Topic 9

The Eisenhower Era, 1953-1961

 

 

 

A. Introduction and summary: Eisenhower elected in 1952 and easily reelected for a second term in 1956, again defeating the same Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson.

 

B. Domestic Affairs 

 

  1. Eisenhower called his program Dynamic Conservatism (or sometimes, Modern Republicanism). Looked in two directions at once:

 

–        In some areas, such as the control of natural resources, it tried to reduce federal control and increase state control. The administration gave control of offshore oil deposits to the states, for example.

 

–        In other areas, it expanded federal activities.

 

–        Federal Highway Act of 1956 – Provided for the construction of about 42,000 miles of interstate highways, with the federal government paying about 90%.

 

–        National Defense Education Act of 1958 – Appropriated funds to help the states construct more classrooms to teach science, math, and foreign languages. Prompted by Soviet successes with their space program.

 

 

  1. The downfall of Joseph McCarthy

 

–        Republican leaders had tolerated him as a means of beating up on the Democrats, and now that they controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress, they hoped he would fade away. But he did not.

 

–        As chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations he conducted hundreds of hearings and preliminary investigations.

 

–        Witnesses were often bullied and humiliated by McCarthy and his assistant Roy Cohn.

 

–        Privately, many Republican congressional leaders disliked McCarthy and what he was doing, but did nothing for fear of being labeled “soft on communism.”

 

–        Unfortunately, Eisenhower did nothing, not wanting to anger the extreme right wing of the Republican Party to whom McCarthy was a tough, fearless “American patriot.” Eisenhower’s approach was to give McCarthy enough rope to hang himself.

 

–        Eventually he did. In 1954 he began attacking the U.S. Army for supposedly coddling and protecting Army officers McCarthy accused of being communists.

 

–        McCarthy’s charges against the Army led to a series of nationally televised hearings (the Army-McCarthy hearings), and for the first time millions of Americans were able to see what a strange, overbearing bully McCarthy really was.

 

–        Finally, in December 1954 the Senate worked up the courage to condemn McCarthy for behavior that violated Senate traditions.

 

–        McCarthy then faded away and died in 1957 of a liver problem. He never uncovered one, single communist in the U.S. government, but to this day his faithful, conservative followers consider him to be a great patriot and anti-communist crusader. Shame on them, I say. He was a reckless bully interested in nothing except promoting his political career, and he ruined the careers and lives of hundreds of innocent people whose only “sin,” if you want to call it that, was to criticize their government. And under the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, each of us has the right to do that without being called “traitor.”

 

C. Civil Rights 

 

  1. Three events of huge significance took place during the Eisenhower years and these events set the stage for the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. These were: the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education; the murder of Emmett Till; and the Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Rosa Parks.

 

  1. Supreme Court decision in the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education – May 1954 – Overthrew the separate but equal doctrine established in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case of 1896. For years the NAACP in various court cases had been challenging racial segregation in the field of education, first concentrating on higher education. Next challenged segregation at the elementary and secondary levels and this challenge led to the Brown case and decision. Written by Chief Justice Earl Warren (Republican) recently appointed by Eisenhower.

 

  1. America in the early 1950s was a different country from what it is today. In ways big and small, black people were subjected to discrimination on a daily basis that we would not think of engaging in today.

 

–        Schools were segregated

–        Public transportation was segregated

–        Entertainment was segregated – blacks had to use side doors at movie houses, if they were admitted at all, and had to sit in the balcony.

–        Louis Armstrong

 

  1. Originated in Topeka, Kansas. Oliver Brown sued to have his seven-year old daughter, Linda, admitted to a new school only seven blocks from their home.

 

–        School segregation was its very nature was unequal. It imposed on black people a feeling of inferiority and was a violation of their rights. Or to say it another way, what the court was saying is that there is no such thing as “separate but equal.”

 

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