The Truman Presidency

1
The Truman Presidency

• Chapter 26 Section 3
• Notes 6.0

2
Objectives

• Describe the domestic challenges of the post
  World War II era
• Evaluate how Truman handles the domestic
  challenges of the post World War II era
• Describe the factors that most influenced the
  outcome of the 1948 election
• Identify the policies associated with the Fair
  Deal and evaluate the success of these Fair Deal
  policies

3
Truman as President?

• Goals Wanted the government to do more for the
  average American without changing economic and
  social system
• Opposition within his own party
• Liberal wing (Henry Wallace)
• Southern - Conservatives
• Republican opposition
• Gaining strength more aggressive
• Resented increased Presidential power

4
What did the following want after WWII?

• Soldiers
• Consumers/Homemakers
• Workers.
• Republicans.

5
Soldiers

• Bring Daddy HomeClubs
• Demobilization
• 1945 12 million in uniform
• 1948 1.8 million in uniform
• The Servicemens Readjustment Act
• GI Bill of Rights
• 2.3 million ? college
• 15 billion on education, medical treatment,
  loans for homes, businesses and farms

6
Bring Daddy Home
No Boats No Votes
7
FDR signs the GI Bill in 1944
8
Homemakers

• Tired of rationing and shortages
• Spend wartime savings
• Demand for consumer goods outran supply ?
  inflation
• Homemakers protested rising prices through
  boycotts

9
Workers/Unions

• Wanted a bigger cut in wartime profits
• Employers wanted to keep wages down or hold the
  line
• Inflation
• Series of strikes and violence
• UMW went on strike for 40 days Truman ordered
  the mines seized miners returned to work and
  HST gave in to most of their demands

10
Republicans/Congress

• Gain control of Congress
• Defeated most of Trumans proposals for
  reconversion
• Approved Council of Economic Advisors assist
  the president in achieving maximum employment,
  production, and purchasing power
• Turn back the New Deal
• 22nd Amendment
• Passed the Taft-Hartley Act

11
Relationship between Truman and Congress?

• Wage and price controls to curb inflation
• Congress voted to extend
• Truman vetoed
• Twenty-one point program
• Unemployment insurance, higher minimum wage,
  housing assistance, national health insurance
• Congress defeated most of this
• Approved the Council of Economic advisors

12
The Results of the 1946 election?

• Trumans approval rating is down to 32
• Republican party won control of Congress
• Had enough?
• The Eightieth Congress
• To Err is Truman

13
What was the status of organized labor in 1946?

• Reached a peak in size and power
• Membership over 15 million
• 40 of all wage earners
• Republicans in Congress wanted to reverse this
  trend and help business interests

14
What was the Taft-Hartley Act?

• Reaction to strikes following WWII
• Outlawed many practices legal under Wagner Act
  closed shop, secondary boycott, and use of union
  dues for politics
• 80 day cooling off period
• Union officials had to sign a noncommunist oath
• Passed over Trumans veto

15
Truman on Civil Rights?

• WWII saw beginning of C.R. Movement
• End of war increased racial violence
• Civil Rights Committee 1946
• Dramatized inequalities of Jim Crow
• Called for anti-lynching and poll tax legislation

16

• Victories for African Americans
• Truman barred discrimination in federal
  employment
• Desegregated military
• Supreme Court segregation on interstate buses
  unconstitutional also restrictive housing
  covenants

17
"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." - HST
18
Election of 1948?

• Truman didnt expect to win
• Platform
• Recognition of Israel
• Strong of C.R. Anti-lynching and poll tax, fair
  employment legislation and desegregation of
  military

19

• Split in the Democratic party
• Liberal wing supported Henry Wallace
• States Rights Dixiecrats nominated Strom
  Thurmond (13 southern states supported)

20
Progressive Henry Wallace
21
Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond
22
Democrat Harry Truman
23
Truman and his Whistle Stop Tour
24
Republican Thomas Dewey
25
Results of the 1948 Election

• Electoral Pop Vote
• HST 303 57 49.5
• Dewey189 36 45.1
• Thurm 39 4 2.4
• Wallace 0 0 .6

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How did Truman win the Election of 1948?

• Whistle stop campaign
• 356 speeches over 30,000 miles
• Relaxed and homey

29

• Do-Nothing 80th Congress called into session
  and refused to pass legislation
• Done nothing but served powerful corporations
• Taft-Hartley enslaved labor
• Closed doors to immigrants
• Challenged to do something on C.R.

30
Why did Truman win?

• Wallace too liberal
• Dewey too remote
• Many southern Democrats couldnt stand to see a
  Republican win
• Success of the Berlin Airlift
• Restoration of New Deal coalition
• Organized labor
• African Americans
• Jews

31
Fair Deal Successes

• Democrats win back Congress Truman sees
  election as a mandate for liberalism
• 81st Congress
• Raise minimum wage .40 ?.75
• Extended Social Security
• Cleared slums and built low income housing
• Allowed 400,000 displaced person into U.S.

32
Fair Deal failures?

• Civil Rights anti-lynching and poll tax
• National Health Insurance
• No repeal of Taft-Hartley
• No federal aid to education
• No plan to keep up farm incomes crop subsidies
• Diverted by
• Cold War
• Prosperity

33
A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his
opportunities and an optimist is one who makes
opportunities of his difficulties. - HST