History-Cold War in US

Cold War in the US

December 7, 2010

Aim: 1) The Failure of Truman’s Liberal program, 145-1946

KQ: What happened to FDR’s liberal programs during the Truman Administration?

1. Liberal program:

FDR= New Deal 1933-1935

-Social Security, welfare state, housing, employment, satisfying labor demands (raising wages) protecting jobs

-Program if Democratic Party

-FDR’s legacy

2. FDR’s programs:

-Cut short by war

-War created jobs, which replaced New Deal employment programs

-WPA+NYA+ were abandoned

3. Truman’s liberal legislative program (1945):

-Full employment

-Higher wages

-National housing legislation

4. Result in Congress

- Truman lacks a liberal majority in Congress

-Amendments to bill: substituted “full employment” with “maximum employment” which accepted 5-6% unemployment

-Failed to increase minimum wage

-Did not extend SS

-$4 billion to aid business industry

5. Why did the liberal programs fail?

Chafe, p. 75

-Government negative response to social activism (trade union protest) because the politics of anti-communism stigmatized liberals and liberal programs as sympathetic to Communism. “Red Scare”

-Postwar changes in housing, prosperity and consumerism were positive for many Americans, thus the American people’s demand and need for state-sponsored liberal programs receded.

*NB: Not all Americans shared in the postwar prosperity

6. Consequences:

- 1946 Legislative elections won by Republicans

- Elections of Senator McCarthy and Nixon

-Rise of politics of anticommunism

- Protests by labor unions (anti-government)