36. Lyndon B. Johnson

In the 1960 campaign, Lyndon B. Johnson was elected Vice President as John F. Kennedy’s running mate. On November 22, 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson was sworn in as the 36th United States President, with a vision to build “A Great Society” for the American people.

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“A Great Society” for the American people and their fellow men elsewhere was the vision of Lyndon B. Johnson. In his first years of office he obtained passage of one of the most extensive legislative programs in the Nation’s history. Maintaining collective security, he carried on the rapidly growing struggle to restrain Communist encroachment in Viet Nam.

Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, in central Texas, not far from Johnson City, which his family had helped settle. He felt the pinch of rural poverty as he grew up, working his way through Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now known as Texas State University-San Marcos); he learned compassion for the poverty of others when he taught students of Mexican descent.

In 1937 he campaigned successfully for the House of Representatives on a New Deal platform, effectively aided by his wife, the former Claudia “Lady Bird” Taylor, whom he had married in 1934.

During World War II he served briefly in the Navy as a lieutenant commander, winning a Silver Star in the South Pacific. After six terms in the House, Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1948. In 1953, he became the youngest Minority Leader in Senate history, and the following year, when the Democrats won control, Majority Leader. With rare skill he obtained passage of a number of key Eisenhower measures.

In the 1960 campaign, Johnson, as John F. Kennedy’s running mate, was elected Vice President. On November 22, 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson was sworn in as President.

First he obtained enactment of the measures President Kennedy had been urging at the time of his death–a new civil rights bill and a tax cut. Next he urged the Nation “to build a great society, a place where the meaning of man’s life matches the marvels of man’s labor.” In 1964, Johnson won the Presidency with 61 percent of the vote and had the widest popular margin in American history–more than 15,000,000 votes.

The Great Society program became Johnson’s agenda for Congress in January 1965: aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime and delinquency, removal of obstacles to the right to vote. Congress, at times augmenting or amending, rapidly enacted Johnson’s recommendations. Millions of elderly people found succor through the 1965 Medicare amendment to the Social Security Act.

Under Johnson, the country made spectacular explorations of space in a program he had championed since its start. When three astronauts successfully orbited the moon in December 1968, Johnson congratulated them: “You’ve taken … all of us, all over the world, into a new era. . . . ”

Nevertheless, two overriding crises had been gaining momentum since 1965. Despite the beginning of new antipoverty and anti-discrimination programs, unrest and rioting in black ghettos troubled the Nation. President Johnson steadily exerted his influence against segregation and on behalf of law and order, but there was no early solution.

The other crisis arose from Viet Nam. Despite Johnson’s efforts to end Communist aggression and achieve a settlement, fighting continued. Controversy over the war had become acute by the end of March 1968, when he limited the bombing of North Viet Nam in order to initiate negotiations. At the same time, he startled the world by withdrawing as a candidate for re-election so that he might devote his full efforts, unimpeded by politics, to the quest for peace.

When he left office, peace talks were under way; he did not live to see them successful, but died suddenly of a heart attack at his Texas ranch on January 22, 1973.

Truman Doctrine 1947

The Truman Doctrine, 1947

With the Truman Doctrine, President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. The Truman Doctrine effectively reoriented U.S. foreign policy, away from its usual stance of withdrawal from regional conflicts not directly involving the United States, to one of possible intervention in far away conflicts.

President Harry Truman

The Truman Doctrine arose from a speech delivered by President Truman before a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947. The immediate cause for the speech was a recent announcement by the British Government that, as of March 31, it would no longer provide military and economic assistance to the Greek Government in its civil war against the Greek Communist Party. Truman asked Congress to support the Greek Government against the Communists. He also asked Congress to provide assistance for Turkey, since that nation, too, had previously been dependent on British aid.

At the time, the U.S. Government believed that the Soviet Union supported the Greek Communist war effort and worried that if the Communists prevailed in the Greek civil war, the Soviets would ultimately influence Greek policy. In fact, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had deliberately refrained from providing any support to the Greek Communists and had forced Yugoslav Prime Minister Josip Tito to follow suit, much to the detriment of Soviet-Yugoslav relations. However, a number of other foreign policy problems also influenced President Truman’s decision to actively aid Greece and Turkey. In 1946, four setbacks, in particular, had served to effectively torpedo any chance of achieving a durable post-war rapprochement with the Soviet Union: the Soviets’ failure to withdraw their troops from northern Iran in early 1946 (as per the terms of the Tehran Declaration of 1943); Soviet attempts to pressure the Iranian Government into granting them oil concessions while supposedly fomenting irredentism by Azerbaijani separatists in northern Iran; Soviet efforts to force the Turkish Government into granting them base and transit rights through the Turkish Straits; and, the Soviet Government’s rejection of the Baruch plan for international control over nuclear energy and weapons in June 1946.

In light of the deteriorating relationship with the Soviet Union and the appearance of Soviet meddling in Greek and Turkish affairs, the withdrawal of British assistance to Greece provided the necessary catalyst for the Truman Administration to reorient American foreign policy. Accordingly, in his speech, President Truman requested that Congress provide $400,000,000 worth of aid to both the Greek and Turkish Governments and support the dispatch of American civilian and military personnel and equipment to the region.

Truman justified his request on two grounds. He argued that a Communist victory in the Greek Civil War would endanger the political stability of Turkey, which would undermine the political stability of the Middle East. This could not be allowed in light of the region’s immense strategic importance to U.S. national security. Truman also argued that the United States was compelled to assist “free peoples” in their struggles against “totalitarian regimes,” because the spread of authoritarianism would “undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States.” In the words of the Truman Doctrine, it became “the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”

Truman argued that the United States could no longer stand by and allow the forcible expansion of Soviet totalitarianism into free, independent nations, because American national security now depended upon more than just the physical security of American territory. Rather, in a sharp break with its traditional avoidance of extensive foreign commitments beyond the Western Hemisphere during peacetime, the Truman Doctrine committed the United States to actively offering assistance to preserve the political integrity of democratic nations when such an offer was deemed to be in the best interest of the United States.

Truman’s Fair Deal 1949

All About President Truman’s Fair Deal of 1949

 President Harry S. Truman and Famous Newspaper Error. Underwood Archives / Getty Images

The Fair Deal was an extensive list of proposals for social reform legislation suggested by U.S. President Harry S. Truman in his State of the Union address to Congress on January 20, 1949. The term has since come to be used to describe the overall domestic policy agenda of Truman’s presidency, from 1945 to 1953.

Key Takeaways: The “Fair Deal”

• The “Fair Deal” was an aggressive agenda for social reform legislation proposed by President Harry Truman in January 1949.
• Truman had initially referred to this progressive domestic policy reform program as his “21-Points” plan after taking office in 1945.
• While Congress rejected many of Truman’s Fair Deal proposals, those that were enacted would pave the way for important social reform legislation in the future.

In his State of the Union Address, President Truman told Congress that that, “Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal.” The “Fair Deal” set of social reforms Truman spoke of continued and built on the New Deal progressivism of President Franklin Rooseveltand would represent the last major attempt by the Executive Branch to create new federal social programs until President Lyndon Johnson proposed his Great Societyprogram in 1964.

Opposed by the “conservative coalition” that controlled Congress from 1939 to 1963, only a handful of Truman’s Fair Deal initiatives actually became law. A few of the major proposals that were debated, but voted down, included federal aid to education, the creation of a Fair Employment Practices Commission, repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act limiting the power of labor unions, and the provision of universal health insurance.

The conservative coalition was a group of Republicans and Democrats in Congress who generally opposed increasing the size and power of the federal bureaucracy. They also denounced labor unions and argued against most new social welfare programs.

Despite the opposition of the conservatives, liberal lawmakers managed to win approval of some of the less controversial measures of the Fair Deal.

History of the Fair Deal

President Truman first gave notice that he would pursue a liberal domestic program as early as September 1945. In his first postwar address to Congress as president, Truman laid out his ambitious “21-Points” legislative program for economic development and expansion of social welfare.

Truman’s 21-Points, several of which still resonate today, included:

1. Increases to the coverage and amount of the unemployment compensation system
2. Increase the coverage and amount of the minimum wage
3. Control the cost of living in a peacetime economy
4. Eliminate federal agencies and regulations created during World War II
5. Enact laws ensure full employment
6. Enact a law making the Fair Employment Practice Committee permanent
7. Ensure sound and fair industrial relations
8. Require the U.S. Employment Service to provide jobs for former military personnel
9. Increase federal assistance to farmers
10. Ease restrictions on voluntary enlistment in the armed services
11. Enact broad, comprehensive and non-discriminatory fair housing laws
12. Establish a single federal agency dedicated to research
13. Revise the income tax system
14. Encourage the disposal through sale of surplus government property
15. Increase federal assistance for small businesses
16. Improve federal assistance to war veterans
17. Emphasize conservation and protection of natural in federal public works programs
18. Encourage foreign post-war reconstruction and settlements of Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Act
19. Increase wages of all federal government employees
20. Promote the sale of surplus wartime U.S. naval vessels
21. Enact laws to grow and retain stockpiles of materials essential to the future defense of the nation

Expecting lawmakers to take the lead in drafting the bills necessary to implement his 21-Points, Truman did not send them to Congress.

Focused at the time on dealing with rampant inflation, the transition to a peacetime economy, and the growing threat of Communism, Congress had little time for Truman’s social welfare reform initiatives.

Despite the delays and opposition from the conservative Republican majority in Congress, Truman persisted, continuing to send them an ever-increasing number of proposals for progressive legislation. By 1948, the program that had begun as the 21-Points had come to be known as the “Fair Deal.”

After his historically unexpected victory over Republican Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 election, President Truman repeated his social reform proposals to Congress referring to them as the “Fair Deal.”

Highlights of Truman’s Fair Deal

Some of the major social reform initiatives of President Truman’s Fair Deal included:

• A national health insurance plan
• Federal aid to education
• Abolition of poll taxes and other practices intended to prevent racial minorities from voting
• A major tax cut for low-income workers
• Expanded Social Security coverage
• A farm assistance program
• Expansion of public housing programs
• A substantial increase in the minimum wage
• Repeal of the labor union-weakening Taft-Hartley Act
• A new TVA-style program to create public works projects
• Creation of a federal Department of Welfare

To pay for his Fair Deal programs while reducing the national debt, Truman also proposed a $4 billion tax increase.

The Legacy of the Fair Deal

Congress rejected most of Truman’s Fair Deal initiatives for two main reasons:

• Opposition from members of the majority-holding conservative coalition in Congress who viewed the plan as advancing President Roosevelt’s New Deal’s effort to achieve what they considered to be a “democratic socialist society.”
• In 1950, barely a year after Truman proposed the Fair Deal, the Korean War shifted the government’s priorities from domestic to military spending.

Despite these roadblocks, Congress did approve a few or Truman’s Fair Deal initiatives. For example, the National Housing Act of 1949 funded a program removing crumbling slums in poverty-stricken areas and replacing them with 810,000 new federally rent-assisted public housing units. And in 1950, Congress nearly doubled the minimum wage, raising it from 40 cents per hour to 75 cents per hour, an all-time record 87.5% increase.

While it enjoyed little legislative success, Truman’s Fair Deal was significant for many reasons, perhaps most notably its establishment of a demand for universal health insurance as a permanent part of the Democratic Party’s platform. President Lyndon Johnson credited the Fair Deal as being essential to the passage of his Great Society health care measures such as Medicare.

25. William McKinley 1897-1901 R – Assassinated

William McKinley was the 25th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1897, until his assassination on September 14, 1901, after leading the nation to victory in the Spanish-American War and raising protective tariffs to promote American industry.

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At the 1896 Republican Convention, in time of depression, the wealthy Cleveland businessman Marcus Alonzo Hanna ensured the nomination of his friend William McKinley as “the advance agent of prosperity.” The Democrats, advocating the “free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold”–which would have mildly inflated the currency–nominated William Jennings Bryan.

While Hanna used large contributions from eastern Republicans frightened by Bryan’s views on silver, McKinley met delegations on his front porch in Canton, Ohio. He won by the largest majority of popular votes since 1872.

Born in Niles, Ohio, in 1843, McKinley briefly attended Allegheny College, and was teaching in a country school when the Civil War broke out. Enlisting as a private in the Union Army, he was mustered out at the end of the war as a brevet major of volunteers. He studied law, opened an office in Canton, Ohio, and married Ida Saxton, daughter of a local banker.

At 34, McKinley won a seat in Congress. His attractive personality, exemplary character, and quick intelligence enabled him to rise rapidly. He was appointed to the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Robert M. La Follette, Sr., who served with him, recalled that he generally “represented the newer view,” and “on the great new questions .. was generally on the side of the public and against private interests.”

During his 14 years in the House, he became the leading Republican tariff expert, giving his name to the measure enacted in 1890. The next year he was elected Governor of Ohio, serving two terms.

When McKinley became President, the depression of 1893 had almost run its course and with it the extreme agitation over silver. Deferring action on the money question, he called Congress into special session to enact the highest tariff in history.

In the friendly atmosphere of the McKinley Administration, industrial combinations developed at an unprecedented pace. Newspapers caricatured McKinley as a little boy led around by “Nursie” Hanna, the representative of the trusts. However, McKinley was not dominated by Hanna; he condemned the trusts as “dangerous conspiracies against the public good.”

Not prosperity, but foreign policy, dominated McKinley’s Administration. Reporting the stalemate between Spanish forces and revolutionaries in Cuba, newspapers screamed that a quarter of the population was dead and the rest suffering acutely. Public indignation brought pressure upon the President for war. Unable to restrain Congress or the American people, McKinley delivered his message of neutral intervention in April 1898. Congress thereupon voted three resolutions tantamount to a declaration of war for the liberation and independence of Cuba.

In the 100-day war, the United States destroyed the Spanish fleet outside Santiago harbor in Cuba, seized Manila in the Philippines, and occupied Puerto Rico.

“Uncle Joe” Cannon, later Speaker of the House, once said that McKinley kept his ear so close to the ground that it was full of grasshoppers. When McKinley was undecided what to do about Spanish possessions other than Cuba, he toured the country and detected an imperialist sentiment. Thus the United States annexed the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

In 1900, McKinley again campaigned against Bryan. While Bryan inveighed against imperialism, McKinley quietly stood for “the full dinner pail.”

His second term, which had begun auspiciously, came to a tragic end in September 1901. He was standing in a receiving line at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition when a deranged anarchist shot him twice. He died eight days later.

19. Rutherford B. Hayes

As the 19th President of the United States (1877-1881), Rutherford B. Hayes oversaw the end of Reconstruction, began the efforts that led to civil service reform, and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War.

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Beneficiary of the most fiercely disputed election in American history, Rutherford B. Hayes brought to the Executive Mansion dignity, honesty, and moderate reform.

To the delight of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Lucy Webb Hayes carried out her husband’s orders to banish wines and liquors from the White House.

Born in Ohio in 1822, Hayes was educated at Kenyon College and Harvard Law School. After five years of law practice in Lower Sandusky, he moved to Cincinnati, where he flourished as a young Whig lawyer.

He fought in the Civil War, was wounded in action, and rose to the rank of brevet major general. While he was still in the Army, Cincinnati Republicans ran him for the House of Representatives. He accepted the nomination, but would not campaign, explaining, “an officer fit for duty who at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer… ought to be scalped.”

Elected by a heavy majority, Hayes entered Congress in December 1865, troubled by the “Rebel influences … ruling the White House.” Between 1867 and 1876 he served three terms as Governor of Ohio.

Safe liberalism, party loyalty, and a good war record made Hayes an acceptable Republican candidate in 1876. He opposed Governor Samuel J. Tilden of New York.

Although a galaxy of famous Republican speakers, and even Mark Twain, stumped for Hayes, he expected the Democrats to win. When the first returns seemed to confirm this, Hayes went to bed, believing he had lost. But in New York, Republican National Chairman Zachariah Chandler, aware of a loophole, wired leaders to stand firm: “Hayes has 185 votes and is elected.” The popular vote apparently was 4,300,000 for Tilden to 4,036,000 for Hayes. Hayes’s election depended upon contested electoral votes in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida. If all the disputed electoral votes went to Hayes, he would win; a single one would elect Tilden.

Months of uncertainty followed. In January 1877 Congress established an Electoral Commission to decide the dispute. The commission, made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats, determined all the contests in favor of Hayes by eight to seven. The final electoral vote: 185 to 184.

Northern Republicans had been promising southern Democrats at least one Cabinet post, Federal patronage, subsidies for internal improvements, and withdrawal of troops from Louisiana and South Carolina.

Hayes insisted that his appointments must be made on merit, not political considerations. For his Cabinet he chose men of high caliber, but outraged many Republicans because one member was an ex-Confederate and another had bolted the party as a Liberal Republican in 1872.

Hayes pledged protection of the rights of Negroes in the South, but at the same time advocated the restoration of “wise, honest, and peaceful local self-government.” This meant the withdrawal of troops. Hayes hoped such conciliatory policies would lead to the building of a “new Republican party” in the South, to which white businessmen and conservatives would rally.

Many of the leaders of the new South did indeed favor Republican economic policies and approved of Hayes’s financial conservatism, but they faced annihilation at the polls if they were to join the party of Reconstruction. Hayes and his Republican successors were persistent in their efforts but could not win over the “solid South.”

Hayes had announced in advance that he would serve only one term, and retired to Spiegel Grove, his home in Fremont, Ohio, in 1881. He died in 1893.