that which followed the First World War? Would
Roosevelt’s New Deal and its network of benefits
for those in need survive the death of its beget-
ter? There was strong Republican resistance to the
New Deal and to federal interference in industrial
relations and social welfare. The New Deal,
Republican Senator Taft claimed, was taking away
independence and enterprise from the American
people and substituting government paternalism.
Up and down the country he preached: ‘We have
got to break with the corrupting idea that we can
legislate prosperity, equality, and opportunity. All
of these good things came in the past from free
Americans freely working out their destiny.’
Roosevelt and what he stood for were denounced
by conservative Americans with a vehemence that
approached hatred.
Which way would America now turn? The
answer was by no means clear and Truman,
Roosevelt’s successor, seemed to hesitate and
fumble, overwhelmed by the size of the task that
had unexpectedly fallen on his shoulders. The
immediate problem facing the US, as everywhere
else, was to convert the economy to peacetime
conditions. Should wartime controls of prices and
wages continue? Inflation was gathering pace, too
much money was chasing too few goods. Workers
demanded wage increases to keep up with price
rises. By inclination Truman was a New Dealer,
believing that some federal intervention was essen-
tial to protect the vast majority of less well-off
Americans, yet he also thought that government
controls as established in wartime should be
reduced, especially the many regulations holding
down prices. Throughout 1945 and 1946, price
controls were progressively relaxed. One conse-
quence was that organised labour demanded an
end to wage controls. The crunch came when the
powerful United Automobile Union went on
strike against General Motors to gain wage rises
that would maintain the workers’ standard of liv-
ing. Then in April 1946 the redoubtable John L.
Lewis led 400,000 coal miners on strike. The fol-
lowing month the locomotive engineers were
ready to bring the railway system to a halt.
Truman reacted as if this was a declaration of war,
threatening as commander-in-chief to draft into
the army all workers ‘who are on strike against
their government’. The rail strike was called off.
Nevertheless, wages were inevitably rising fast as
the controls proved to be increasingly leaky. But
Truman had demonstrated that he was prepared
to use the presidency and federal powers against
any group which in his judgement was acting
against the national interest.
In the making of policy much depends on the
degree of collaboration achieved between the
president and Congress. In September 1945,
Truman enjoyed in the Seventy-Ninth Congress
a Democratic majority in both the House and the
Senate. But the Democratic Party lacked cohesion
more than the Republicans did, the Southern
Democrats aligning themselves with the conserv-
ative Republicans on many domestic issues. There
was thus a majority of anti-New Dealers in
Congress. Truman drew on his experience in the
Senate to cultivate good relations with Capitol
Hill. In his first message to Congress, outlining
the twenty-one points of his administration’s pro-
gramme, he steered a moderate course, but he
included some New Deal policy proposals for
unemployment compensation supplementation, a
commitment to full employment and assistance
for black people and other minorities. Truman
was only partially successful. On civil rights issues,
the alliance of Southern Democrats and conserv-
ative Republicans proved a virtually insuperable
obstacle.
Truman’s single biggest failure was his inabil-
ity to check inflation. Wartime controls had been
abandoned too quickly to stop the spiral of price
rises and wage demands backed by crippling
strikes. Congress blamed Truman, and Truman
blamed Congress. The decline of Truman’s pop-
ularity made itself felt during the elections in
November 1946 for the Eightieth Congress. The
Democrats lost heavily, and the Republicans now
gained majorities in both the Senate and the
House. A Democratic president and a Republican
Congress could easily lead to recrimination and
paralysis in government, bad for the US and bad
for a Western world looking for American help
and leadership. On domestic questions, Congress
and the president found themselves at logger-
heads. Taft and the conservatives dominated the
Eightieth Congress, and their nominees chairing