---

What happened to Amelia Earhart’s plane? Where are Walt Whitman’s six notebooks that disappeared during transfer to safekeeping during World War II? Where is the original copy of the Bill of Rights that was stolen by a Union soldier in North Carolina at the end of the Civil War? How did Wilbur and Orville Wright’s airplane patent disappear from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., only to be discovered decades later in a limestone cave in Kansas?

The Hallmark Channel hasn’t cornered the whole mystery market. There are plenty of others for aspiring sleuths.

The Social Security Act, arguably the most important piece of domestic legislation of the past century, celebrates its 90^th birthday on Thursday.

While cutting the cake, it is a good occasion to crack open a decade-old mystery. What happened to that historic pen that President Franklin Roosevelt used to sign the bill into law?

A pen has been on display at the Smithsonian Institution as part of its exhibit on the Social Security Act. It is on loan from the Fraternal Order of the Eagles, which received the pen via letter from President Roosevelt thanking them for their support in passing the legislation. But is it the pen?

For decades it has been recognized as the instrument used in enacting social security. President Bill Clinton even borrowed the pen on the 60^th anniversary of the Act to sign an expansion (H.R. 4277) to the Social Security Act.

But digging through the archives for real time reporting on the signing, the New York Times, on August 15, 1935, noted that Roosevelt used more than one pen to sign the bill.

 A close inspection of the official signing ceremony photo clearly shows five pens — one in hand and a few more above the document. In fact, the article noted that Roosevelt handed a pen to Frances Perkins, the legendary Secretary of Labor who was standing right behind him during the signing.  Contacting The Perkins Center in Newcastle, Maine last week, officials there said they did not have the pen or otherwise know of its whereabouts. The NY Times writer says another was given to Sen. Joseph Guffey of Pennsylvania who, the article mentions, was supposed to deliver it to the Order of Eagles. But did he? Why did Roosevelt need to send a pen from the White House if Guffey had already delivered it? A careful reading of Roosvelt’s letter to the Eagles shows that he was sending “a pen” used to sign the bill. Interestingly, that pen and letter were not sent until October 25, more than two months after the actual signing.

Was this a mulligan pen? Do pens have DNA? What would Inspector Clouseau make of all this?

Fast forward to the 21^st century. Karen Ward was busy unpacking boxes from her move to a smaller home in Washington State. Her husband had recently passed and it was time to downsize. Many of the boxes were crammed with political memorabilia. Her late husband, Baxter Ward Schwellenbach, had been a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Member and a prominent TV journalist at KABC in Los Angeles.

Baxter’s uncle, Lewis Schwellenbach, had been a United States Senator from Washington from 1934-1940, swept into office with other Democrats in the 1934 election on the popularity of Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal.’ Lewis was a vocal supporter of labor unions and an activist advocating for financially strapped retirees. In fact, he would later succeed Frances Perkins as President Truman’s pick for Secretary of Labor in 1945. He died in 1948.

After his passing, his wife asked nephew Baxter if he would take the late senator’s memorabilia for safe keeping for future generations. For the better part of 15 years those boxes of history were tucked away in a dark corner of Karen and Baxter’s home.

I first talked with Karen in the summer of 2004. As a former TV newsperson myself, I was interested in her husband’s career and what reporting was like in Los Angeles in the 1960s. The conversation soon drifted into her family’s storied career in politics.

Sifting through those boxes she found correspondence between Lewis and many prominent political figures of the era. At the bottom of one of the boxes was one letter that especially caught her eye. The heading was in bold type “The White House-Washington.” August 1935. A wood shafted, steel dip pen was attached.

It had some light water staining near the bottom but the writing was still crystal clear.

“Dear Senator,

I take pleasure in transmitting to you herewith one of the pens with which the President signed the Social Security Bill.”

The letter is signed by M.H. McIntyre, Roosevelt’s personal secretary who organized the official bill signing ceremony and delivered just a few days after the event.

The Bradley Brattleboro steel tip ink well pen, identical to the one Roosevelt is seen holding in the official photograph, is still attached to the letter.

Well now, Inspector, the mystery has taken an unexpected turn. Now there are two pens. One on each coast.

Don’t tell the Smithsonian.

Happy Birthday Social Security! May you live long and prosper.