Truman Documents

Clark Clifford, "Memorandum for the President," August 1948 (8pp.)

TV and the 1948 campaign

McCarran Act

Joseph McCarthy: Wheeling address

Margaret Chase Smith: Declaration of Conscience

New Deal

I. FDR and American Democracy

1. New Deal Political Coalition (African-Americans and American politics; liberals and intellectuals; white ethnics; keeping the South solid)

2. Rose of Federal Government (origins of American welfare state; Keynsianism and WWII)

3. Change of Liberalism (Brinkley article; bureaucracy as fourth branch?; liberals and power of presidency?)

4. Reaction (Supreme Court and 1937 controversy; formation of Conservative Coalition)

II. The New Deal

1. The Election (FDR and national politics; FDR gubernatorial record—Frankfurter, appeal to progressives—regulation, taxation, public power; challengers—Smith, Garner, Baker; FDR, agriculture, and South; black migration and Democratic outreach to African-Americans—from DePriest to Mitchell in Chicago; ethnic voters, labor, and formation of CIO; South, Depression, and poverty; FDR and intellectuals—Frankfurter connection, NYC and DC journalists)

2. The Program (the FDR cabinet; FDR as administrator; 100 Days; three early New Deal tracks—federal spending programs—PWA, WPA, CCC; anti-monopoly revived—regulatory impulse, decline of business’ political clout, FDIC, SEC, “New Dealers” and legal realists, TVA, Glass-Steagall; associationalism—AAA and NRA)

3. Critics Left and Right (Huey Long and share-the-wealth; Charles Townsend and old-age pensions; old progressives and reconciling to new era; Smith and Liberty League; role of race; 1935-6: Long assassination; tackling the public utilities issue; Social Security, Wagner Act, and establishment of modern American welfare state; limits of FDR vision—temporary nature and Morganthau, eclectic management style)

III. FDR’s Constitution—and Backlash

1. The Court-Packing Scheme (Schecter v. U.S. (1935) and liberal concerns; Wagner Act and Social Security Act pending; 1936 and limitations of FDR agenda—defeating Landon; polls, Maine and Vermont; poor preparation and political coalition; proposal and opposition—significance of Wheeler defection; judicial fallout: West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937); role of Roberts; appointments power and transformation of Court—Black, Douglas, Frankfurter, Murphy; constitutional fallout—emergence of rights-related liberalism, Thurman Arnold and transformation of anti-monopoly rationale; political fallout—creation of “conservative coalition” and 1938 midterm elections)

2. FDR and Race (traditional view—importance of South, compromises to segregation, Eleanor Roosevelt and Marian Anderson; revisionist view—liberals, NAACP, and Justice Department; lower court appointments; seeding cases?)

3. War and American Society (foreign policy and decision for third term; Willkie nomination and GOP; federal spending—Keynsianism by default?; economic growth; draft and expansion of army; civil rights, FEPC, and A. Philip Randolph; significance of anti-Nazi war rhetoric; internment and Korematsu; war development and path to a fourth term)

Wilson-Era Documents

Documents for Thursday's class:

Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)

Federal Reserve Act (1913)

Espionage Act (1917)

Schenck v. US (1919)

Election of 1912 Documents

Some documents for class on Monday:

1912 Progressive Party (Theodore Roosevelt) platform

1912 Democratic (Wilson) platform

Wilson articlulated the "New Freedom"

Roosevelt spells out the principles of his party

1912 political cartoons

May 12 Handout

20th Century U.S. Politics
Progressivism
May 12, 2008

I. Transformation of American Society

1. The Nature of the Gilded Age (economics: industrialization and its effects—railroads, monopolies, immigration, weakness of US labor unions; race: gutting Reconstruction—13th through 15th amendments, Cruikshank—1875 enforcement act to prosecute KKK, court says B of R not incorporated; Civil Rights Cases 1883—congress doesn't have power to outlaw discrimination by bus, private orgs; anti-Chinese activism and Chinese Exclusion Act; role of California politics, Yick Wo and 14th amendment—race neutral on face might not be in practice; politics: Gilded Age system, popular participation, and limited role of federal government, third-party threats, Populists and historiography; Jim Crow laws, Plessy, 1896 as realigning election)

2. Imperialism and Foreign Policy (Civil War legacy and the executive’s international power; the Alaska Treaty; growing power of treatymaking clause: Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and the Senate anti-expansionist consensus; bypassing constitutional niceties—Hawaiian annexation; respecting the warmaking clause—Teller amendment; Treaty of Paris: Hoar and the decline of the anti-imperialists, Pettigrew and economic critique of Constitution, weakness of Democratic dissent; Beveridge and imitating Britain, generational shift?; outbreak of fighting in the Philippines; what were the key questions?; Insular Cases and constitutional theory; role of Treasury Department)

II. The Progressive Era Dawns


1. The Judiciary and Economic Reform (Lochner and the court system—free contract invalidates maximum workweek law; limited scope of reform—Muller v. Oregon; progressivism and the regulatory impulse; ICC and origins of regulation; Bureau of Corporations, Food and Drug Act; enforcing Sherman Anti-Trust Act—from Northern Securities Co. v. U.S. (1904) to Standard Oil v. U.S. (1911) and “rule of reason” test—only monopolies "unreasonably" restraining trade are problemmatic; new issues ahead of law: utilities, energy, electricity, mass transit; how to regulate?; La Follette and roll call reporting; role of judicial ecall; Norris and progressive reformers in Congress; nature of press—yellow journalism and muckrakers)

2. Progressive Society (three strands of progressivism: anti-monopolism, social reform, social control/cohesion; role of state, power of ideas and uplift; grassroots movements—Addams and Hull House, WCTU, education reform; importance of TR; limitations of progressive reform—middle-class values?)

3. The Law and Progressive Foreign Policy (Platt Amendment and Cuba; Panama Canal, interpreting the Bidlack’s Treaty, and executive unilateralism; protectorate by executive authority?—Dominican Republic and customs receivership; Bacon, Rayner dissents; Taft, Dollar Diplomacy, and non-recognition; Nicaraguan controversy; emergence of international law; Lake Mohonk Conferences; international law and The Hague; limits of vision—2nd Venezuela crisis)

Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment
Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform
Daniel Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings
Richard Weibe, Search for Order