University of Hawaii, American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and the University of Puerto Rico. After his official retirement from the University of Wisconsin in 1957, he taught for one year at Michigan State, but returned to Madison to offer a seminar in social security.
It was to be expected that Dr. Witte would be in great demand as a speaker on subjects relating to his field, and he participated in many conferences and symposiums. He was the author of more than one hundred articles dealing with social security, industrial relations, labor law, and labor legislation. He wrote chapters for printed symposiums; his lectures often appeared in booklets; he was the author of government reports and studies; and he published, in 1932, his book, The Government in Labor Disputes. In 1946 the U.S. Department of Labor published his booklet The Future of State Labor Legislation, and in 1950, with R.W. Fleming he wrote Case Study No. 8 for the National Planning Association, published as The Marathon Corporation and Five Labor Unions. At the time of his death, May 20, 1960, he was working on a history of Social Security in the United States, which was to have been a description and interpretation of the system; and also on a book on social security that was to trace poor relief in the United States from its beginnings to the present day.
Witte was the first president of the Industrial Relations Research Association, founded in 1948, and was a member of numerous other professional organizations. His election as president of the American Economic Association in 1955 was somewhat of a surprise to theorists in the field of economics who believe in scientific specialization in the social sciences. As a protégé of Commons, Witte was, himself, an excellent example of the institutional economist. He was described by Business Week, in its issue of November 26, 1955, as believing “that one broad mind is worth five specialized brains in social science.” In a letter to Commons, July 4, 1944, Witte wrote, “I've never been much interested in economic theory,” and December 20, 1949 he wrote to Floyd Vaughn of the London School of Economics that he held “rather unorthodox views as to economic theory.”
In 1931, Witte went to Europe with economists financed by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and on at least three other occasions he and Mrs. Witte traveled in Europe. In 1916 he had married Florence E. Rimsnider, who assisted her husband in maintaining his voluminous correspondence and research files. The Wittes had three children, John M., Margaret, and Elizabeth, all of whom were married and living elsewhere before the time of Dr. Witte's retirement. At the time of Dr. Witte's death he had 10 grandchildren.
