Social Security has its beginnings in Montana

Editor:

On March 5, 1923, Gov. Jospeh M. Dixon, a Republican, signed into law Montana's Old-Age Pension Act.

That was 12 years before the national Social Security Act of 1935. This Montana law was the first state social security law in the nation to withstand constitutional challenge. Montana set the precedent for the nation. For Montana, and later for the nation, economic depression prompted action. Montana's drought of 1917 to 1921 dried up more than the land in eastern Montana. Farmers fled the state. By 1923 Montana was deep in an economic depression. In fact, Montana had the highest ba...