Who exactly is “The Forgotten Man”?
Roosevelt had a specific definition of “the Forgotten Man.” His definition he gave in an early 1932 campaign speech. He spoke of the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid. The man who wrote that line was Ray Moley, a wonderful speechwriter and friend of Roosevelt’s — a brain-truster. Moley wrote to his sister that he wasn’t exactly sure where he had got that phrase, “forgotten man.” But it was in the air and there was an original place from which it came. When those men — Moley, Roosevelt — were babies or just about to be babies, there was a national best-seller in the United States called “The Forgotten Man.” Its author was a fellow named William Graham Sumner. He was a Yale professor and he had a different forgotten man in mind. Sumner’s “Forgotten Man” was the forgotten taxpayer who subsidizes the perhaps dubious project for the poor man. These two concepts were in opposition. People in the New Deal period knew both sides and they debated it throughout. The question
