H102 Lecture 22: From New Deal to Fair Deal: New Deal or Same Shuffle?

This type of speech was typical for Truman, who was called the "common man's common man." Two of his favorite phrases were:

"The buck stops here"
and
"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

At times humble, Truman could also be brash and stubborn. The President's colorful speech, in fact, sometimes shocked Americans, especially after the genteel manners and refined style of FDR. Truman's daughter, Margaret, for example, fancied herself an up-and-coming opera star. When Washington Post correspondent Paul Hume gave a negative review of Margaret's concert debut in Washington D. C., the President immediately dashed off the following retort on White House letterhead:

"I have just seen your lousy review of Margaret's concert. It seems to me you're a frustrated old man. Someday I hope to meet you. When that happens, you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a jock supporter below. (signed) HST, President."

Rightward, Ho!

As we mentioned in Lecture 21, one of the consequences of World War II was a shift to the political right in American society. Already in the 1940s, there was a spirit of new conservatism that laid the groundwork for the Eisenhower era of the 1950s. Upon taking office, Truman tried to continue FDR's policies and he sent to Congress a host of New Deal-style bills. These were not bold new endeavors, but extensions of policies already in place, including:

Truman was unable to achieve any of these goals. In Congress, a new conservative coalition had arisen out of opposition to New Deal liberalism and FDR's internationalism. This conservative coalition brought together Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans. Southern Democrats, on the whole, were more conservative fiscally, socially, and politically then Democrats in the Northeast or the Midwest. In addition, they opposed Truman's liberal stance on civil rights for African-Americans. Furthermore, Northern Republicans who joined this emerging political coalition generally opposed government involvement in the nation's economy.

The 1946 Elections: "To Err is Truman"

1946 was not a good year for Truman or his supporters. Critics on all sides attacked the President and his policies. On the one hand, liberals pined for Roosevelt and criticized Truman's labor policies. On the other hand, the fuel of post-war inflation added to the anti-Truman fire of conservatives. Truman's approval ratings dropped significantly--from 87% when he took office to 32% in early November, 1946. During the midterm congressional elections of 1946, Republicans ran under the slogan "Had enough?" Apparently, many Americans had had enough: the GOP gained 11 seats in the Senate and 56 in the House and took control of Congress for the first time since 1928.

Cartoon depicts Harry Truman asking Congress for powers he is not big enough to handle

The 1948 Elections: "The Comeback Kid"

The presidential election of 1948 was a classic political upset that demonstrated that liberalism was still a force in American politics. Prior to the Democratic National Convention, most party members were unhappy with Truman, but refused to break with tradition by failing to nominate an incumbent President for reelection. The Republicans chose Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York as their candidate.

"The Campaign Begins in Earnest," cartoon by Walt Kelly in the New York Star (depicts Thomas Dewey, Harry Truman, and Henry A. Wallace)

There were also two candidates that represented groups that had splintered from the Democratic Party. One of these groups was the Progressive Party, which nominated Henry A. Wallace, a former Vice President under Franklin D. Roosevelt. These Progressives were not cut from the same cloth as Teddy Roosevelt or Robert LaFollette. Instead, they were leftists who championed nationalized banking and greater socialization of the economy and who enjoyed the support of the Communist Party of the United States.

Barry Goldwater (1909- )

At the same time, another party also broke away from the Democrats. At the 1948 Democratic Convention, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota introduced a platform plank that committed the party to civil rights. In protest, a host of southern delegates stormed out and formed the States' Rights party. These so-called "Dixiecrats" nominated Governor J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as their candidate for President.

Harry Truman had progressive views on civil rights and was a strong advocate of Humphrey's proposal. In a 1947 speech, Truman stated:

"Our immediate task is to remove the last remnants of the barriers which stand between millions of our citizens and their birthright. There is no justifiable reason for discrimination because of ancestry or religion or race or color."

With the Democratic Party split three ways, it looked as if Dewey's win was inevitable. Truman went on a whistle-stop campaign across the nation and attacked the "do-nothing Congress." The results of the election startled everyone, especially the Chicago Daily Tribune, which had printed up its morning edition with the banner headline: "Dewey Defeats Truman."

Why Truman won:

The Fair Deal

After his successful election campaign, Truman set out to prove that New Deal liberalism was not yet dead in America. He proposed an ambitious legislative agenda that he dubbed the "Fair Deal." Although Truman had supported New Deal relief and reform, he also believed that newer reforms were needed to solve the nation's economic and social problems in the post-war era. He contended that his Fair Deal program would redistribute income among people of various classes--transfer money from the very rich to the very poor--and, in the process, assuage many of the nation's most pressing social problems. Truman's Fair Deal included six major federal initiatives:

In the end, Truman's attempt to introduce his Fair Deal was largely a failure. Few of his initiatives became law. Congress refused to create a national health care program, did little to reform education (with the exception of the G. I. Bill), extended unemployment benefits only slightly, and put off new civil rights legislation. Truman did convince Congress to pass a major housing initiative in 1949. Otherwise, however, the conservative political coalition blocked the President at every turn. While Truman's election in 1948 proved that liberalism was not yet dead, the country did seem to be moving further and further to the right politically.

Harry S Truman (1884-1972)

An Economic Shift to the Right

Changes in the economy also suggested that the country was shifting more and more to the right at mid-century. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the nation's economy faced two major problems: reconversion from a wartime to a peacetime economy and the growing power of American labor unions.

Reconversion--The problem of reconversion had three main parts:

1. Spiraling inflation. During the war, the Office of Price Administration had controlled prices and wages. After the war's end, many conservatives wanted to eliminate such controls and ultimately succeeded in doing so in 1946. American consumers were also anxious to spend money on new products. Without wartime price controls, consumer demand outran supply, and inflation ballooned in the United States.

2. Wartime to peacetime production. One reason for the continued shortage of consumer goods was the transition necessary to move from wartime to peacetime production. Business leaders had been unaware of the atomic bomb and were not prepared for such a quick end to the Pacific war. As a result, when the war came to an end, American factories were still producing planes and tanks instead of radios and washing machines.

3. What to do with the returning G. I. To avoid repeating the situation after the First World War, when servicemen came home to find no jobs, few educational opportunities, and a housing crunch, Congress passed the Servicemen's Readjustment Act in 1944. The G. I. Bill (as it was popularly known) committed billions of federal dollars of support for housing, education, health benefits, and job training.

Labor--The second crucial post-war issue was labor unrest. In the aftermath of the War, a wave of strikes swept the nation. In 1946, for example, 400,000 miners struck not once, but twice. In all, 4.6 million workers struck at one time or another during that year. The conservatives' reply to the labor problem was the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. This act remains on the books today. Three presidents, in fact, have evoked the law on different occasions to undermine the power of organized labor in the United States. The act has four main points:

As it turned out, the Taft-Hartley Act may have strengthened big labor by forcing various groups to work together in the face of extraordinary opposition. Over the next decade, the conservative attack on unions encouraged these groups to coordinate strategies and to pool their resources. In 1955, for example, two competing unions joined forces: the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The AFL-CIO represented over 70% of the American unionized labor force and became the largest federation of labor unions in the United States.

In the aftermath of war, many Americans began to question the wisdom of federal economic and social legislation. At the same time, Americans increasingly feared the growth of Communism at home and abroad. Perhaps no politician personified this growing fear more than Joseph McCarthy, a Senator from Wisconsin who fanned the flames of American anti-Communism at mid-century. McCarthyism, however, was just one element of a larger Cold War mentality that emerged in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Our discussion of the origins and growth of the Cold War is extraordinarily important. So important, in fact, that we'll take it up in Lecture 23: "The Cold War and the 'Hot' Economy: the 1950s"

Skip Directly To Lecture:

|| 01 || 02 || 03 || 04 || 05 || 06 || 07 || 08 || 09 || 10 ||

|| 11 || 12 || 13 || 14 || 15 || 16 || 17 || 18 || 19 || 20 ||

|| 21 || 22 || 23 || 24 || 25 || 26 || 27 || 28 || 29 || 30 ||