Truman 1945-52 (officially elected in 1948)
Background about presidential power
WWII had seen presidential power increase due to the president’s constitutional role as Commander-in-
Chief and Head of State.
Roosevelt’s New Deal was perceived as increasing presidential power due to federal intervention
increasing significantly. Congress granted Roosevelt significant power and money in the 1935 Social
Security Act.
Economy
The US was the richest country in the world under Truman with huge economic influence.
- The Bretton-Woods System proved to be advantageous to the US as it enabled the management of
post-war economies through the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and tied countries’
economies to the US dollar. It established a new economic order based on US capitalism and trade.
Manufacturing
- There was a boom in manufacturing to cater for consumer demand and a housing boom that
included low mortgage rates.
- Returning veterans benefitted from the 1944 GI Bill which provided 20 billion dollars for them in
1945-55.
Fair Deal
- Although Truman had to urge Congress to pass the Fair Deal, it was eventually passed.
- Pros
- Addressed poverty that had carried over from the 1929 Great Depression.
- Increased social security for 1 million Americans and minimum wage by 35% an hour
and introduced tax cuts, financial assistance for farmers and rural electrification.
- The 1946 Employment Act declared federal responsibility to achieve maximum employment.
- The 1946 National School Lunch Act introduced national school lunches for poor children.
- The 1949 Housing Act introduced many housing projects and hence a construction boom
and increased employment in the construction industry. However, less than half of the
81,000 promised houses were built.
- Americans were moving towards economic recovery as there was a smooth transition from a
wartime to a peacetime economy.
- Cons
- Congress felt the New Deal had done enough that the Fair Deal was unnecessary.
- There was reluctant state spending to bring the Fair Deal to its full effect.
- It worsened housing for AAs due to slum clearance without the building of more affordable
housing.
- It was seen as too interventionist and not in line with the American Dream.
- There was a lack of education management to make improvements in schools.
Inflation
- No bank had failed in 9 years by 1952.
- Consumer boom and end of WWII price controls led to high inflation at 25% in 1945-46.
- Truman sought to combat it through price controls, but the Republican-dominated Congress wanted
free market forces and rejected them.
- As a result of inflation, labour unions demanded pay rises through 4,985 strikes involving 4.6 million
workers and a loss of almost 116 million working days. Disagreements also arose as employers
wanted higher prices and lower wages.
- When Truman tried to mediate between labour and management, union leaders replied that
nobody paid much attention to him.
- The public, Republicans and conservative Democrats grew tired of the strikes, so the
Republican-controlled Congress overrode Truman’s veto to pass the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to
curtail union power with a ⅔ majority -> the opinion of the majority did not match Truman’s.
, - In 1952, steelworkers who had not had a pay rise since 1950 threatened to strike, endangering the
vital steel production for the 1950-53 Korean War. However, Truman used his executive powers to
seize control of the steel mills and end the steel crisis.
- Aroused much criticism and made the media suspicious of his motives of being Stain-esque.
The owners of the mills appealed to the law courts.
- The Supreme Court justices, some of whom Truman had appointed, ruled his actions to be
exceeding his executive authority.
- The strikes lasted for several months, damaging war production.
- The public and government officials did not always agree with Truman economically.
- However, the strikes eventually settled on Truman’s terms.
Political divisions
Differences between the Republicans (Congress) and the Democrats
- Congress was Republican in 1946-48, known as the ‘do-nothing Congress’, which damaged
Truman’s reputation, and had Dixiecrat support. It pushed back on Truman’s more socialist ideas,
such as the Fair Deal, and president control, causing a political gridlock that led up to 1948.
- Criticised Truman’s proposed universal health care as socialised medicine.
- The ideas proposed on ‘To Secure These Rights’ in 1947, which was produced by a liberal
committee Truman set up to call on the USA to uphold the liberty and freedom of all people,
were rejected by the Congress.
- Truman was seen as too interventionist, bordering on being socialist in his policies which did not
help with minimising division.
- Truman vetoed 250 bills passed by Congress, but 12 of them were overridden by a ⅔ majority in
Congress.
- Truman and the Democrats regained power of Congress when Truman won the 1948 election.
Division between the State and federal governments
- Southern states remained pro-segregation as state governments controlled voting, education and
transport within the state despite Truman’s stance to introduce desegregation.
- The State and federal governments failed to cooperate with each other.
Conflicts within the Democratic Party
- There was a movement to replace Truman with Eisenhower in the 1948 presidential election.
- The Dixiecrats separated from the Democrats to independently advance a Presidential candidate,
Senator Storm Thurmond, in 1948, to propose greater State’s right as Truman was too liberal.
- Military desegregation split the Democratic Party in three as it was seen as too drastic and liberal.
Its unpopularity made it unlikely for Truman to be re-elected in 1948.
- Disagreements and unwillingness to compromise within the Democratic Party made it impossible for
the government to function and pass legislation smoothly, leading to a politically divided government
Divisions over the Hiss case
- At Hiss’s perjury trial in 1949, an extraordinary number of Liberal icons served as character
witnesses for Hiss, including two Supreme Court justices.
- Many Liberals thought that Chambers who proved Hiss’s involvement in espionage was a liar and a
madman while the Conservatives saw Chambers as a hero.
A certain level of political stability
- Smooth transition of presidency from Roosevelt to Truman.
- After Roosevelt died in April 1945, the USA was considerably sympathetic to Truman, his chosen
successor and remained supportive of its president because it was wartime.
The rise of McCarthyism
McCarthyism or the Red Scare’s success in 1946-50 was due to how it played to the common anti-
Communist hysteria of Americans fueled by the Truman Doctrine which established the USSR as the
enemy and signalled Communist success.
- The loss of China to Communism in 1949 echoed to the ‘domino effect’.
- The exploding of the first Soviet bomb proved growing Soviet military strength and suggested that
the US no longer monopolised atomic bomb technology, threatening US national security.
- Spy scandals, such as the Hiss and Rosenburg cases, revealed frequent Soviet penetration into the
US government and undermined US national security against Communist forces.
- Anyone who stood up to McCarthy would be suspected of being Communist -> Americans
conformed to being against it. -> divided society and paranoia.
