Truman’s Domestic Policies

LEGISLATION

Atomic Energy Act:– Civilian control not military

Employment Act– Est. Council for Ec Advisors

Taft-Hartley Act– Repub attack on labor– Congress overrode HT’s

veto Committee on Civil Rights

– Leads to desegregation of armed forces and federal employment

– Jackie Robinson

ELECTION OF 1948

– Truman (D) “Do Nothing Republican

Congress” Popularity from airlift,

support of Israel, cold war fight

– Dewey (R) NY governor

– Wallace (Pr) FDR’s Sec of Commerce

– Thurmond (Dixiecrat) Racist

FAIR DEAL

Extend the New Deal Education, housing,

insurance Results:

– Nat’l Housing Act– SSA expanded– Minimum wage $.40 to .

$75– Civil Rights leg blocked

by S.

LEGISLATION

Executive Order 9835– Loyalty oath for fed

employees McCarren Internal Security

Act– Communist organizations

had to register Immigration and

Naturalization Act– Barred subversives from

citizenship 22nd Amendment: two-term

limit for president

HUAC– Rooting out subversives

in Hollywood– Blacklisting, intimidation,

peer pressure – Some actors helped the

govt (Reagan, Disney)– Others protested

(Bogart, Bacall, John Huston)

SPIES!

Alger Hiss– Sentenced to 5 yrs for

perjury in 1950; served 2

Rosenbergs– Executed -1953– First civilians executed

for espionage in US hst