'Forgotten Man' Term


Does anyone know if this movie coined the phrase "Forgotten Man"? Or was it a common term? It is also how they referred to William Powell in "My Man Godfrey"...

reply

Absolutely not! This movie didn't coin the phrase. It referred to FDR's speech, in which FDR stole the phrase from William Graham Sumner. Sumner referred to two people who saw another suffering and decided to help out the suffering man by taking from themselves and from a third man to give to the suffering man. The first and second man could voluntarily give to the suffering man, but the third man was coerced to contribute. The third man was the forgotten man. In FDR's 1932 campaign speech, he used the phrase to refer to the suffering man, not the coerced man, changing the concept from classical liberalism to socialism, as was FDR's wont.

reply

Thank you....

reply