The Presidents Part 5: 20th Century Massive Changes
The era of Presidents from Warren G. Harding to John F. Kennedy included some of the most important historical developments of the 20th century. Massive changes in America including the world happened from 1921 to 1963 like Little Rock Nine, Sputnik, the singing of Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial, and the independence of the nation of Ghana. In that time, we saw the bloodiest war in human history killing almost 100 million people, new African countries including Asian nations being independent from Western imperialism, and the growth of social movements advancing the cause of justice and equality in the four corners of the Earth. The Roaring 20s, the Harlem Renaissance, the Swing Era, Jazz, and the early Civil Rights Movement were all part of the time when these Presidents have lived. In the midst of this time period, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt changed America forever militarily, socially, economically, and politically. The world of Presidents now came heavily from FDR's actions. The Great Depression ruined many lives, and then massive federal government involvement was created to help to end it. Roosevelt was probably the most influential President of the 20th century with his strengths and imperfections. He helped to cultivate the modern expression of liberalism politically in many spheres of the world. By the end of this period, there was the brink of nuclear war between America and the Soviet Union. With the Berlin Airlift, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and other events, WWIII was almost going to occur. Yet, cooler heads prevailed among both sides to resolve those conflicts. There was the Non-Aligned Movement among many nations that rejected both Western imperialism and Soviet Stalinism too. President John F. Kennedy saw both the promise of democracy and the long way to go in seeing America live up to the aspiration of total human equality and justice for all people. The assassination of John F. Kennedy totally changed America forever. Nothing would be the same. With the war in Vietnam, the start of the end of Jim Crow, and more activists fighting for real social change, these Presidents witnessed unparalleled developments in world history indeed.
Warren G. Harding
President Warren G. Harding was President from 1921 to 1923, and he lived from November 2, 1865, to August 2, 1923. He was a member of the Republican Party and popular among many of the American people back then. After his death, many scandals were exposed like the Teapot Dome scandal and his extramarital affair with Nan Britton. He was born in Blooming Grove, Ohio. Winnie was his nickname as a small child. Harding was the oldest of 8 children to George Tryon Harding and Phoebe Elizabeth (nee Dickerson) Harding. Phoebe was a state license midwife, and Tryon was a farmer who taught school near Mount Gilead. Tryon also became a doctor with a small practice. Some of Harding's maternal ancestors were Dutch including the wealthy Van Kirk family. Harding had ancestors from England, Wales, and Scotland too. Harding's family were abolitionists, and they moved into Caledonia. Tryon acquired the local weekly newspaper called The Argus. Warren Harding was in Ohio Central College in Iberia when he was 14 years, and it was his father's alma mater. Warren worked hard, and his family moved into Marion, which is about 6 miles from Caledonia. Harding graduated from the school in 1882. Warren Harding lived on farms and small towns. He worked as a teacher, an insurance man, and studied law. Warren Harding came to the 1884 Republican National Convention where he talked with journalists and supported the Presidential nominee and Secretary of State James G. Blaine. Warren Harding worked with the Democratic Mirror newspaper. He didn't like the newspaper praising then New York Governor Grover Cleveland, who won the election. Harding built the newspaper of the Star by the late 1880's. The Star was nonpartisan. Marion, Ohio grew fast. Harding was involved in the city's civic matters. Harding was married to Florence King, the daughter of Amos King (a local banker and developer). By this time, many people said that the Hardings had African American heritage when there is no conclusive evidence of this. Harding was married on July 8, 1891, at their new home on Mount Vernon Avenue in Marion. They didn't have children. His wife helped him to go into another level in politics, possibly achieve the White House.
Warren Harding came into politics after he purchased the Star newspaper. He supported Joseph B. Foraker for governor. Harding supported Ohio Republican politics. He opposed third party advocates. Harding's work as an editor took a toll on his health. From age 23 to 35, he required five admissions to the Battle Creek Sanitorium for reasons Sinclair described as "fatigue, overstrain, and nervous illnesses." Dean ties these visits to early occurrences of the heart ailment that killed Harding at age 57. During one such absence from Marion, in 1894, the Star's business manager quit, and Florence Harding took his place. She became her husband's top assistant at the Star on the business side, maintaining her role until the Hardings moved to Washington in 1915. Her competence allowed Harding to travel to make speeches—his use of the free railroad pass increased greatly after his marriage. Florence Harding practiced strict economy and wrote of Harding, "he does well when he listens to me and poorly when he does not." In 1892, Harding traveled to Washington, where he met Democratic Nebraska Congressman William Jennings Bryan, and listened to the "Boy Orator of the Platte" speak on the floor of the House of Representatives. Harding traveled to Chicago's Columbian Exposition in 1893. Both visits were without Florence. Democrats generally won Marion County's offices in 1895, and though Harding lost the election for county auditor, he did better than expected. The following year, Harding was one of many orators who traveled across Ohio in support of the campaign of the Republican presidential candidate William McKinley, that state's former governor. According to Dean, "while working for McKinley [Harding] began making a name for himself through Ohio."
Warren Harding worked hard in politics. He had a good relationship with Republicans. He ran for state Senate in 1899. He was in a two year term as a state Senator. Warren Harding allowed his sister, Mary, to be a teacher at the Ohio School for the Blind. Warren Harding was a Ohio political leader too. Warren Harding supported Taft after Teddy Roosevelt left the Party to be part of the Bull Moose Party. The Progressive Movement was divided by the early 20th century. Warren Harding ran for Senator of the U.S. Congress, and he won by 1914. He promoted a conciliatory campaigning style. He defeated Ohio Attorney General Timothy Hogan. Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress when Warren Harding was a Senator. He had very unimportant committee assignments early on. He was a safe, conservative Republican voter on issues. Harding wanted nuanced positions on women's suffrage and on the prohibition of alcohol. He never supported votes for women until Ohio did so. Harding drank, but supported the 18th Amendment (that banned the sale and drinking of alcohol). Harding, as a politician respected by both Republicans and Progressives, was asked to be temporary chairman of the 1916 Republican National Convention and to deliver the keynote address. He urged delegates to stand as a united party. The convention nominated Justice Charles Evans Hughes. Harding reached out to Roosevelt once the former president declined the 1916 Progressive nomination, a refusal that effectively scuttled that party. In the November 1916 presidential election, despite increasing Republican unity, Hughes was narrowly defeated by Wilson. Harding supported WWI and war legislation like the Espionage Act of 1917. The problem with that law is that it violated human civil liberties. Harding opposed Wilson's Treaty of Versailles plan including Article X of it.
By 1920, many Progressives came into the Republican Party. When Roosevelt suddenly died on January 6, 1919, a number of candidates quickly emerged. These included General Leonard Wood, Illinois Governor Frank Lowden, California Senator Hiram Johnson, and a host of underdogs such as Herbert Hoover (renowned for his World War I relief work), Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge, and General John J. Pershing. Harding ran for President in 1920. Harding wanted to have a non confrontation style in his campaign. He won the Ohio primary. The 1920 Republican National Convention opened at the Chicago Coliseum on June 8, 1920, assembling delegates who were bitterly divided, most recently over the results of a Senate investigation into campaign spending, which had just been released. The report found that Wood had spent $1.8 million (equivalent to $23.25 million in 2020), supporting Johnson's claims that Wood was trying to buy the presidency. Some of the $600,000 that Lowden had spent wound up in the pockets of two convention delegates. Johnson had spent $194,000, and Harding $113,000. Many delegates believed that Johnson was behind the inquiry, and the rage of the Lowden and Wood factions put an end to any possible compromise among the frontrunners. Of the almost 1,000 delegates, 27 were women—the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing women the vote, was within one state of ratification, and passed before the end of August.
The Convention took time, and Harding won the Republican nomination for President. He choose Calvin Coolidge as his Vice President. Some criticized Harding as been too moderate. The Democrats had many choices. The Democratic National Convention opened in San Francisco on June 28, 1920, under a shadow cast by Woodrow Wilson, who wished to be nominated for a third term. Delegates were convinced Wilson's health would not permit him to serve, and looked elsewhere for a candidate. Former Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo was a major contender, but he was Wilson's son-in-law, and refused to consider a nomination so long as the president wanted it. Many at the convention voted for McAdoo anyway, and a deadlock ensued with Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. On the 44th ballot, the Democrats nominated Governor Cox for president, with his running mate Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt. As Cox was a newspaper owner and editor when not in politics, this placed two Ohio editors against each other for the presidency, and some complained there was no real political choice. Both Cox and Harding were economic conservatives and were reluctant progressives at best. Harding wanted an Association of Nations, not a League of Nations as promoted by Woodrow Wilson. FDR supported the League of Nations, but not Cox that much.
During the campaign, opponents spread old rumors that Harding's great-great-grandfather was a West Indian black person and that other black people might be found in his family tree. Harding's campaign manager rejected the accusations. Wooster College professor William Estabrook Chancellor publicized the rumors, based on supposed family research, but perhaps reflecting no more than local gossip. By Election Day, November 2, 1920, few had any doubts that the Republican ticket would win. Harding received 60.2 percent of the popular vote, the highest percentage since the evolution of the two-party system, and 404 electoral votes. Cox received 34 percent of the national vote and 127 electoral votes. Campaigning from a federal prison where he was serving a sentence for opposing the war, Socialist Eugene V. Debs received 3 percent of the national vote. The Republicans greatly increased their majority in each house of Congress. Harding was sworn in on March 4, 1921, in the presence of his wife and father. Harding preferred a low-key inauguration, without the customary parade, leaving only the swearing-in ceremony and a brief reception at the White House. In his inaugural address he declared, "Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much from the government and at the same time do too little for it." Harding took a vacation, and then went to work as the new President. Many of his appointments were pro-League of Nations people like Charles Evan Hughes as his Secretary of States. Andrew W. Mellon, one of the richest Americans in that time, was the Treasury leader. Harding had a scandal because of Harding's Senate friend, Albert B. Fall of New Mexico, the Interior Secretary, and Daugherty, the Attorney General. Fall was a Western rancher and former miner and was pro-development. He was opposed by conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, who wrote, "it would have been possible to pick a worse man for Secretary of the Interior, but not altogether easy." The New York Times mocked the Daugherty appointment, stating that rather than select one of the best minds, Harding had been content "to choose merely a best friend." Eugene P. Trani and David L. Wilson, in their volume on Harding's presidency, suggest that the appointment made sense then, since Daugherty was "a competent lawyer well-acquainted with the seamy side of politics ... a first-class political troubleshooter and someone Harding could trust."
Harding wanted America to not be part of the League of Nations. The Senate didn't pass the Treaty of Versailles. Technically, America was at war with Germany, Austria, and Hungary. Peacemaking began with the Knox–Porter Resolution, declaring the U.S. at peace and reserving any rights granted under Versailles. Treaties with Germany, Austria and Hungary, each containing many of the non-League provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, were ratified in 1921. Hughes worked to fight for Britain to pay off its war debt. Germany had to pay its reparations. In 1922, passed a more restrictive bill. Hughes negotiated an agreement for Britain to pay off its war debt over 62 years at low interest, reducing the present value of the obligations. This agreement, approved by Congress in 1923, served as a model for negotiations with other nations. Talks with Germany on reduction of reparations payments resulted in the Dawes Plan of 1924. Harding refused to recognize the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union. Harding's Commerce Secretary Hoover allowed the American Relief Administration to send aid to Russia during its famine. Harding refused to support trade with the Soviets, but Hughes did. Harding talked about disarmament in the campaign, but he didn't discuss about it much as President. Some wanted fleets to be cut in America, the UK, and Japan.
Harding concurred, and after diplomatic discussions, representatives of nine nations convened in Washington in November 1921. Most of the diplomats first attended Armistice Day ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery, where Harding spoke at the entombment of the Unknown Soldier of World War I, whose identity, "took flight with his imperishable soul. We know not whence he came, only that his death marks him with the everlasting glory of an American dying for his country." Hughes, in his speech at the opening session of the conference on November 12, 1921, made the American proposal—the U.S. would decommission or not build 30 warships if Great Britain did likewise for 19 vessels, and Japan for 17. Hughes was generally successful, with agreements reached on this and other points, including settlement of disputes over islands in the Pacific, and limitations on the use of poison gas. The naval agreement applied only to battleships, and to some extent aircraft carriers, and ultimately did not prevent rearmament. Nevertheless, Harding and Hughes were widely applauded in the press for their work. Senator Lodge and the Senate Minority Leader, Alabama's Oscar Underwood, were part of the U.S. delegation, and they helped ensure the treaties made it through the Senate mostly unscathed, though that body added reservations to some. America disposed of many vessels after WWI. Harding had troops in Cuba and Nicaragua. Latin America didn't like foreign occupying interventions in their lands. America intervened in Panama and in Mexico. There was the ratification of the Thomas-Urrutia Treaty with Colombia after the U.S. provoked Panamanian Revolution of 1903.
America saw a depression from 1920-1921. Economic decline was real. Harding wanted a reduction of income taxes, an increase of tariffs on agricultural goods, and other reforms. He supported highways, aviation, and radio. Treasury Secretary Mellon also recommended that Congress cut income tax rates, and that the corporate excess profits tax be abolished. The House Ways and Means Committee endorsed Mellon's proposals, but some congressmen wanting to raise corporate tax rates fought the measure. Harding was unsure what side to endorse, telling a friend, "I can't make a d___ thing out of this tax problem. I listen to one side, and they seem right, and then—God!—I talk to the other side, and they seem just as right." Harding tried compromise, and gained passage of a bill in the House after the end of the excess profits tax was delayed a year. In the Senate, the bill became entangled in efforts to vote World War I veterans a soldier's bonus. Frustrated by the delays, on July 12, Harding appeared before the Senate to urge passage of the tax legislation without the bonus. It was not until November that the revenue bill finally passed, with higher rates than Mellon had proposed. Harding opposed the veterans' bonus. Mellon wanted lower tax rates, because he was a conservative economically. A non cash bonus for soldiers passed over Coolidge's veto in 1924. Mellon inspired Harding to cut taxes starting in 1922. Mellon said that income tax money was driven underground or abroad if income tax rates were increased, but alternatives can be made for the rich to pay their fair share of taxation.
Deregulations increased and governmental spending dropped. Unemployment declined. Wages, profits, and productivity increased. Mass production grew, Harding signed the Federal Highway Act of 1921. Large capital existed in the U.S. economy. He wanted a laissez faire approach involving business, and he was hostile to organized labor. Public works projects were growing but he wanted no federal money to deal massively with unemployment. This economic growth saw falling wages for some people. Labor strikes existed. On July 1, 1922, 400,000 railroad workers went on strike. Harding recommended a settlement that made some concessions, but management objected. Attorney General Daugherty convinced Judge James H. Wilkerson to issue a sweeping injunction to break the strike. Although there was public support for the Wilkerson injunction, Harding felt it went too far, and had Daugherty and Wilkerson amend it. The injunction succeeded in ending the strike; however, tensions remained high between railroad workers and management for years. Harding called for anti-lynching legislation, but he did nothing revolutionary to help African Americans. Harding wanted literacy tests for white and black votes. Harding spoke about equality but did very little to promote equality.
Three days after the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, Harding spoke at the all-Black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He declared, "Despite the demagogues, the idea of our oneness as Americans has risen superior to every appeal to mere class and group. And so, I wish it might be in this matter of our national problem of races." Speaking directly about the events in Tulsa, he said, "God grant that, in the soberness, the fairness, and the justice of this country, we never see another spectacle like it." Harding supported Congressman Leonidas Dyer's federal anti-lynching bill, which passed the House of Representatives in January 1922. When it reached the Senate floor in November 1922, it was filibustered by Southern Democrats, and Lodge withdrew it to allow the ship subsidy bill Harding favored to be debated, though it was likewise blocked. Black people blamed Harding for the Dyer bill's defeat; Harding biographer Robert K. Murray noted that it was hastened to its end by Harding's desire to have the ship subsidy bill considered.
With the public suspicious of immigrants, especially those who might be socialists or communists, Congress passed the Per Centum Act of 1921, signed by Harding on May 19, 1921, as a quick means of restricting immigration. The act reduced the numbers of immigrants to 3% of those from a given country living in the U.S., based on the 1910 census. This would, in practice, not restrict immigration from Ireland and Germany, but would bar many Italians and eastern European Jewish people. Harding and Secretary of Labor James Davis believed that enforcement had to be humane, and at the Secretary's recommendation, Harding allowed almost 1,000 deportable immigrants to remain. Coolidge later signed the Immigration Act of 1924, permanently restricting immigration to the U.S. These xenophobic policies were racist and obscene. Harding did not pardoned Eugene Debs when he was in prison for speaking against WWI. Debs left prison after the war was over, and he met with the socialist Debs. Harding released 23 other war opponents during that time to make normalcy in his mind a reality. Harding appointed four justices to the Supreme Court of the United States. When Chief Justice Edward Douglass White died in May 1921, Harding was unsure whether to appoint former president Taft or former Utah senator George Sutherland—he had promised seats on the court to both men. After briefly considering awaiting another vacancy and appointing them both, he chose Taft as Chief Justice. Sutherland was appointed to the court in 1922, to be followed by two other economic conservatives, Pierce Butler and Edward Terry Sanford, in 1923.
By 1922, economic issues grew as unemployment was as high as 11 percent. After the midterms in 1923, Harding fought to promote his policies. The economy improved. Harding wanted to go for re-election. Harding drink, eat, and smoke too much. He had a heart condition and chronic kidney issues. He recovered from influenza in January of 1923. Harding toured the West Coast and other places. He supported the World Court. He made many speeches, and Harding visited Yellowstone and Zion National Parks. Harding toured Vancouver, British Columbia as the first sitting American President to visit Canada. Harding visited Seattle. Harding kept up his busy schedule, giving a speech to 25,000 people at the stadium at the University of Washington. In the final speech he gave, Harding predicted statehood for Alaska. The president rushed through his speech, not waiting for applause from the audience. Harding had many scandals of electing his friends in federal positions. Many people didn't know the extent of the Teapot Dome scandal (involving oil, bribery, and the Navy. Albert B. Fall went into the prison for his crimes. He was the first Secretary of the Interior) and other things until after his death. He was about to fire Jess Smith for corruption, but Smith committed suicide on May 20, 1923. Charles R. Forbes went to prison for corrupt at the Veterans' Bureau. It is no secret that Warren Harding cheated on his wife by having adultery with many extramarital affairs.
Harding went to bed early the evening of July 27, 1923, a few hours after giving the speech at the University of Washington. Later that night, he called for his physician Charles E. Sawyer, complaining of pain in the upper abdomen. Sawyer thought that it was a recurrence of stomach upset, but Dr. Joel T. Boone suspected a heart problem. The press was told Harding had experienced an "acute gastrointestinal attack" and his scheduled weekend in Portland was cancelled. He felt better the next day, as the train rushed to San Francisco, where they arrived the morning of July 29. He insisted on walking from the train to the car, was then rushed to the Palace Hotel, where he suffered a relapse. Doctors found that not only was his heart causing problems, but also that he had pneumonia, and he was confined to bed rest in his hotel room. Doctors treated him with liquid caffeine and digitalis, and he seemed to improve. Hoover released Harding's foreign policy address advocating membership in the World Court, and the president was pleased that it was favorably received. By the afternoon of August 2, Harding's condition still seemed to be improving and his doctors allowed him to sit up in bed. At around 7:30 pm that evening, Florence was reading to him "A Calm Review of a Calm Man," a flattering article about him from The Saturday Evening Post; she paused and he told her, "That's good. Go on, read some more." Those were to be his last words. She resumed reading when, a few seconds later, Harding twisted convulsively and collapsed back in the bed, gasping. Florence Harding immediately called the doctors into the room, but they were unable to revive him with stimulants; Harding was pronounced dead a few minutes later, at the age of 57. Harding's death was initially attributed to a cerebral hemorrhage, as doctors at the time did not generally understand the symptoms of cardiac arrest. Florence Harding did not consent to have the president autopsied. His death was shock to the nation. His body traveled to the United States Capitol rotunda. He was buried at Marion, Ohio. President Coolidge, Chief Justice Taft, and Harding's widow and his father were there as his body was placed on a horse drawn hearse. His funeral was attended by Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone. Florence Harding, his wife, was buried in the Harding Tomb being dedicated by President Hoover in 1931. President Warren G. Harding's legacy is that he wanted to get along with everybody, but he never foreseen a lot of the scandals that existed in his administration. He was a conservative on economic issues and wanted the status quo after wars and conflicts. The weakness of his administration was that its obsession with not forming bold policy action contributed to his moderate legacy (and scandals from Daugherty, Smith, Fall, and others definitely harmed America). His Presidency was short lived, but Warren Harding remains one of the most important Presidents of the 20th century.
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Calvin Coolidge
President Calvin Coolidge was one of the most conservative Presidents in American history. He blatantly believed in laissez faire economics. His views on civil rights were more progressive than Harding, but Coolidge's economic policies contributed to the length and intensity of the Great Depression in the United States of America. He was the 30th President of America from 1923 to 1929. He lived from July 4, 1872 to January 5, 1929. He was born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. He was the only U.S. President born on Independence Day. His parents were John Calvin Coolidge Sr. (1845–1926) and Victoria Josephine Moor (1846–1885). Although named for his father, John, from early childhood Coolidge was addressed by his middle name, Calvin. His middle name was selected in honor of John Calvin, considered a founder of the Congregational church in which Coolidge was raised and remained active throughout his life. His father was a famous farmer, storekeeper, and public servant. His ancestors came from the New England region. His earliest American ancestor, John Coolidge, emigrated from Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, England, around 1630 and settled in Watertown, Massachusetts. Coolidge's great-great-grandfather, also named John Coolidge, was an American military officer in the Revolutionary War and one of the first selectmen of the town of Plymouth. His grandfather Calvin Galusha Coolidge served in the Vermont House of Representatives. Coolidge was also a descendant of Samuel Appleton, who settled in Ipswich and led the Massachusetts Bay Colony during King Philip's War. Calvin Coolidge attended Black River Academy and then St. Johnsbury Academy. He also enrolled at Amherst college. He knew how to debate in college. Coolidge joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and graduated cum laude. Later, he went into law after being influenced by philosophy professor Charles Edward Garman (a Congregational mystic with a neo-Hegelian philosophy).
Calvin Coolidge worked as a country lawyer in Massachusetts, and he married Grace Coodhue (a University of Vermont graduate and teacher at Northampton's Clarke School for the Deaf). They had a honeymoon trip at Montreal. After 25 years he wrote of Grace, "for almost a quarter of a century she has borne with my infirmities and I have rejoiced in her graces." The couple had 2 sons. Calvin Jr. died of blood poisoning. As a Republican, he worked in local politics in New England. Coolidge won the election to the City of Council of Northampton in 1898, and he continued to work as a political leader. In 1906, the local Republican committee nominated Coolidge for election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He won a close victory over the incumbent Democrat, and reported to Boston for the 1907 session of the Massachusetts General Court. In his freshman term, Coolidge served on minor committees and, although he usually voted with the party, was known as a Progressive Republican, voting in favor of such measures as women's suffrage and the direct election of Senators. While in Boston, Coolidge became an ally, and then a liegeman, of then U.S. Senator Winthrop Murray Crane who controlled the western faction of the Massachusetts Republican Party; Crane's party rival in the east of the commonwealth was U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.
Coolidge has an alliance with Guy Currier in his political career. He won his 2nd term in 1908. Calvin Coolidge was a well known conservative, but he refused to leave the Republican Party. Theodore Roosevelt was in the progressive wing of the Republicans, and the conservative wing of the party supported William Howard Taft. Coolidge by 1913 was in the Republican Party power structure. He supported investments in Massachusetts. He soon became Lieutenant Governor and Governor of Massachusetts from 1916 to 1921. He was lieutenant governor with Samuel W. McCall as governor. He won the 1918 election for Governor of Massachusetts. His running mate was Channing Cox or the Boston lawyer and Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Coolidge ran on a platform of being fiscal conservative, a vague opposition to Prohibition, support for women's suffrage, and support for American involvement in World War I. The issue of war was divisive, but he won the election. As Governor, he opposed the Boston police to form a union. He responded to Samuel Gompers' pro-labor, pro-union words. Coolidge lost many friends from organized labor because of his decision to use National Guard troops to promote Curtis to office in the Boston police. Yet, he promoted law and order. He ran for re-election as Governor in 1918.
By the time Coolidge was inaugurated as Governor on January 2, 1919, the First World War had ended, and Coolidge pushed the legislature to give a $100 bonus (equivalent to $1,493 in 2020) to Massachusetts veterans. He also signed a bill reducing the work week for women and children from fifty-four hours to forty-eight, saying, "We must humanize the industry, or the system will break down." He signed into law a budget that kept the tax rates the same, while trimming $4 million from expenditures, thus allowing the state to retire some of its debt. Coolidge vetoed many bills as Governor. Her personally opposed to Prohibition, but he enforced the 18th Amendment because it was the law of the land. He was Vice President from 1921 to 1923 under President Warren G. Harding. Harding won Tennessee in the election which was the first time a Republican ticket won a Southern state since Reconstruction. Coolidge was mostly quiet as Vice President. He gave many speeches.
Coolidge often seemed uncomfortable among fashionable Washington society; when asked why he continued to attend so many of their dinner parties, he replied, "Got to eat somewhere." Alice Roosevelt Longworth, a leading Republican wit, underscored Coolidge's silence and his dour personality: "When he wished he were elsewhere, he pursed his lips, folded his arms, and said nothing. He looked then precisely as though he had been weaned on a pickle." Coolidge and his wife, Grace, who was a great baseball fan, once attended a Washington Senators game and sat through all nine innings without saying a word, except once when he asked her the time. After Warren Harding's unexpected death from a heart attack in San Francisco, Calvin Coolidge was President immediately. Coolidge was at his Vermont home with his family when the news came to him. His father, a notary public and justice of the peace, administered the oath of office in the family's parlor by the light of a kerosene lamp at 2:47 a.m. on August 3, 1923, whereupon the new President of the United States returned to bed.
Coolidge returned to Washington the next day, and was sworn in again by Justice Adolph A. Hoehling Jr. of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, to forestall any questions about the authority of a state official to administer a federal oath. This second oath-taking remained a secret until it was revealed by Harry M. Daugherty in 1932, and confirmed by Hoehling. President Calvin Coolidge kept a low profile.
Coolidge addressed Congress when it reconvened on December 6, 1923, giving a speech that supported many of Harding's policies, including Harding's formal budgeting process, the enforcement of immigration restrictions and arbitration of coal strikes ongoing in Pennsylvania. The address to Congress was the first presidential speech to be broadcast over the radio. The Washington Naval Treaty was proclaimed just one month into Coolidge's term, and was generally well received in the country. In May 1924, the World War I veterans' World War Adjusted Compensation Act or "Bonus Bill" was passed over his veto. Coolidge signed the Immigration Act later that year, which was aimed at restricting southern and eastern European immigration, but appended a signing statement expressing his unhappiness with the bill's specific exclusion of Japanese immigrants. Just before the Republican Convention began, Coolidge signed into law the Revenue Act of 1924, which reduced the top marginal tax rate from 58% to 46%, as well as personal income tax rates across the board, increased the estate tax and bolstered it with a new gift tax. On June 2, 1924, Coolidge signed the act granting citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States. By that time, two-thirds of them were already citizens, having gained it through marriage, military service (veterans of World War I were granted citizenship in 1919), or the land allotments that had earlier taken place. Coolidge won the 1924 election against John W. Davis and Robert M. LaFollette, a Republican Progressive politician from Wisconsin. After his son Calvin died, Calvin Coolidge was never the same.
President Calvin Coolidge ran his campaign and run. He wasn't confrontational. Calvin Coolidge saw the rapid economic growth in the Roaring Twenties. Herbert Hoover was the Secretary of Commerce back then. Coolidge disdained regulation and demonstrated this by appointing commissioners to the Federal Trade Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission who did little to restrict the activities of businesses under their jurisdiction. The regulatory state under Coolidge was, as one biographer described it, "thin to the point of invisibility." Historian Robert Sobel offers some context of Coolidge's laissez-faire ideology, based on the prevailing understanding of federalism during his presidency: "As Governor of Massachusetts, Coolidge supported wages and hours legislation, opposed child labor, imposed economic controls during World War I, favored safety measures in factories, and even worker representation on corporate boards. Did he support these measures while president? No, because in the 1920s, such matters were considered the responsibilities of state and local governments." I disagree, because the federal government has every right to ban child labor, have labor rights, and do other things to regulate the economy. Coolidge supported the taxation policies of Andrew Mellon. He cut taxes. He reduced federal expenditures. Only the richest 2 percent of taxpayers paid any federal income tax by 1927. Coolidge even opposed to farm subsidies. Farmers were suffering, and Coolidge refused to support the federal government to purchase crops to sell abroad at lower prices. Agriculture Secretary Henry C. Wallace and other administration officials favored the bill of the federal government to help farmers when it was introduced in 1924, but rising prices convinced many in Congress that the bill was unnecessary, and it was defeated just before the elections that year.
In 1926, with farm prices falling once more, Senator Charles L. McNary and Representative Gilbert N. Haugen – both Republicans – proposed the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill. The bill proposed a federal farm board that would purchase surplus production in high-yield years and hold it (when feasible) for later sale or sell it abroad. Coolidge opposed McNary-Haugen, declaring that agriculture must stand "on an independent business basis", and said that "government control cannot be divorced from political control." Instead of manipulating prices, he favored instead Herbert Hoover's proposal to increase profitability by modernizing agriculture. Secretary Mellon wrote a letter denouncing the McNary-Haugen measure as unsound and likely to cause inflation, and it was defeated. Coolidge has often been criticized for his actions during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the worst natural disaster to hit the Gulf Coast until Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Although he did eventually name Secretary Hoover to a commission in charge of flood relief, scholars argue that Coolidge overall showed a lack of interest in federal flood control. Coolidge did not believe that personally visiting the region after the floods would accomplish anything, and that it would be seen as mere political grandstanding. He also did not want to incur the federal spending that flood control would require; he believed property owners should bear much of the cost. On the other hand, Congress wanted a bill that would place the federal government completely in charge of flood mitigation. When Congress passed a compromise measure in 1928, Coolidge declined to take credit for it and signed the bill in private on May 15. Calvin Coolidge spoke in making lynching a federal crime, but he did nothing revolutionary to help African Americans. During his time as Presidents, lynchings of African Americans decreased and millions of people left the Klan. Coolidge disliked the Klan. Charles Dawes criticized the Klan.
Coolidge spoke in favor of the civil rights of African-Americans, saying in his first State of the Union address that their rights were "just as sacred as those of any other citizen" under the U.S. Constitution and that it was a "public and a private duty to protect those rights." On June 6, 1924, Coolidge delivered a commencement address at historically black, non-segregated Howard University, in which he thanked and commended African-Americans for their rapid advances in education and their contributions to U.S. society over the years, as well as their eagerness to render their services as soldiers in the World War, all while being faced with discrimination and prejudices at home. On June 2, 1924, Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted U.S. citizenship to all American Indians living on reservations. (Those off reservations had long been citizens). Coolidge spoke of tolerance of differences. He worked in foreign policy affairs too. Coolidge wanted the World Court but not the League of Nations as not serving American interests. He wanted the Dawes Plan to give partial relief to Germany in paying off their reparations from WWI. Coolidge refused to recognize the USSR. Coolidge worked with Mexico and allowed the occupation of Nicaragua plus Haiti. He ended the occupation of Dominican Republic in 1924. Coolidge talked with Latin American leaders. For Canada, Coolidge authorized the St. Lawrence Seaway, a system of locks and canals that would provide large vessels passage between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes. His cabinet including judicial appointments existed. By the 1928 election, Coolidge didn't run for re-election. Herbert Hoover won in a landslide by 1928. The Republicans had a landslide. Calvin Coolidge retired and lived in Northampton. He was an honorary president of the American Foundation for the Blind, a director of New York Life Insurance Company, president of the American Antiquarian Society, and a trustee of Amherst College. Calvin Coolidge supported Herbert Hoover's re-election campaign in 1932. Hoover lost, and Coolidge promoted his autobiography, newspaper column, etc.
Coolidge died suddenly from coronary thrombosis at "The Beeches", at 12:45 p.m., January 5, 1933, at age 60. Shortly before his death, Coolidge confided to an old friend: "I feel I no longer fit in with these times." Coolidge is buried in Plymouth Notch Cemetery, Plymouth Notch, Vermont. The nearby family home is maintained as one of the original buildings on the Calvin Coolidge Homestead District site. The State of Vermont dedicated a new visitors' center nearby to mark Coolidge's 100th birthday on July 4, 1972. Calvin Coolidge's 2nd inauguration was the first Presidential inauguration broadcast on the radio. He helped to expand radio regulation too. When Charles Lindbergh arrived in Washington on a U.S. Navy ship after his celebrated 1927 trans-Atlantic flight, President Coolidge welcomed him back to the U.S. and presented him with the Medal of Honor; the event was captured on film. The legacy of President Calvin Coolidge was that was he was more of a shy man who sincerely believed in laissez faire economic policies. He was still sincerely wrong on economic issues, and the federal government utilized to enrich the lives of the people directly is righteous. Coolidge didn't live to see the era of WWII, but Coolidge was the transitional President after WWI but before WWII that caused another expansion of the federal government since the days of Reconstruction.
Herbert Hoover
The 31st President of the United States of America was Herbert Clark Hoover. Herbert Hoover was a member of the Republican Party, and he was President from 1929 to 1933. Hoover saw the start of the Great Depression when he was in his office. Before being President, he led the Commission for Relief in Belgium, was the director of the U.S. Food Administration, and was the third Secretary of Commerce. He lived from August 10, 1874 to October 20, 1964. Hebert Hoover was born on August 10, 1874 at West Branch, Iowa. His father, Jesse Hoover, was a blacksmith and farm implement store owner of German, Swiss, and English ancestry. His mother was Hulda Randall Minthorn. She was raised in Norwich, Ontario, Canda before moving into Iowa in 1859. Hoover was raised as a Quaker. Hoover read the Bible as a child. His parents died as a young age, so he was an orphan along with his brother and sister. Hoover lived with his uncle Allen Hoover at a nearby farm. By November 1885, Hoover was sent to Newberg, Oregon, to live with his uncle John Minthorn, a Quaker physician and businessman whose own son had died the year before. Hoover developed a strong work ethic with the Minthorn family. Hoover attended Friends Pacific Academy Or George Fox University now. He dropped out to be an office assistant for his uncle's real estate office in Salem, Oregon. At night school, he learned bookkeeping, typing, and mathematics. By 1891, he was part of Stanford University, despite failing all the entrance exams, except mathematics. He studied geology. John Casper Branner was the chair of Stanford's geology department. Hoover worked in part time jobs and was in campus activities. Hoover was shy at first, but he won election as student treasurer. He had a distaste of fraternities and sororities. Hoover served as student manager of both baseball and football teams. He helped to organize the inaugural Big Game versus the University of California. Hoover continued to study geology. That is why he interned under economic geologist Waldemar Lindgren of the United States Geological Survey. His career of a mining geologist and engineer grew.
Hoover graduated from Stanford in 1895. This was the time when most of the country had the economic crisis of the Panic of 1893. Hoover worked in low level mining jobs in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Later, he was trained by the prominent mining engineer Louis Janin, and Janin hired him. He worked as a mine court for a year until he was hired by Bewick, Moreing, and Co., a London based company that operated gold mines in Western Australia. Hoover went to Coolgradie at first, then the center of the Eastern Goldfields. Though Hoover received a $5,000 salary (equivalent to $155,540 in 2020), conditions were harsh in the goldfields. Hoover described the Coolgardie and Murchison rangelands on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert as a land of "black flies, red dust and white heat." Hoover traveled constantly across the Outback to evaluate and manage the company's mines. He convinced Bewick, Moreing to purchase the Sons of Gwalia gold mine, which proved to be one of the most successful mines in the region. Partly due to Hoover's efforts, the company eventually controlled approximately 50 percent of gold production in Western Australia. Hoover brought in many Italian immigrants to cut costs and counter the labor movement of the Australian miners. During his time with the mining company, Hoover became opposed to measures such as a minimum wage and workers' compensation, feeling that they were unfair to owners. Hoover's work impressed his employers, and in 1898 he was promoted to junior partner. An open feud developed between Hoover and his boss, Ernest Williams, but company leaders defused the situation by offering Hoover a compelling position in China.
Upon arriving in China, Hoover developed gold mines near Tianjin on behalf of Bewick, Moreing and the Chinese-owned Chinese Engineering and Mining Company. He became deeply interested in Chinese history, but gave up on learning the language to a fluent level. He publicly said the racist comment Chinese workers were inefficient and racially inferior. Of course, that is a lie as Chinese people are never inefficient or racially inferior. Hoover said that he wanted recommendations to end the imposing of long term servitude contracts and have reforms of Chinese workers based on merit. The Boxer Rebellion came out shortly after Hoover came into China. The Hoovers and other foreign nationals were in a multi-national military force to defeat the Boxer forces in the Battle of Tientsin. Fearing the imminent collapse of the Chinese government, the director of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company agreed to establish a new Sino-British venture with Bewick, Moreing. After Hoover and Bewick, Moreing established effective control over the new Chinese mining company, Hoover became the operating partner of Bewick, Moreing in late 1901. As operating partner, Hoover continually traveled the world on behalf of Bewick, Moreing, visiting mines operated by the company on different continents. Beginning in December 1902, the company faced mounting legal and financial issues after one of the partners admitted to having fraudulently sold stock in a mine. More issues arose in 1904, after the British government formed two separate royal commissions to investigate Bewick, Moreing's labor practices and financial dealings in Western Australia. After the company lost a suit Hoover began looking for a way to get out of the partnership, and he sold his shares in mid-1908.
Herbert Hoover was a mining engineer in 1917. He left Bewick, Moreing, and Hoover to work as a London based independent mining consultant and financial leader. Hoover raised money on many investments worldwide. He had offices in San Francisco, London, New York City, Paris, Petrograd, and Mandalay, British Burman. By 1914, Hoover was a very wealthy man, with an estimated personal fortune of $4 million or equivalent to $103.35 million in 2020. Hoover co-founded the Zinc Corporation to get zinc near the Australian city of Broken Hill, New South Wales. He has a role in increasing copper production in Kyshtym, Russia via the use of pyritic smelting. He managed a mine in the Altai Mountains. Hoover wrote a book called the Principles of Mining in 1909 where he promoted the 8 hour workdays and organized labor. Hoover became deeply interested in the history of science, and he was especially drawn to the De re metallica, an influential 16th century work on mining and metallurgy by Georgius Agricola. In 1912, Hoover and his wife published the first English translation of De re metallica., Hoover also joined the board of trustees at Stanford, and led a successful campaign to appoint John Branner as the university's president. Herbert Hoover dated Lou Henry that she met during his senior year at Stanford. She was a daughter of a banker from Monterey, California. Lou Henry studied geology at Stanford after attending a lecture delivered by John Branner. Hoover and Lou Henry married each other. Lou Henry passed away in 1944. Hoover rarely attended Quaker religious meetings during his adult life. The couple had 2 children: Herbert Hoover Jr. (born in 1903) and Allan Henry Hoover (born in 1907). The Hoover family began living in London in 1902, though they frequently traveled as part of Hoover's career. After 1916, the Hoovers began living in the United States, maintaining homes in Palo Alto, California, and Washington, D.C.
The events of World War I changed his life forever. The Allies of France and other nations fought Germany by August 1914. The Germans wanted to go into Paris to conquer it by traveling through neutral Belgium. Germany controlled nearly all of Belgium during the war. Hoover and other London-based American businessmen established a committee to organize the return of the roughly 100,000 Americans stranded in Europe. Hoover was appointed as the committee's chair and, with the assent of Congress and the Wilson administration, took charge of the distribution of relief to Americans in Europe. Hoover later stated, "I did not realize it at the moment, but on August 3, 1914, my career was over forever. I was on the slippery road of public life." By early October 1914, Hoover's organization had distributed relief to at least 40,000 Americans. A food crisis existed in Belgium after Germany invaded Belgium in August of 1914. The Germans didn't want to feed Belgian citizens. The British refused to lift their blockade of German occupied Belgium unless the U.S. government supervised Belgian food imports as a neutral party in the war. With the cooperation of the Wilson administration and the CNSA, a Belgian relief organization, Hoover established the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB). The CRB obtained and imported millions of tons of foodstuffs for the CNSA to distribute and helped ensure that the German army did not appropriate the food. Private donations and government grants supplied the majority of its $11-million-a-month budget, and the CRB became a veritable independent republic of relief, with its own flag, navy, factories, mills, and railroads. Herbert Hoover worked with Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George to send money to the people of Belgium. Supplies came to German occupied Northern France in 1915. Hoover negotiated things with the British, French, German, Dutch, and Belgian government. Hoover was the head of the U.S. Food Administration.
Hoover helped many Americans and others to get food. During the war, food spread among many people. WWI caused a global food crisis. Food prices increased and food riots plus starvation existed in countries at war. Hoover's chief goal as food czar was to provide supplies to the Allied Powers, but he also sought to stabilize domestic prices and to prevent domestic shortages. Under the broad powers granted by the Food and Fuel Control Act, the Food Administration supervised food production throughout the United States, and the administration made use of its authority to buy, import, store, and sell food. Determined to avoid rationing, Hoover established set days for people to avoid eating specified foods and save them for soldiers' rations: meatless Mondays, wheatless Wednesdays, and "when in doubt, eat potatoes". These policies were dubbed "Hooverizing" by government publicists, in spite of Hoover's continual orders that publicity should not mention him by name. The Food Administration shipped 23 million metric tons of food to the Allied Powers, preventing their collapse and earning Hoover great acclaim. As head of the Food Administration, Hoover gained a following in the United States, especially among progressives who saw in Hoover an expert administrator and symbol of efficiency. Hoover also helped Europe with food relief after the war ended. Hoover was a close advisor to President Hoover. He believed in the League of Nations and self-determination. John Maynard Keynes, the economist, praised Hoover for his realism. Despite the opposition of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and other Republicans, Hoover provided aid to the defeated German nation after the war, as well as relief to famine-stricken Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Hoover condemned the Bolsheviks but warned President Wilson against an intervention in the Russian Civil War, as he viewed the White Russian forces as little better than the Bolsheviks and feared the possibility of a protracted U.S. involvement. The Russian famine of 1921–22 claimed six million people, but the intervention of the ARA likely saved millions of lives. When asked if he was not helping Bolshevism by providing relief, Hoover stated, "twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!" Reflecting the gratitude of many Europeans, in July 1922, Soviet author Maxim Gorky told Hoover that "your help will enter history as a unique, gigantic achievement, worthy of the greatest glory, which will long remain in the memory of millions of Russians whom you have saved from death."
Herbert Hoover ran for President in 1920 as a Republican. He wanted higher taxes back then, criticism of Attorney General A. Mitchell's Palmer's actions during the First Red Scare, a minimum wage, 48 hour work week, and elimination of child labor. Hoover back then was never closely affiliated with the Democrats or the Republicans. He joined the Republicans, because he thought that the Democrats couldn't win. Hoover lost after his defeat in the California primary by their favorite son Hiram Johnson. Warren G. Harding won the 1920 Republican National Convention and the Presidential election. Hoover supported him. Harding made Hoover the Secretary of Commerce. He was in that position from 1921 to 1928. As part of the Commerce Department, Hoover didn't want unrestrained capitalism or socialism, but a third alternative.
He wanted a balance among labor, capital, and government. A high priority was economic diplomacy, including promoting the growth of exports, as well as protection against monopolistic practices of foreign governments, especially regarding rubber and coffee. Some have called him a corporatist or an associationalist. Hoover demanded, and received, authority to coordinate economic affairs throughout the government. He created many sub-departments and committees, overseeing and regulating everything from manufacturing statistics to air travel. In some instances he "seized" control of responsibilities from other Cabinet departments when he deemed that they were not carrying out their responsibilities well; some began referring to him as the "Secretary of Commerce and Under-Secretary of all other departments." In response to the Depression of 1920–21, he convinced Harding to assemble a presidential commission on unemployment, which encouraged local governments to engage in countercyclical infrastructure spending. He endorsed much of Mellon's tax reduction program, but favored a more progressive tax system and opposed the treasury secretary's efforts to eliminate the estate tax.
People in America in families that had radio grew form 1923 to 1929 from 300,000 to 10 million Hoover, as Secretary of Commerce, promoted radio regulation and air travel. He gave radio conferences and contributed to the Radio Act of 1927 that allowed the government to intervene and abolish radio stations that were deemed non useful to the public. Many Congressmen disagreed with the regulation of radio including Senators and from radio station owners. Hoover promoted the air industry. He wanted indirect government subsidies to fund that industry. He encouraged the development of emergency landing fields, required all runways to be equipped with lights and radio beams, and encouraged farmers to make use of planes for crop dusting. He also established the federal government's power to inspect planes and license pilots, setting a precedent for the later Federal Aviation Administration. As Commerce Secretary, Hoover hosted national conferences on street traffic collectively known as the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety. Hoover's chief objective was to address the growing casualty toll of traffic accidents, but the scope of the conferences grew and soon embraced motor vehicle standards, rules of the road, and urban traffic control. He left the invited interest groups to negotiate agreements among themselves, which were then presented for adoption by states and localities. Because automotive trade associations were the best organized, many of the positions taken by the conferences reflected their interests. The conferences issued a model Uniform Vehicle Code for adoption by the states, and a Model Municipal Traffic Ordinance for adoption by cities. Both were widely influential, promoting greater uniformity between jurisdictions and tending to promote the automobile's priority in city streets.. Hoover didn't want to be seen as a British tool (as he spent years in Britain and Australia), so he wanted to work with the media to build up his image.
Herbert Hoover gave speeches and interviews criticizing monopolies, promoting science, and working in the auto industry. Herbert Hoover wanted to eliminate waste, international trade, and long term home mortgages. This was done by the Better Houses in America movement, the Architects' Small House Service Bureau, and the Home Modernizing Burequa. Other accomplishments included winning the agreement of U.S. Steel to adopt an eight-hour workday, and the fostering of the Colorado River Compact, a water rights compact among Southwestern states. There was the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. The banks and levees broke in early 1927. That causes millions of acres to be flooded and leaving 1.5 million people displaced from their homes. Although disaster response did not fall under the duties of the Commerce Department, the governors of six states along the Mississippi River specifically asked President Coolidge to appoint Hoover to coordinate the response to the flood. Believing that disaster response was not the domain of the federal government, Coolidge initially refused to become involved, but he eventually acceded to political pressure and appointed Hoover to chair a special committee to help the region. Hoover established over one hundred tent cities and a fleet of more than six hundred vessels and raised $17 million (equivalent to $253.27 million in 2020). In large part due to his leadership during the flood crisis, by 1928, Hoover had begun to overshadow President Coolidge himself. Though Hoover received wide acclaim for his role in the crisis, he ordered the suppression of reports of mistreatment of African Americans in refugee camps. He did so with the cooperation of African-American leader Robert Russa Moton, who was promised unprecedented influence once Hoover became president. Hoover and Moton were wrong to suppress reports. Hoover lied to Moton in saying that if Moton suppressed reports, then Moton and other black people would have high positions in the Hoover administration. Motivated by Hoover's promises, Moton saw to it that the Colored Advisory Commission never revealed the full extent of the abuses in the Delta, and Moton championed Hoover's candidacy to the African-American population. However, once elected President in 1928, Hoover ignored Robert Moton and the promises he had made to his black constituency. In the following election of 1932, Moton withdrew his support for Hoover and switched to the Democratic Party.
Hoover ran for President in 1928, and he won. Coolidge announced his retirement from Presidential office in August 1927, so Hoover was free to run. He or Hoover worked with a strong campaign team led by Hubert Work, Will H. Hays, and Reed Smooth. Coolidge criticized Hoover as giving him bad advice, but he supported Hoover anyway as not to break up the Republican Party. Charles Dawes wasn't the Vice President as Coolidge hated him. So, Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas was the Vice President. The Democrats choose Al Smith, who was the first Roman Catholic major nominee for President. Hoover wanted to say that the Republican record of peace and prosperity would make people vote for him. Smith was more charismatic and gregarious than Hoover. His campaign was damaged by his overt opposition to Prohibition, and some people targeted his Catholic faith. Hoover was never a strong proponent of Prohibition, but he accepted the policy as a noble motive. Hoover made the racist policy to remove black Republicans from leadership positions in attempting to gain support among white Southerners.
Hoover maintained polling leads throughout the 1928 campaign, and he decisively defeated Smith on election day, taking 58 percent of the popular vote and 444 of the 531 electoral votes. Historians agree that Hoover's national reputation and the booming economy, combined with deep splits in the Democratic Party over religion and Prohibition, guaranteed his landslide victory. Hoover's appeal to Southern white voters succeeded in cracking the "Solid South", and he won five Southern states. Hoover's victory was positively received by newspapers; one wrote that Hoover would "drive so forcefully at the tasks now before the nation that the end of his eight years as president will find us looking back on an era of prodigious achievement." Hoover's detractors wondered why he did not do anything to reapportion congress after the 1920 United States Census which saw an increase in urban and immigrant populations. The 1920 Census was the first and only Decennial Census where the results were not used to reapportion Congress, which ultimately influenced the 1928 Electoral College and impacted the Presidential Election.
President Herbert Hoover was President from 1929 to 1933. He wanted a public private cooperation to improve conditions for all Americans. He supported volunteerism and opposed governmental coercion or intervention. He focused on individualism and self-reliance. He signed the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929, the Federal Farm Board to stabilize farm prices, and made studies to promote solutions. Business leaders dominated his cabinet. Secretary of Treasury was Andrew Mellon. Lou Henry Hoover was the activist First Lady. She was overt in being a new woman of the Post WWI era. Then, the Great Depression hit after Hoover said that he wanted poverty abolished on the Earth. The Great Depression existed by a farm crisis, growing income inequality, and excessive speculation. Stock prices grew far beyond their value. Many people and regulators said that Hoover had to curb speculation to prevent financial catastrophe. Coolidge and Hoover didn't want the Federal Reserve System to be too involved in regulating banks. In late October 1929, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 occurred, and the worldwide economy began to spiral downward into the Great Depression. The causes of the Great Depression remain a matter of debate, but Hoover viewed a lack of confidence in the financial system as the fundamental economic problem facing the nation. He sought to avoid direct federal intervention, believing that the best way to bolster the economy was through the strengthening of businesses such as banks and railroads. Hoover believed in the lie that people in a social safety net would weakened the nation permanently. Hoover wanted local governments and private giving to deal with individuals.
Hoover wanted to cut interest rates, send money to promote lending, and try to stop deflation. He opposed Congressional proposals to provide federal relief to the unemployed, as he believed that such programs were the responsibility of state and local governments and philanthropic organizations. He supported raising tariffs in the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act in June of 1930. Later, many nations like Canada and France retaliated by raising tariffs. The economy worsened. Progressive Republicans such as Senator William E. Borah of Idaho were outraged when Hoover signed the tariff act, and Hoover's relations with that wing of the party never recovered. Unemployment reached 11.9 percent by the end of 1930. Banks failed, and the larger economic collapse happened in 1931. Many nations left the gold standard, and Hoover refused to abandon it. Hoover made a one-year moratorium on European war debts, in response to the collapse of the German economy. By this time, the worldwide economy became worst. Democratic governments fell; in Germany, Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler assumed power and dismantled the Weimar Republic.
By mid-1931, the unemployment rate had reached 15 percent, giving rise to growing fears that the country was experiencing a depression far worse than recent economic downturns. A reserved man with a fear of public speaking, Hoover allowed his opponents in the Democratic Party to define him as cold, incompetent, reactionary, and out-of-touch. Hoover's opponents developed nicknames to discredit him, such as "Hooverville" (the shanty towns and homeless encampments), "Hoover leather" (cardboard used to cover holes in the soles of shoes), and "Hoover blanket" (old newspaper used to cover oneself from the cold). While Hoover continued to resist direct federal relief efforts, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York launched the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration to provide aid to the unemployed. Democrats positioned the program as a kinder alternative to Hoover's alleged apathy towards the unemployed, despite Hoover's belief that such programs were the responsibility of state and local governments.
The economy continued to worsen, with unemployment rates nearing 23 percent in early 1932, and Hoover finally heeded calls for more direct federal intervention. In January 1932, he convinced Congress to authorize the establishment of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), which would provide government-secured loans to financial institutions, railroads, and local governments. The RFC saved numerous businesses from failure, but it failed to stimulate commercial lending as much as Hoover had hoped, partly because it was run by conservative bankers unwilling to make riskier loans. The same month the RFC was established, Hoover signed the Federal Home Loan Bank Act, establishing 12 district banks overseen by a Federal Home Loan Bank Board in a manner similar to the Federal Reserve System. He also helped arrange passage of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1932, emergency banking legislation designed to expand banking credit by expanding the collateral on which Federal Reserve banks were authorized to lend. As these measures failed to stem the economic crisis, Hoover signed the Emergency Relief and Construction Act, a $2 billion public works bill, in July 1932. The federal government had a budget deficit in 1931 after a decade of surpluses. Some wanted deficit spending to address the Great Depression.
In late 1931, Hoover proposed a tax plan to increase tax revenue by 30 percent, resulting in the passage of the Revenue Act of 1932. The act increased taxes across the board, rolling back much of the tax cut reduction program Mellon had presided over during the 1920s. Top earners were taxed at 63 percent on their net income, the highest rate since the early 1920s. The act also doubled the top estate tax rate, cut personal income tax exemptions, eliminated the corporate income tax exemption, and raised corporate tax rates. Despite the passage of the Revenue Act, the federal government continued to run a budget deficit. Hoover was never revolutionary on civil rights. He didn't mention civil rights a lot. He believed that African Americans and other races of people could improve by education and individual initiative. He appointed more black Americans to federal positions than Harding and Coolidge combined. Yet, many black leaders condemned Hoover for not pushing for a federal anti-lynching law. Hoover removed black people from leadership positions in the GOP. This effort angered black people, except people like Robert Moton who viewed this measure as temporary. It wasn't temporary.
Hoover further alienated black leaders by nominating conservative Southern Judge John J. Parker to the Supreme Court; Parker's nomination ultimately failed in the Senate due to opposition from the NAACP and organized labor. Many black voters switched to the Democratic Party in the 1932 election, and African Americans would later become an important part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal coalition. As part of his efforts to limit unemployment, Hoover sought to cut immigration to the United States, and in 1930 he promulgated an executive order requiring individuals to have employment before migrating to the United States. Prohibition ended by the 21st Amendment to the Constitution by December 1933. It didn't work. He didn't interfere with foreign affairs in Latin America a lot. Yet, he did use the military in Latin American countries who promoted progressive views like the Dominican Republic and El Salvador. He ended the occupation of Nicaragua. He almost ended the occupation of Haiti. He wanted money from the military to be sent to domestic needs or disarmament. He wanted the banning of tanks and bombers which weren't adopted. He didn't agree with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, but he followed the Stimson Doctrine to not recognize territories gained by force.
Thousands of World War I veterans and their families demonstrated and camped out in Washington, DC, during June 1932, calling for immediate payment of bonuses that had been promised by the World War Adjusted Compensation Act in 1924; the terms of the act called for payment of the bonuses in 1945. Although offered money by Congress to return home, some members of the "Bonus Army" remained. Washington police attempted to disperse the demonstrators, but they were outnumbered and unsuccessful. Shots were fired by the police in a futile attempt to attain order, and two protesters were killed while many officers were injured. Hoover sent U.S. Army forces led by General Douglas MacArthur to the protests. MacArthur, believing he was fighting a Communist revolution, chose to clear out the camp with military force. This was not a Communist revolution but sincere military veterans who wanted just economic compensation. McArthur was wrong in his role in the Bonus Army march suppression. Though Hoover had not ordered MacArthur's clearing out of the protesters, he endorsed it after the fact. The incident proved embarrassing for the Hoover administration and hurt his bid for re-election.
Herbert Hoover ran for re-election in 1932. Hoover had issues with his economic performance. Franklin D. Roosevelt won the 1932 Democratic National Convention nomination. He defeated Al Smith. FDR and the Democrats blamed Hoover of the Great Depression. As Governor of New York, Roosevelt had called on the New York legislature to provide aid for the needy, establishing Roosevelt's reputation for being more favorable toward government interventionism during the economic crisis. The Democratic Party, including Al Smith and other national leaders, coalesced behind Roosevelt, while progressive Republicans like George Norris and Robert La Follette Jr. deserted Hoover. Prohibition was increasingly unpopular, and many people offered the argument that states and localities needed the tax money. Hoover proposed a new constitutional amendment that was vague on particulars. Roosevelt's platform promised repeal of the 18th Amendment. Hoover still believed that non intervention from the federal government would save the nation from Depression. People were hostile with him. He was heckled and the Secret Service prevented people from trying to hurt Hoover. In the electoral vote, Hoover lost 59–472, carrying six states. Hoover won 39.7 percent of the popular vote, a plunge of 26 percentage points from his result in the 1928 election.
After Hoover lost the election, Herbert Hoover opposed the New Deal form FDR. Hoover was the sole living ex-President form 1933 to 1953. He lived in Palo Alto until his wife's death in 1944. Later, Hoover lived at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City. Hoover identified more as a conservative. Hoover became so radical that he wrote books calling FDR's New Deal as socialistic which is silly. Hoover ran again for President in 1936, but he lost. Hoover supported Landon. Hoover lost the 1940 RNC to Wendell Willkie.
During a 1938 trip to Europe, Hoover met with Adolf Hitler and stayed at Hermann Göring's hunting lodge. He expressed dismay at the persecution of Jewish people in Germany and believed that Hitler was mad, but did not present a threat to the U.S. Of course, Hoover was wrong. Instead, Hoover believed that Roosevelt posed the biggest threat to peace, holding that Roosevelt's policies provoked Japan and discouraged France and the United Kingdom from reaching an "accommodation" with Germany. This is silliness and overt appeasement by Hoover once again. After the September 1939 invasion of Poland by Germany, Hoover opposed U.S. involvement in World War II, including the Lend-Lease policy. He was active in the isolationist America First Committee. He rejected Roosevelt's offers to help coordinate relief in Europe, but, with the help of old friends from the CRB, helped establish the Commission for Polish Relief. After the beginning of the occupation of Belgium in 1940, Hoover provided aid for Belgian civilians, though this aid was described as unnecessary by German broadcasts.
In December 1939, sympathetic Americans led by Hoover formed the Finnish Relief Fund to donate money to aid Finnish civilians and refugees after the Soviet Union had started the Winter War by attacking Finland, which had outraged Americans. By the end of January, it had already sent more than two million dollars to the Finns.
During a radio broadcast on June 29, 1941, one week after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Hoover disparaged any "tacit alliance" between the U.S. and the USSR, stating, "if we join the war and Stalin wins, we have aided him to impose more communism on Europe and the world... War alongside Stalin to impose freedom is more than a travesty. It is a tragedy." Much to his frustration, Hoover was not called upon to serve after the United States entered World War II due to his differences with Roosevelt and his continuing unpopularity. He did not pursue the presidential nomination at the 1944 Republican National Convention, and, at the request of Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey, refrained from campaigning during the general election. In 1945, Hoover advised President Harry S. Truman to drop the United States' demand for the unconditional surrender of Japan because of the high projected casualties of the planned invasion of Japan, although Hoover was unaware of the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb. After WWII, Hoover was a friend to Harry S. Truman. Hoover was an anti-Communist radical who wanted to support Nixon to expose Communist in America. Hoover didn't like Eisenhower as Eisenhower refused to roll back the New Deal. Hoover was saddened over the Kennedy assassination in 1963 and he defended Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs invasion. Hoover wrote many books. Hoover was a radical by this time. He had major illnesses and passed away from internal bleeding on October 20, 1964, at New York City.
Hoover was honored with a state funeral in which he lay in state in the United States Capitol rotunda. President Lyndon Johnson and First Lady Ladybird Johnson attended, along with former presidents Truman and Eisenhower. Then, on October 25, he was buried in West Branch, Iowa, near his presidential library and birthplace on the grounds of the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site. Afterwards, Hoover's wife, Lou Henry Hoover, who had been buried in Palo Alto, California, following her death in 1944, was re-interred beside him. Hoover was the last surviving member of the Harding and Coolidge Cabinets. John Nance Garner (he was Speaker of the House during the second half of Hoover's term) was the only person in Hoover's United States presidential line of succession he did not outlive.
President Herbert Hoover had a complicated legacy. Hoover believed in voluntarism and cooperation, but he was stubborn to not adjust his mind to help people more thoroughly during the Great Depression. After his Presidency, he became even more conservative and caused the Republican Party to be a more conservative party. Hoover failed to adjust his perspectives and worked hard in the early 20th century to give food and other humanitarian aid in America plus Europe. Hoover believed in the Horatio Alger myth wholeheartedly being one of the most hardest critics of the New Deal. The New Deal saved millions of lives by providing Social Security to the elderly, adequate economic resources in other ways, and it helped to end the Great Depression (along with the U.S. military build up during World War II). Hoover was also a vicious racist as mentioned by W.E.B. DuBois and other scholars. The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum is located in West Branch, Iowa next to the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site. The library is one of thirteen presidential libraries run by the National Archives and Records Administration. The Hoover–Minthorn House, where Hoover lived from 1885 to 1891, is located in Newberg, Oregon. President Herbert Hoover ended his Presidency as failed to promote the general welfare. That is why his successor came about to change America in ways that were life changing in saving millions of lives in the future.
FDR
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was not only one of the greatest Presidents in history. He was one of the most transformational Presidents in history. His strengthens and imperfections are well known. He changed government in a way to legitimate promote the federal government to have a serious involvement in the general welfare of society that saved millions of lives literally. There is no Social Security as we know it without FDR, so his legitimate policies are things that I will always cherish and respect. Yet, no human is perfect, and we must know of his imperfections too in order to get a fair appraisal of the man. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an enemy to big Wall Street banking interests so much that many far right people planned a coup against him according to Smedley Butler. Therefore, I will always be progressive on economic issues. He was the 32nd President of the United States of America who was President from 1933 to 1945. Roosevelt was not only opposed by far right extremists but by pro-imperialistic Winston Churchill on many issues. Franklin Delano Roosevelt lived from January 30, 1882 to April 12, 1945. FDR's New Deal domestic agenda and his response leading the Allied forces to victory during WWII made him the most consequential President of the 20th century. He defined modern day liberalism in America.
He was born in the Hudson Valley town of Hyde Park, New York. His parents were businessman James Roosevelt I and his second wife Sara Ann Delano. His parents were 6th cousins. Both parts of his family came from wealthy established Ne York families like the Roosevelts, the Aspinwalls, and the Delanos. Roosevelt's paternal ancestor migrated to New Amsterdam in the 17th century, and the Roosevelts succeeded as merchants and landowners. The Delano family patriarch, Philip Delano, traveled to the New World on the Fortune in 1621, and the Delanos thrived as merchants and shipbuilders in Massachusetts. Franklin had a half-brother, James Roosevelt "Rosy" Roosevelt, from his father's previous marriage. His father graduated from Harvard Law School in 1851, but he didn't practice law. The reason was that he received an inheritance from his grandfather, James Roosevelt. His father was a prominent Bourbon Democrat. He took Franklin to meet President Glover Cleveland. President Cleveland said to him that, "My little man, I am making a strange wish for you. It is that you may never be President of the United States." Franklin's mother, the dominant influence in his early years, once declared, "My son Franklin is a Delano, not a Roosevelt at all." James, who was 54 when Franklin was born, was considered by some as a remote father, though biographer James MacGregor Burns indicates James interacted with his son more than was typical at the time. Roosevelt learned to ride, shoot, and sail. He played polo, tennis, and golf.
FDR traveled in trips to Europe from age 2 to age 7 to 15. He became conversant in German and French. He attended a public school in Germany at the age of 9. He later attended Groton School, which is an Episcopal boarding school in Groton, Massachusetts. He was not popular among Groton, Massachusetts. Many kids there were better athletes and had rebellious streaks. Its headmaster, Endicott Peabody, preached the duty of Christians to help the less fortunate and urged his students to enter public service. Peabody remained a strong influence throughout Roosevelt's life, officiating at his wedding and visiting him as president. FDR went into Harvard College. He was a member of the Fly Club and the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. Roosevelt wasn't an athlete, but he became an editor in chief of The Harvard Crimson daily newspaper. This required energy, the ability to manage others, and ambition. He later said, "I took economics courses in college for four years, and everything I was taught was wrong." Roosevelt was sadden over the death of his father in 1900. His fifth cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, was the President of America. FDR viewed Teddy Roosevelt as a hero and role model. Franklin graduated from Harvard in 1903 with an A.B. in history. He entered Columbia Law School in 1904 but dropped out in 1907 after passing the New York Bar Examination. In 1908, he took a job with the prestigious law firm of Carter Ledyard & Milburn, working in the firm's admiralty law division. Strange events came later. He proposed to Boston heiress Alice Sohier, who turned him down. Franklin courted his child acquaintance and cousin Eleanor Roosevelt , a niece of Theodore Roosevelt. That's wild. In 1903, Franklin proposed to Eleanor, and after resistance from his mother, they were married on March 17, 1905. Eleanor's father, Elliott, was deceased, and her uncle Theodore, then the president, gave away the bride. The young couple moved into Springwood, and Franklin and Sara Roosevelt also provided a townhouse for the couple in New York City, where Sara built a house alongside for herself. Eleanor never felt at home in the houses at Hyde Park or New York, but she loved the family's vacation home on Campobello Island, which Sara also gave the couple.
FDR was at ease with the upper class, but Eleanor was shy and disliked social life at first. She took care of their children at home. Eleanor used caregivers to take care of their children. She later said she knew "absolutely nothing about handling or feeding a baby." Although, Eleanor thought sex was "an ordeal to be endured", she and Franklin had six children. Anna, James, and Elliott were born in 1906, 1907, and 1910, respectively. The couple's second son, Franklin, died in infancy in 1909. Another son, also named Franklin, was born in 1914, and the youngest child, John, was born in 1916.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt had many extra martial affairs like Eleanor's social secretary Lucy Mercer (soon after she was hired in 1914. Eleanor found out in 1918). FDR thought about divorcing Eleanor, but Sara objected. Lucy wouldn't marry a divorced man with 5 children. Franklin and Eleanor remained married, and Roosevelt promised never to see Lucy again. Eleanor never forgave him, and their marriage became more of a political partnership. Eleanor soon established a separate home in Hyde Park at Val-Kill, and devoted herself to social and political causes independent of her husband. The emotional break in their marriage was so severe that when Roosevelt asked Eleanor in 1942—in light of his failing health—to come back home and live with him again, she refused. He was not always aware of when she visited the White House and for some time she could not easily reach him on the telephone without his secretary's help; Roosevelt, in turn, did not visit Eleanor's New York City apartment until late 1944.
Franklin broke his promise to Eleanor as he and Lucy maintained a formal correspondence, and began seeing each other again in 1941 or earlier. Roosevelt's son Elliott claimed that his father had a 20-year affair with his private secretary, Marguerite "Missy" LeHand. Another son, James, stated that "there is a real possibility that a romantic relationship existed" between his father and Crown Princess Märtha of Norway, who resided in the White House during part of World War II. Aides began to refer to her at the time as "the president's girlfriend", and gossip linking the two romantically appeared in the newspapers.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt started his major political career in 1910. He always wanted to enter politics after he left the practice of law. He admired his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, but he supported the Democratic Party. So, he supported Governor Woodrow Wilson's 1912 Presidential run. Roosevelt won the New York state senate race by 1910. FDR used cars to spread his message. Teddy even supported his campaign. FDR won in a suprising victory. He was part of a group of people opposing the Tammany Hall machine of the state Democratic Party. Roosevelt opposed Tammany Hall candidates. He put pressure to make Tammany support James A. O'Gorman. The press called him the "second coming of a Roosevelt" and sending "cold shivers down the spine of Tammany." FDR served as chairman of the Agriculture Committee, and his success with farm and labor bills was a precursor to his New Deal policies years later. He had then become more consistently progressive, in support of labor and social welfare programs. From 1913-1919, FDR was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Wilson. FDR worked under Navy Department Secretary Josephus Daniels. FDR loved the Navy and researched it heavily. Daniels and Roosevelts promoted a merit-based promotion system. He made reforms to make civilian control over the departments of the Navy that were autonomous. They made sure that Navy's civilian employees are dealt with. They earned the respect of union leaders for FDR's fairness in resolving disputes. No strikes took place when he was in office. FDR learned about labor issues, wartime management, naval issues, and logistics.
Roosevelt lost the Senate race against James W. Gerard in a tough campaign. After the election, he and Tammany Hall boss, Charles Francis Murphy, sought an accommodation and became allies. FDR supported Wilson's involvement in WWI, and he supported the Preparedness Movement. The Navy in America grew. After WWI, Roosevelt ran for vice President with Democratic candidate Governor James M. Cox of Ohio. Roosevelt personally supported U.S. membership in the League of Nations, but, unlike Wilson, he favored compromising with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and other "Reservationists". The Cox–Roosevelt ticket was defeated by Republicans Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge in the presidential election by a wide margin, and the Republican ticket carried every state outside of the South. Roosevelt accepted the loss without issue and later reflected that the relationships and goodwill that he built in the 1920 campaign proved to be a major asset in his 1932 campaign. The 1920 election also saw the first public participation of Eleanor Roosevelt who, with the support of Louis Howe, established herself as a valuable political ally. By August 1921, he was so sick that he became paralyzed from the waist down. He may have polio or Gullian Barre Syndrome. FDR continued with his political career. The development of polio vaccines came later. He was active in the Democratic Party in the 1920's, and he had contacts in the South, especially, in Georgia. He endorsed Al Smith's successful campaign in New York's 1922 gubernatorial election.
Roosevelt and Smith came from different backgrounds and never fully trusted one another, but Roosevelt supported Smith's progressive policies, while Smith was happy to have the backing of the prominent and well-respected Roosevelt. Roosevelt gave nominating speeches for Smith in 1928 and in 1928 during Smith's Presidential runs. FDR wanted compromise on the Prohibition issue. Some of his ideals in 1924 for a plan for world peace inspired by the creation of the United Nations in 1944-1945. FDR was Governor of New York state from 1929 to 1932. He defeated New York Attorney General Republican Albert Ottinger. FDR won by a 1 percent margin. Samuel Rosenman, Frances Perkins, and James Farley supported him. He made fireside chats to advance his agenda in the New York State Legislature. FDR didn't want to keep Smith appiontees like Moses, so their relationship suffered. He or FDR proposed hydroelectric power plans, addressed farming, and dealt with other issues. In October 1929, the Wall Street Crash occurred, and with it came the Great Depression. Roosevelt saw the seriousness of the situation and established a state employment commission. He also became the first governor to publicly endorse the idea of unemployment insurance.
When Roosevelt began his run for a second term in May 1930, he reiterated his doctrine from the campaign two years before: "that progressive government by its very terms must be a living and growing thing, that the battle for it is never-ending and that if we let up for one single moment or one single year, not merely do we stand still but we fall back in the march of civilization." He ran on a platform that called for aid to farmers, full employment, unemployment insurance, and old-age pensions. He was elected to a second term by a 14% margin. Roosevelt helped to bring economic relief to tons of New York state residents. FDR's Emergency Relief Administration (led by Jesse I. Strauss and later by Harry Hopkins) assisted over 1/3 of New York's population between 1932 and 1938. He used the Seabury Commission to fight crime, police corruption, and organized crime. Tammany Hall declined after public officials were gone from being exposed in an extortion ring. He supported reforestation with the Hewitt Amendment in 1931, which gave birth to New York's State Forest system.
FDR ran for President in 1932. He had the experience, and now it was time. People from Columbia University and Harvard University advised him on the campaign. FDR helped to address the depression in NY, so he was the front runner for the 1932 Democratic Presidential nomination. Roosevelt rallied the progressive supporters of the Wilson administration while also appealing to many conservatives, establishing himself as the leading candidate in the South and West. The chief opposition to Roosevelt's candidacy came from Northeastern conservatives such as Speaker of the House John Nance Garner of Texas and Al Smith, the 1928 Democratic presidential nominee. FDR promised a new deal for the American people. Roosevelt promised securities regulation, tariff reduction, farm relief, government-funded public works, and other government actions to address the Great Depression. Many progressives supported him like progressive Republicans George W. Norris, Hiram Johnson, and Robert La Follette Jr. FDR defeated Herbert Hoover, especially after Hoover's brutal response to veterans in the Bonus Army suppression. Roosevelt won 57% of the popular vote and carried all but six states. Historians and political scientists consider the 1932–36 elections to be a political realignment. Roosevelt's victory was enabled by the creation of the New Deal coalition, small farmers, the Southern whites, Catholics, big city political machines, labor unions, northern African Americans (southern ones were still disfranchised), Jewish people, intellectuals, and political liberals. The creation of the New Deal coalition transformed American politics and started what political scientists call the "New Deal Party System" or the Fifth Party System. Between the Civil War and 1929, Democrats had rarely controlled both houses of Congress and had won just four of seventeen presidential elections; from 1932 to 1979, Democrats won eight of twelve presidential elections and generally controlled both houses of Congress. FDR once said that, “We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President from 1933 to 1945. President Roosevelt appointed powerful people, but he made huge decisions under his command. Early on, the far right extremists hated him because of his political views. Roosevelt refused to support Hoover's policies after Hoover wanted him to renounce some of his campaign platform. FDR had Frances Perkins as the Secretary of Labor being the first woman appointed at a cabinet position, Cordell Hull, Harold L. Ickes, and Henry A. Wallace. In February 1933, Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Zangara, who expressed a "hate for all rulers." As he was attempting to shoot Roosevelt, Zangara was struck by a woman with her purse; he instead mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who was sitting alongside Roosevelt. FDR was inaugurated on March 4, 1933 during the nadir of the worst depression in Americna history. A quarter of the workforce was unemployed, and farmers were in deep trouble as prices had fallen by 60%. Industrial production had fallen by more than half since 1929. Two million people were homeless. By the evening of March 4, 32 of the 48 states – as well as the District of Columbia – had closed their banks. President Roosevelt used fireside chats to boost moods, and use policies to help people. Roosevelt used a four day national bank holiday to end the run by depositiors seeking to withdraw funds. FDR passed legislation like the Emergency Banking Act, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, and the Public Works Adminsitration to help society. Dams, Bridges, and schools were built. Some of the New Deal policies discriminated against black people, and that was wrong. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) helped to work on rural projects with 250,000 previously unemployed workers in them.
This was the First New Deal in 1933-1934. He ended Prohibition by signing the Cullen-Harrison Act. He used the Federal Trade Commission and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to help farmers and other other people. The Rural Electrification Administraiton and the National Industral Recovery Act wanted to cut cutthroat competion with minimum prices, rules, etc. Regulation existed with Glass Steagall Act, the FDIC,and other policies to handle financial regulations. Roosevelt worked with Senator Norris to create the largest government-owned industrial enterprise in American history—the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)—which built dams and power stations, controlled floods, and modernized agriculture and home conditions in the poverty-stricken Tennessee Valley. However, natives criticized the TVA for displacing thousands of people for these projects. He fought deflation by selling privately held gold of American citizens. The price raised form 20 to 35 dollars. He tried to balance the budget and he won support among Veteran groups by passing the Bonus Act in January 1936 (to give veterans direct cash). The GDP grew. Democrats gained seats in the 1934 Congressional elections. Also, the Second New Deal era existed from 1935-1936. He signed the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935 to help elderly people to have adequate retirement funds (and help the poor and sick). The National Labor Relations Act guaranteed workers the right to collective bargaining through unions of their own choice. The act also established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to facilitate wage agreements and to suppress the repeated labor disturbances. The act did not compel employers to reach an agreement with their employees, but it opened possibilities for American labor.
Labor increased, and sit ins plus strikes existed too. The 2nd New Deal was opposed more by the business community. Al Smith promoted the bigoted American Liberty League by slandering FDR as following the views of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. While the wealthy opposed the New Deal, many poor people, labor unions, and other people supported FDR. FDR wanted to use experiments to see what policies would work and reject those which failed. FDR won re-election in 1936. 8 million workers were unemployed in 1936. People from the far right like Charles Coughlin and some liberals opposed FDR of not going far enough. He won the election because of the NLRB and the Social Security Act. He defeated Republican Kansas Governor Alf Landon. Huey Long was assassinated in 1935, and he was more left wing. Roosevelt lost high-income voters, especially businessmen and professionals, but made major gains among the poor and minorities. He won 86 percent of the Jewish vote, 81 percent of Catholics, 80 percent of union members, 76 percent of Southerners, 76 percent of black Americans in northern cities, and 75 percent of people on relief. Roosevelt carried 102 of the country's 106 cities with a population of 100,000 or more.
By this time, President Roosevelt used a controversial court packing scheme in order to pass many of his political views. That action was opposed by liberals and conservatives back then. Later, the Supreme Court took down some of the New Deal policies. That would change in 1937. Four of Roosevelt's Supreme Court appointees, Felix Frankfurter, Robert H. Jackson, Hugo Black, and William O. Douglas, were particularly influential in re-shaping the jurisprudence of the Court. Roosevelt did manage to pass some legislation, including the Housing Act of 1937, a second Agricultural Adjustment Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938, which was the last major piece of New Deal legislation. The FLSA outlawed child labor, established a federal minimum wage, and required overtime pay for certain employees who work in excess of forty-hours per week. He also won passage of the Reorganization Act of 1939 and subsequently created the Executive Office of the President, making it "the nerve center of the federal administrative system." There was a year long recession from 1937-1938. Yet, FDR continued to oppose big business and monopoly power in America. Conservative Democrats opposed FDR and won many seats by the November 1938 election. Yet, they supported his foreign policy before and during World War II. President Roosevelt supported environmentalism in building forests and upgrading resources. FDR saw an expansion of GDP and a decline of unemployment. Roosevelt wanted a Good Neighbor Policy in Latin America opposition of the Monroe Doctrine. He withdrew U.S. military forces from Haiti and made new treaties with Cuba and Panama.
Roosevelt signed the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States banning the right to intervene unilaterally in the affairs of Latin American countries. FDR normalized relations with the Soviet Union. He wanted to renegotiate the Russian debt from WWI and open trade relations, but that plan didn't work. The rejection of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920 marked the dominance of isolationism in American foreign policy. Despite Roosevelt's Wilsonian background, he and Secretary of State Cordell Hull acted with great care not to provoke isolationist sentiment. The isolationist movement was bolstered in the early to mid-1930s by Senator Gerald Nye and others who succeeded in their effort to stop the "merchants of death" in the U.S. from selling arms abroad. The Neutrality Acts was passed. FDR largely followed Congress' non interventionism when fascists harmed people worldwide. Fascists like Benito Mussolini ruled Italy and invaded Ethiopia. Fascists like Hitler in Nazi Germany, Franco of Spain, and in other places harmed people. In 1939, Roosevelt regretted not aiding the Spanish Republicans. By 1937, Japan invaded China causing the Nanking Massacre (where people were killed and women were raped) and the USS Panay incident. FDR was personally opposed to isolationism, but most of Congress supported it. Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938. Roosevelt in public at that time was neutral. The Munich treasonous Agreement came about and the Kristallnacht massacre happened against Jewish people. American public opinion soon was against Germany. Roosevelt was prepared for possible war against the Nazis. Relying on an interventionist political coalition of Southern Democrats and business-oriented Republicans, Roosevelt oversaw the expansion of U.S. airpower and war production capacity.
World War II started in September 1939 after Germany invaded Poland. Britian and France declared war on Germany. Roosevelt used the Lend Lease program to aid the Allies forces including Churchill. Isolationist leaders opposed the repeal of the Neutrality Act like Charles Lindbergh and Senator William Borah. Roosevelt worked with Winston Churchill to fund the Allied secretly at first. France fell in June 1940 which shocked the American public. Isolationist sentiment declined. In July 1940, Roosevelt appointed two interventionist Republican leaders, Henry L. Stimson and Frank Knox, as Secretaries of War and the Navy, respectively. Both parties gave support to his plans for a rapid build-up of the American military, but the isolationists warned that Roosevelt would get the nation into an unnecessary war with Germany. In July 1940, a group of Congressmen introduced a bill that would authorize the nation's first peacetime draft, and with the support of the Roosevelt administration, the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 passed in September. The size of the army increased from 189,000 men at the end of 1939 to 1.4 million men in mid-1941. FDR won the 1940 election. He had his third term. FDR saw the Nazi threat as an enemy of freedom. He defeated Wendel Willkie. Henry Wallace was FDR's Vice President. Wallace was progressive back then. The Destroyers for Bases Agreement helped FDR to win the election. Roosevelt won the 1940 election with 55% of the popular vote, 38 of the 48 states, and almost 85% of the electoral vote. By 1941, FDR deal with world affairs heavily. War was coming to America very soon. Roosevelt maintained close personal control of all major diplomatic and military decisions, working closely with his generals and admirals, the war and Navy departments, the British, and even with the Soviet Union. His key advisors on diplomacy were Harry Hopkins (who was based in the White House), Sumner Welles (based in the State Department), and Henry Morgenthau Jr. at Treasury. In military affairs, FDR worked most closely with Secretary Henry L. Stimson at the War Department, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, and Admiral William D. Leahy.
President Roosevelt used policies to increase the policies of the Army and the Navy. His Four Freedoms speech promoted freedom of speech, the press, religion, and freedom from want. The Lend Lease program was working to aid Britain, China, and the Allied nations in general. Roosevelt worked to take a firm stance against Japan, Germany, and Italy. American isolationists such as Charles Lindbergh (who was a far right extremist) and the America First Committee vehemently attacked Roosevelt as an irresponsible warmonger. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Roosevelt agreed to extend Lend-Lease to the Soviets. Thus, Roosevelt had committed the U.S. to the Allied side with a policy of "all aid short of war." By July 1941, Roosevelt authorized the creation of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA) to counter perceived propaganda efforts in Latin America by Germany and Italy. FDR and Churchill drafted the Atlantic Charter to deal with postwar goals. Pearl Harbor changed everything and caused America to declare war on Germany and Japan. Japan wanted oil resources in Oceania and had an alliance with the Axis Powers called the Tripartite Pact. General Douglas MacArthur worked in the Philippines to help U.S. troops there. Japan attacked Peral Harbor after the oil embargo and negotiations failed. Pearl Harbor took place on December 7, 1941. America declared war against Mussolini's fascist Italy too.
President Roosevelt worked with Allied Powers to fight in the war. Top military officials made most decisions. Roosevelt supported research in the nuclear program. In 1942, Roosevelt formed a new body, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which made the final decisions on American military strategy. Admiral Ernest J. King as Chief of Naval Operations commanded the Navy and Marines, while General George C. Marshall led the Army and was in nominal control of the Air Force, which in practice was commanded by General Hap Arnold. The Joint Chiefs were chaired by Admiral William D. Leahy, the most senior officer in the military. The Manhattan Project ultimately developed nuclear weapons. FDR wanted America, the UK, the Soviet Union, and China to govern global affairs after WWII. Stalin wanted FDR to fight in the area of France now, but FDR choose North Africa first. This was called Operation Torch. In November 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met to discuss strategy and post-war plans at the Tehran Conference, where Roosevelt met Stalin for the first time. At the conference, Britain and the United States committed to opening a second front against Germany in 1944, while Stalin committed to entering the war against Japan at an unspecified date. Subsequent conferences at Bretton Woods and Dumbarton Oaks established the framework for the post-war international monetary system and the United Nations, an intergovernmental organization similar to Wilson's failed League of Nations.
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met for a second time at the February 1945 Yalta Conference in Crimea. With the end of the war in Europe approaching, Roosevelt's primary focus was on convincing Stalin to enter the war against Japan; the Joint Chiefs had estimated that an American invasion of Japan would cause as many as one million American casualties. In return for the Soviet Union's entrance into the war against Japan, the Soviet Union was promised control of Asian territories such as Sakhalin Island. The three leaders agreed to hold a conference in 1945 to establish the United Nations, and they also agreed on the structure of the United Nations Security Council, which would be charged with ensuring international peace and security. Roosevelt did not push for the immediate evacuation of Soviet soldiers from Poland, but he won the issuance of the Declaration on Liberated Europe, which promised free elections in countries that had been occupied by Germany. Germany itself would not be dismembered but would be jointly occupied by the United States, France, Britain, and the Soviet Union. Against Soviet pressure, Roosevelt and Churchill refused to consent to impose huge reparations and deindustrialization on Germany after the war. Roosevelt's role in the Yalta Conference has been controversial; critics charge that he naively trusted the Soviet Union to allow free elections in Eastern Europe, while supporters argue that there was little more that Roosevelt could have done for the Eastern European countries given the Soviet occupation and the need for cooperation with the Soviet Union during and after the war.
Allied forces by 1942 were gradually defeating the Axis Powers. Allies forces won North Africa and moved into Sicily and the rest of Italy. In February 1943, the Soviet Union won a major victory at the Battle of Stalingrad, and in May 1943, the Allies secured the surrender of over 250,000 German and Italian soldiers in North Africa, ending the North African Campaign. The Allies launched an invasion of Sicily in July 1943, capturing the island by the end of the following month. In September 1943, the Allies secured an armistice from Italian Prime Minister Pietro Badoglio, but Germany quickly restored Mussolini to power. The Allied invasion of mainland Italy commenced in September 1943, but the Italian Campaign continued until 1945 as German and Italian troops resisted the Allied advance. To command the invasion of France, Roosevelt chose General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had successfully commanded a multinational coalition in North Africa and Sicily. Eisenhower chose to launch Operation Overlord on June 6, 1944. Supported by 12,000 aircraft and the largest naval force ever assembled, the Allies successfully established a beachhead in Normandy and then advanced further into France. Though reluctant to back an unelected government, Roosevelt recognized Charles de Gaulle's Provisional Government of the French Republic as the de facto government of France in July 1944. After most of France had been liberated from German occupation, Roosevelt granted formal recognition to de Gaulle's government in October 1944. Over the following months, the Allies liberated more territory from Nazi occupation and began the invasion of Germany. By April 1945, Nazi resistance was crumbling in the face of advances by both the Western Allies and the Soviet Union.
In the opening weeks of the war, Japan conquered the Philippines and the British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia. The Japanese advance reached its maximum extent by June 1942, when the U.S. Navy scored a decisive victory at the Battle of Midway. American and Australian forces then began a slow and costly strategy called island hopping or leapfrogging through the Pacific Islands, with the objective of gaining bases from which strategic airpower could be brought to bear on Japan and from which Japan could ultimately be invaded. In contrast to Hitler, Roosevelt took no direct part in the tactical naval operations, though he approved strategic decisions. Roosevelt gave way in part to insistent demands from the public and Congress that more effort be devoted against Japan, but he always insisted on Germany first. The strength of the Japanese navy was decimated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and by April 1945 the Allies had re-captured much of their lost territory in the Pacific. In America, unemployment declined. There was the 2nd Great Migration of American Americans from the South to the West Coast, the Midwest, and the North. There was riots, labor strikes, and other events. FDR passed tax policies to raise revenues for the war. Roosevelt's 1944 State of the Union Address advocated that Americans should think of basic economic rights as a Second Bill of Rights. He stated that all Americans should have the right to "adequate medical care", "a good education", "a decent home", and a "useful and remunerative job." In the most ambitious domestic proposal of his third term, Roosevelt proposed the G.I. Bill, which would create a massive benefits program for returning soldiers. Benefits included post-secondary education, medical care, unemployment insurance, job counseling, and low-cost loans for homes and businesses. The G.I. Bill passed unanimously in both houses of Congress and was signed into law in June 1944. Of the fifteen million Americans who served in World War II, more than half benefitted from the educational opportunities provided for in the G.I. Bill.
The end of World War II meant the end of his life. FDR had health problems like high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and other illnesses. He won the 1944 Presidential election against Dewey. Conservative Democrats put pressure to replace Wallace with Harry S. Truman. They did this, because the far right Wall Street interests viewed Henry Wallace as too liberal and too progressive. Truman was from Missouri. Labor union supported FDR. When Roosevelt returned to the United States from the Yalta Conference, many were shocked to see how old, thin and frail he looked. He spoke while seated in the well of the House, an unprecedented concession to his physical incapacity. During March 1945, he sent strongly worded messages to Stalin accusing him of breaking his Yalta commitments over Poland, Germany, prisoners of war and other issues. When Stalin accused the western Allies of plotting behind his back a separate peace with Hitler, Roosevelt replied: "I cannot avoid a feeling of bitter resentment towards your informers, whoever they are, for such vile misrepresentations of my actions or those of my trusted subordinates." On March 29, 1945, Roosevelt went to the Little White House at Warm Springs, Georgia, to rest before his anticipated appearance at the founding conference of the United Nations.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a complicated legacy on civil rights. He won strong support among African Americans, Jewish people, Catholics, Chinese Americans, and Filipino Americans. Yet, Japanese Americans were victims of the internment concentration camps during WWII. The internment camps being used via Executive Order 9066 was one of the biggest mistakes of the FDR administration. Japanese Americans were forced against their wills to go into harsh camps, their resources stolen, and they faced harsh racism. Many German and Italian American were in internment camps too. The Supreme Court defended this racist, evil policy via the 1944 case of Korematsu v. United States. African Americans and Native Americans fared well in two New Deal relief programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Indian Reorganization Act, respectively. Sitkoff reports that the WPA "provided an economic floor for the whole black community in the 1930s, rivaling both agriculture and domestic service as the chief source" of income. Roosevelt stopped short of joining NAACP leaders in pushing for federal anti-lynching legislation, as he believed that such legislation was unlikely to pass and that his support for it would alienate Southern congressmen. He did, however, appoint a "Black Cabinet" of African American advisers to advise on race relations and African American issues, and he publicly denounced lynching as "murder."
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt vocally supported efforts designed to aid the African American community, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, which helped boost wages for nonwhite workers in the South. In 1941, Roosevelt established the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to implement Executive Order 8802, which prohibited racial and religious discrimination in employment among defense contractors. The FEPC was the first national program directed against employment discrimination, and it played a major role in opening up new employment opportunities to non-white workers. During World War II, the proportion of African American men employed in manufacturing positions rose significantly. In response to Roosevelt's policies, African Americans increasingly defected from the Republican Party during the 1930s and 1940s, becoming an important Democratic voting bloc in several Northern states. There is controversy on the FDR response to Jewish people during the Shoah. Roosevelt was wrong in 1923 to promote a quote restricting the entry of Jewish people at Harvard University.
After Kristallnacht in 1938, Roosevelt did not loosen immigration quotas and his State Department took steps to prevent Jews and other refugees from entering the country. However, he was prevented from accepting further Jewish immigrants, particularly refugees, by the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924, and antisemitism among voters. According to Rafael Medoff, the US president could have saved 190,000 Jewish lives by telling his State Department to fill immigration quotas to the legal limit, but his administration discouraged and disqualified Jewish refugees based on its prohibitive requirements that left less than 25% of the quotas filled.
Hitler chose to implement the "Final Solution"—the extermination of the European Jewish population—by January 1942, and American officials learned of the scale of the Nazi extermination campaign in the following months. Against the objections of the State Department, Roosevelt convinced the other Allied leaders to jointly issue the Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations, which condemned the ongoing Holocaust and warned to try its perpetrators as war criminals. In 1943, Roosevelt told U.S. government officials that there should be limits on Jewish people in various professions to "eliminate the specific and understandable complaints which the Germans bore towards the Jews in Germany." The same year, Roosevelt was personally briefed by Polish Home Army intelligence agent Jan Karski who was an eyewitness of the Holocaust; pleading for action, Karski told him that 1.8 million Jewish people had already been exterminated. Karski recalled that in response, Roosevelt "did not ask one question about the Jews." In January 1944, Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board to aid Jews and other victims of Axis atrocities. Aside from these actions, Roosevelt believed that the best way to help the persecuted populations of Europe was to end the war as quickly as possible. Top military leaders and War Department leaders rejected any campaign to bomb the extermination camps or the rail lines leading to the camps, fearing it would be a diversion from the war effort. According to biographer Jean Edward Smith, there is no evidence that anyone ever proposed such a campaign to Roosevelt.
In the afternoon of April 12, 1945, in Warm Springs, Georgia, while sitting for a portrait, Roosevelt said "I have a terrific headache." He then slumped forward in his chair, unconscious, and was carried into his bedroom. The president's attending cardiologist, Dr. Howard Bruenn, diagnosed the medical emergency as a massive intracerebral hemorrhage. At 3:35 p.m. that day, Roosevelt died at the age of 63. It was a shocking death for many Americans. The following morning, Roosevelt's body was placed in a flag-draped coffin and loaded onto the presidential train for the trip back to Washington. Along the route, thousands flocked to the tracks to pay their respects. After a White House funeral on April 14, Roosevelt was transported by train from Washington, D.C., to his place of birth at Hyde Park. On April 15 he was buried, per his wish, in the rose garden of his Springwood estate. Roosevelt's home in Hyde Park is now a National Historic Site and home to his Presidential library. Washington, D.C., hosts two memorials to the former president. The largest, the 7+1⁄2-acre (3-hectare) Roosevelt Memorial, is located next to the Jefferson Memorial on the Tidal Basin. A more modest memorial, a block of marble in front of the National Archives building suggested by Roosevelt himself, was erected in 1965. Roosevelt's leadership in the March of Dimes is one reason he is commemorated on the American dime. Roosevelt has also appeared on several U.S. Postage stamps.
Roosevelt's declining physical health had been kept secret from the public. His death was met with shock and grief across the world. Germany surrendered during the 30-day mourning period, but Harry Truman (who had succeeded Roosevelt as president) ordered flags to remain at half-staff; he also dedicated Victory in Europe Day and its celebrations to Roosevelt's memory. World War II finally ended with the signed surrender of Japan in September 1945. President Franklin Roosevelt was one of the most important figures in the history of the United States and of the world. Roosevelt did a lot of good in the world, and he made mistakes. Roosevelt's greatest part of his legacy was that he increased the expansion of governmental programs to help the people, he helped to end the Great Depression, and he helped to defeat the Axis Powers once and for all. His major errors were that he didn't go far enough to deal with civil rights (like him opposing federal anti-lynching legislation to fight anti-black racial oppression), he didn't go far enough in helping Jewish victims of the Shoah, and he was involved in the creation of the evil internment camps in America harming Japanese Americans. His Second Bill of Rights proposal is one of his greatest plans in American history. Eleanor Roosevelt became a progressive giant in her own right. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt remains a person with a wide ranging influence on how we live in America today in enumerable ways.
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Harry Truman
President Truman was President from 1945 to 1953. He was part of the Democratic Party, and he was once a U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1935 to 1945. He lived from May 8, 1884 to December 26, 1972. His foreign policy was different than FDR. He promoted a more confrontational tone against the Soviets, and he was involved in many interventions during his Presidency. He was born in Lamar, Missouri. He was the oldest child of John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen Young Truman. . He was named for his maternal uncle, Harrison "Harry" Young. His middle initial, "S", honors his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. A brother, John Vivian, was born soon after Harry, followed by sister Mary Jane. Truman's ancestry is primarily English with some Scots-Irish, German, and French. John Truman was a farmer and livestock dealer. The family lived in Lamar, until Harry moved into a farm near Harrisonville, Missouri. Harry Truman was 10 months old at that time. They moved into Belton, and in 1887 to his grandparents' 600 acre farm in Grandview. By the time Truman was six, his parents moved into Independence, Missouri, so he could attend the Presbyterian Church Sunday School. Truman was 8 when he wen into a conventional school. While living in Independence, he served as a Shabbos goy for Jewish neighbors, doing tasks for them on Shabbat that their religion prevented them from doing on that day. Truman was interested in music, reading, and history, all encouraged by his mother, with whom he was very close. As president, he solicited political as well as personal advice from her. He rose at five every morning to practice the piano, which he studied more than twice a week until he was fifteen, becoming quite a skilled player. Truman worked as a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City; his father had many friends active in the Democratic Party who helped young Harry to gain his first political position. After graduating from Independence High School in 1901, Truman enrolled in Spalding's Commercial College, a Kansas City business school. He studied bookkeeping, shorthand, and typing but left after a year.
Harry Truman was employed briefly in the mailroom of The Kansas City Star before using his business college experience to get a job as a timekeeper for construction crews on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, which required him to sleep in workmen's camps along the rail lines. Truman and his brother Vivian worked as clerks at the National Bank of Commerce in Kansas City. By 1906, Truman came back to the Grandview farm. He lived there until entering the Army in 1917. He courted Bess Wallace.
He proposed in 1911, but she turned him down. Truman later said he intended to propose again, but he wanted to have a better income than that earned by a farmer. To that end, during his years on the farm and immediately after World War I, he became active in several business ventures, including a lead and zinc mine near Commerce, Oklahoma, a company that bought land and leased the oil drilling rights to prospectors, and speculation in Kansas City real estate. Truman occasionally derived some income from these enterprises, but none proved successful in the long term.
Truman is the only president since William McKinley (elected in 1896) who did not earn a college degree. In addition to having briefly attended business college, from 1923 to 1925 he took night courses toward an LL.B. at the Kansas City Law School (now the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law) but dropped out after losing reelection as county judge. He was informed by attorneys in the Kansas City area that his education and experience were probably sufficient to receive a license to practice law, but did not pursue it because he won election as presiding judge. While serving as president in 1947, Truman applied for a law license. A friend who was an attorney began working out the arrangements, and informed Truman that his application had to be notarized. By the time Truman received this information he had changed his mind, so he never followed up. After the discovery of Truman's application in 1996 the Missouri Supreme Court issued him a posthumous honorary law license.
Harry Truman was in the Missouri National Guard in 1905 and served until 1911 in the Kansas City based Battery B, 2nd Missouri Field Artillery Regiment. He achieved the ran of corporal. He did this, because he lacked funds for college. His poor eyesight prevented him from joining the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. At his induction at the National Guard, his eyesight without glasses was unacceptable 20/50 in the right eye and 20/400 in the left (past the standard for legal blindness). The second time he took the test, he passed by secretly memorizing the eye chart. He was described as 5 feet 10 inches tall, gray eyed, dark haired and of light complexion.
When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Truman rejoined Battery B, successfully recruiting new soldiers for the expanding unit, for which he was elected as their first lieutenant. Before deployment to France, Truman was sent for training to Camp Doniphan, Fort Sill, near Lawton, Oklahoma when his regiment was federalized as the 129th Field Artillery. The regimental commander during its training was Robert M. Danford, who later served as the Army's Chief of Field Artillery. Truman later said he learned more practical, useful information from Danford in six weeks than from six months of formal Army instruction, and when Truman later served as an artillery instructor, he consciously patterned his approach on Danford's. Truman ran the camp canteen with Edward Jacobson (a clothing store clerk he knew from Kansas City). Truman ran a profit returning each soldier's initial 2 dollar investment and $10,000 in dividends in 6 months. At Fort Sill, he met Lieutenant James M. Pendergast or the nephew of Tom Pendergast (a Kansas City political boss). The Pendergast political team influence Truman's political career later in his life. By the mid 1918 era, about 1 million soldiers of the American Expeditionary Forces were in France. Truman was promoted to captain effective April 23. By July, he was the commander of the newly arrived Battery D, 129th Field Artillery, 35th Division. Truman was initially unpopular because of his efforts to restore order. Despite attempts by the men to intimidate him into quitting, Truman succeeded by making his corporals and sergeants accountable for discipline. He promised to back them up if they performed capably, and reduce them to private if they did not. In an event memorialized in battery lore as "The Battle of Who Run", his soldiers began to flee during a sudden night attack by the Germans in the Vosges Mountains; Truman succeeded at ordering his men to stay and fight, using profanity from his railroad days. The men were so surprised to hear Truman use such language that they immediately obeyed.
Truman's unit fought in the assault on September 26, 1918 at the start of the Meuse Argonne Offensive. Truman waited for the Germans, then he ordered his men to attack. His actions helped to save the lives of the 28th Division soldiers who would have otherwise have come under fire from the Germans. Truman was given a dressing down by his regimental commander, Colonel Karl D. Klemm, who threatened to convene a court-martial, but Klemm never followed through, and Truman was not punished. Truman's battery provided support for George S. Patton's tank brigade. Truman's battery fired some of the last shots of the war on November 11, 1918. Battery D never lost any men under Truman's command in France. The men provided a large loving cup to Truman when he came back to America after the war as a gift. Truman increased his leadership qualities after WWI. Truman expanded his political career in Missouri. He avoided revivals and sometimes mocked revivalist preachers. He was brought up in Presbyterian and Baptist churches. Harry Truman spoke rarely about religion. Many of his friends were Catholics like the soldiers that he commanded. One of his friends was the 129th Field Artillery's chaplain, Monsignor L. Curtis Tiernan. They were friends until Tiernan's death in 1960. Truman got along with soldiers who were Christian and of the Jewish faith.
Truman was honorably discharged from the Army as a captain on May 6, 1919. In 1920 he was appointed a major in the Officers Reserve Corps. He became a lieutenant colonel in 1925 and a colonel in 1932. In the 1920s and 1930s he commanded 1st Battalion, 379th Field Artillery, 102nd Infantry Division. After promotion to colonel, Truman advanced to command of the same regiment. After he was elected to the U.S. Senate, Harry Truman was transferred to the General Assignments Group, a holding unit for less active officers. He was not consulted in advance. Trump didn't agree with this assignment. He was an active reservist until the early 1940's. Truman volunteered for active military service during World War II, but was not accepted, partly because of age, and partly because President Franklin D. Roosevelt desired senators and congressmen who belonged to the military reserves to support the war effort by remaining in Congress, or by ending their active-duty service and resuming their congressional seats. He was an inactive reservist from the early 1940s until retiring as a colonel in the then redesignated U.S. Army Reserve on January 20, 1953. Truman was awarded a World War I Victory Medal with two battle clasps (for St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne) and a Defensive Sector Clasp. He was also the recipient of two Armed Forces Reserve Medals.
Harry Truman married Bess Wallace on June 28, 1919 at Independence, Missouri. Their one child was Mary Margaret Truman. He worked in business, and later Jacobson inspired him to support Zionism. That played a role in the U.S. government decision to recognize the nation of Israel in 1948. Truman was elected in 1922 at a County Court judge of Jackson Country's eastern district (with led of the Kansas City Democratic machine led by Tom Pendergast). He lost re-election led by President Coolidge's landslide election of Republicans. He was a presiding judge in 1926 with support of the Pendergast machine. He was re-elected in 1930. As presiding judge, Truman helped coordinate the Ten Year Plan, which transformed Jackson County and the Kansas City skyline with new public works projects, including an extensive series of roads and construction of a new Wight and Wight-designed County Court building. Also in 1926, he became president of the National Old Trails Road Association, and during his term he oversaw dedication of 12 Madonna of the Trail monuments to honor pioneer women. In 1933, Truman was named Missouri's director for the Federal Re-Employment program (part of the Civil Works Administration) at the request of Postmaster General James Farley. This was payback to Pendergast for delivering the Kansas City vote to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election. The appointment confirmed Pendergast's control over federal patronage jobs in Missouri and marked the zenith of his power. It also created a relationship between Truman and Roosevelt's aide Harry Hopkins and assured Truman's avid support for the New Deal.
Harry Truman was a U.S. Senator of Missouri along with new pro-New Deal Democrats winning elections following the Great Depression. He spoke out against Wall Street speculators and special interests. He had trouble getting calls returned from the White House. He served on the high profile Appropriations and Interstate Commerce Committees. Pendergast was in prison for income tax invasion. By 1940, Truman ran for Senate again. St. Louis party leader Robert E. Hannegan supported Truman. That influenced Truman's victory. Senator Truman opposed Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. Truman used the Truman Committee to try to get rid of waste and corruption in the military industries. The committee is said to have saved as much as 15 billion dollars (or 220 billion dollars in 2020). By 1945, people already knew that Roosevelt was going to die soon. So, Henry Wallace was Vice President at the time. Moderate and conservative Democrats wanted Truman to be Vice President as the conservatives viewed Henry Wallace as too progressive. Truman didn't want the position at first. Later, he agreed to be on the ticket. The Roosevelt–Truman ticket achieved a 432–99 electoral-vote victory in the election, defeating the Republican ticket of Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York and running mate Governor John Bricker of Ohio. Truman was sworn in as vice president on January 20, 1945. After the inauguration, Truman called his mother, who instructed him, "Now you behave yourself." FDR didn't meet with Truman at lot. Truman attended Pendergast's funeral which was controversial. Truman didn't know about the Manhattan Project.
Truman had been vice president for 82 days when President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. Truman, presiding over the Senate, as usual, had just adjourned the session for the day and was preparing to have a drink in House Speaker Sam Rayburn's office when he received an urgent message to go immediately to the White House, where Eleanor Roosevelt told him that her husband had died after a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Truman asked her if there was anything he could do for her; she replied, "Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now!" He was sworn in as president at 7:09 pm in the West Wing of the White House, by Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone.
President Truman had to be up to speed on what was going on. Truman was supported by the establishment, so Truman got rid of the Roosevelt holdovers. His cabinet was understaffed. He didn't trust journalists. He used his old friends in his cabinet. Many of them knew very little of their fields like Harry H. Vaughan, Fred Vinson, and John Snyder. Truman loved his poker, telling stories, and sipping bourbon. His first term was from 1945 to 1949. On his first full day, Truman told reporters: "Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don't know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me." Truman shared Churchill's hatred of Communism. He was more militant against Stalin than FDR. That was shown in the Potsdam meeting on July 1945. Truman was told that the atomic weapon was in development. April 25, 1945 was when the Secretary of War Henry Stimson told him about the atomic bomb in more detail. Stalin knew of the atomic test since Stalin used his spies to gather information on the Manhattan Project. Japan refused to surrender at Potsdam. So, Truman used atomic bombs on Japan. Truman claimed that thousands of U.S. casualties would exist in an invasion of Japan. This was a lie as U.S. military leaders said that the atomic bomb used in Japan was unnecessary. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, and Nagasaki three days later, leaving 105,000 dead. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 9 and invaded Manchuria. Japan agreed to surrender the following day. Critics have argued that the use of nuclear weapons was unnecessary, given that conventional attacks or a demonstrative bombing of an uninhabited area would have forced Japan's surrender and therefore assert that the attack constituted a crime of war. Truman defended his war crimes of dropping atomic weapons on civilian locations. After the war, Truman dealt with an economy that must transition from war. Inflation grew, strikes existed, and farmers refused to sell grain. Europe faced starvation. Similarly, industrial laborers sought wage increases. In January 1946 a steel strike involving 800,000 laborers became the largest in the nation's history. It was followed by a coal strike in April and a rail strike in May; however, public opinion on labor action was mixed with one poll reporting a majority of the public in favor of a ban on strikes by public service workers and a year's moratorium on labor actions. When a national rail strike threatened in May 1946, Truman seized the railroads in an attempt to contain the issue, but two key railway unions struck anyway. The entire national railroad system was shut down, immobilizing 24,000 freight trains and 175,000 passenger trains a day.
With opposition of Truman, the Democrats had losses in the 1946 midterm election. This time saw the rise of Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy and California Congressman Richard Nixon. Democratic Senator William Fulbright wanted Truman to resign, but Truman refused. Truman worked with Republicans on foreign policy, but he fought them on domestic issues. The power of the labor unions was significantly curtailed by the Taft–Hartley Act which was enacted over Truman's veto. Truman twice vetoed bills to lower income tax rates in 1947. Although the initial vetoes were sustained, Congress overrode his veto of a tax cut bill in 1948. In one notable instance of bipartisanship, Congress passed the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, which replaced the secretary of state with the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate as successor to the president after the vice president. As he readied for the 1948 election, Truman made clear his identity as a Democrat in the New Deal tradition, advocating for national health insurance, and repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act. He broke with the New Deal by initiating an aggressive civil rights program which he termed a moral priority. His economic and social vision constituted a broad legislative agenda that came to be called the "Fair Deal." Truman's proposals were not well received by Congress, even with renewed Democratic majorities in Congress after 1948. The Solid South rejected civil rights as those states still enforced segregation. Only one of the major Fair Deal bills, the Housing Act of 1949, was ever enacted. Many of the New Deal programs that persisted during Truman's presidency have since received minor improvements and extensions.
President Truman supported Wilsonian internationalism. He agreed with Roosevelt's proposed United Nations. Eleanor Roosevelt worked in the U.N. too. Truman was hostile to the Soviet Union via a hardline. Truman believed that Soviets wanted world domination. Truman worked with George Marshall and Dean Acheson to invest in helping Europe with the Marshall Plan. He supported the Truman Doctrine of Soviet containment. The Marshall Plan helped to rebuild postwar Europe. Truman said that if Europe wasn't send money, then it could be more Communist. As part of the U.S. Cold War strategy, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 and reorganized military forces by merging the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment (later the Department of Defense) and creating the U.S. Air Force. The act also created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Council. In 1952, Truman secretly consolidated and empowered the cryptologic elements of the United States by creating the National Security Agency (NSA).
Truman did not know what to do about China, where the Nationalists and Communists were fighting a large-scale civil war. The Nationalists had been major wartime allies and had large-scale popular support in the United States, along with a powerful lobby. General George Marshall spent most of 1946 in China trying to negotiate a compromise, but failed. He convinced Truman the Nationalists would never win on their own and a very large-scale U.S. intervention to stop the Communists would significantly weaken U.S. opposition to the Soviets in Europe. By 1949, the Communists under Mao Zedong had won the civil war, the United States had a new enemy in Asia, and Truman came under fire from conservatives for "losing" China.
On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union blocked access to the three Western-held sectors of Berlin. The Allies had not negotiated a deal to guarantee supply of the sectors deep within the Soviet-occupied zone. The commander of the U.S. occupation zone in Germany, General Lucius D. Clay, proposed sending a large armored column across the Soviet zone to West Berlin with instructions to defend itself if it were stopped or attacked. Truman believed this would entail an unacceptable risk of war. He approved Ernest Bevin's plan to supply the blockaded city by air.
On June 25, the Allies initiated the Berlin Airlift, a campaign to deliver food, coal and other supplies using military aircraft on a massive scale. Nothing like it had ever been attempted before, and no single nation had the capability, either logistically or materially, to accomplish it. The airlift worked; ground access was again granted on May 11, 1949. Nevertheless, the airlift continued for several months after that. The Berlin Airlift was one of Truman's great foreign policy successes; it significantly aided his election campaign in 1948. Harry Truman supported Zionism and recognized Israel as a nation. He called for a Jewish homeland in 1943 among Jewish people who survived the Nazi regime. Yet, many in the State Department didn't want to offend Arabic people. Some were opposed to forming a Jewish state filled with Arabic people. Secretary of Defense James Forrestal warned Truman of the importance of Saudi Arabian oil in another war; Truman replied he would decide his policy on the basis of justice, not oil. U.S. diplomats with experience in the region were opposed, but Truman told them he had few Arabic people among his constituents. Truman didn't want Greece to be Communist too. George Marshall, Secretary of State, didn't agree with recognizing Israel, but Truman proceeded.
Under his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Fair Employment Practices Committee was created to address racial discrimination in employment, and in 1946, Truman created the President's Committee on Civil Rights. On June 29, 1947, Truman became the first president to address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The speech took place at the Lincoln Memorial during the NAACP convention and was carried nationally on radio. In that speech, Truman laid out the need to end discrimination, which would be advanced by the first comprehensive, presidentially proposed civil rights legislation. Truman on "civil rights and human freedom."
"It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in the long history of our country’s efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens … it is more important today than ever before to ensure that all Americans enjoy these rights. … [And] When I say all Americans, I mean all Americans … 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. We must not tolerate such limitations on the freedom of any of our people and on their enjoyment of basic rights which every citizen in a truly democratic society must possess. Every man should have the right to a decent home, the right to an education, the right to adequate medical care, the right to a worthwhile job, the right to an equal share in making the public decisions through the ballot, and the right to a fair trial in a fair court. We must ensure that these rights — on equal terms — are enjoyed by every citizen. To these principles I pledge my full and continued support. Many of our people still suffer the indignity of insult, the harrowing fear of intimidation, and, I regret to say, the threat of physical injury and mob violence. Prejudice and intolerance in which these evils are rooted still exist. The conscience of our nation, and the legal machinery which enforces it, have not yet secured to each citizen full freedom from fear."
In February 1948, Truman delivered a formal message to Congress requesting adoption of his 10-point program to secure civil rights, including anti-lynching, voter rights, and elimination of segregation. "'No political act since the Compromise of 1877,' argued biographer Taylor Branch, 'so profoundly influenced race relations; in a sense it was a repeal of 1877.'
Harry Truman won the 1948 election in a come from behind victory. Truman only had a approval rating of 36 percent. Many New Deal Democrats supported General Dwight D. Eisenhower, but Eisenhower refused to run at that time. At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, Truman attempted to unify the party with a vague civil rights plank in the party platform. His intention was to assuage the internal conflicts between the northern and southern wings of his party. Events overtook his efforts. A sharp 1948 address given by Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis—as well as the local political interests of a number of urban bosses—convinced the convention to adopt a stronger civil rights plank, which Truman approved wholeheartedly. All of Alabama's delegates, and a portion of Mississippi's, walked out of the convention in protest. Unfazed, Truman delivered an aggressive acceptance speech attacking the 80th Congress, which Truman called the "Do Nothing Congress," and promising to win the election and "make these Republicans like it."
Within two weeks of the 1948 convention Truman issued Executive Order 9981, racially integrating the U.S. Armed Services and Executive Order 9980 to integrate federal agencies. Truman took a considerable political risk in backing civil rights, and many seasoned Democrats were concerned the loss of Dixiecrat support might destroy the Democratic Party. South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, a segregationist, declared his candidacy for the presidency on a Dixiecrat ticket and led a full-scale revolt of Southern "states' rights" proponents. This rebellion on the right was matched by one on the left, led by Wallace on the Progressive Party ticket. Immediately after its first post-FDR convention, the Democratic Party seemed to be disintegrating. Victory in November seemed unlikely as the party was not simply split but divided three ways. For his running mate, Truman accepted Kentucky Senator Alben W. Barkley, though he really wanted Justice William O. Douglas, who turned down the nomination. Truman traveled the country, and he won the 1948 election. In the end, Truman held his progressive Midwestern base, won most of the Southern states despite the civil rights plank, and squeaked through with narrow victories in a few critical states, notably Ohio, California, and Illinois. The final tally showed the president had secured 303 electoral votes, Dewey 189, and Thurmond only 39. Henry Wallace got none. The defining image of the campaign came after Election Day, when an ecstatic Truman held aloft the erroneous front page of the Chicago Tribune with a huge headline proclaiming "Dewey Defeats Truman."
Truman's second inauguration was the first one where it was televised nationally. It was in 1949. Truman tested the H-bomb. The Soviet Union tested first on August 29, 1949. America tested it on October 31, 1952. The H-Bomb was debated by scientists, military leaders, and politicians on whether it was necessary to do it. On June 25, 1950, the North Korean army under Kim Il-sung invaded South Korea, starting the Korean War. In the early weeks of the war, the North Koreans easily pushed back their southern counterparts. Truman called for a naval blockade of Korea, only to learn that due to budget cutbacks, the U.S. Navy could not enforce such a measure. Truman promptly urged the United Nations to intervene; it did, authorizing troops under the UN flag led by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur. Truman decided he did not need formal authorization from Congress, believing that most legislators supported his position; this would come back to haunt him later when the stalemated conflict was dubbed "Mr. Truman's War" by legislators.
However, on July 3, 1950, Truman did give Senate Majority Leader Scott W. Lucas a draft resolution titled "Joint Resolution Expressing Approval of the Action Taken in Korea". Lucas stated Congress supported the use of force, the formal resolution would pass but was unnecessary, and the consensus in Congress was to acquiesce. Truman responded he did not want "to appear to be trying to get around Congress and use extra-Constitutional powers," and added that it was "up to Congress whether such a resolution should be introduced."
By August 1950, U.S. troops pouring into South Korea under UN auspices were able to stabilize the situation. Responding to criticism over readiness, Truman fired his secretary of defense, Louis A. Johnson, replacing him with the retired General Marshall. With UN approval, Truman decided on a "rollback" policy—conquest of North Korea. UN forces led by General Douglas MacArthur led the counterattack, scoring a stunning surprise victory with an amphibious landing at the Battle of Inchon that nearly trapped the invaders. UN forces marched north, toward the Yalu River boundary with China, with the goal of reuniting Korea under UN auspices. China surprised UN forces with a large-scale invasion in November. The UN forced came back below the 38th parallel, then recovered. By early 1951, the Korean War was a stalemate. General MacArthur wanted to attack Chinese supply bases north of Yalu, but Truman refused to support it. Truman thought that attacking China would provoke a response from the USSR thereby causing WWIII. Truman fired MacArthur over insubornation. The dismissal of MacArthur was unpopular among the American people. Truman's approval rating declined. Senate Robert A. Taft wanted Truman to be impeached. Others, including Eleanor Roosevelt and all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly supported Truman's decision. MacArthur meanwhile returned to the United States to a hero's welcome, and addressed a joint session of Congress, a speech the president called "a bunch of d___ bulls___." Truman and his generals considered the use of nuclear weapons against the Chinese army, but ultimately chose not to escalate the war to a nuclear level. The war remained a frustrating stalemate for two years, with over 30,000 Americans killed, until an armistice ended the fighting in 1953. In February 1952, Truman's approval mark stood at 22 percent according to Gallup polls, which is the all-time lowest approval mark for a sitting U.S. president, though it was matched by Richard Nixon in 1974.
Truman supported NATO and more intervention to try to stop Soviet expansion. Truman opposed the right wing dictator Francsico Franco of Spain. Truman followed red baiting by his Executive Order 9835 to promote a loyalty program. The Second Red Scare existed with Joe McCarthy leading it. Truman called McCarthy the greatest asset of the Kremlin by messing with American foreign policy. Truman said that his loyalty program was a mistake in violation of human civil liberties. On November 1, 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempted to assassinate Truman at Blair House. On the street outside the residence, Torresola mortally wounded a White House policeman, Leslie Coffelt. Before he died, the officer shot and killed Torresola. Collazo was wounded and stopped before he entered the house. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 1952. Truman commuted his sentence to life in prison. To try to settle the question of Puerto Rican independence, Truman allowed a plebiscite in Puerto Rico in 1952 to determine the status of its relationship to the United States. Nearly 82 percent of the people voted in favor of a new constitution for the Estado Libre Asociado, a continued 'associated free state. Truman had scandals of steel, and the issue of Estes Kefauver (who accused some of corruption charges in the administration). In 1951, William M. Boyle, Truman's longtime friend and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was forced to resign after being charged with financial corruption. President Truman dealt with Civil Rights.
A 1947 report by the Truman administration titled To Secure These Rights presented a detailed ten-point agenda of civil rights reforms. Speaking about this report, international developments have to be taken into account, for with the UN Charter being passed in 1945, the question of whether international human rights law could be applicable also on an inner-land basis became crucial in the United States. Though the report acknowledged such a path was not free from controversy in the 1940s United States, it nevertheless raised the possibility for the UN-Charter to be used as a legal tool to combat racial discrimination in the United States. In February 1948, the president submitted a civil rights agenda to Congress that proposed creating several federal offices devoted to issues such as voting rights and fair employment practices. This provoked a storm of criticism from southern Democrats in the runup to the national nominating convention, but Truman refused to compromise, saying: "My forebears were Confederates ... but my very stomach turned over when I had learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten."
Tales of the abuse, violence, and persecution suffered by many African-American veterans upon their return from World War II infuriated Truman and were major factors in his decision to issue Executive Order 9981, in July 1948, requiring equal opportunity in the armed forces. In the early 1950s after several years of planning, recommendations and revisions between Truman, the Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity and the various branches of the military, the services became racially integrated. Executive Order 9980, also in 1948, made it illegal to discriminate against persons applying for civil service positions based on race. A third, in 1951, established the Committee on Government Contract Compliance (CGCC). This committee ensured defense contractors did not discriminate because of race. In 1950 he vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Act. It was passed over his veto. Truman lost the 1952 election to Eisenhower. Kefauver was on the Democratic ticket as President. Yet, Truman and Kefauver lost to Stevenson on the Democratic side. Eisenhower worked with Nixon to run. Eisenhower focused on Truman's policies on Korea, communism, and corruption. Eisenhower defeated Stevenson decisively in the general election, ending 20 years of Democratic presidents. While Truman and Eisenhower had previously been on good terms, Truman felt annoyed Eisenhower did not denounce Joseph McCarthy during the campaign.
Similarly, Eisenhower was outraged when Truman accused the former general of disregarding "sinister forces ... Anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-foreignism" within the Republican Party. After the Presidency, Truman lived in Independence, Missouri. Truman wrote his Memoirs. They were published in two volumes: Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions (1955) and Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Years of Trial and Hope (1956). He supported pensions for executive leaders. Truman taught occasional courses at universities, including Yale, where he was a Chubb Fellow visiting lecturer in 1958. In 1962, Truman was a visiting lecturer at Canisius College. Truman supported Adlai Stevenson in 1956. In 1960, he questioned about JFK being too young to run for President. JFK rebuffed Truman's advice to drop his campaign.
Despite his supportive stance on civil rights during his presidency, Truman expressed criticism of the civil rights movement during the 1960s. In 1960, he stated that he believed the sit-in movement to be part of a Soviet plot. Truman's statement garnered a response from Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote a letter to Truman stating that he was "baffled" by Truman's accusation, and demanded a public apology. Truman would later criticize King following the Selma march in 1965, believing the protest to be "silly" and claiming that it "[couldn't] accomplish a darn thing except to attract attention." Truman was a liar as the Selma movement represents courage against unjust voter suppression of black Americans. The civil rights movement required activism beyond just words.
Upon turning 80 in 1964, Truman was feted in Washington, and addressed the Senate, availing himself of a new rule that allowed former presidents to be granted privilege of the floor. Trump's health declined after a fall in his home in late 1964. He supported LBJ's Medicare bill. He was there when the Medicare bill was signed into law by 1965. The first 2 Medicare cards were sent to Truman and his wife Bess to honor the former President's fight for government health care while in office. This was at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. He died on December 5, 1972. He was admitted to Kansas City's Research Hospital and Medical Center with pneumonia. He developed multiple organ failure, fell into a coma, and died at 7:50 a.m. on December 26, at the age of 88. Bess Truman opted for a simple private service at the library rather than a state funeral in Washington. A week after the funeral, foreign dignitaries and Washington officials attended a memorial service at Washington National Cathedral. Bess died in 1982 and is buried next to Harry at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri. President Harry Truman had a legacy that was filled with change. He saw the end of WWII and the start of the Cold War. His record was hectic. Every facet of his Presidency wasn't full. The plain spoken talk of Truman inspired people like McCain. Truman was a 33rd degree Freemason, a member of the the Society of Cincinnati, etc. Truman was right to promote labor rights, speak in favor of civil rights at the NAACP (and he was wrong in his criticisms of the 1960's civil rights activism), and to have a disttrust of corrupt Wall Street interests. Yet, on foreign policy, he continued with a hardline foreign policy position that was supported by the establishment. He prevented WWIII in the Korean War, but he admitted that some of his policies went over the line on civil liberty issues. Harry Truman remains a President who was in transition and had a mixed record on political issues.
Eisenhower
President Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of the most famous and popular Presidents in American history. He was President from 1953 to 1961. He lived from October 14, 1890 to March 28, 1969. People know him as being a five star rank General of the U.S. Army. He planned and supervised the victorious invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch (1942-1943) and the invasion of Normandy (at the Western Front from 1944-1945). The Eisenhower family migrated from the German village of Karlsbrunn to the U.S. in 1741. They at first came to York, Pennsylvania. The family moved into Kansas in the 1880's. Eisenhower's Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors, who were primarily farmers, included Hans Nikolaus Eisenhauer of Karlsbrunn, who migrated in 1741 to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Hans's great-great-grandson, David Jacob Eisenhower (1863–1942), Eisenhower's father, was a college-educated engineer, despite his own father Jacob's urging to stay on the family farm. Eisenhower's mother, Ida Elizabeth (Stover) Eisenhower, born in Virginia, of predominantly German Protestant ancestry, moved to Kansas from Virginia. She married David on September 23, 1885, in Lecompton, Kansas, on the campus of their alma mater, Lane University. Dwight David Eisenhower's lineage also included English ancestors (on both sides) and Scottish ancestors (through his maternal line). David owned a general store in Hope, Kansas, but the business failed due to economic conditions and the family became impoverished. The Eisenhowers then lived in Texas from 1889 until 1892, and later returned to Kansas, with $24 (equivalent to $691 in 2020) to their name at the time. David worked as a railroad mechanic and then at a creamery. By 1898, the parents made a decent living and provided a suitable home for their large family.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas. He was third of the 7 sons born to Ida Stover and David J. Eisenhower. His nickname was Ike. By 1892, the family moved into Abilene, Kansas, which Eisenhower considered his hometown. As a child, he was involved in an accident that cost his younger brother Earl an eye. He was remorseful about it for the remainder of his life. He loved the outdoors, did hunting plus fishing, cooking, and card playing. He learned these things from an illiterate man named Bob Davis who camped on the Smoky Hill River. While his mother was against war, it was her collection of history books that first sparked Eisenhower's early and lasting interest in military history. He persisted in reading the books in her collection and became a voracious reader on the subject. Other favorite subjects early in his education were arithmetic and spelling. His parents made time at breakfast and at dinner for daily family Bible reading. He did chores and had experienced discipline for misbehavior. His mother, previously a member (with David) of the River Brethren sect of the Mennonites, joined the International Bible Students Association, later known as Jehovah's Witnesses. The Eisenhower home served as the local meeting hall from 1896 to 1915, though Eisenhower never joined the International Bible Students. His later decision to attend West Point saddened his mother, who felt that warfare was "rather wicked", but she did not overrule his decision. While speaking of himself in 1948, Eisenhower said he was "one of the most deeply religious men I know" though unattached to any "sect or organization." He was baptized in the Presbyterian Church in 1953. Dwight D. Eisenhower graduated from Abilene High School in the year of 1909. Eisenhower survived his knee injury when he was a freshman in high school. He and his brother Edgar promise to attend college when they get the funds to afford to go.
Edgar went to college first. Dwight was a night supervisor at Belle Springs Creamery. When Edgar wanted a 2nd year, Dwight agreed and worked for a second year. A friend named "Swede" Hazlett applied for the Navy Academy. He wanted Dwight to apply to the school, because no tuition was required. Eisenhower requested consideration for either Annapolis or West Point with his U.S. Senator, Jospeh L. Bristow. Eisenhower was among the winners of the entrance exam competition. He was beyond the age limit for the Naval Academy. By 1911, he accepted an appointment to West Point. He played sports at West Point. He hated hazing, but he experienced it as a plebe. Eisenhower was a member of the 1912 West Point football team. His best subject was English. He had discipline issues. Dwight D. Eisenhower loved to study engineering, science, and mathematics. In athletics, Eisenhower later said that "not making the baseball team at West Point was one of the greatest disappointments of my life, maybe my greatest." He made the varsity football team and was a starter at halfback in 1912, when he tried to tackle the legendary Jim Thorpe of the Carlisle Indians. Eisenhower suffered a torn knee while being tackled in the next game, which was the last he played. He re-injured his knee on horseback and in the boxing ring, so he turned to fencing and gymnastics. He was a junior varsity football coach and cheerleader. By 1915, he graduated from West Point. 59 members of the class became general officers. He married Mamie Doud of Bonne, Iowa. They proposed on Valentine's Day in 1916. They were married for decades.
The Eisenhowers had two sons. Doud Dwight "Icky" Eisenhower (1917–1921) died of scarlet fever at the age of three. Eisenhower was mostly reluctant to discuss his death. Their second son, John Eisenhower (1922–2013), was born in Denver, Colorado. John served in the United States Army, retired as a brigadier general, became an author and served as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium from 1969 to 1971. Coincidentally, John graduated from West Point on D-Day, June 6, 1944. He married Barbara Jean Thompson on June 10, 1947. John and Barbara had four children: David, Barbara Ann, Susan Elaine and Mary Jean. David, after whom Camp David is named, married Richard Nixon's daughter Julie in 1968. Dwight D. Eisenhower loved golf, and he joined the Augusta National Golf Club in 1948. During and after his Presidency, Eisenhower played golf. He even golfed during the Winter. Camp David housed a golf facility, and he was a friend to Augusta National Chairman Clifford Roberts. Roberts handled the Eisenhower family's investments, and he visited the White House on numerous occasions. Eisenhower loved to oil paint. He painted images, and Thomas E. Stephens painted a portrait of Mamie Eisenhower. 260 oil paintings were made by Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower's favorite movie was Angels in the Outfield, and he loved to read Western novels of Zane Grey.
Dwight D. Eisenhower had played poker, and he had other hobbies. He played poker for 6 nights a week for five months. He played with President Manuel Quezon of the Philippines and with General Alfred Gruenther (considered the best player in the U.S. Army in the game of bridge). Eisenhower hired Gruenther was 2nd in command in NATO partly because of his skill at bridge. After graduation in 1915, Second Lieutenant Eisenhower wanted an assignment in the Philippines. He was denied. Later, he was in logistics and then infantry at various camps in Texas and Georgia until 1918. By 1916, he was stationed at Fort Sam Houston. Eisenhower was football coach for St. Louis College, now St. Mary's University. Eisenhower was an honorary member of the Sigma Beta Chi fraternity at St. Mary's University. In late 1917, while he was in charge of training at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia, his wife Mamie had their first son. When WWI came about, he wanted to go overseas, but he was assigned to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. By February of 1918, he was transferred to Camp Meade in Maryland with the 65th Engineers.
His unit was later ordered to France, but, to his chagrin, he received orders for the new tank corps, where he was promoted to brevet lieutenant colonel in the National Army. He commanded a unit that trained tank crews at Camp Colt – his first command – at the site of "Pickett's Charge" on the Gettysburg Civil War battleground. Though Eisenhower and his tank crews never saw combat, he displayed excellent organizational skills, as well as an ability to accurately assess junior officers' strengths and make optimal placements of personnel.
Once again, his spirits were raised when the unit under his command received orders overseas to France. This time his wishes were thwarted when the armistice was signed a week before his departure date. Completely missing out on the warfront left him depressed and bitter for a time, despite receiving the Distinguished Service Medal for his work at home. In World War II, rivals who had combat service in the great war (led by Gen. Bernard Montgomery) sought to denigrate Eisenhower for his previous lack of combat duty, despite his stateside experience establishing a camp, completely equipped, for thousands of troops, and developing a full combat training schedule. After WWI, Eisenhower was in the rank of captain. Days later, he was promoted to major. By 1919, he was assigned to a transcontinental Army convoy to test vehicles and dramatize the need for improved roads in the nation. Indeed, the convoy averaged only 5 miles per hour (8.0 km/h) from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco; later the improvement of highways became a signature issue for Eisenhower as president. Camp Meade, Maryland was the place where he assumed duties. Ike commanded a battalion of tanks until 1922. Eisenhower studied to find out the future of tank warfare and the nature of the next war. He worked with George S. Patton and Sereno E. Brett including other senior tank leaders. Faster tanks existed.
From 1920, Eisenhower served under a succession of talented generals – Fox Conner, John J. Pershing, Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall. He first became executive officer to General Conner in the Panama Canal Zone, where, joined by Mamie, he served until 1924. Under Conner's tutelage, he studied military history and theory (including Carl von Clausewitz's On War), and later cited Conner's enormous influence on his military thinking, saying in 1962 that "Fox Conner was the ablest man I ever knew." Conner's comment on Eisenhower was, "[He] is one of the most capable, efficient and loyal officers I have ever met." On Conner's recommendation, in 1925–26 he attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he graduated first in a class of 245 officers. He then served as a battalion commander at Fort Benning, Georgia, until 1927. By the 1920's and the 1930's, Eisenhower's career in the military was stagnant, because many military forces were in peacetime mode. He worked in various business jobs.
He was assigned to the American Battle Monuments Commission directed by General Pershing, and with the help of his brother Milton Eisenhower, then a journalist at the U.S. Agriculture Department, he produced a guide to American battlefields in Europe. He then was assigned to the Army War College and graduated in 1928. After a one-year assignment in France, Eisenhower served as executive officer to General George V. Moseley, Assistant Secretary of War, from 1929 to February 1933. Major Dwight D. Eisenhower graduated from the Army Industrial College (Washington, DC) in 1933 and later served on the faculty (it was later expanded to become the Industrial College of the Armed Services and is now known as the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy). Later, the Great Depression existed. He was the chief military aide to General Douglas MacArthur, Army Chief of Staff. He was involved in clearing out the Bonus March encampment at Washington, D.C. Veterans of WWI wanted pensions. He wanted MacArthur not to take a public role in it. He wrote an incident report endorsing MacArthur's conduct. Ike worked as the assistant military adviser to the Philippine Army. This was in 1935 Eisenhower disagreed with MacArthur on how the Philippine Army should act.
Eisenhower returned to the United States in December 1939 and was assigned as commanding officer (CO) of the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment at Fort Lewis, Washington, later becoming the regimental executive officer. In March 1941 he was promoted to colonel and assigned as chief of staff of the newly activated IX Corps under Major General Kenyon Joyce. In June 1941, he was appointed chief of staff to General Walter Krueger, Commander of the Third Army, at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. After successfully participating in the Louisiana Maneuvers, he was promoted to brigadier general on October 3, 1941. Although his administrative abilities had been noticed, on the eve of the American entry into World War II he had never held an active command above a battalion and was far from being considered by many as a potential commander of major operations. World War II happened and Pearl Harbor made America to join the war. Eisenhower was the General Staff in Washington. He served until June 1942 with creating major war plans to defeat Japan and Germany. General Leonard T. Gerrow was the leader under him as when was Deputy Chief in charge of Pacific Defense. Ike was the Chief of the War Plans Division later on. He was the Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of new Operations Division under Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall. Eisenhower was the Lieutenant General on July 7, 1942. He researched the theater commander in England.
In November 1942, Eisenhower was also appointed Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force of the North African Theater of Operations (NATOUSA) through the new operational Headquarters Allied (Expeditionary) Force Headquarters (A(E)FHQ). The word "expeditionary" was dropped soon after his appointment for security reasons. The campaign in North Africa was designated Operation Torch and was planned in the underground headquarters within the Rock of Gibraltar. Eisenhower was the first non-British person to command Gibraltar in 200 years. Eisenhower used French cooperation in the campaign. He supported Francois Darln, as High Commissioner in North Africa. After Darlan was assassinated, General Henri Giraud was the leader. Operation Torch was when U.S. and Allied forces defeated Nazis forces in North Africa. Ike was the leader of the program. He defended Erwin Rommel's forces. In February 1943, his authority was extended as commander of AFHQ across the Mediterranean basin to include the British Eighth Army, commanded by General Sir Bernard Montgomery. The Eighth Army had advanced across the Western Desert from the east and was ready for the start of the Tunisia Campaign. Eisenhower gained his fourth star and gave up command of ETOUSA to become commander of NATOUSA. After the Axis loss in North Africa. Eisenhower oversaw the invasion of Sicily. Once Mussolini fell, the Allies focused on Operation Avalanche. But while Eisenhower argued with President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill, who both insisted on unconditional terms of surrender in exchange for helping the Italians, the Germans pursued an aggressive buildup of forces in the country. The Germans made the already tough battle more difficult by adding 19 divisions and initially outnumbering the Allied forces 2 to 1. Operation Overload was about D-Day. Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
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General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the command of the ETOUSA or the SHAEF (Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force). He wanted to liberate Western Europe and invade Nazi Germany. Eisenhower had great military skills. Normandy landing came out in June 1944. It was a beach landing assault. He wanted French resistance forces to help Operation Overlord. He used George S. Patton to help him. Patton slapped a subordinate and made comments about postwar policy as he hated the Soviet Union. General Ike wanted a bombing plan in France. The D-Day Normandy landings on June 6, 1944 was costly and successful. By August 15, 1944, there was the invasion of Southern France. Many thought that victory in Europe would come by summer's end, but the Germans did not capitulate for almost a year. From then until the end of the war in Europe on May 8, 1945, Eisenhower, through SHAEF, commanded all Allied forces, and through his command of ETOUSA had administrative command of all U.S. forces on the Western Front north of the Alps. He was ever mindful of the inevitable loss of life and suffering that would be experienced on an individual level by the troops under his command and their families. This prompted him to make a point of visiting every division involved in the invasion. Eisenhower's sense of responsibility was underscored by his draft of a statement to be issued if the invasion failed. It has been called one of the great speeches of history. France was soon liberated.
Once the coastal assault had succeeded, Eisenhower insisted on retaining personal control over the land battle strategy, and was immersed in the command and supply of multiple assaults through France on Germany. Field Marshal Montgomery insisted priority be given to his 21st Army Group's attack being made in the north, while Generals Bradley (12th U.S. Army Group) and Devers (Sixth U.S. Army Group) insisted they be given priority in the center and south of the front (respectively). Eisenhower worked tirelessly to address the demands of the rival commanders to optimize Allied forces, often by giving them tactical latitude; many historians conclude this delayed the Allied victory in Europe. However, due to Eisenhower's persistence, the pivotal supply port at Antwerp was successfully, albeit belatedly, opened in late 1944. Eisenhower was the General of the Army by December 20, 1944. He had great leadership and diplomatic qualities. He was respected by Winston Churchill, Field Marshall Bernad Montgomery, and General Charles De Gaulle (despite their disagreements). He was a friend to Soviet Marhsal Zhukov.
In December 1944, the Germans launched a surprise counteroffensive, the Battle of the Bulge, which the Allies turned back in early 1945 after Eisenhower repositioned his armies and improved weather allowed the Army Air Force to engage. German defenses continued to deteriorate on both the Eastern Front with the Red Army and the Western Front with the Western Allies. The British wanted to capture Berlin, but Eisenhower decided it would be a military mistake for him to attack Berlin, and said orders to that effect would have to be explicit. The British backed down but then wanted Eisenhower to move into Czechoslovakia for political reasons. Washington refused to support Churchill's plan to use Eisenhower's army for political maneuvers against Moscow. The actual division of Germany followed the lines that Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin had previously agreed upon. The Soviet Red Army captured Berlin in a very large-scale bloody battle, and the Germans finally surrendered on May 7, 1945.
In 1945, Eisenhower anticipated that someday an attempt would be made to recharacterize Nazi crimes as propaganda (Holocaust denial) and took steps against it by demanding extensive still and movie photographic documentation of Nazi death camps. After the end of the war, Eisenhower was the military governor of the American occupation zone. This was in Southern Germany. Its headquarters was at the IG Farben Building in Frankfurt am Main. He allowed film documentation of concentration camps to be used as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials. He reclassified German prisoners of war in U.S. custody as Disarmed Enemy Forces (not subject to the Geneva Convention). He allowed food to be sent to Germany as humanitarian aid. He purged ex-Nazis while not condemning all of the German people.
In November 1945, Eisenhower returned to Washington to replace Marshall as Chief of Staff of the Army. His main role was the rapid demobilization of millions of soldiers, a job that was delayed by lack of shipping. Eisenhower was convinced in 1946 that the Soviet Union did not want war and that friendly relations could be maintained; he strongly supported the new United Nations and favored its involvement in the control of atomic bombs. However, in formulating policies regarding the atomic bomb and relations with the Soviets, Truman was guided by the U.S. State Department and ignored Eisenhower and the Pentagon. Indeed, Eisenhower had opposed the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese, writing, "First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon." Initially, Eisenhower hoped for cooperation with the Soviets. He even visited Warsaw in 1945. Invited by Bolesław Bierut and decorated with the highest military decoration, he was shocked by the scale of destruction in the city. However, by mid-1947, as east–west tensions over economic recovery in Germany and the Greek Civil War escalated, Eisenhower agreed with a containment policy to stop Soviet expansion.
Eisenhower didn't run for President in 1948. He didn't support any political party at the time. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the President of Columbia University and inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He also was the NATO Supreme Commander. Crusade in Europe was his memoir being a prominent book. As President of Columbia, he gave an honorary degree to Jawaharlal Nehru. He was in the Council on Foreign Relations. The trustees of Columbia University declined to accept Eisenhower's offer to resign in December 1950, when he took an extended leave from the university to become the Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and he was given operational command of NATO forces in Europe. Eisenhower retired from active service as an army general on June 3, 1952, and he resumed his presidency of Columbia. Meanwhile, Eisenhower had become the Republican Party nominee for president of the United States, a contest that he won on November 4. Eisenhower tendered his resignation as university president on November 15, 1952, effective January 19, 1953, the day before his inauguration. Eisenhower promoted NATO. By 1951, NATO was a strong military power. Dwight D. Eisenhower won the 1952 election. Republicans supported him. He defeated the non interventionist Senator Robert A. Taft. Ike choose Nixon was Vice President to appease old school conservatives. Nixon was known as being anti-communist. Eisenhower campaigned in the South, but much of the South voted for the Democrat Stevenson. Eisenhower wanted to end the war, confront McCarthy's controversial methods, and make a frugal administration. Eisenhower had a landslide victory against Adlai Stevenson II. He was the first Republican in the White House in 20 years. He was the last President born in the 19th century. He beat Stevenson again in the 1956 election.
Eisenhower selected Joseph M. Dodge as his budget director, then asked Herbert Brownell Jr. and Lucius D. Clay to make recommendations for his cabinet appointments. He accepted their recommendations without exception; they included John Foster Dulles and George M. Humphrey with whom he developed his closest relationships, as well as Oveta Culp Hobby. His cabinet consisted of several corporate executives and one labor leader, and one journalist dubbed it "eight millionaires and a plumber." The cabinet was known for its lack of personal friends, office seekers, or experienced government administrators. He also upgraded the role of the National Security Council in planning all phases of the Cold War. Eisenhower is known as being anti-Communist on foreign policy and center-right on domestic policy. He helped to end the Korean War. Also, he called himself a progressive conservative. He continued all the major programs of the New Deal including Social Security. He expanded its programs and rolled them into the new Cabinet-level agency of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, while extending benefits to an additional ten million workers. He implemented racial integration in the Armed Services in two years, which had not been completed under Truman. In a private letter, Eisenhower wrote: "Should any party attempt to abolish social security and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course, that believes you can do these things [...] Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
President Eisenhower blamed the far right for trying to ruin GOP chances in the 1954 Congressional elections. He then articulated his position as a moderate, progressive Republican: "I have just one purpose ... and that is to build up a strong progressive Republican Party in this country. If the right wing wants a fight, they are going to get it ... before I end up, either this Republican Party will reflect progressivism or I won't be with them anymore." Eisenhower promoted the federal Interstate Highway System. He wanted people to evacuate cities quickly in the midst of the Cold War. He wanted roads to be modernized. FDR signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1944. June 1956 was when the highway system was passed. After Stalin's death in March 1953, Eisenhower wanted peaceful usages of nuclear materials in his Chance for Peace speech. He wanted foreign markets to deal with America. When the H Bomb dropped in November 1955, everything changed. America built its nuclear weapons instead of promoting disarmament. The Soviets didn't want inspections, and negotiations over arms failed. At the Geneva Conference, Eisenhower presented a proposal called "Open Skies" to facilitate disarmament, which included plans for Russia and the U.S. to provide mutual access to each other's skies for open surveillance of military infrastructure. Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev dismissed the proposal out of hand. In 1954, Eisenhower articulated the domino theory in his outlook towards communism in Southeast Asia and also in Central America. He believed that if the communists were allowed to prevail in Vietnam, this would cause a succession of countries to fall to communism, from Laos through Malaysia and Indonesia ultimately to India. Likewise, the fall of Guatemala would end with the fall of neighboring Mexico. That year, the loss of North Vietnam to the communists and the rejection of his proposed European Defense Community (EDC) were serious defeats, but he remained optimistic in his opposition to the spread of communism, saying "Long faces don't win wars." As he had threatened the French in their rejection of EDC, he afterwards moved to restore West Germany as a full NATO partner. In 1954, he also induced Congress to create an Emergency Fund for International Affairs in order to support America's use of cultural diplomacy to strengthen international relations throughout Europe during the cold war.
Allen Dulles of the CIA was more hawkish than Eisenhower. The CIA overthrown governments during this time and did many corrupt actions. With Eisenhower's leadership and Dulles' direction, CIA activities increased under the pretense of resisting the spread of communism in poorer countries; the CIA in part deposed the leaders of Iran in Operation Ajax, of Guatemala through Operation Pbsuccess, and possibly the newly independent Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). Eisenhower authorized the assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba in 1960, which was wrong. However, the plot to poison him was abandoned. In 1954, Eisenhower wanted to increase surveillance inside the Soviet Union. With Dulles' recommendation, he authorized the deployment of thirty Lockheed U-2's at a cost of $35 million (equivalent to $337.29 million in 2020). The Eisenhower administration also planned the Bay of Pigs Invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba, which John F. Kennedy was left to carry out. After the Soviets sent Sputnik into space, Eisenhower promoted the space program. NASA was formed to deal with the issue. There were a growing arms race. Fear spread through the United States that the Soviet Union would invade and spread communism, so Eisenhower wanted to not only create a surveillance satellite to detect any threats but ballistic missiles that would protect the United States. In strategic terms, it was Eisenhower who devised the American basic strategy of nuclear deterrence based upon the triad of B-52 strategic bombers, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Ike was opposed to a space program of sending man to the moon by saying, "Anyone who would spend $40 billion in a race to the moon for national prestige is nuts." Eisenhower promoted the armistice to end the Korean war. Dulles opposed it. The armistice allowed North Korea to be Communist and South Korea to be non-Communist. Eisenhower was a hardliner with China wanted to create a wedge between China and the Soviet Union.
Eisenhower continued Truman's policy of recognizing the Republic of China (Taiwan) as the legitimate government of China, not the Peking (Beijing) regime. There were localized flare-ups when the People's Liberation Army began shelling the islands of Quemoy and Matsu in September 1954. Eisenhower received recommendations embracing every variation of response to the aggression of the Chinese communists. He thought it essential to have every possible option available to him as the crisis unfolded. Eisenhower openly threatened the Chinese communists with the use of nuclear weapons, authorizing a series of bomb tests labeled Operation Teapot. Nevertheless, he left the Chinese communists guessing as to the exact nature of his nuclear response. This allowed Eisenhower to accomplish all of his objectives—the end of this communist encroachment, the retention of the Islands by the Chinese nationalists and continued peace. Defense of the Republic of China from an invasion remains a core American policy.
By the end of 1954 Eisenhower's military and foreign policy experts—the NSC, JCS and State Dept.—had unanimously urged him, on no less than five occasions, to launch an atomic attack against Red China; yet he consistently refused to do so and felt a distinct sense of accomplishment in having sufficiently confronted communism while keeping world peace.
Early in 1953, the French asked Eisenhower for help in French Indochina against the Communists, supplied from China, who were fighting the First Indochina War. Eisenhower sent Lt. General John W. "Iron Mike" O'Daniel to Vietnam to study and assess the French forces there. Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway dissuaded the President from intervening by presenting a comprehensive estimate of the massive military deployment that would be necessary. Eisenhower stated prophetically that "this war would absorb our troops by divisions."
Eisenhower did provide France with bombers and non-combat personnel. After a few months with no success by the French, he added other aircraft to drop napalm for clearing purposes. Further requests for assistance from the French were agreed to but only on conditions Eisenhower knew were impossible to meet – allied participation and congressional approval. When the French fortress of Dien Bien Phu fell to the Vietnamese Communists in May 1954, Eisenhower refused to intervene despite urgings from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Vice President and the head of NCS.
Eisenhower responded to the French defeat with the formation of the SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) Alliance with the UK, France, New Zealand and Australia in defense of Vietnam against communism. At that time the French and Chinese reconvened the Geneva peace talks; Eisenhower agreed the US would participate only as an observer. After France and the Communists agreed to a partition of Vietnam, Eisenhower rejected the agreement, offering military and economic aid to southern Vietnam. Ambrose argues that Eisenhower, by not participating in the Geneva agreement, had kept the U.S. out of Vietnam; nevertheless, with the formation of SEATO, he had, in the end, put the U.S. back into the conflict.
In late 1954, Gen. J. Lawton Collins was made ambassador to "Free Vietnam" (the term South Vietnam came into use in 1955), effectively elevating the country to sovereign status. Collins' instructions were to support the leader Ngo Dinh Diem in subverting communism, by helping him to build an army and wage a military campaign. In February 1955, Eisenhower dispatched the first American soldiers to Vietnam as military advisors to Diem's army. After Diem announced the formation of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, commonly known as South Vietnam) in October, Eisenhower immediately recognized the new state and offered military, economic, and technical assistance.
In the years that followed, Eisenhower increased the number of U.S. military advisors in South Vietnam to 900 men. This was due to North Vietnam's support of "uprisings" in the south and concern the nation would fall. In May 1957 Diem, then President of South Vietnam, made a state visit to the United States for ten days. President Eisenhower pledged his continued support, and a parade was held in Diem's honor in New York City. Although Diem was publicly praised, in private Secretary of State John Foster Dulles conceded that Diem had been selected because there were no better alternatives.
Eisenhower made a mistake to recognize the fascist Francisco Franco of Spain. He signed the Pact of Madrid to do it. Fascist Spain signed the Concordat of 1953. Franco worked with the Nazis. Later, America used air and naval bases in Spanish territory. Eisenhower personally visited Spain in December 1959 to meet dictator Francisco Franco and consolidate his international legitimation. Another mistake of Eisenhower was him restoring the Shah of Iran. The Shah's name is Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He met him in 1959.
He therefore authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. This resulted in increased strategic control over Iranian oil by U.S. and British companies. In November 1956, Eisenhower forced an end to the combined British, French and Israeli invasion of Egypt in response to the Suez Crisis, receiving praise from Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Simultaneously he condemned the brutal Soviet invasion of Hungary in response to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. He publicly disavowed his allies at the United Nations and used financial and diplomatic pressure to make them withdraw from Egypt. Eisenhower explicitly defended his strong position against Britain and France in his memoirs, which were published in 1965. He gave economic aid to the Kingdom of Jordan. His Eisenhower Doctrine was to use force if necessary to stop the spread of communism in the Middle East. He used 15,000 Marines in Operation Blue Bat to help promote a pro-Western government in Lebanon. Eisenhower support both Israel and Arabic nations. The U-2 incident was when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet airspace. This further ruined relations among America and the Soviet Union. The pilot Captain Francis Gary Powers survived by a parachute. He was sent to a USSR prison from 1960 to 1962. He came back to America in 1962.
The Four Power Paris Summit in May 1960 with Eisenhower, Nikita Khrushchev, Harold Macmillan and Charles de Gaulle collapsed because of the incident. Eisenhower refused to accede to Khrushchev's demands that he apologize. Therefore, Khrushchev would not take part in the summit. Up until this event, Eisenhower felt he had been making progress towards better relations with the Soviet Union. Nuclear arms reduction and Berlin were to have been discussed at the summit. Eisenhower stated it had all been ruined because of that "stupid U-2 business."
The affair was an embarrassment for United States prestige. Further, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a lengthy inquiry into the U-2 incident. In Russia, Captain Powers made a forced confession and apology. On August 19, 1960, Powers was convicted of espionage and sentenced to imprisonment. On February 10, 1962, Powers was exchanged for Rudolf Abel in Berlin and returned to the U.S. On civil rights, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had a mixed record. He desegregated the Armed Forces. Eisenhower made clear his stance in his first State of the Union address in February 1953, saying "I propose to use whatever authority exists in the office of the President to end segregation in the District of Columbia, including the Federal Government, and any segregation in the Armed Forces." The administration declared racial discrimination a national security issue, as Communists around the world used the racial discrimination and history of violence in the U.S. as a point of propaganda attack. Eisenhower supported Washington, D.C. to be integrated. He promote the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960. The 1957 act for the first time established a permanent civil rights office inside the Justice Department and a Civil Rights Commission to hear testimony about abuses of voting rights. Although both acts were much weaker than subsequent civil rights legislation, they constituted the first significant civil rights acts since 1875.
In 1957 the state of Arkansas refused to honor a federal court order to integrate their public school system stemming from the Brown decision. Eisenhower demanded that Arkansas governor Orval Faubus obey the court order. When Faubus balked, the president placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and sent in the 101st Airborne Division. They escorted and protected nine black students' entry to Little Rock Central High School, an all-white public school, marking the first time since the Reconstruction Era the federal government had used federal troops in the South to enforce the U. S. Constitution. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote to Eisenhower to thank him for his actions, writing "The overwhelming majority of southerners, Negro and white, stand firmly behind your resolute action to restore law and order in Little Rock."
Eisenhower's administration contributed to the McCarthyistic Lavender Scare with President Eisenhower issuing Executive Order 10450 in 1953. During Eisenhower's presidency thousands of lesbian and gay applicants were barred from federal employment and over 5,000 federal employees were fired under suspicions of being homosexual. From 1947 to 1961 the number of firings based on sexual orientation were far greater than those for membership in the Communist Party, and government officials intentionally campaigned to make "homosexual" synonymous with "Communist traitor" such that LGBT people were treated as a national security threat stemming from the belief they were susceptible to blackmail and exploitation. LGBT people were made scapegoats. President Dwight D. Eisenhower worked with the old school conservatives like Robert A. Taft. Eisenhower never liked McCarthy, and when McCarthy accused some of the military of being communists, then Eisenhower publicly criticized McCarthy.
In December 1953, Eisenhower learned that one of America's nuclear scientists, J. Robert Oppenheimer, had been accused of being a spy for the Soviet Union. Although Eisenhower never really believed that these allegations were true, in January 1954 he ordered that "a blank wall" be placed between Oppenheimer and all defense-related activities. The Oppenheimer security hearing was conducted later that year, resulting in the physicist losing his security clearance. The matter was controversial at the time and remained so in later years, with Oppenheimer achieving a certain martyrdom. The case would reflect poorly on Eisenhower as well, but the president had never examined it in any detail and had instead relied excessively upon the advice of his subordinates, especially that of AEC chairman Lewis Strauss. Eisenhower later suffered a major political defeat when his nomination of Strauss to be Secretary of Commerce was defeated in the Senate in 1959, in part due to Strauss's role in the Oppenheimer matter. By May 1955, McCarthy threatened to issue subpoenas to the White House personnel. Eisenhower was angry and made this order, "It is essential to efficient and effective administration that employees of the Executive Branch be in a position to be completely candid in advising with each other on official matters ... it is not in the public interest that any of their conversations or communications, or any documents or reproductions, concerning such advice be disclosed." This was an unprecedented step by Eisenhower to protect communication beyond the confines of a cabinet meeting, and soon became a tradition known as executive privilege. Eisenhower's denial of McCarthy's access to his staff reduced McCarthy's hearings to rants about trivial matters and contributed to his ultimate downfall.
Eisenhower rejected the Old Guard's Bricker Amendment, but he agreed with them in sending nuclear reactors to private corporations. Democrats won the majority of both houses in the 1954 election. LBJ and Sam Rayburn rose in power. Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren, Johna Marshall Harlan II, William J. Brennan, Potter Stewart, and Charles Evans Whittaker. Warren would revolutionize the Supreme Court with many liberal decisions. Eisenhower saw Alaska and Hawaii as new states in the Union. He smoked a lot. He had Crohn's disease and a heart attack. He supported Nixon, but he made statements to minimize his accomplished. JFK won the 1960 election. On January 17, 1961, Eisenhower gave his final televised Address to the Nation from the Oval Office. In his farewell speech, Eisenhower raised the issue of the Cold War and role of the U.S. armed forces. He described the Cold War: "We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose and insidious in method ..." and warned about what he saw as unjustified government spending proposals and continued with a warning that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex." He elaborated, "we recognize the imperative need for this development ... the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist ... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." After his Presidency, he spoke with LBJ, worked in Gettysburg, and gave many speeches. He celebrated the inauguration of Richard Nixon.
On the morning of March 28, 1969, Eisenhower died in Washington, D.C., of congestive heart failure at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, at age 78. The following day, his body was moved to the Washington National Cathedral's Bethlehem Chapel, where he lay in repose for 28 hours. He was then transported to the United States Capitol, where he lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda on March 30–31. A state funeral service was conducted at the Washington National Cathedral on March 31. The president and First Lady, Richard and Pat Nixon, attended, as did former president Lyndon Johnson. Also among the 2,000 invited guests were U.N. Secretary General U Thant and 191 foreign delegates from 78 countries, including 10 foreign heads of state and government. Notable guests included President Charles de Gaulle of France, who was in the United States for the first time since the state funeral of John F. Kennedy, Chancellor Kurt-Georg Kiesinger of West Germany, King Baudouin of Belgium and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran.
The service included the singing of Faure's The Palms, and the playing of Onward, Christian Soldiers
That evening, Eisenhower's body was placed onto a special funeral train for its journey from the nation's capital through seven states to his hometown of Abilene, Kansas. First incorporated into President Abraham Lincoln's funeral in 1865, a funeral train would not be part of a U.S. state funeral again until 2018. Eisenhower is buried inside the Place of Meditation, the chapel on the grounds of the Eisenhower Presidential Center in Abilene. As requested, he was buried in a Government Issue casket, and wearing his World War II uniform, decorated with: Army Distinguished Service Medal with three oak leaf clusters, Navy Distinguished Service Medal, and the Legion of Merit. Buried alongside Eisenhower are his son Doud, who died at age 3 in 1921, and wife Mamie, who died in 1979.
President Richard Nixon eulogized Eisenhower in 1969. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's legacy included a center-right domestic policy with a more hawkish foreign policy (despite his condemnation of the military industrial complex). He rightfully exposed McCarthy's tactics, and he didn't go the extra mile on civil rights. Eisenhower was not the worst President as he end the Korean War, promoted international trade, and balanced the budget. He promoted technological innovation. He didn't end New Deal programs, and that saved lives. Eisenhower was a person who wanted moderation in government. His role in helping to defeat the Nazis during WWII will always be remembered and appreciated.
JFK
President John F. Kennedy was one of the most beloved, famous Presidents in American history. He was a new type of President being the first President born in the 20th century. He was the 35th President of the United States whose term existed from 1961 to 1963. He lived from May 29, 1917 to 1963. Also, he was a great speaker and was on the cusp of being even more great politically. He was in office during the height of tensions in the Cold War. His enemies were not just far right reactionaries but even some moderates. To understand JFK, you have to understand his origins. He was born outside of Boston at Brookline, Massachusetts on May 29, 1917 to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., a businessman and politician along with Rose Kennedy (nee Fitzgerald). His paternal grandfather P. J. Kennedy, served as a Massachusetts state legislator. Kennedy's maternal grandfather and namesake John F. Fitzgerald was in the U.S. Congress plus being elected to 2 terms as Mayor Boston. All four of his grandparents were children of Irish immigrants. Kennedy had an elder brother, Joseph Jr., and seven younger siblings: Rosemary, Kathleen ("Kick"), Eunice, Patricia, Robert ("Bobby"), Jean, and Edward ("Ted"). JFK lived in Brookline for 10 years after his birth. He attended the local St. Aidan's Church and was baptized on June 19, 1917. He been educated at Edward Devotion School, the Noble and Greenough Lower School, and the Dexter School to the 4th grade. These locations were found in the Boston area. He remembered accompanying his grandfather Fitzgerald on walking tours of historic sites in Boston and having discussions at the family dinner table about politics. JFK was interested in history and public service. His father's business kept him away from his family for an extended period of time. His father worked in Wall Street and Hollywood. By 1927, the Dexter School said that it would not reopen before October after an outbreak of polio in Massachusetts. By September, the family moved from Boston to the Riverdale neighborhood of New York City via a private railway car. For many years, his brother Robert told Look magazine that his father had left Boston because of signs that read "No Irish Need Apply."
The family spent summers and early fall seasons at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, a village on Cape Cod. At that location, the family did swimming, sailing, and touch football. The holidays of Christmas and Easter were spent at their winter retreat in Palm Beach, Florida. JFK attended the Riverdale Country School. That was a private school for boys from 5th to 7th grade. He was a member of the Boy Scout Troop 2 in Bronxville, New York. In September 1930, Kennedy, then 13 years old, was shipped off to the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, for 8th grade. In April 1931, he had an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from Canterbury and recuperated at home. By September 1931, Kennedy attended Choate or a prestigious boarding school in Willingford, Connecticut for the 9th to 12th grade. His older brother Joe Jr. had already been at Choate for 2 years and was a football player and leading student. He had behavior issues there with his group called The Muckers Club with Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings (his friend). From early on, John F. Kennedy had health issues. He was hospitalized in 1934, he had colitis, and he graduated from Choate in June of 1935. In September 1935, he traveled into Lond with his parents and his sister Kathleen. He wanted to study under Harold Laski at the London School of Economics (LSE), as his older brother had done. He experienced a gastrointestinal illness. He continued to have illnesses. By the spring of 1936, JFK worked hard at a Jay Six cattle ranch outside of Benson, Arizona. The ranchman Jack Speiden said that both brothers worked hard. In September 1936, Kennedy enrolled at Harvard College, and his application essay stated: "The reasons that I have for wishing to go to Harvard are several. I feel that Harvard can give me a better background and a better liberal education than any other university. I have always wanted to go there, as I have felt that it is not just another college but is a university with something definite to offer. Then too, I would like to go to the same college as my father. To be a 'Harvard man' is an enviable distinction, and one that I sincerely hope I shall attain." He produced that year's annual "Freshman Smoker", called by a reviewer "an elaborate entertainment, which included in its cast outstanding personalities of the radio, screen and sports world."
JFK earned a spot at the varsity swimming team. He tried out for football, golf, and swimming teams. Kennedy also sailed in the Star class and won the 1936 Nantucket Sound Star Championship. In July 1937, Kennedy sailed to France—taking his convertible—and spent ten weeks driving through Europe with Billings. In June 1938, Kennedy sailed overseas with his father and older brother to work at the American embassy in London, where his father was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's. In 1939, Kennedy toured Europe, the Soviet Union, the Balkans, and the Middle East in preparation for his Harvard senior honors thesis. He then went to Berlin, where the U.S. diplomatic representative gave him a secret message about war breaking out soon to pass on to his father, and to Czechoslovakia before returning to London on September 1, 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland to mark the beginning of World War II. Two days later, the family was in the House of Commons for speeches endorsing the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Germany. Kennedy was sent as his father's representative to help with arrangements for American survivors of SS Athenia before flying back to the U.S. from Foynes, Ireland, on his first transatlantic flight. JFK was an upperclassman at Harvard. He studied political philosophy. He made the dean's list in his junior.
In 1940 Kennedy completed his thesis, "Appeasement in Munich", about British negotiations during the Munich Agreement. The thesis eventually became a bestseller under the title Why England Slept. In addition to addressing Britain's unwillingness to strengthen its military in the lead-up to World War II, the book also called for an Anglo-American alliance against the rising totalitarian powers. Kennedy became increasingly supportive of U.S. intervention in World War II, and his father's isolationist beliefs resulted in the latter's dismissal as ambassador to the United Kingdom. This created a split between the Kennedy and Roosevelt families. In 1940, Kennedy graduated cum laude from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts in government, concentrating on international affairs. That fall, he enrolled at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and audited classes there. In early 1941, Kennedy left and helped his father write a memoir of his time as an American ambassador. He then traveled throughout South America; his itinerary included Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. John F. Kennedy joined the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1941 to 1945.
JFK planned to attend Yale Law School after auditing courses on business law at Stanford. This was canceled when America was about entered into World War II. By 1940, he attempted to enter the army's Officer Candidate School. He trained for months. Later, he was medically disqualified due to his chronic lower back problems. On September 24, 1941, Kennedy, with the help of then director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the former naval attaché to Joseph Kennedy, Alan Kirk, joined the United States Naval Reserve. JFK was commissioned an ensign on October 26, 1941. He was part of the staff of the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C. By January 1942, Kennedy was assigned to the ONI field office at Headquarters, Sixth Naval District, in Charleston, South Carolina. He attended the Naval Reserve Officer Training School at Northwestern University in Chicago from July 27 to September 27. JFK voluntarily entered the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons Training Center in Melville, Rhode Island. By October 10, he was promoted to lieutenant junior grade.
In early November, Kennedy was still mourning the death of his close, childhood friend, Marine Corps Second Lieutenant George Houk Mead Jr., who had been killed in action at Guadalcanal that August and awarded the Navy Cross for his bravery. Accompanied by a female acquaintance from a wealthy Newport family, the couple had stopped in Middletown, Rhode Island at the cemetery where the decorated, naval spy, Commander Hugo W. Koehler, USN, had been buried the previous year. Ambling around the plots near the tiny St. Columba's chapel, Kennedy paused over Koehler's white granite cross grave marker and pondered his own mortality, hoping out loud that when his time came, he would not have to die without religion. "But these things can't be faked," he added. "There's no bluffing." Two decades later, Kennedy and Koehler's stepson, U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell had become good friends and political allies, although they had been acquaintances since the mid-1930s during their "salad days" on the same Newport debutante party "circuit" and when Pell had dated Kathleen ("Kick") Kennedy. Kennedy completed his training on December 2 and was assigned to Motor Torpedo Squadron FOUR. JFK's first command was PT-101 from December 7, 1942 until February 23, 1943. It was a patrol torpedo (PT) boat used for training while Kennedy was an instructor at Melville. He led 3 Huckins PT boats called PT 98, PT 99, and PT 101.They were relocated from MTBRON 4 in Melville, Rhode Island, back to Jacksonville, Florida, and the new MTBRON 14 (formed in February 17, 1943). During the trip south, he was hospitalized briefly in Jacksonville after diving into the cold water to unfold a propeller. Thereafter, JFK was assigned duty in Panama and later in the Pacific theater, where he eventually commanded two more PT boats.
JFK commanded the PT-109. In April 1943, Kennedy was assigned to Motor Torpedo Squadron TWO. He took command of PT-109 on April 24. He was based at the Tulagi Island in the Solomons. By the night of August 1-2, in support of the New Georgia campaign, PT-109 was on its 31st mission with 14 other PTs ordered to block or repel four Japanese destroyers and floatplanes carrying food, supplies, and 900 Japanese soldiers to Vila Plantation garrison. That garrison was on the southern tip of the Solomon's Kolombangara Island. Intelligence had been sent to Kennedy's Commander Thomas G. Warfield expecting the arrival of the large Japanese naval force that would pass on the evening of August 1. Of the 24 torpedoes fired that night by 8 of the American PTs, not one hit the Japanese convoy. On that dark and moonless night, JFK spotted a Japanese destroyer heading north on its return from the base of the Kolombangara around 2 am. and attempted to turn to attack, when PT-109 was rammed suddenly at an angle and cut in half by the destroyer Amagiri, killing PT-109 crew members. JFK gathered around the wreckage his surviving ten crew members to vote on whether to fight or surrender. Kennedy said that, : "There's nothing in the book about a situation like this. A lot of you men have families and some of you have children. What do you want to do? I have nothing to lose." Shunning surrender, around 2:00 p.m. on August 2, the men swam towards Plum Pudding Island 3.5 miles (5.6 km) southwest of the remains of PT-109. Despite re-injuring his back in the collision, Kennedy towed a badly burned crewman through the water to the island with a life jacket strap clenched between his teeth. Kennedy made an additional two-mile swim the night of August 2, 1943, to Ferguson Passage to attempt to hail a passing American PT boat to expedite his crew's rescue and attempted to make the trip on a subsequent night, in a damaged canoe found on Naru Island where he had swum with Ensign George Ross to look for food.
By August 4, 1943, JFK and his executive officer, Ensign Lenny Thom, assisted his injured and hungry crew on a demanding swim 3.75 miles (6.04 km) southeast to Olasana Island, which was visible to the crew from their desolate home on Plum Pudding Island. They swam against a strong current. Once again, JFK towed the badly burned motor machinist "Pappy" MacMahon by his life vest. The somewhat larger Olasana Island had ripe coconut trees. There was no fresh water. On the following day, August 5, Kennedy and Ensign George Ross made the one-hour swim to Naru Island. This was an additional distance of 0.5 miles southwest. They wanted help and food. Kennedy and Ross found a small canoe, packages of crackers, candy, and a 50 gallon drum of drinkable water left by the Japanese. JFK then paddled another half mile back to Olasana in the acquired canoe to provide for his hungry crew. Native coast watchers Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana first discovered the 109 crew on Olasana Island and paddled their messages to Ben Kevu, a Senior Scout who sent them on to coast watcher Lieutenant Reginald Evans. On the morning of August 7, Evans radioed the PT base on Rendova. Lieutenant "Bud" Liebenow, a friend and former tentmate of Kennedy's, rescued Kennedy and his crew on Olasana Island on August 8, 1943, aboard his boat, PT-157. Kennedy took about a month to recover. He commanded the PT-59 later. He had weapons, and was promoted to full lieutenant.
On November 2, Kennedy's PT-59 took part with two other PTs in the successful rescue of 40–50 marines. The 59 acted as a shield from shore fire and protected them as they escaped on two rescue landing craft at the base of the Warrior River at Choiseul Island, taking ten marines aboard and delivering them to safety. Under doctor's orders, Kennedy was relieved of his command of PT-59 on November 18, and sent to the hospital on Tulagi. From there he returned to the United States in early January 1944. After receiving treatment for his back injury, he was released from active duty in late 1944.
Kennedy was hospitalized at the Chelsea Naval Hospital in Chelsea, Massachusetts from May to December 1944. On June 12, he was presented the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his heroic actions on August 1–2, 1943, and the Purple Heart Medal for his back injury while on PT-109. Beginning in January 1945, Kennedy spent three more months recovering from his back injury at Castle Hot Springs, a resort and temporary military hospital in Arizona. After the war, Kennedy felt that the medal he had received for heroism was not a combat award and asked that he be reconsidered for the Silver Star Medal for which he had been recommended initially. Kennedy's father also requested that his son receive the Silver Star, which is awarded for gallantry in action.
On August 12, 1944, Kennedy's older brother, Joe Jr., a navy pilot, was killed while on a special and hazardous air mission for which he had volunteered; his explosive-laden plane blew up when its bombs detonated prematurely over the English Channel. On March 1, 1945, Kennedy retired from the Navy Reserve on physical disability and was honorably discharged with the full rank of lieutenant. When later asked how he became a war hero, Kennedy joked: "It was easy. They cut my PT boat in half." In 1950, the Department of the Navy offered Kennedy a Bronze Star Medal in recognition of his meritorious service, which he declined. Kennedy's two original medals are currently on display at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. He was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his conduct during the war. He had the Purple Heart for being wounded. After WWII, JFK worked in journalism as a correspondent for Hearst newspapers. His father was a friend of William Randolph Hearst. JFK covered the Potsdam Conference and other event. John F. Kennedy was a member of the U.S. Congress from 1947-1960. His father wanted him to do it and go for the Presidency. JFK was the 2nd eldest of the Kennedy siblings. First, he was the member of the House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953. He wanted in the vacated seat of U.S. Representative James Michael Curley. The seat was heavily Democratic. Then, JFK fought for his campaign. He wanted to present himself as a new generation leader. He won the primary and the race. Kennedy wanted better housing for veterans, better health care for all, labor rights, and peace via the United Nations. He opposed the Soviet Union. JFK was in the House.
He served in the House for six years, joining the influential Education and Labor Committee and the Veterans' Affairs Committee. He concentrated his attention on international affairs, supporting the Truman Doctrine as the appropriate response to the emerging Cold War. He also supported public housing and opposed the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, which restricted the power of labor unions. Though not as vocal an anti-communist as McCarthy, Kennedy supported the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which required Communists to register with the government, and he deplored the "loss of China."
Having served as a boy scout during his childhood, Kennedy was active in the Boston Council from 1946 to 1955: as district vice chairman, member of the executive board, vice-president, as well as a National Council Representative. Almost every weekend that Congress was in session, Kennedy would fly back to Massachusetts to give speeches to veteran, fraternal, and civic groups, while maintaining an index card file on individuals who might be helpful for a future campaign for state-wide office. JFK set a goal of speaking in every city and town in Massachusetts prior to 1952. He was a Senator from 1953-1960. JFK knew that he would never be President without being in the Senate first. JFK defeated the three term incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.. Robert F. Kennedy, his younger brother, helped him as the campaign manager. His mother and sisters helped out too at hotels and parlors in Massachusetts to get to women voters. By 1954, he married Jacqueline Bouvier. He underwent spinal operations. Also, he published Profiles in Courages. This book is about the life of U.S. Senators who risked their careers for their personal beliefs. It came out in 1956, and it won the Pulitzer Price for Biography in 1957. His speechwriter and adviser Ted Sorensen co-written the book as confirmed in Sorensen's 2008 autobiography. In the Senate, he promote bills about fishing, textile manufacturing, and watchmaking industries in Massachusetts.
In 1954, Senator Kennedy voted in favor of the Saint Lawrence Seaway which would connect the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, despite opposition from Massachusetts politicians who argued that the project would cripple New England's shipping industry, including the Port of Boston. Three years later, Kennedy chaired a special committee to select the five greatest U.S. senators in history so their portraits could decorate the Senate Reception Room. That same year, Kennedy joined the Senate Labor Rackets Committee with his brother Robert (who was chief counsel) to investigate crime infiltration of labor unions. In 1958, Kennedy introduced a bill (S. 3974) which became the first major labor relations bill to pass either house since the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947. The bill dealt largely with the control of union abuses exposed by the McClellan committee but did not incorporate tough Taft–Hartley amendments requested by President Eisenhower. It survived Senate floor attempts to include Taft-Hartley amendments and gained passage but was rejected by the House.
John F. Kennedy had national exposure by giving the nominating speech for the Party's nominee Adlai Stevenson II. Kennedy lost the race for vice President to Senator Estes Kefauver. Kennedy voted against the Eisenhower bill for the Civil Rights Act of 1957, and he did vote for Title III of the act that would have given the Attorney General powers to enjoin, but Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson agreed to let the provision die as a compromise measure. Kennedy also voted for Title IV, termed the "Jury Trial Amendment." Many civil rights advocates at the time criticized that vote as one which would weaken the act. A final compromise bill, which Kennedy supported, was passed in September 1957. He proposed on July 2, 1957, that the U.S. support Algeria's effort to gain independence from France. The following year, Kennedy authored A Nation of Immigrants (later published in 1964), which analyzed the importance of immigration in the country's history as well as proposals to re-evaluate immigration law. JFK was re-elected to the Senate by 1958. He defeated Republican Boston lawyer Vincent J. Celeste. Now, he was ready to run for President. It was during his re-election campaign that Kennedy's press secretary at the time, Robert E. Thompson, put together a film entitled The U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy Story, which exhibited a day in the life of the Senator and showcased his family life as well as the inner workings of his office to solve Massachusetts-related issues. It was the most comprehensive film produced about Kennedy up to that time. John F. Kennedy worked hard. His father supported Senator Joe McCarthy. Bobby Kennedy worked for the McCarthy subcommittee.
In 1954, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy, and Kennedy drafted a speech supporting the censure. However, it was not delivered because Kennedy was hospitalized at the time. The speech put Kennedy in the apparent position of participating by "pairing" his vote against that of another senator and opposing the censure. Although Kennedy never indicated how he would have voted, the episode damaged his support among members of the liberal community, including Eleanor Roosevelt, in the 1956 and 1960 elections. The 1960 Presidential election was on. It was a change election similar to the 2008 election decades later. By December 17, 1959, JFK's staff was to send a letter to high profile Democrats to announce JFK's Presidential run. JFK announced his campaign on January 2, 1960. Many people supported his eloquence and charisma. Some questioned his experience and age. Back then, many people had anti-Catholic attitudes in fear of the Vatican dominating American politics. Yet, JFK said that he believed in the separation of church and state, and that the Pope's decrees would not dictate political policy in America. JFK was right to say that. He ran against LBJ, Adlai Stevenson II, and Senator Hubert Humphrey including Eugene McCarthy. JFK's family supported his campaign including RFK being the campaign manager. Larry O'Brien and Kenneth O'Donnell support John F. Kennedy too. JFk won the Wisconsin primary. JFK won the West Virginian primary. By the 1960 Democratic National Convention, no one knew who would win the nomination.
LBJ wanted to win, and Harry S. Truman opposed JFK because of issues of experience. JFK picked LBJ as his running mate to get support from the South. This was opposed by RFK and labor leaders. Labor leader like George Meany said that LBJ was a foe of labor. RFK didn't like LBJ, because LBJ said that RFK's father was an appeaser during WWII. In accepting the presidential nomination, Kennedy gave his well-known "New Frontier" speech, saying, "For the problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won—and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier. ... But the New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises—it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them." JFK had to get the South, so in his mind, he had no choice but to get LBJ as his Vice Presidential running mate. John F. Kennedy faced Richard Nixon. JFK and Nixon debated on the economy, the Cuban Revolution, and Communism. To address fears that his being Catholic would impact his decision-making, he famously told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960:
"I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party candidate for president who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters—and the Church does not speak for me."
He had the televised debates. People on TV saw Nixon as uncomfortable. Radio listeners said that the debate was a draw or Nixon won it. Kennedy's campaign gained momentum after the first debate, and he pulled slightly ahead of Nixon in most polls. On Election Day, Kennedy defeated Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the 20th century. In the national popular vote, by most accounts, Kennedy led Nixon by just two-tenths of one percent (49.7% to 49.5%), while in the Electoral College, he won 303 votes to Nixon's 219 (269 were needed to win). Fourteen electors from Mississippi and Alabama refused to support Kennedy because of his support for the civil rights movement; they voted for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, as did an elector from Oklahoma. Kennedy became the youngest person (43) ever elected to the presidency, though Theodore Roosevelt was a year younger at 42 when he automatically assumed the office after the assassination of William McKinley in 1901. John F. Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic President.
President John F. Kennedy was inaugurated on January 20, 1961 at noon. He gave one of the eloquent inaugural addresses in human history. It talked about public service, the Cold War, and liberty. JFK famously said that, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." He asked the nations of the world to join to fight what he called the "common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself." He added:
"All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin." In closing, he expanded on his desire for greater internationalism: "Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you."
His cabinet had many bright people. Kennedy wanted the course of history to change. He promoted optimism and confidence in America in dealing with domestic and foreign policies. Kennedy preferred the organizational structure of a wheel with all the spokes leading to the president. He was ready and willing to make the increased number of quick decisions required in such an environment. He selected a mixture of experienced and inexperienced people to serve in his cabinet. "We can learn our jobs together", he stated. This was the opposite of Eisenhower's style. JFK wanted a balanced budget. He recorded many conversation in the White House since the summer of 1962. In terms of the Cold War, President Kennedy grown in experience. He struggled at first with the 1961 meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The Vienna summit of June 1961 escalated tensions. De Gaulle of France was imprisoned with Kennedy and his wife Jackie Kennedy. Jackie Kennedy was known as a fashion icon. On June 4, 1961, Kennedy met with Khrushchev in Vienna and left the meetings angry and disappointed that he had allowed the premier to bully him, despite the warnings he had received. Khrushchev, for his part, was impressed with the president's intelligence but thought him weak. Kennedy did succeed in conveying the bottom line to Khrushchev on the most sensitive issue before them, a proposed treaty between Moscow and East Berlin. He made it clear that any treaty interfering with U.S. access rights in West Berlin would be regarded as an act of war. The USSR wanted to sign a treaty with East Berlin. Kennedy was angry. Many left East Berlin. The U.S. had a military built up. The Berlin Wall existed. Later, President Kennedy asserted West Berlin residents that he would protect them. He also supported African nationalism in a speech he gave at Saint Anslem College on May 5, 1960.
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The Eisenhower administration supported the overthrow of Castro in Cuba . That team wanted JFK to sign off on it. Kennedy approved the final invasion plan on April 4, 1961. The invasion involved the CIA and U.S. trained anti-Castro Cuban exiles. CIA paramilitary officers were involved. The Bay of Pigs Invasion began on April 17, 1961. Fifteen hundred U.S.-trained Cubans, dubbed Brigade 2506, landed on the island. No U.S. air support was provided. CIA director Allen Dulles later stated that they thought Kennedy would authorize any action that was needed for success once the troops were on the ground. By April 19, 1961, the Cuban government had captured or killed the invading exiles, and Kennedy was forced to negotiate for the release of the 1,189 survivors. Twenty months later, Cuba released the captured exiles in exchange for $53 million worth of food and medicine. The incident made Castro feel wary of the U.S. and led him to believe that another invasion would take place.
Biographer Richard Reeves said that Kennedy focused primarily on the political repercussions of the plan rather than military considerations. When it proved unsuccessful, he was convinced that the plan was a setup to make him look bad. He took responsibility for the failure, saying, "We got a big kick in the leg and we deserved it. But maybe we'll learn something from it." He appointed Robert Kennedy to help lead a committee to examine the causes of the failure. In late-1961, the White House formed the Special Group (Augmented), headed by Robert Kennedy and including Edward Lansdale, Secretary Robert McNamara, and others. The group's objective—to overthrow Castro via espionage, sabotage, and other covert tactics—was never pursued. In March 1962, Kennedy rejected Operation Northwoods, proposals for false flag attacks against American military and civilian targets, and blaming them on the Cuban government in order to gain approval for a war against Cuba. However, the administration continued to plan for an invasion of Cuba in the summer of 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis was when the Soviets placed nuclear weapons in Cuba. This freaked out the world. President Kennedy was wise to not go to war with the Soviets which would cause nuclear exchanges. On October 14, 1962, CIA U-2 spy planes took photographs of the Soviets' construction of intermediate-range ballistic missile sites in Cuba. The photos were shown to Kennedy on October 16; a consensus was reached that the missiles were offensive in nature and thus posed an immediate nuclear threat. Many people in the National Security Council of NSC wanted an attack on the missile sites. They knew that Eisenhower had PGM-19 Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey. JFK wanted better advice. So, Kennedy used a naval quarantine. On October 22, JFK gave that message to Khrushchev and said his decision on TV. The U.S. Navy would inspect all Soviet ships off Cuba. Kennedy wanted the missile gone like the Organization of American States.
Kennedy finally had a deal with Khrushchev to get ride of the missiles in Cuba in exchange with America getting rid of the Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey. They were obsolete anyway. This existed by October 28. The end of the crisis increased President Kennedy's population and resiliency. His approval rating went from 66% to 77%. Kennedy wanted the Alliance for Progress to contain Communism in Latin America. There were aid sent to nations and a desire for great human rights standards in the region. He worked closely with Puerto Rican Governor Luis Muñoz Marín for the development of the Alliance of Progress and began working to further Puerto Rico's autonomy.
The Eisenhower administration, through the CIA, had begun formulating plans to assassinate Castro in Cuba and Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. When Kennedy took office, he privately instructed the CIA that any plan must include plausible deniability by the U.S. His public position was in opposition. In June 1961, the Dominican Republic's leader was assassinated; in the days following, Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles led a cautious reaction by the nation. Robert Kennedy, who saw an opportunity for the U.S., called Bowles "a gutless bastard" to his face. There was the Peace Corps head by Kennedy's brother in law Seargent Shriver to allow Americans to volunteer in helping Third world nations (involving education, farming, health care, and construction). The Peace Corps had 10,000 people by 1964. Over 200,000 Americans joined it in 139 countries. President Kennedy support U.S. government support to South Korea and South Vietnam. Military advisors increased. Also, President Kennedy didn't trust the French occupation of Vietnam during the 1950's as acting like colonizers. JFK never wanted a full scale deployment of troops. LBJ did it by 1965. In April 1963, Kennedy assessed the situation in Vietnam, saying, "We don't have a prayer of staying in Vietnam. Those people hate us. They are going to throw our a____ out of there at any point. But I can't give up that territory to the communists and get the American people to re-elect me." JFK talked with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara about this issue. He knew that American occupation of Vietnam was never going to work. JFK was concerned about Ngo Dinh Nhu's crackdown of the Buddhists in South Vietnam. The Buddhists wanted to stop Diem's religious discrimination, and some Buddhists burned themselves to death to protest Diem's regime. U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. wanted Diem and Nhu to step down and leave Vietnam. They refused. So, South Vietnamese generals overthrew Diem and Nhu. JFK knew of the coup, but he didn't knew that it would be so bloody. At Kennedy's insistence, the mission report contained a recommended schedule for troop withdrawals: 1,000 by year's end and complete withdrawal in 1965, something the NSC considered to be a "strategic fantasy."
Before leaving for Dallas, Kennedy told Michael Forrestal that "after the first of the year ... [he wanted] an in depth study of every possible option, including how to get out of there ... to review this whole thing from the bottom to the top". Asked what he thought Kennedy meant, Forrestal said, "It was devil's advocate stuff." Kennedy would not have escalated the war to LBJ's extent if he wasn't assassinated in my view. Fueling the debate were statements made by Secretary of Defense McNamara in the film "The Fog of War" that Kennedy was strongly considering pulling the United States out of Vietnam after the 1964 election. The film also contains a tape recording of Lyndon Johnson stating that Kennedy was planning to withdraw, a position in which Johnson disagreed. Kennedy had signed National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263, dated October 11, which ordered the withdrawal of 1,000 military personnel by year's end, and the bulk of them out by 1965. Such an action would have been a policy reversal, but Kennedy was publicly moving in a less hawkish direction since his speech on world peace at American University on June 10, 1963. That speech wanted a step by step approach to create peace among the U.S. and the Soviet Union without nuclear war. He wanted freedom in Germany with his West Berlin speech too in 1963. JFK supported Israel, but he never wanted Israel to have nuclear weapons. Israel was secretly creating a nuclear program at Dimona. There were inspections, but Israel used fake control rooms to show Americans. Ben Guion knew this.
Israeli national interests to an extent were also at odds with Kennedy's endorsement of the United Nations' Johnson Plan, which devised a plan to return a small percentage of displaced Palestinians from the war of 1948 into what was by then, Israel. This continuation of the late UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold's plan for Palestinian repatriation particularity disturbed persons who had a hard line view of even Arab resettlement in Israel, or the more heavily feared, full repatriation. The later plan was spearheaded by the Palestine Conciliation Commission's Dr. Joseph E. Johnson, while the United Nations attempted to oversee progression from writing - into action. Some have accused th JFK team supported the coup of Qasim by the Iraqi Ba'ath Party in 1963, because Qasim was more progressive. John F. Kennedy signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which was one of the best achievements of the Kennedy administration, and he gave speeches in Ireland, the home of his ancestors.
JFK's New Frontier agenda was more progressive than Eisenhower in many ways. It ambitiously promised federal funding for education, medical care for the elderly, economic aid to rural regions, and government intervention to halt the recession. He also promised an end to racial discrimination, although his agenda, which included the endorsement of the Voter Education Project (VEP) in 1962, produced little progress in areas such as Mississippi, where the "VEP concluded that discrimination was so entrenched." In his 1963 State of the Union address, he proposed substantial tax reform and a reduction in income tax rates from the current range of 20–90% to a range of 14–65% as well as a reduction in the corporate tax rates from 52 to 47%. Kennedy added that the top rate should be set at 70% if certain deductions were not eliminated for high-income earners. Congress did not act until 1964, a year after his death, when the top individual rate was lowered to 70%, and the top corporate rate was set at 48%. JFK wanted tax cuts and then federal investments in America. He took on Big Steal, and he banned the death penalty for first degree murder suspects in D.C. Involving the civil rights movement, President Kennedy wanted to use laws and the courts to make racial justice a reality. He saw the beginning of the end of legalized Jim Crow in America. Kennedy verbally support civil rights and racial equality. He helped out Dr. King on many cases. Dr. King on many cases wanted JFK to be more militant in his policies, and Malcolm X criticized JFK all throughout his life. President Kennedy appointed black people in his cabinet and in judges like Thurgood Marhsall being on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit court by May 1961.
Grassroots movement fought for change whether Kennedy like it or not. The truth is that you need both the courts and grassroots activism to make change. He promoted a War on Poverty. He dealt with the Freedom Riders and protests in America to fight Jim Crow. He used federal marshals to protect the Freedom Riders. Robert Kennedy had to be told by activists that courts alone weren't going to solve this problem. On March 6, 1961, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, which required government contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." It established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. Displeased with Kennedy's pace addressing the issue of segregation, Martin Luther King Jr. and his associates produced a document in 1962 calling on Kennedy to follow in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln and use an Executive Order to deliver a blow for Civil Rights as a kind of Second Emancipation Proclamation. Kennedy did not execute the order. JFK supported James Meredith to go into the University of Mississippi. On November 20, 1962, Kennedy signed Executive Order 11063, which prohibited racial discrimination in federally supported housing or "related facilities." RFK and JFK were concerned about Dr. King's ties to Jack O'Dell and Stanley Levison. Levison left Communism by 1960. O'Dell was a lifelong black Communist. So what. These are grown men who have a right to believe as they desire. Dr. King asked O'Dell to resign. Levison was on the SCLC team.
On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy intervened when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the doorway to the University of Alabama to stop two African American students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending. Wallace moved aside only after being confronted by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and the Alabama U.S. National Guard, which had just been federalized by order of the president. That evening Kennedy gave his famous Report to the American People on Civil Rights on national television and radio, launching his initiative for civil rights legislation—to provide equal access to public schools and other facilities, and greater protection of voting rights. Here are some of the words from President John F. Kennedy in his historic June 11, 1963 speech in favor of civil rights for black Americans:
"... It ought to be possible, therefore, for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops. It ought to to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street, and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register and to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal. It ought to to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case...One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free...This is what we're talking about and this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for, and in meeting it I ask the support of all our citizens.
Thank you very much."
His proposed Civil Rights Act of 1964 would be the most militant civil rights bill since the days of Reconstruction. Medgar Evers was murdered on that day of his speech in Mississippi. Earlier, Kennedy had signed the executive order creating the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women on December 14, 1961. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt led the commission. The Commission statistics revealed that women were also experiencing discrimination; its final report, documenting legal and cultural barriers, was issued in October 1963. Further, on June 10, 1963, Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which amended the Fair Labor Standards Act and abolished wage disparity based on sex. Kennedy support the success of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. This was after JFK was fearful that the march would end support of Congress for the civil rights bill. The Kennedy team allowed censorship of many speeches at the march. After the march, three weeks later on Sunday, September 15, a bomb exploded at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham; by the end of the day, four African American children had died in the explosion, and two other children were shot to death in the aftermath.
President Johnson would sign the Civil Rights Act into law by 1964. RFK and J. Edgar Hoover illegally spied and wiretapped Dr. King over anti-Communist paranoia. JFK's pro-immigration plans later became the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 signed by LBJ. Immigration came increasingly from Latin America and Asia not just from Northern and Western Europe. Senator Edward Kennedy supported the law. President Kennedy supported the Seneca Native American people after a flood in New York state. Kennedy supported the Space program going into space and the Moon. On July 20, 1969, almost six years after Kennedy's death, Apollo 11 landed the first manned spacecraft on the Moon. President Kennedy traveled globally into India, Japan, Vietnam, Israel, etc. Kennedy was a life member of the National Rifle Association as back then the NRA believed in gun control. JFK and his wife had many children. Popular culture loved JFK and his wife. President Kennedy had tons of illness from childhood to his death. It is no secret that President Kennedy had affairs with many women like Inga Arvad, Gene Tierney, Judith Campbell, possibly Marilyn Monroe, Pamela Turnure, Mary Pinchot Meyer, etc.
President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (CST) on Friday, November 22, 1963. He was in Texas on a political trip to smooth over frictions in the Democratic Party between liberals Ralph Yarborough and Don Yarborough (no relation) and conservative John Connally. Traveling in a presidential motorcade through downtown Dallas, he was shot once in the back, the bullet exiting via his throat, and once in the head. Oswald was arrested and he was killed by Jack Ruby. Ruby died of cancer on January 3, 1967. To this day, we haven't gotten over the evil assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Warren Commission say that Oswald acted alone in assassination President John F. Kennedy. Most polls show that a majority of Americans believe that JFK's assassination was a product of a conspiracy.
A Requiem Mass was celebrated for Kennedy at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle on November 25, 1963. Afterwards, Kennedy was interred in a small plot, 20 by 30 ft., in Arlington National Cemetery. Over a period of three years (1964–1966), an estimated 16 million people visited his grave. On March 14, 1967, Kennedy's remains were disinterred and moved only a few feet away to a permanent burial plot and memorial. It was from this memorial that the graves of both Robert and Ted Kennedy were modeled. The legacy of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy has been about both the promise of his administration and the life cut short before he could reach into another level of greatness. President Kennedy changed the whole world. Part of his legacy was that he learned to do better as time came on. When he first came into office back in 1961, he was more of a Cold Warrior, hawkish, and wanted a gradual approach on civil rights. By 1963, he was more militant on civil rights, advocated for more peace in the Cold War, and he was differently planning to fight for civil rights legislation being powerful. On foreign policy, he had hawkish policies and more progressive policies in terms of the Middle East and promotion African independence. In terms of Vietnam, he was involved in escalating the war, but JFK in my view was not going to put over 200,000 troops into Vietnam as LBJ did. Many of Kennedy's speeches are some of the most iconic, eloquent speeches in world history. President John F. Kennedy represented the greatness of the American people, the excellence of ideals, and the long way that we have to go in making sure that those inspiring ideals are made into fruition to help humankind in general have justice unequivocally.
The honor guard at Kennedy's graveside was the 37th Cadet Class of the Irish Army. Kennedy was greatly impressed by the Irish Cadets on his last official visit to Ireland, so much so that Jacqueline Kennedy requested the Irish Army to be the honor guard at her husband's funeral.
Jacqueline and their two deceased minor children were later interred in the same plot. Kennedy's brother Robert was buried nearby in June 1968. In August 2009, Ted was also buried near his two brothers. John F. Kennedy's grave is lit with an "Eternal Flame". Kennedy and William Howard Taft are the only two U.S. presidents buried at Arlington.
The Future After the New Frontier
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