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<div id="title-bar"><h2>Social Security History</h2></div>
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<h3>Social Security Pioneers</h3>
<p align=center><IMG SRC="pics/balloasis.gif" WIDTH="264" HEIGHT="292" ALIGN="BOTTOM" ALT="Bob Ball in 1973" BORDER="0"></p>
<p align=center>"The man who runs the biggest retirement and insurance system in<br> the world is calm, helpful, friendly, caring, immensely competent and<br> virtually anonymous even to most of the Americans he helps."</p>
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<div class="metro red"><h3>BALL ENDING 30 YEARS OF SERVICE WITH SSA</h3></div>
<p>IT IS TO ROBERT M. BALL'S &quot;great credit
that the Social Security Administration has, indeed, become
a model for other government agencies in discharging its responsibilities
to the American public.&quot;<BR>
This is how President Nixon appraised Commissioner Ball's record
when he accepted his resignation as Commissioner of Social Security.
The President went on to say that Mr. Ball has &quot;every reason
to be proud&quot; of the broadened scope of social security
and the &quot;finest in administrative implementation&quot;
of legislative amendments which have taken place during his
service as Commissioner. The President's encomiums add to the
long line of those Mr. Ball has won over the years and continues
to receive as he plans his new role in the development of national
social policy.<BR>
<BR>
Mr. Ball first became interested in the social security program
in his senior year at Wesleyan, which was 1935. &quot;The thing
that has appealed to me most about the program, Mr. Ball once
remarked, &quot;is that it supplies a continuing income to groups
who without it would be most susceptible to poverty, yet it
does this through their own effort-the protection grows out
of the work they do and contributions they make. I've always
been glad I made the choice of career I did.&quot;<BR>
<BR>
Rapid promotion to more and more responsible positions, both
in the field and at headquarters, showed that Mr. Ball's strong
interest in social security was matched by his abilities. Starting
out practically at the bottom of the ladder, he has commented,
was probably the best thing that could have happened to him:
&quot;I think I learned more about social security in those
days of working at the grass roots than I could have learned
in any other way.&quot;<BR>
<BR>
Although he left the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance
(forerunner of the present Social Security Administration) for
3 years in the late 1940's, Mr. Ball continued to work in the
social security field. A book which includes a chapter on Mr.
Ball's career* (*Adventures in Public Service, New York, 1963.)
mentions the opinion held by many people that his work as staff
director for the 1949 Advisory Council on Social Security &quot;was
the best thing that could have happened for American social
security.&quot;<BR>
Over the years, Commissioner Ball has been recognized for a
number of qualities and abilities, such as: Tireless worker,
inspiring leader of staff, persuasive champion of principles
of social security, outstanding administrator, and dedicated
humanitarian.<BR>
<BR>
Tireless dedication to duty was one of the qualities recognized
in the 1954 Distinguished Service Award of the Department of
HEW, an award based on Mr. Ball's performance as Acting Director
of the Bureau of OASI in the early months of the Eisenhower
administration. His great capacity to endure, even thrive, under
extreme work pressures and many long hours of exacting effort
has been testified to over and over by the many SSA staff members
who have worked with him and attempted to maintain his pace.
The 1958 Career Service Award of the National Civil Service
League cited both his standing as a distinguished authority
on social security and his &quot;notable ability to lead and
inspire those who work with him.&quot;<BR>
<BR>
Commissioner Ball is widely known, both in this country and
abroad, as an eloquent, persuasive advocate of contributory
social insurance. Among those conversant with the history of
social security in the United States he is recognized as one
of a handful of men most influential in the remarkably successful
development of the social security idea into a working reality
for the American family. His reputation was well established
in his work with the 1949 Advisory Council on Social Security,
whose recommendations marked a major turning point in the program's
history. The 1950 amendments, which grew out of the Council's
recommendations, firmly established the program's principles
and were the starting point for the long series of progressive
improvements that have continued through the 1972 amendments.
There can be no doubt that Mr. Ball's influence was fundamental
to the reaffirmation of program goals and direction that the
Council's work and subsequent legislation represented.<BR>
Not long after his late-1949 return to BOASI, Mr. Ball served
as a staff director for the National Planning Association's
pioneering study, published in 1952 as Pensions in the United
Stales. The report still serves as a basic reference source
on the subject.<BR>
<BR>
Soon after the 1952 elections, the new Administration appointed
consultants from outside the Government to study the coverage
of the social security program. As one account of the period
said, &quot;These consultants, after making a thorough study
of the program, recommended still further extensions of coverage.&quot;
As staff director for the study, Mr. Ball again played the lead
role in stimulating confidence in both the principles and the
administration of the program.<BR>
<BR>
In 1953, a subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee (which
is responsible for social security legislation in the House
of Representatives) began a searching and detailed inquiry both
into the administrative practices and policies of social security
and into the principles of the program. Mr. Ball was a key witness,
answering a stream of detailed questions for several days. To
him belongs a major part of the credit for a stout defense of
the principles and policies of social security.<BR>
<BR>
Mr. Ball had lead roles in the history of social security throughout
the 1950's, the 1960's, and into the 1970's as the program continued
to be extended and otherwise improved under four Presidents.
Perhaps the most significant of the program extensions was Medicare.
Mr. Ball appeared time after time as witness before congressional
committees. These committees, as well as every Secretary of
HEW, have cited him for his competence. The tributes Mr. Ball
has received for performance as a witness consistently mention
that he impressed Congressmen and Senators with his mastery
of facts, figures and details, and with his clear, convincing,
and patient presentations.<BR>
<BR>
As an administrator, Commissioner Ball has also received much
praise. The citation on the Arthur J. Altmeyer Award presented
to him in 1968 reads: &quot;His Leadership, Dedication, and
Administrative Ability Have Brought Hope and Dignity to Millions
of Americans.&quot; Mr. Ball was the first person to receive
the Rockefeller Public Service Award for &quot;distinguished
service in the field of administration.&quot;<BR>
<BR>
In a 1972 letter to Mr. Ball, President Nixon praised him for
&quot;reducing costs in the Social Security Administration without
sacrificing the quality of services.&quot; The letter said that
this achievement not only reflects your admirable concern for
the public well-being but also testifies to your highly effective
leadership.&quot;<BR>
Chairman Wilbur D. Mills of the House Ways and Means Committee
was recently quoted as describing Mr. Ball as &quot;a near genius
in administration.&quot; And former HEW Secretary Wilbur J.
Cohen told a reporter in 1966 that he thought of Mr. Ball as
early as the 1940's as &quot;a simply superb administrator.&quot;
The same reporter gave this impression of the Commissioner:
&quot;The man who runs the biggest retirement and insurance
system in the world is calm, helpful, friendly, caring, immensely
competent and virtually anonymous even to most of the Americans
he helps.&quot;<BR>
<BR>
While Mr. Ball would be the first to say that the administrative
success of social security is largely attributable to its dedicated
and competent staff, the fact remains that be was at the helm.
As the second in command for 10 years and the top man for 11
more, Mr. Ball had major responsibility on administrative policy
questions, including the organization of SSA and selection and
placement of key staff.<BR>
<BR>
In the 1950's, Commissioner Ball carried the primary responsibility
for dealing with committees appointed to investigate the administration
of social security. In each case the committees concluded that
the organization was, in fact, efficiently carrying out the
provisions of the law. For example, the Secretary of HEW in
1957 appointed a consulting committee of businessmen, led by
Reinhard A. Hohaus, vice-president of Metropolitan Life Insurance
Company, to investigate the administration of BOASI. The committee
investigated for a year and reported to the Secretary that &quot;The
Bureau is carrying out its mission in a sound and vigorous manner.
. . . The consultants were impressed with the effective and
competent manner in which the staff of the Bureau appeared to
be managing their responsibilities . . . with the way the Bureau
personnel met and dealt with the public and with the impression
of both efficiency and friendliness created by the typical OASI
district office.&quot;</p>
<br>
<center>
<TABLE WIDTH="48%" BORDER="1" CELLPADDING="6" class="ninetypercent">
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFCC"><B>Commissioner Ball
carried the primary responsibility for dealing with committees
appointed to investigate the administration of social
security. In each case, the committees concluded that
the organization was efficiently carrying out the provisions
of the law.</B></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
</center>
<P>In 1959, a subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee
began an investigation into the administration of the disability
program. The subcommittee was reported to believe that the program
was being administered poorly. According to the account in the
book, Adventures in Public Service, &quot;Those who were present
at the initial hearings still recall Ball's explanatory statement
to the Committee as a model of clarity. Day after day, Robert
Ball, Victor Cristgau, Arthur Hess, and others faced the investigating
committee. . . . This went on for months.&quot; By the end of
the hearings, the Committee had changed its tone: the subcommittee
chairman said &quot;We have some appreciation now . . . of what
a tremendous task the Congress had imposed on you and the diligence
and intelligence with which your Bureau and its officials have
gone about in trying to carry it out. . . . On the whole, the
program has been administered very fairly and with great capacity
by excellent public officials. We are particularly grateful
to Mr. Ball, who has demonstrated his great capacity and his
dedication to performance of these services with his great ability.&quot;<BR>
<BR>
Investigating committees have not been the only bodies before
which Mr. Ball has testified. Year after year he has had to
present and defend the SSA administrative budget before HEW
officials, Office of Management and Budget hearings, and the
Appropriations Committees of the Congress. He has frequently
testified on various aspects of social security operations before
other congressional committees, such as Government operations
and the Senate Committee on Aging. And he has maintained a high
reputation with Department officials for his competent presentations
of SSA administrative policy recommendations to the Secretary.<BR>
<BR>
One of the factors sometimes cited in analysis of the success
of social security administrative policies is the existence
of a clearly defined set of objectives for the entire agency-originally
known as the &quot;Statement of Bureau Objectives&quot; and
now entitled &quot;The Objectives of the Social Security Administration.&quot;
Mr. Ball devoted much time and attention to the formulation
of this expression of administrative goals and principles. As
HEW Secretary, Arthur S. Flemming (now Consultant on Aging to
President Nixon) said after reading the pamphlet, &quot;This
is the finest statement of its kind by a government agency that
it has been my privilege to read.&quot;<BR>
When the implementation of the Medicare program got underway,
the agency's objectives and administrative capacities were tested
to what then seemed to be their limits. President Johnson described
setting up Medicare as the most massive administrative operation
in peace time. Today, Medicare is a well-established program,
paying out last year about $8.8 billion to help meet the health
costs of older people.<BR>
<BR>
Many other landmarks in social security history could be cited
to illustrate that SSA has met challenge after challenge in
making social security one of the most widely approved of all
Government programs. Commissioner Ball has consistently emphasized
that the success social security has achieved is due in large
measure to the dedicated men and women who have worked as employees
of SSA. It was with gratitude and considerable good feeling
toward all those employees, past and present, that Mr. Ball
recently wrote, &quot;I believe, Mr. President, that the social
security program and the organization that administers it are
in excellent shape.&quot;<BR>
<BR>
During a recent television interview, the Commissioner said
that the test of whether he has been a good administrator will
be in whether the Social Security Administration can perform
well without him. In a message to SSA employees on January 5
he said, &quot;The Social Security Administration will be faced
with a very considerable challenge in putting into operation
the major social advances contained in H.R. 1, but I have every
confidence that the organization will perform well; we have
always been at our best under pressure.&quot;<BR>
<BR>
Mr. Ball now plans to devote himself to study and writing to
help in the development of long-range national policy in health
insurance, social security, welfare, and the organization of
government for dealing with social programs. It is clear that
he is already searching out new challenges. And this was predictable.
As one observer of current events and of Mr. Ball has written,
&quot;. . . there are always men with a great capacity for self-renewal,
continuing growth, and adaptability to altered circumstances
and problems. Such men not only can meet new challenges, but
have a way of searching them out.&quot;</P>
<center>
<TABLE WIDTH="80%" BORDER="1" CELLPADDING="6" class="ninetypercent">
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFCC"><FONT COLOR="#333333">Robert
Myers Ball was born March 28, 1914, in New York City.
Raised in the New York City area, he received a B.A. in
English from Wesleyan University in Connecticut in 1935
and an M.A. in economics from Wesleyan in 1936. He was
elected to Phi Beta Kappa.<BR>
<BR>
He joined the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance
(predecessor to the present Social Security Administration)
in 1939 as a field assistant, grade 3, in the Newark,
N.J. District Office. Mr. Ball worked in other Social
Security field jobs, including manager of the Bayonne,
N.J. District Office, before coming to the central office
in 1942. His early service in the central office included
that of training specialist and unit chief in the Analysis
Division (forerunner of today's Office of Program Evaluation
and Planning).<BR>
<BR>
In 1946 he left Government service and became Assistant
Director of the American Council on Education's Committee
on Education and Social Security. In 1947 and 1948 he
served as staff director of the Advisory Council on Social
Security established by the Senate Finance Committee.<BR>
<BR>
Mr. Ball returned to the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors
Insurance in 1949 as an Assistant Director of the Bureau,
responsible for what was then called the Division of Program
Analysis. He became Deputy Director of BOASI in 1952,
and in 1962, upon nomination by President Kennedy and
confirmation by the United States Senate, he became Commissioner
of Social Security.<BR>
<BR>
He is the author of many published reports in the field
of social security and social welfare and has served in
top positions of the American Public Welfare Association,
the International Social Security Association, The National
Council on Aging, and other professional organizations.
His awards include the HEW Distinguished Service Award
(1954), the National Civil Service League's Career Service
Award (1958), the Rockefeller Public Service Award (1961),
and the Arthur J. Altmeyer Award (1968).<BR>
Mr. Ball is married, has two children, and lives in Baltimore
County near the Woodlawn headquarters of the Social Security
Administration.</FONT></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
</center>
<br>
<br>
<h4>February 1973 OASIS</h4>
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