Truman's Domestic Policies

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  • Created by: sstepney
  • Created on: 26-04-18 16:30
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  • Truman's Domestic Policies
    • Inflation and Strikes
      • GI Bill 1944 prevented many soldiers being unemployed
      • Threat of unemployment after WW1
      • Inflation hit 25% in 1945 - 1946
      • Strikes 1946 - 800,000 steelworkers and 400,000 miners
      • Taft-Hartley Act 1947
      • Truman failed to steer a middle ground between employers and employees
      • Workers got wage deals of 19% - matched the rate of inflation but didn't exceed price rises
    • Poor Relations with Congress
      • Congress felt that presidential power had increased too much
      • Conservative southern democrats saw T as too liberal
      • Truman's Fair Deal was unpopular in  Congress
        • It wasn't very successful
        • Full Employment Act 1946
        • Social Security extended to 1 million people
        • Congress didn't want T to gain more power
        • Congress rejected many of the things proposed in the Fair Deal
        • T vetoed 250 congressional bills and Congress overrode 12 of his vetoes
    • McCarthyism
      • Caused widespread panic
      • HUAC - set up in the 1930s but became big in 1947
        • Caused trouble in the entertainment industry
      • USSR nuclear capability and the loss of china
      • Spies in gov caused panic - Alger Hiss and Julius and Ethel Rosenburg
      • T made panic worse - he ordered an investigation into the State Dept
      • 1950 - speech by T - McCarthy "was the best asset that the Kremlin could have"
    • Issues within the Democratic Party
      • Liberal democrats - south - T was too liberal with civil rights and unions
      • 1948 election - Dem. Party = split between Dewey and Truman
        • This meant that the Dem Party wasn't very strong
      • Dixiecrats
    • Civil Rights
      • Many southern democrats were against civil rights
      • De-jure vs, De-facto segregation
      • Civil rights movements started to develop
        • NAACP membership went from 50,000 to 450,000 during the war
        • CORE established in 1942
        • Supreme Court cases eg. Morgan vs. Virginia (transport)
        • Caused disagreement in gov and with the public

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