States, he argued, should control who receives money and how much. Smith wanted to ensure that the rural southerners in Virginia, especially African Americans, would not benefit from an old-age pension. Smith’s testimony made his support for passage of the bill unlikely or at least unclear. FDR worried that he represented not only himself but the entire Byrd machine and therefore the Virginia delegation.74 On February 9, 1935, three days after Smith’s testimony, FDR visited Fort Humphreys and announced the name change from a hero of the U.S. Army to “Fort Belvoir in memory of the early
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