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American History CHAPTER 11: Postwar America |
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American History
Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7
Ch 8 | Ch 9 | Ch 10 | Ch 11 | Ch 12 | Ch 13 | Ch 14
CHAPTER 11: Postwar America
An Outline of American History
"We must build a new world, a far better world -- one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected."
-- President Harry S. Truman, 1945
CONSENSUS AND CHANGE
The United States dominated global affairs in the years immediately after
World War II. Victorious in that great struggle, its homeland undamaged from
the ravages of war, the nation was confident of its mission at home and
abroad. U.S. leaders wanted to maintain the democratic structure they had
defended at tremendous cost and to share the benefits of prosperity as
widely as possible. For them, as for publisher Henry Luce of Time magazine,
this was the "American Century."
For 20 years, most Americans remained sure of this confident approach. They
accepted the need for a strong stance against the Soviet Union in the Cold
War that unfolded after 1945. They endorsed the growth of government
authority and accepted the outlines of the welfare state, first formulated
during the New Deal. They enjoyed the postwar prosperity that created new
levels of affluence in the United States.
But gradually some Americans began to question dominant assumptions about
American life. Challenges on a variety of fronts shattered the consensus. In
the 1950s, African Americans launched a crusade, joined later by other
minority groups and women, for a larger share of the American dream. In the
1960s, politically active students protested the nation's role abroad,
particularly in the corrosive war in Vietnam, and a youth counterculture
challenged the status quo of American values. Americans from many walks of
life sought to establish a new equilibrium in the United States.
COLD WAR AIMS
The Cold War was the most important political issue of the early postwar
period. It grew out of longstanding disagreements between the Soviet Union
and the United States. In 1918 American troops participated in the Allied
intervention in Russia on behalf of anti-Bolshevik forces. American
diplomatic recognition of the Bolshevik regime did not come until 1933. Even
then, suspicions persisted. During World War II, however, the two countries
found themselves allied and thus ignored their differences to counter the
Nazi threat.
At the war's end, antagonisms surfaced again. The United States hoped to
share with other countries its conception of liberty, equality and
democracy. With the rest of the world in turmoil, struggling with civil wars
and disintegrating empires, the nation hoped to provide the stability to
make peaceful reconstruction possible. Unable to forget the specter of the
Great Depression (1929-1940), America now fostered its familiar position of
free trade, and sought to eliminate trade barriers both to create markets
for American agricultural and industrial products, and to ensure the ability
of West European nations to export as a means to generate economic growth
and rebuild their economies. Reduced trade barriers, it was believed, would
promote economic growth at home and abroad, and bolster stability with U.S.
friends and allies.
The Soviet Union had its own agenda. The Russian historical tradition of
centralized, autocratic government contrasted with the American emphasis on
democracy. Marxist-Leninist ideology had been downplayed during the war but
still guided Soviet policy. Devastated by the struggle in which 20 million
Soviet citizens had died, the Soviet Union was intent on rebuilding and on
protecting itself from another such terrible conflict. The Soviets were
particularly concerned about another invasion of their territory from the
west. Having repelled Hitler's thrust, they were determined to preclude
another such attack. The Soviet Union now demanded "defensible" borders and
regimes sympathetic to its aims in Eastern Europe. But the United States had
declared the restoration of independence and self-government to Poland,
Czechoslovakia and the other countries of Central and Eastern Europe one of
its war aims.
HARRY TRUMAN'S LEADERSHIP
Harry Truman succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt as president before the end of
the war. An unpretentious man who had previously served as Democratic
senator from Missouri, then as vice president, Truman initially felt
ill-prepared to govern the United States. Roosevelt had not confided in him
about complex postwar issues and he had little prior experience in
international affairs. "I'm not big enough for this job," he told a former
colleague.
But Truman responded quickly to new challenges. Impulsive, he proved willing
to make quick decisions about the problems he faced. A sign on his White
House desk, since famous in American politics, read "The Buck Stops Here,"
and reflected his willingness to take responsibility for his actions. His
judgments about how to respond to the Soviet Union had an important impact
on the early Cold War.
ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR
The Cold War developed as differences about the shape of the postwar world
created suspicion and distrust between the United States and the Soviet
Union. The first such conflict occurred over Poland. Moscow demanded a
government subject to Soviet influence; Washington wanted a more
independent, representative government following the Western model. The
Yalta Conference of February 1945 had produced a wide-ranging agreement open
to different interpretations. Among its provisions was the promise of "free
and unfettered" elections in Poland.
At his first meeting with Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav
Molotov, Truman revealed his intention to stand firm on Polish
self-determination, lecturing the Soviet diplomat about the need to carry
out the Yalta accords. When Molotov protested, "I have never been talked to
like that in my life," Truman retorted, "Carry out your agreements and you
won't get talked to like that." Relations deteriorated from that point
onward.
During the closing months of World War II, Soviet military forces occupied
all of Central and Eastern Europe. Moscow used its military power to support
the efforts of the communist parties in Eastern Europe and crush the
democratic parties. Communist parties beholden to Moscow quickly expanded
their power and influence in all countries of the region, culminating in the
coup d'etat in Czechoslovakia in 1948.
Public statements defined the beginning of the Cold War. In 1946 Stalin
declared that international peace was impossible "under the present
capitalist development of the world economy." Winston Churchill, wartime
prime minister of Great Britain, delivered a dramatic speech in Fulton,
Missouri, with Truman sitting on the platform during the address. "From
Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic," Churchill said, "an iron
curtain has descended across the Continent." Britain and the United States,
he declared, had to work together to counter the Soviet threat.
CONTAINMENT
Containment of the Soviet Union became American policy in the postwar years.
George Kennan, a top official at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, defined the new
approach in a long telegram he sent to the State Department in 1946. He
extended his analysis after he returned home in an article published under
the signature "X" in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs. Pointing to
Russia's traditional sense of insecurity, Kennan argued that the Soviet
Union would not soften its stance under any circumstances. Moscow, he wrote,
was "committed fanatically to the belief that with the U.S. there can be no
permanent modus vivendi, that it is desirable and necessary that the
internal harmony of our society be disrupted." Moscow's pressure to expand
its power had to be stopped through "firm and vigilant containment of
Russian expansive tendencies...."
The first significant application of the containment doctrine came in the
eastern Mediterranean. Great Britain had been supporting Greece, where
communist forces threatened the ruling monarchy in a civil war, and Turkey,
where the Soviet Union pressed for territorial concessions and the right to
build naval bases on the Bosporus. In 1947 Britain told the United States
that it could no longer afford such aid. Quickly, the U.S. State Department
devised a plan for U.S. assistance. But support for a new interventionist
policy, Senate leaders such as Arthur Vandenberg told Truman, was only
possible if he was willing to start "scaring the hell out of the country."
Truman was prepared to do so. In a statement that came to be known as the
Truman Doctrine, he declared, "I believe that it must be the policy of the
United States to support free peoples who are resisting subjugation by armed
minorities or by outside pressures." To that end he asked Congress to
provide $400 million for economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey, and
the money was appropriated.
However, there was a price Truman himself and American society paid for his
victory. To whip up American support for the policy of containment, Truman
overstated the Soviet threat to the United States. In turn, his statements
inspired a wave of hysterical anti-communism throughout the country and set
the stage for the emergence of McCarthyism.
Containment also called for extensive economic aid to assist the recovery of
war-torn Western Europe. With many of the region's nations economically and
politically unstable, the United States feared that local communist parties,
directed by Moscow, would capitalize on their wartime record of resistance
to the Nazis and come to power. Something needed to be done, Secretary of
State George Marshall noted, for "the patient is sinking while the doctors
deliberate." Marshall was formerly the highest ranking officer in the U.S.
armed forces and credited as the chief organizer of the American military
victory in World War II. In mid-1947 Marshall asked troubled European
nations to draw up a program "directed not against any country or doctrine
but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos." The Soviets
participated in the first planning meeting, then departed rather than share
economic data on their resources and problems, and submit to Western
controls on the expenditure of the aid. The remaining 16 nations hammered
out a request that finally came to $17 thousand million for a four-year
period. In early 1948 Congress voted to assist European economic recovery,
dubbed the "Marshall Plan," and generally regarded as one of the most
successful U.S. foreign policy initiatives in history.
Postwar Germany was divided into U.S., Soviet, British and French zones of
occupation, with the former German capital of Berlin (itself divided into
four zones), near the center of the Soviet zone. The United States, Britain
and France had discussed converting their zones into a single,
self-governing republic. But the Soviet Union opposed plans to unite Germany
and ministerial-level four-power discussions on Germany broke down. When the
Western powers announced their intention to create a consolidated federal
state from their zones, Stalin responded. On June 23, 1948, Soviet forces
blockaded Berlin, cutting off all road and rail access from the West.
American leaders feared that losing Berlin was but a prelude to losing
Germany and subsequently all of Europe. Therefore, in a successful
demonstration of Western resolve known as the Berlin Airlift, Allied air
forces took to the sky, flying supplies into Berlin. U.S., French and
British planes delivered nearly 2,250,000 tons of goods, including food and
coal. Stalin lifted the blockade after 231 days and 277,264 flights.
Soviet domination of Eastern Europe alarmed the West. The United States led
the effort to create a military alliance to complement economic efforts at
containment. In 1949 the United States and 11 other countries established
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance based on the
principle of collective security. An attack against one was to be considered
an attack against all, to be met by appropriate force.
The next year, the United States defined its defense aims clearly. The
National Security Council (NSC) undertook a full-fledged review of American
foreign and defense policy. The resulting document, known as NSC-68,
signaled a new direction in American security policy. Based on the
assumption that "the Soviet Union was engaged in a fanatical effort to seize
control of all governments wherever possible," the document committed
America to assist allied nations anywhere in the world which seemed
threatened by Soviet aggression. The United States proceeded to increase
defense spending dramatically in response to Soviet threats against Europe
and the American, British and French presence in West Berlin.
THE COLD WAR IN ASIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
While seeking to prevent communist ideology from gaining further adherents
in Europe, the United States also responded to challenges elsewhere. In
China, Americans worried about the advances of Mao Zedong and his communist
party. During World War II, the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek
and the communist forces waged a civil war even as they fought the Japanese.
Chiang had been a war-time ally, but even American support could not bolster
a government that was hopelessly inefficient and corrupt. Mao's forces
finally seized power in 1949, and when he announced that his new regime
would support the Soviet Union against the "imperialist" United States, it
appeared that communism was spreading out of control, at least in Asia.
The Korean War brought armed conflict between the United States and China.
The Allies had divided Korea along the 38th parallel after liberating it
from Japan at the end of World War II. The Soviet Union accepted Japanese
surrender north of the 38th parallel; the United States did the same in the
south. Originally intended as a matter of military convenience, the dividing
line became more rigid as Cold War tensions escalated. Both major powers set
up governments in their respective occupation zones and continued to support
them even after departing.
In June 1950 North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel and attacked
southward, overrunning Seoul. Truman, perceiving the North Koreans as Soviet
pawns in the global struggle, readied American forces and ordered General
Douglas MacArthur to Korea. Meanwhile, the United States was able to secure
a U.N. resolution branding North Korea as an aggressor. (The Soviet Union,
which could have vetoed any action had it been occupying its seat on the
Security Council, was boycotting the United Nations to protest a decision
not to admit the People's Republic of China.)
The war seesawed back and forth. U.S. and Korean forces were initially
pushed far to the south in an enclave around the city of Pusan. A daring
amphibious landing at Inchon, the port for the city of Seoul, drove the
North Koreans back; but as fighting neared the Chinese border, China entered
the war, sending massive forces across the Yalu River. U.N. forces, largely
American, retreated once again in bitter fighting and then slowly recovered
and fought their way back to the 38th parallel.
When MacArthur violated the principle of civilian control of the military by
attempting to orchestrate public support for bombing China and permitting an
invasion of the mainland by Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist Chinese forces,
Truman charged him with insubordination and relieved him of his duties,
replacing him with General Matthew Ridgeway. The Cold War stakes were high,
but the government's effort to fight a limited war caused frustration among
many Americans who could not understand the need for restraint. Truman's
popularity plunged to a 24-percent approval rating, the lowest of any
president since pollsters began to measure presidential popularity.
Truce talks began in July 1951. The two sides finally reached an agreement
in July 1953, during the first term of Dwight Eisenhower, Truman's
successor.
Cold War struggles were also occurring in the Middle East. Strategically
important as a supplier of oil, the region appeared vulnerable in 1946, when
Soviet troops failed to leave Iran as promised, even after British and
American forces had already withdrawn. The U.S. demanded a U.N. condemnation
of Moscow's continued troop presence. When the United States observed Soviet
tanks entering the region, Washington readied for a direct clash. Confronted
by U.S. resolve, the Soviets withdrew their forces.
Two years later, the United States officially recognized the new state of
Israel 15 minutes after it was proclaimed -- a decision Truman made over
strong resistance from Marshall and the State Department. While cultivating
close ties with Israel, the United States still sought to keep the
friendship of Arab states opposed to Israel.
EISENHOWER AND THE COLD WAR
Dwight D. Eisenhower, who assumed the presidency in 1953, was different from
his predecessor. A war hero, he had a natural, homey manner that made him
widely popular. "I like Ike" was the ubiquitous campaign slogan of the time.
In the postwar years, he served as army chief of staff, the president of
Columbia University and finally head of NATO before seeking the Republican
presidential nomination. Although he was skillful at getting people to work
together, he sought to play a restrained public role.
Still, he shared with Truman a basic view of American foreign policy.
Eisenhower, too, perceived communism as a monolithic force struggling for
world supremacy. He believed that Moscow, under leaders such as Stalin, was
trying to orchestrate worldwide revolution. In his first inaugural address,
he declared, "Forces of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as
rarely before in history. Freedom is pitted against slavery, lightness
against dark."
In office, Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, argued
that containment did not go far enough to stop Soviet expansion. Rather, a
more aggressive policy of liberation was necessary, to free those subjugated
by communism. But for all of the rhetoric, when democratic rebellions broke
out in areas under Soviet domination -- such as in Hungary in 1956 -- the
United States stood back as Soviet forces suppressed them.
Eisenhower's basic commitment to contain communism remained, and to that end
he increased American reliance on a nuclear shield. The Manhattan Project
during World War II had created the first atomic bombs. In 1950 Truman had
authorized the development of a new and more powerful hydrogen weapon. Now
Eisenhower, in an effort to keep budget expenditures under control, proposed
a policy of "massive retaliation." The United States, under this doctrine,
was prepared to use atomic weapons if the nation or its vital interests were
attacked.
In practice, however, Eisenhower deployed U.S. military forces with great
caution, resisting all suggestions to consider the use of nuclear weapons in
Indochina, where the French were ousted by Vietnamese communist forces in
1954, or in Taiwan, where the United States pledged to defend the
Nationalist Chinese regime against attack by the People's Republic of China.
In the Middle East, Eisenhower resisted the use of force when British and
French forces occupied the Suez Canal and Israel invaded the Sinai in 1956,
following Egypt's nationalization of the canal. Under heavy U.S. pressure,
British, French and Israeli forces withdrew from Egypt, which retained
control of the canal.
THE COLD WAR AT HOME
Not only did the Cold War shape U.S. foreign policy, it also had a profound
effect on domestic affairs. Americans had long feared radical subversion,
and during the Red Scare of 1919-1920, the government had attempted to
remove perceived threats to American society. Even stronger efforts were
made after World War II to root out communism within the United States.
Foreign events and espionage scandals contributed to the anti-communist
hysteria of the period. In 1949 the Soviet Union exploded its own atomic
device, which shocked Americans into believing that the United States would
be the target of a Soviet attack. In 1948 Alger Hiss, who had been an
assistant secretary of state and an adviser to Roosevelt at Yalta, was
accused of being a communist spy by Whitaker Chambers, a former Soviet
agent. Hiss denied the accusation, but in 1950 he was convicted of perjury.
Finally, in 1950, the government uncovered a British-American spy network
that transferred to the Soviet Union materials about the development of the
atomic bomb. The capture and trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for
revealing atomic secrets furthered the perception of a domestic communist
danger. Attorney General J. Howard McGrath declared there were many American
communists, each bearing "the germ of death for society."
When Republicans were victorious in the midterm congressional elections of
1946 and appeared ready to investigate subversive activity, the president
established a Federal Employee Loyalty Program. Workers challenged about
past and present associations often had little chance to fight back.
Congress, meanwhile, embarked upon its own loyalty program. In 1947 the
House Committee on Un-American Activities investigated the motion-picture
industry to determine whether communist sentiments were being reflected in
popular films. When some writers refused to testify, they were cited for
contempt and sent to prison. In response, Hollywood capitulated and refused
to hire anyone with a marginally questionable past.
But the most vigorous anti-communist warrior was Senator Joseph R. McCarthy,
a Republican from Wisconsin. He gained national attention in 1950 by
claiming that he had a list of 205 known communists in the State Department.
Though McCarthy subsequently changed this figure several times and failed to
substantiate any of his charges, he struck a responsive public chord.
McCarthy gained power when the Republican Party won control of the Senate in
1952. As a committee chairman, he now had a forum for his crusade. Relying
on extensive press and television coverage, he continued to charge top-level
officials with treachery. Playing on his tough reputation, he often used
vulgarity to characterize the "vile and scurrilous" objects of his attack.
But McCarthy went too far. Though polls showed half the public behind him,
McCarthy overstepped himself by challenging the United States Army when one
of his assistants was drafted. Television "in its infancy" brought the
hearings into millions of homes. Many Americans saw McCarthy's savage
tactics for the first time, and as public support began to wane, the Senate
finally condemned him for his conduct.
Until then, however, McCarthy exerted enormous power in the United States.
He offered scapegoats to those worried about the stalemate in Korea or about
communist gains. He heightened fears aroused by the Truman administration's
own anti-communist effort and legitimized tactics that were often used
against innocent people. In short, McCarthy represented the worst domestic
excesses of the Cold War.
THE POSTWAR ECONOMY: 1945-1960
As the Cold War unfolded in the decade and a half after World War II, the
United States experienced phenomenal economic growth. The war brought the
return of prosperity, and in the postwar period the United States
consolidated its position as the world's richest country. Gross national
product, a measure of all goods and services produced in the United States,
jumped from about $200 thousand-million in 1940 to $300 thousand-million in
1950 to more than $500 thousand-million in 1960. More and more Americans now
considered themselves part of the middle class.
The growth had different sources. The automobile industry was partially
responsible, as the number of automobiles produced annually quadrupled
between 1946 and 1955. A housing boom, stimulated in part by easily
affordable mortgages for returning servicemen, fueled the expansion. The
rise in defense spending as the Cold War escalated also played a part.
After 1945 the major corporations in America grew even larger. There had
been earlier waves of mergers in the 1890s and in the 1920s; in the 1950s
another wave occurred. New conglomerates -- firms with holdings in a variety
of industries -- led the way. International Telephone and Telegraph, for
example, bought Sheraton Hotels, Continental Baking, Hartford Fire
Insurance, and Avis Rent-a-Car, among other companies. Smaller franchise
operations like McDonald's fast-food restaurants provided still another
pattern. Large corporations also developed holdings overseas, where labor
costs were often lower.
Workers found their own lives changing as industrial America changed. Fewer
workers produced goods; more provided services. By 1956 a majority held
white-collar jobs, working as corporate managers, teachers, salespersons and
office employees. Some firms granted a guaranteed annual wage, long-term
employment contracts and other benefits. With such changes, labor militancy
was undermined and some class distinctions began to fade.
Farmers, on the other hand, faced tough times. Gains in productivity led to
agricultural consolidation, as farming became a big business. Family farms,
in turn, found it difficult to compete, and more and more farmers left the
land.
Other Americans moved too. In the postwar period the West and the Southwest
continued to grow -- a trend that would continue through the end of the
century. Sun Belt cities like Houston, Texas; Miami, Florida; Albuquerque,
New Mexico; and Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona, expanded rapidly. Los Angeles,
California, moved ahead of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the third largest
U.S. city. By 1963 California had more people than New York.
An even more important form of movement led Americans out of inner cities
into new suburbs, where they hoped to find affordable housing for the larger
families spawned by the postwar baby boom. Developers like William J. Levitt
built new communities -- with homes that all looked alike -- using the
techniques of mass production. Levitt's houses were prefabricated, or partly
assembled in a factory rather than on the final location. The homes were
modest, but Levitt's methods cut costs and allowed new owners to possess at
least a part of the American dream.
As suburbs grew, businesses moved into the new areas. Large shopping centers
containing a great variety of stores changed consumer patterns. The number
of these centers rose from eight at the end of World War II to 3,840 in
1960. With easy parking and convenient evening hours, customers could avoid
city shopping entirely.
New highways created better access to the suburbs and its shops. The Highway
Act of 1956 provided $26 thousand-million, the largest public works
expenditure in U.S. history, to build more than 64,000 kilometers of federal
roads to link together all parts of the country.
Television, too, had a powerful impact on social and economic patterns.
Developed in the 1930s, it was not widely marketed until after the war. In
1946 the country had fewer than 17,000 television sets. Three years later
consumers were buying 250,000 sets a month, and by 1960 three-quarters of
all families owned at least one set. In the middle of the decade, the
average family watched television four to five hours a day. Popular shows
for children included Howdy Doody Time and The Mickey Mouse Club; older
viewers preferred situation comedies like I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best.
Americans of all ages became exposed to increasingly sophisticated
advertisements for products said to be necessary for the good life.
THE FAIR DEAL
The Fair Deal was the name given to Harry Truman's domestic program.
Building on Roosevelt's New Deal, Truman believed that the federal
government should guarantee economic opportunity and social stability, and
he struggled to achieve those ends in the face of fierce political
opposition from conservative legislators determined to reduce the role of
government.
Truman's first priority in the immediate postwar period was to make the
transition to a peacetime economy. Servicemen wanted to come home quickly,
but once they arrived they faced competition for housing and employment. The
G.I. Bill, passed before the end of the war, helped ease servicemen back
into civilian life by providing such benefits as guaranteed loans for
home-buying and financial aid for industrial training and university
education.
More troubling was labor unrest. As war production ceased, many workers
found themselves without jobs. Others wanted pay increases they felt were
long overdue. In 1946, 4.6 million workers went on strike, more than ever
before in American history. They challenged the automobile, steel and
electrical industries. When they took on the railroads and soft-coal mines,
Truman intervened, but in so doing he alienated millions of working-class
Americans.
While dealing with immediately pressing issues, Truman also provided a
broader agenda for action. Less than a week after the war ended, he
presented Congress with a 21-point program, which provided for protection
against unfair employment practices, a higher minimum wage, greater
unemployment compensation and housing assistance. In the next several
months, he added other proposals for health insurance and atomic energy
legislation. But this scattershot approach often left Truman's priorities
unclear.
Republicans were quick to attack. In the 1946 congressional elections they
asked, "Had enough?" and voters responded that they had. Republicans, with
majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time since 1928, were
determined to reverse the liberal direction of the Roosevelt years.
Truman fought with the Congress as it cut spending and reduced taxes. In
1948 he sought reelection, despite polls indicating that he had no chance.
After a vigorous campaign, Truman scored one of the great upsets in American
politics, defeating the Republican nominee, Thomas Dewey, governor of New
York. Reviving the old New Deal coalition, Truman held on to labor, farmers
and black voters, and so won another term.
When Truman finally left office in 1953, his Fair Deal was but a mixed
success. In July 1948 he banned racial discrimination in federal government
hiring practices and ordered an end to segregation in the military. The
minimum wage had risen, and social security programs had expanded. A housing
program brought some gains but left many needs unmet. National health
insurance and aid-to-education measures never made it through Congress.
Truman's preoccupation with Cold War affairs hampered his effectiveness at
home, particularly in the face of intense opposition.
EISENHOWER'S APPROACH
Dwight Eisenhower accepted the basic framework of government responsibility
established by the New Deal, but sought to limit the presidential role. He
termed his approach "dynamic conservatism" or "modern Republicanism," which
meant, he explained, "conservative when it comes to money, liberal when it
comes to human beings." A critic countered that Eisenhower appeared to argue
that he would "strongly recommend the building of a great many schools...but
not provide the money."
Eisenhower's first priority was to balance the budget after years of
deficits. He wanted to cut spending, cut taxes and maintain the value of the
dollar. Republicans were willing to risk unemployment to keep inflation in
check. Reluctant to stimulate the economy too much, they saw the country
suffer three recessions in eight years.
In other areas, the administration transferred control of offshore oil lands
from the federal government to the states. It also favored private
development of energy sources rather than the public approach the Democrats
had initiated. In everything the Eisenhower administration undertook, its
orientation was sympathetic to business.
Eisenhower's inclination to play a modest role in public often led to
legislative stalemate. Still, he was active behind the scenes pushing his
favorite programs. And he was one of the few presidents who left office as
popular as when he entered it.
THE CULTURE OF THE 1950S
During the 1950s, a sense of uniformity pervaded American society.
Conformity was common, as young and old alike followed group norms rather
than striking out on their own. Though men and women had been forced into
new employment patterns during World War II, once the war was over,
traditional roles were reaffirmed. Men expected to be the breadwinners;
women, even when they worked, assumed their proper place was at home.
Sociologist David Riesman observed the importance of peer-group expectations
in his influential book, The Lonely Crowd. He called this new society
"other-directed," and maintained that such societies lead to stability as
well as conformity. Television contributed to the homogenizing trend by
providing young and old with a shared experience reflecting accepted social
patterns.
But not all Americans conformed to such cultural norms. A number of writers,
members of the so-called "beat generation," rebelled against conventional
values. Stressing spontaneity and spirituality, they asserted intuition over
reason, Eastern mysticism over Western institutionalized religion. The
"beats" went out of their way to challenge the patterns of respectability
and shock the rest of the culture.
Their literary work displayed their sense of freedom. Jack Kerouac typed his
best-selling novel On the Road on a 75-meter roll of paper. Lacking accepted
punctuation and paragraph structure, the book glorified the possibilities of
the free life. Poet Allen Ginsberg gained similar notoriety for his poem
"Howl," a scathing critique of modern, mechanized civilization. When police
charged that it was obscene and seized the published version, Ginsberg won
national acclaim with a successful court challenge.
Musicians and artists rebelled as well. Tennessee singer Elvis Presley
popularized black music in the form of rock and roll, and shocked more staid
Americans with his ducktail haircut and undulating hips. In addition, Elvis
and other rock and roll singers demonstrated that there was a white audience
for black music, thus testifying to the increasing integration of American
culture. Painters like Jackson Pollock discarded easels and laid out
gigantic canvases on the floor, then applied paint, sand and other materials
in wild splashes of color. All of these artists and authors, whatever the
medium, provided models for the wider and more deeply felt social revolution
of the 1960s.
ORIGINS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
African Americans became increasingly restive in the postwar years. During
the war they had challenged discrimination in the military services and in
the work force, and they had made limited gains. Millions of blacks had left
southern farms for northern cities, where they hoped to find better jobs.
They found instead crowded conditions in urban slums. Now, black servicemen
returned home, intent on rejecting second-class citizenship, as other blacks
began to argue that the time was ripe for racial equality.
Jackie Robinson dramatized the racial question in 1947 when he broke
baseball's color line and began playing in the major leagues. A member of
the Brooklyn Dodgers, he often faced trouble with opponents and teammates as
well. But an outstanding first season led to his acceptance and eased the
way for other black players, who now left the Negro leagues to which they
had been confined.
Government officials, and many other Americans, discovered the connection
between racial problems and Cold War politics. As the leader of the free
world, the United States sought support in Africa and Asia. Discrimination
at home impeded the effort to win friends in other parts of the world.
Harry Truman supported the civil rights movement. He believed in political
equality, though not in social equality, and recognized the growing
importance of the black urban vote. When apprised in 1946 of lynchings and
other forms of mob violence still practiced in the South, he appointed a
committee on civil rights to investigate discrimination based on race and
religion. The report, issued the next year, documented blacks' second-class
status in American life. It asserted the need for the federal government to
secure the rights guaranteed to all citizens.
Truman responded by sending a 10-point civil rights program to Congress.
When Southern Democrats, angry about a stronger civil rights stance, left
the party in 1948, Truman issued an executive order barring discrimination
in federal employment, ordered equal treatment in the armed forces and
appointed a committee to work toward an end to military segregation. The
last military restrictions ended during the Korean War.
Blacks in the South enjoyed few, if any, civil and political rights. More
than 1 million black soldiers fought in World War II, but those who came
from the South could not vote. Blacks who tried to register faced the
likelihood of beatings, loss of job, loss of credit or eviction from their
land. Lynchings still occurred, and Jim Crow laws enforced segregation of
the races in street cars, trains, hotels, restaurants, hospitals,
recreational facilities and employment.
DESEGREGATION
Blacks took matters into their own hands. The National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was determined to overturn the
judicial doctrine, established in the court case Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896,
that segregation of black and white students in schools was constitutional
if facilities were "separate but equal." That decree had been used for
decades to sanction rigid segregation in the South, where facilities were
seldom, if ever, equal.
Blacks achieved their goal of overturning Plessy in 1954 when the Supreme
Court -- presided over by an Eisenhower appointee, Chief Justice Earl Warren
-- handed down its Brown v. Board of Education ruling. The Court declared
unanimously that "separate facilities are inherently unequal," and decreed
that the "separate but equal" doctrine could no longer be used in public
schools. A year later, the Supreme Court demanded that local school boards
move "with all deliberate speed" to implement the decision.
Eisenhower, although sympathetic to the needs of the South as it faced a
major transition, nonetheless acted quickly to see that the law was upheld.
He ordered the desegregation of Washington, D.C., schools to serve as a
model for the rest of the country, and sought to end discrimination in other
areas as well.
He faced a major crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. Just before
implementation of a desegregation plan calling for the admission of nine
black students to a previously all-white high school, the governor declared
that violence threatened, and posted Arkansas National Guardsmen to keep
peace by turning the black students away. When a federal court ordered the
troops to leave, the students came to school, only to encounter belligerent
taunts. As mobs became hostile, the black students left.
Eisenhower responded by placing the National Guardsmen under federal command
and calling them back to Little Rock. He was reluctant to do so because
federal troops had not been used to protect black rights since the end of
Reconstruction, but he knew he had no choice. And so desegregation began
with soldiers standing in classrooms to ensure the rule of law.
Another milestone in the civil rights movement occurred in 1955 in
Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old black seamstress who was also
secretary of the state chapter of the NAACP, sat down in the front of a bus
in a section reserved by law and custom for whites. Ordered to move to the
back, she refused. Police came and arrested her for violating the
segregation statutes. Black leaders, who had been waiting for just such a
case, organized a boycott of the bus system. Martin Luther King Jr., a young
minister of the Baptist church where the blacks met, became a spokesman for
the protest. "There comes a time," he said, "when people get tired...of
being kicked about by the brutal feet of oppression." King was arrested, as
he would be again and again, but blacks in Montgomery sustained the boycott
and cut gross bus revenue by 65 percent. About a year later, the Supreme
Court ruled that bus segregation, like school segregation, was
unconstitutional. The boycott ended. The civil rights movement had won an
important victory -- and discovered its most powerful, thoughtful and
eloquent leader in Martin Luther King Jr.
African Americans also sought to secure their voting rights. Although the
15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteed the right to vote, many
states had found ways -- whether by a poll ("head") tax or a literacy test
-- to circumvent the law. Eisenhower, working with Senate majority leader
Lyndon B. Johnson, lent his support to a congressional effort to guarantee
the vote. The Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first such measure in 82 years,
marked a step forward, as it authorized federal intervention in cases where
blacks were denied the chance to vote. Yet loopholes remained, and so
activists pushed successfully for the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which
provided stiffer penalties for interfering with voting, but still stopped
short of authorizing federal officials to register blacks.
Relying on the efforts of black Americans themselves, the civil rights
movement gained momentum in the postwar years. Working through the Supreme
Court and through Congress, civil rights supporters created the groundwork
for an even more extensive movement in the 1960s.
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The U. S. Constitution
