Truman Domestic Policies

McElhaney

APUSH

• Servicemen's Readjustment Act, 1944 (GI Bill)
• Taft-Hartley Act, 1947
• Fair Deal
• Racial issues after WWII
• Desegregation of Military
• Jackie Robinson
• Jim Crowe South
• Truman and Early Civil Rights
• Civil Rights and the Election of 1948
• Thomas E. Dewey
• J. Strom Thurmond
• “Dixiecrats”

• Henry Wallace
• Alger Hiss
• Joseph McCarthy
• House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
• Hollywood Ten
• Dalton Trumbo
• Edward R. Murrow
• Waldorf Statement
• McCarren Internal Security Act, 1950
• Dennis v. United States, 1951

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Today

• Truman Domestic Policies
• Economy Post WWII
• Fear of recession
• Women leave workforce
• Labor Unrest/Strikes
• GOP Congress 1946
• Taft-Hartley Bill
• GI Bill of Rights
• “Fair Deal”
• Election 1948

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Postwar Domestic Adjustments

• US After WWII 10 million service men and women were demobilized.
• Fear of economic recession- many believed that there would be a rise in unemployment (true but not too bad)
• The economy changed from War production to consumer goods
• Women left the work force in large numbers, 3 million
• Labor unrest: Unions ended their war time promise to end strikes and a wave of strikes occurs
• United Mine workers go on strike, after 45 days Truman proposes government be authorized to take control of essential industries crippled by strikes and draft strikers. (Truman alienates unions)

The Taft-Hartley Act

• Republicans take control of both houses of Congress in 1946 and seek to return to a conservative government:
• Lower taxes
• Reduced government regulation
• Support for business
• Anti-Union – reduce the power of unions to aid business
• End price controls passed during the war
• Taft, a conservative Republican Senator sponsored act
• Authorized President- 80 day cooling off period for strikes in essential industries
• Banned shops closed to non-union members

Truman Vetoes but is overridden

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“GI Bill of Rights”

• Servicemen's Readjustment Act, 1944 (GI Bill) Benefits offered by the government to help returning soldiers- Subsidies
• Housing support and loans
• Education funding
• Job training
• Business loans

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Fair Deal: Liberal programs of Truman similar to New Deal

• 1949, Truman called for a "Fair Deal" including housing, full employment, and higher minimum wage, better farm supports, new TVAs and extension of Social Security, and increased rights for African Americans.
• Limited and refused by Republican Congress 1946

• XI. Truman’s FAIR DEAL �    A. The only major successes were raising the minimum wage, public housing and extending old-age insurance to more beneficiaries (SSA of 1950) �    C. In essence, Truman was able to preserve New Deal programs but unable to add to it. �    D. Coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats prevented little more than the �        maintenance of existing programs. �  

Truman and Civil Rights

• The “serious gap between our ideals and some of our practices… must be closed.”
• 1948 Orders End to Segregation in the Armed Forces
• And Civil Service

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Truman and Civil Rights

• Supports the trend in post war America against intolerance-
• of discrimination of the Nazis- rings loud and clear- Nuremberg Trials began, the truth of Nazi racism comes out
• War was fought for freedom- freedom should be available at home
• Some former soldiers don’t like racism in USA
• American society is developing conditions for change emerge

Emergence of the Civil Rights Movement

• Anti-Semitism begins to decline-social clubs, universities, industries
• New Deal included African Americans in jobs and relief programs (not perfect, but not excluded)
• During War FDR desegregated War Industries
• African Americans in the North experience more integration- Jackie Robinson- Brooklyn Dodgers- signed 1947

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The South is Segregated and had limited signs of changing

NAACP: “It’s not Russia that threatens the United States so much as Mississippi.”

• Jim Crow South= segregated South
• Institutionalized, legal discrimination, limiting African Americans in public sphere- Schools, restaurants, hotels, restrooms, hotels, drinking fountains, movie theatres
• Separate but Equal practices- ruled constitutional with Plessey v. Ferguson 1892- Supreme Court ruled that separate public facilities was OK.
• State laws designed to limit African Americans-specifically voting
• Overturned with the Brown vs. Board of Education 1954
• 1945-50 Reduction in lynching
• Increase in black voting

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Incremental Civil Rights for �African Americans

• 1946 Morgan v. Virginia- segregation in public interstate travel was unconstitutional
• 1950- Shelley v. Kraemer- restrictive covenants in housing- not selling property to members of certain groups violated the Constitution

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Early Civil Rights Organization

• Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
• Precursor to Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC will be active in the 1950s and 60s Civil Rights Movement)
• SNCC Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (Lunch Counter “Sit Ins”)

Essay Question:

• Why does the Civil Rights Movement see success after WWII?
• Environment for change emerges because of WWII racial excesses
• Philosophy of Ameircan efforts to fight = Freedom/Equality…
• Protests Movements show the dichotomy of Values vs Practices in Ameirca (horrible treatment on TV, Montgomery and Selma 1960s)

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Election 1948

• Southern Democrats leave national party in response to Truman's support for Civil Rights
• Dixicrats
• Strom Thurmond- South Carolina Senator, runs for president
• Dewey runs for the Republicans
• Truman appeared to lose- but appeals directly to the people citing the “Do nothing Republican Congress” and Wins the Election

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• Democrats also win the congress back…

Next Up

• 2^nd Red Scare 1945-1960
• HUAC
• Subversives
• Hollywood 10
• Black Listed
• Dalton Trumbo
• Loyalty Program

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• Nixon and HUAC
• Alger Hiss
• Joe McCarthy
• Edward R. Murrow

Essay:

• How do you account for the appeal of McCarthyism in the United States in the era following the Second World War?

Why are Americans afraid of Communism?

• Legacy of the war- Appeasement- causes sensitivity to international issues
• Soviet Expansion in Europe
• Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia
• Chinese Revolution- Mao and Chiang
• Berlin Crisis- Airlift
• Soviets obtaining the Atomic Bomb 1949
• Clause Fuchs-Soviet Spy named Whittaker Chambers– Alger Hiss

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• Communism is seen as a threat to US way of life
• Republicans use the fear of Communism to criticize the New Deal, Truman Administration “Soft on communism”
• Fear of nuclear war by American public

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Another Red Scare

• After WWII Americans became concerned with the threat of Communism’s expansion
• Resulted in search for spies and communists in the United States
• House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began during the war and became pre-occupied with the hunt for American “subversives”
• “Are you now or were you ever a communist?"

“Subversive”?

HUAC under Truman

• The “Hollywood Ten”
• HUAC believed that some writers and producers in Hollywood were making movies sympathetic to communism and were trying to manipulate the American public
• 10 Screenwriters were found in contempt for refusing to answer questions and give information- they were sent to Prison-
• Subsequent actors, producers and writers will be investigated and if they have any connection to communism or sympatric to communism, they will be banned from the movie industry- “Blacklisted”
• Dalton Trumbo was the most famous of this group.

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1947 Federal Employee Loyalty Program

• Truman implemented a program to end criticism of his administration being “Soft on Communism”
• Review complaints of disloyalty
• Program investigated thousands and found nothing substantial- however pushed people out of the government
• Invaded people’s private lives
• Significance:
• Another Cold War domestic reaction

Hollywood Ten

• Dalton Trumbo
• Short Article
• click for more info

Nixon and HUAC

• In the Early Period- Richard Nixon becomes famous for his efforts to find communists in the US- he was a Congressman from California
• He gains fame from his prosecution and investigation of Alger Hiss- a State Department official who was giving information to the Soviets through a spy named Whittaker Chambers. Chambers was a Time magazine editor who received immunity for information.
• Hiss was never found guilty of spying but for perjury to the committee.

“Tricky Dick”

• First gains fame as member
• Of HUAC
• Pursues- Alger Hiss
• Then VP for Eisenhower

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• Checkers Speech

McCarthyism 1950

• Link
• The greatest image of Red Scare 1950’s is Joseph McCarthy- Republican Senator from Wisconsin.
• He is associated with bullying, intimidating, and harassing witnesses
• Launched a crusade to find communists in the US
• He claimed there were 200 Communists in the State Department
• He finds public support for his attacks and used TV and Radio to gain support
• He is popular for a short time

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McCarthy 1950

• He said: “I have here in my hand a list of 205 (employees) known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.”
• This fed into the fear of communism and to the political attacks on Truman for being “soft on Communism”
• He spent the next two years raising malicious and reckless attacks

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McCarthy Attacked

• “Have you no sense of decency”
• George Marshall- great hero of WWII FDR’s chief of staff.
• Should be understood as a reaction against Democrat controlled government
• His movement appealed to Republicans and those affected by Communist take over in Eastern Europe (ethnic groups, Catholics)
• Legislation associated with the “Witch Hunt”
• Internal Security Act- said communist organizations had to register, members were ineligible for government and defense jobs

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McCarthyism

• Much of his accusations were untrue
• People were ruined
• McCarthyism is known as unprincipled abuse of rights and
• Smear attacks on character and loyalty

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Lesson From History: What to do with political bullies: video

Edward Murrow, See It Now (9th March, 1954)��“The line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly.��We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep into our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. ��This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthty's methods to keep silent. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result.”

Truman decides not to run for reelection in 1952

• Military deadlock in Korea, war-induced inflation, and White House scandal. �
• Adlai E. Stevenson runs on the Democratic ticket against Dwight D. Eisenhower.
• Election of 1952, Eisenhower defeats Stevenson 442-89. Nixon is VP.

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