A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

There was change in the air in post-war Indiana.

On July 1, 1945 – Purdue School of Aeronautics and Astronautics was established as separate degree program. Neil Armstrong would graduate in 1955.

The telephone system began using area codes in large cities for connecting long-distance calls between toll switching centers. In 1947, the 812 area code was introduced for southern Indiana and the  317 area code was introduced for the northern two-thirds.

 

The automobile industry was gearing up for post-war changes. Domestic production of automobiles had come to a stop during the war. Studebaker used the marketing slogan, “First by far with a post-war car.”  The flatback trunk and wrap around rear window of its 1947 Starlight Coupe were influential on later cars. However, Studebaker would not be able to withstand the coming industry price war between Ford and GM.

 

 

Kinsey

In 1947, the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction was founded (originally known as the Institute for Sex Research.) The research of Professor Alfred Kinsey was foundational to the institute. Kinsey was an entomologist by training and was convinced that a biological background could help in understanding social phenomena. Kinsey’s research paved the way for a deeper exploration into sexuality among sexologists and the general public. I feel like I have a hard time grasping the actual public knowledge and view of sex prior to Kinsey. To read some of the literature, the understanding was pretty awful and benighted. But, here and there, I feel like there are hints that the general public’s understanding of sexuality was at least somewhat more sophisticated than what showed up in some of the literature. But, in any case, Kinsey was a watershed for public discussion and acceptance of sexuality as something important to both men and women and helped people feel less isolated with respect to a subject that had traditionally been shrouded in secrecy.

Kinsey’s research had its roots in marriage courses that were not unusual in the 1920s and 30s. They were seen as tools for addressing the “marriage crisis” caused by changing social conventions of the time. Women were getting the right to vote, there was public discussion about birth control — separating procreation from sex, and increasing prevalence of “companiate marriage” where romantic love and sexual compatibility were taking priority over financial security and family input. People were getting married later in life. The availability of automobiles were providing young people with increased opportunities to be alone with one another even while the adults in their lives were generally declining to provide accurate information. (I’m not sure where to put this, but the above linked article on Kinsey’s marriage courses mentions that in 1937, Nick’s English Hut was closed at the urging of Dean of Women, Agnes Wells, because it was too close to a church.)

Even before coming to teach the marriage course, however, Kinsey had an opinions about teaching sexuality. In his textbook about methods of teaching biology, Kinsey stated, “Under the guise of science, we too often have sex instruction which is a curious even if a well-intentioned mixture of superstition, religious evaluation, and a mere perpetuation of social custom.” He advocated applying the scientific method to evaluate materials for teaching high school kids about human reproduction.

With respect to the marriage courses, as Kinsey began to learn more from and about his students, his research and lectures began to deviate from the normal marriage course’s focus on how sex could strengthen the marital bond. His approach to understanding human sexuality was the same as his approach to evaluating high school materials on human reproduction — applying the scientific method, in particular striving to use large sample sizes, wide geographic distribution, and data obtained by observation.

As Kinsey discovered the diversity of sexual behavior among undergraduate and graduate students, faculty wives, and heterosexuals and homosexuals in Chicagoand northern Indiana, his lectures opened broad questions about sexuality that the marriage course, with its obvious focus on improving nuptial bonds, was not designed to answer. As changes in the texts of Kinsey’s lectures show, over time he focused less on how a healthy sex life enriches and stabilizes marriage and more on a broad range of human sexual experience. While the question of sex in marriage would remain one focus of Kinsey’s analysis, it would no longer be the only one.

Over the next couple of years, Kinsey’s interests would evolve from a marriage education course into a broader inquiry about human sexuality. In part this evolution was caused by the individual conferences he would have with the students in his class. A lot of the students had the same sorts of questions. Kinsey felt like the research into those questions was scant as compared to research on the sexual behavior of the insects he had studied, and he felt like accurate education would spare people a lot of unnecessary anxiety.

His view of homosexuality was not the traditional one for the era. He said, “biologically, it is still part of the normal sexual picture, and the individual who suffers through the social condemnation which is a result of the branding of the phenomenon as abnormal has the most difficult sexual problem that I know of. It is a phenomenon that society will some day [face] with more objectivity.” Students of the course were generally supportive of its content, but faculty were critical, particularly to the idea of the normality of masturbation and homosexuality.

In the summer of 1940, feeling pressure from IU sociologists, campus physicians, local Christian leaders, and some parents, IU President Herman Wells asked Kinsey to choose one of two courses of action: resign from the marriage course and continue to take the sex histories of students, or continue to teach in the marriage course but allow the IU health center to take over the individual counseling sessions. Kinsey stopped teaching the marriage course and continued his research, and the result would come to be the Kinsey Institute, one of the leading institutions of sex research. Of course, such research still has its opponents. As I write this, one of Indiana’s candidates for governor is Eric Holcomb. Back in 2000, when he was running for state representative, he accused his opponent John Frenz of “supporting bestiality and obscene photographs of children” based on nothing more than Frenz’s vote for the state budget bill which included funding for Indiana University and the Kinsey Institute.

=========

Finishing up on Governor Gates: he was able to use his influence with the American Legion to get it to move from Washington D.C. to Indianapolis, with office space in the War Memorial. Due to Constitutional limitations, Gates was unable to run for re-election as governor. However, as payback for Jenner’s interference with highway funding, Gates was successful in blocking the nomination of Senator Jenner to run for governor. He resumed his leadership of the state party and had some influence in the national Republican party. He had the chance to run for Vice-President with Robert Taft in 1952 but declined. His reach into Indiana politics was felt up until very recently. One of the last Republican Senators he helped get elected was Richard Lugar. (And this is the point in this series for me at which history begins to stop feeling like something from a remote time and place and begins to start feeling like it has an impact on current events.)

Gates continued to live in the Columbia City home he and his wife had purchased in 1919. He died of natural causes in 1978 at the age of 85.

Ralph Gates (1945-1949)

After twelve years of Democratic Governors, the Republicans regained the executive branch with Ralph Gates in the election of 1944. Gates was born and raised in Columbia City and went to the public schools there. He then went to the University of Michigan where he earned his bachelors and law degree in 1917. That was about the time that the U.S. had entered World War I. Gates enlisted in the Navy where he mostly worked with money — serving in a role helping to manage the payroll and then selling bonds to insure government war assets.

He returned home and worked in his father’s law practice and bank. He also served as a municipal attorney (a type of practice near and dear to my heart) for South Whitley, Columbia City, and Whitley County. In the 20s, upon the advice of his father, he managed to steer clear of the Klan. When the Depression hit, his father’s bank was threatened, but — in It’s a Wonderful Life fashion — they managed to convince depositors not to withdraw deposits, and their bank was one of the few in the area that survived. Following in the footsteps of Paul McNutt, Gates became the Indiana Commander of the American Legion in 1931. In 1941, he became the chairman of the state Republican Party which paved the way to his nomination as the party’s candidate in 1944.

In the general election Gates defeated the Democratic nominee, Samuel Jackson (presumably the individual who briefly served in the Senate serving out the  term of Senator Van Nuys after his death and not the Samuel Jackson who was challenged by snakes on a plane.)

Early in Gates’ term, the Freeman Field Mutiny took place at Freeman Field near Seymour. On April 5th and 6th, 1945, African American members of the 477th Bombardment Group attempted to integrate an all-white officer’s club.

The first group of three officers was turned away by Major Andrew M. White the officer in charge of the club; but later groups were met by the Officer of the Day, First Lieutenant Joseph D. Rogers who was armed with a holstered .45 caliber weapon and who was stationed there on the orders of Colonel Selway. When 19 of the officers, including Coleman Young, entered the club against the instructions of Lieutenant Rogers and refused to leave, Major White put them in arrest “in quarters.” In response to the arrest order, the 19 officers left the club and returned to their quarters. Seventeen more were placed under arrest later that night, including Second Lieutenant Roger C. Terry, whom Lieutenant Rogers claimed had shoved him. The next night, 25 more officers acting in three groups entered the club and were also placed under arrest. Except for the alleged “shoving” incident, there was no use of physical force by anyone on either side. A total of 61 officers were arrested during the two-day protest.

In 1948, Harry Truman would sign an executive order integrating the armed services.

During his term, “Gates oversaw the creation of the departments of revenue, veterans affairs and commerce, and he approved tax hikes on beer, liquor and cigarettes.” The Republican opposition to federal programs apparently had negative repercussions for Indiana when it came to highway construction, despite Gates’ personal support for that particular program. He could not get the General Assembly to come up with matching funds, resulting in Indiana missing out on highway funds and, consequently, struggling with road quality. This put Gates at odds with Senator William Jenner (about whom more later) who had been behind blocking the money. Gates would retaliate by blocking Jenner’s nomination for governor in 1948.

In general, the rise of the Indiana Republican party in the 40s was characterized by a conservatism focused on rolling back FDR’s New Deal and fighting off communists. The progressive Republicans of the late 19th and early 20th century were not ascendant in Indiana.  Jenner was briefly a Senator filling out the term of the Van Nuys seat after his death and then, after a hiatus was elected in his own right to the other Senate seat in 1946, replacing one-term Senator Raymond Willis. In that 1946 race, Jenner defeated former governor Clifford Townsend. (The 1946 elections were good for the Republicans, they took 9 out of the 11 Congressional seats.) Jenner became a great supporter of Joe McCarthy.  Jenner was apparently a conspiracist, stating:

Today the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government – a bureaucratic elite. We have a well-organized political-action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party state…. The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology but its organization. It is a dynamic, aggressive, elite corps, forcing its way through every opening, to make a breach for a collectivist one-party state. It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government without suspecting that change is under way…. If I seem to be extremist, the reason is that this revolutionary clique cannot be understood, unless we accept the fact that they are extremist. It is difficult for people governed by reasonableness and morality to imagine the existence of a movement which ignores reasonableness and boasts of its determination to destroy; which ignores morality, and boasts of its cleverness in outwitting its opponents by abandoning all scruples. This ruthless power-seeking elite is a disease of our century…. This group … is answerable neither to the President, the Congress, nor the courts. It is practically irremovable.

In 1950, Jenner would go on to accuse popular World War II general and Secretary of State, George Marshall as being “a front man for traitors.” In 1956, Jenner would say that the Republicans had been “ruined” by the leadership of Eisenhower. Jenner was supported by the Indiana Farm Bureau, the American Legion, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, and Eugene Pulliam’s conservative and influential Indianapolis Star and News.

Next time: Sex! (Or, at least the founding of the Kinsey Institute).

Last time we took a look at President Eisenhower’s personal history and some of his foreign policy. Today, we’ll continue on with the foreign policy and discuss some of the domestic issues.

In response to the Suez Crisis of 1956, Eisenhower developed the “Eisenhower Doctrine” declaring that “a Middle Eastern country could request American economic assistance or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another state” — particularly another state controlled by international communism. The Suez Crisis had been the invasion of Egypt by Israel, Great Britain, and France. The U.S., the Soviets, and the U.N. forced the invaders to withdraw. The conflict threatened the economically significant Suez Canal. The U.S. response effectively ended Great Britain’s status as a “Great Power.” This was also the period of time during which war in Vietnam was getting started and very gradually drawing in the U.S. Eisenhower realized it would be a quagmire and mostly declined the French requests for aid in the area, but the U.S. helped form the Southeast Treaty Organization (SEATO) which would later be part of the rationale for our large scale military involvement in Vietnam.

In 1956, Eisenhower championed the creation of the Interstate Highway System as necessary to security. Eisenhower had developed an interest in the subject back in 1919 when he was part of the transcontinental convoy. He had also been impressed by the Germany’s Autobahn highways as an asset to national defense.

Others had been working on the development of the highway system for long years before it was ready for Eisenhower’s assistance. The United States Numbered Highway System had been developed primarily in the 1920s through the 40s. These were built primarily by state and local government and they were designated and numbered through coordination among the states. So, they have “U.S.” highway designations but they are not federal highways and are not designed to federal, interstate standards. When the Interstates were built, the U.S. highways were often re-routed along the Interstates or decommissioned entirely. The numbering of the Interstates goes in the opposite direction to the U.S. Highways. (So, the lower U.S. Highway numbers and the higher Interstate numbers are in the east for north/south roads.)

As automobile traffic increased, planners saw a need for such an interconnected national system to supplement the existing, largely non-freeway, United States Numbered Highways system. By the late 1930s, planning had expanded to a system of new superhighways.

In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave Thomas MacDonald, chief at the Bureau of Public Roads, a hand-drawn map of the United States marked with eight superhighway corridors for study. In 1939, Bureau of Public Roads Division of Information chief Herbert S. Fairbank wrote a report called Toll Roads and Free Roads, “the first formal description of what became the interstate highway system” and, in 1944, the similarly themed Interregional Highways.

Construction of the Interstates began in 1956 and was declared complete with the construction of the stretch of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon in Colorado.

Sputnik

On October 4, 1957, the Soviets  launched Sputnik, marking the beginning of humans in space. Sputnik was a small satellite that was launched into orbit and stayed there until January 4, 1958. People with shortwave radios were able to hear it beeping as it rounded the globe. The launch of Sputnik had a psychological impact on Americans, convincing some that the Soviets had taken or were threats to become the premiere world power. One consequence of Sputnik was the U.S. founding the Advanced Research Projects Agency which, of course, developed ARPANET which, in turn, became the foundation for the Internet. Fear of the Russians was mixed with an enthusiasm for entry into the Space Age.

Eisenhower responded to Sputnik by launching a campaign to fund and strengthen science and higher education learning. He also used it to promote his Open Skies proposal to legitimize the high altitude U2 flyovers the U.S. was conducting in Communist territory. After Sputnik, the Soviets began exaggerating their missile capabilities. This is part of what prompted the U.S. to conduct the May 1960 U2 flyover with Francis Gary Powers as the pilot. Soviet radar and anti-aircraft capabilities were better than the US. believed, and the aircraft was shot down. Another mistake the U.S. made was believing that a pilot could not survive being shot down in a U2 from such an altitude. Powers did survive. But, before the U.S. was aware of that, they went with the cover story, saying that the aircraft was a research flight that had drifted from Turkey with an incapacitated pilot. The Soviets had already captured Powers and obtained a confession that he had been spying. By waiting until the Americans doubled down on the cover story, they ensured that the incident was highly embarrassing to the U.S. The Soviets were also able to learn from the U-2 technology.

On Civil Rights, Eisenhower accelerated the process of desegregating the military. When a Secretary of the Navy suggested mollycoddling Southerner whites and their treatment of blacks, Eisenhower said, “We have not taken and we shall not take a single backward step. There must be no second class citizens in this country.” He stated that he regarded racial discrimination as a national security issue inasmuch as communists used the U.S. history of racial discrimination and violence as a point of propaganda attacks. In 1957, the state of Arkansas refused to comply with the Supreme Court’s order in Brown v. Bd. of Education to integrate its schools. Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne to change their minds.

Eisenhower also appointed Earl Warren to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice. Warren had been Governor of California. There was apparently bad blood between Warren and Richard Nixon (also from California), and Nixon supported the nomination because he saw it as a way of getting Warren out of politics. “Eisenhower looked for an experienced jurist who could appeal to liberals in the party as well as law-and-order conservatives, noting privately that Warren ‘represents the kind of political, economic, and social thinking that I believe we need on the Supreme Court … He has a national name for integrity, uprightness, and courage that, again, I believe we need on the Court.’” The Warren Court was groundbreaking and made a number of decisions typically favored by liberals and confounding to conservatives. Among them was Brown v. Bd. of Education (1954) (banning segregation in education), Baker v. Carr (1962) (“one man, one vote” — prohibiting disproportionate representation of rural areas), Gideon v. Wainright (1963) (indigent’s right to a publicly funded criminal defense attorney), Mapp v. Ohio (1961) (excluding evidence obtained from illegal searches), and Miranda v. Arizona (1966) (“You have the right to remain silent”). Recent declines in crime suggest it was just a coincidence, but Warren was blamed for the increase in crime in the 60s and 70s.

Finally, it was under President Eisenhower that we completed our current allotment of states. Alaska was admitted January 3, 1959 and Hawaii 5-0 was admitted August 21, 1959.

Next time, we’ll get started with the Indiana Governors.

Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961)

Dwight Eisenhower was, of course, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II. For him, becoming President may have a lighter load than his previous job. He was born in Texas, the third of seven sons, and raised in Kansas. I am told that I am related to Eisenhower on my grandmother’s side. Eisenhower’s maternal grandmother was named Link as was my maternal grandmother. I’m not sure how far up and down the Link chain (sorry) one has to go to connect our families. Obviously we weren’t close!

College was expensive for the Eisenhower family. He made a deal with his brother that one would work and pay for the other’s college. Then they would swap. Dwight worked for two years, putting his brother through college; but was then given the idea to apply to a military academy since it would not require tuition. He asked for consideration at either West Point or Annapolis with his Senator. He did well on the entrance exams but was too old for the Naval Academy and, so, went to West Point. He placed in the middle of the class of 1915 — a class which would ultimately produce 59 general officers.

During World War I, Eisenhower requested positions in Europe but was unsuccessful in obtaining them. Rather, he was stationed in various places in the U.S. However, he showed excellent organizational skills, such as when he commanded a unit that trained tank crews in Pennsylvania. He ended the war with the rank of captain but was promoted to major very shortly after the war. In 1919, he was assigned to a transcontinental convoy that tested vehicles  and highlighted the need for better roads. The convoy averaged only 5 miles per hour from Washington D.C. to San Francisco, and the need for better roads would later become a signature issue of his.

In 1932, Eisenhower was an aide to General MacArthur and participated in the clearing of the Bonus Army protesting at the White House. Eisenhower was apparently against the action and MacArthur’s getting involved with it, but later wrote the official incident report, endorsing MacArthur’s actions. In 1935, Eisenhower accompanied MacArthur to the Philippines. The two apparently had philosophical disagreements about leadership qualities that an American army officer should exhibit and develop in his subordinates. This created some level of antipathy between the two and likely helped Eisenhower manage difficult personalities during World War II, but Eisenhower said the relationship remained positive. Eisenhower respected MacArthur as having a brilliant military mind but disliked his vanity and penchant for theatrics.

In 1941, just before the onset of American participation in World War II, Eisenhower was promoted to brigadier general. World War II and Eisenhower’s involvement in it is far too vast a subject for me to deal with here in any depth, but in December 1943, President Roosevelt appointed Eisenhower to be the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. In this position, he planned the invasion of Normandy during Operation Overlord which led to the liberation of Europe from the Nazis. The Germans surrendered on May 7, 1945. Following the surrender, Eisenhower became Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone in Germany. When concentration camps were discovered, Eisenhower ordered that the conditions be filmed. Those films were used as evidence during the Nuremberg Trials. He made efforts to supply civilians in post-war Germany with food and medicine; generally attempting to treat the civilians as victims, not villains while — at the same time — purging the country of Nazis. In November, 1945, Eisenhower was appointed as Chief of Staff of the Army where one of his main duties was demobilizing the military.  Initially, Eisenhower was optimistic about the chances for friendly relations with the Soviets following the war. But, by 1947, he agreed with containment as the best policy for dealing with the Soviets.

In 1948, Eisenhower passed on running for President. (Truman apparently approached Eisenhower and offered to run as Eisenhower’s running mate on the Democratic ticket if MacArthur was nominated to the Republican ticket.) Instead, Eisenhower became President of Columbia University. His memoir “Crusade in Europe” written during this time was a financial success. His other activities took him away from Columbia for extended periods of time and resentment built in some quarters that he was an absentee university president.

In 1952, both parties courted him as a Presidential nominee, and he eventually declared himself a Republican. Because he defeated the right wing, conservative Robert Taft, Richard Nixon was appointed as his vice-president to appease that wing of the party. “Nixon also provided a strong anti-communist presence as well as some youth to counter Ike’s more advanced age.” His campaign stressed “Korea, Communism and corruption” as themes, attacking the policies of the Roosevelt and Truman administration. But, it was likely Eisenhower’s personal appeal that drove his victory. His campaign slogan was the famously simple, “I like Ike.” He beat Adlai Stevenson in a landslide: 442 to 89.  

“Eisenhower’s cabinet, consisting of several corporate executives and one labor leader, was dubbed by one journalist, ‘Eight millionaires and a plumber.’” Eisenhower described himself as a “progressive conservative.” He expanded Social Security and continued integration of the military begun under Truman. The progressive part of that equation seems to have been the stronger half. In 1954, the GOP was losing ground and in danger of losing its Congressional majorities. He blamed the old-guard conservatives. Eisenhower said, “I have just one purpose … and that is to build up a strong progressive Republican Party in this country. If the right wing wants a fight, they are going to get it … before I end up, either this Republican Party will reflect progressivism or I won’t be with them anymore.”

In 1953, Eisenhower oversaw an armistice in the Korean War. In this, he was aided by his military reputation and the death of Stalin. Once Stalin was dead, the Soviet hardline in support of China weakened, China weakened in turn, and an armistice was signed that drew the line between North and South Korea along approximately the same boundary as in 1950. Eisenhower had concluded that total war in the nuclear age was unthinkable and limited war unwinnable.

In August of 1953, Eisenhower authorized the CIA to overthrow the government of Iran and install the Shah, thereby increasing the strategic control of oil in the region by the U.S. and Great Britain. Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh sought to audit the Anglo-Iranian Oil company and limit its control over Iran’s petroleum reserves. The British sought and received U.S. assistance in getting rid of Mosaddegh in Operation Ajax, an operation involving Theodore Roosevelt’s grandson, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. which ultimately returned the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power. In 1979, the Shah was overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeini which has had a significant impact on our relationship to the Middle East today.  

Next time: We’ll continue on with President Eisenhower, more of his foreign policy, and his domestic policies.

Truman supported domestic policies that came to be known as the “Fair Deal,” significant among which were civil rights legislation which he regarded as a moral priority and universal health care. These were not well received by the Republican Congress elected in 1946 or even by the Democrats when they retook Congress in 1948: Southern conservatives — Democrats at the time — can be relied upon to be on the wrong side of history.

In foreign affairs, Truman was a Wilsonian, supporting the creation of the United Nations and took a hard line on the USSR and communism. He promoted the Marshall Plan — funneling huge sums of money to rebuild Europe — using the argument that communism flourishes in economically deprived circumstances. After the War, Berlin was divided into American, French, English, and Soviet sectors. But the whole city was in the Soviet occupied zone of Germany. In 1948, the Soviets blockaded Berlin. Rather than risk war by simply driving troops over land to supply Berlin, the western nations conducted the Berlin airlift, a massive operation delivering food and supplies like coal by air. After about a year, the Soviets relented and Truman’s reputation was enhanced. In 1948, Truman also recognized the State of Israel against the advice of his Secretary of State, George Marshall who felt it would risk access to Saudi oil, weakening the U.S.’s ability to resist the USSR. Truman later wrote of his decision, “Hitler had been murdering Jews right and left. I saw it, and I dream about it even to this day. The Jews needed some place where they could go. It is my attitude that the American government couldn’t stand idly by while the victims [of] Hitler’s madness are not allowed to build new lives.”

The election of 1948 was challenging for the Democrats. The northern Democrats proposed a strong civil rights plank of which Truman supported. He also adopted executive orders integrating the military and federal agencies. Southern conservatives objected. Strom Thurmond splintered and ran on a Dixiecrat ticket. On the left, former Vice-President Henry Wallace ran on the Progressive ticket. The Republican’s Thomas Dewey came to be seen as inevitable. However, Truman campaigned hard and Dewey’s support was probably overstated by polls with sampling problems and which were not taken close enough to the election. The picture of Truman holding up the “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline has become iconic. Truman won 303 electoral votes to Dewey’s 189 and Thurmond’s 39.

In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. Truman urged the U.N. to intervene which it did, with General Douglas MacArthur in command. U.S. troops under the U.N. flag poured into Korea and responded to North Korea’s invasion of South Korea by invading North Korea. They pushed the North Koreans back, heading toward the border with China. However, they were caught off guard when the Chinese attacked, and the UN forces were pushed back to the 38th parallel — about where things were before the North Koreans invaded. MacArthur wanted to attack within the borders of China, but Truman did not want to escalate the war, fearing this would lead to direct conflict with the Soviets. MacArthur tried to go around Truman’s back and promoted his plan to the Republican House leader who leaked it to the press. Truman fired MacArthur which was politically very unpopular.

I fired him [MacArthur] because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the President … I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that’s not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.

The war continued on for two years as a stalemate with 30,000 Americans killed. The fighting ended in 1953.

The Cold War got going in a big way. Truman approved for a plan that “called for tripling the defense budget, and the globalization and militarization of containment policy whereby the U.S. and its NATO allies would respond militarily to actual Soviet expansion. . . . for partial mobilization of the U.S. economy to build armaments faster than the Soviets, . . .  for strengthening Europe, weakening the Soviet Union, and for building up the U.S. both militarily and economically.” The NATO treaty was approved by the Senate in 1949 with the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Iceland, and Canada being the original signatories. In response, the Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact with communist members of central and eastern Europe.

In 1949, the nationalist Chinese forces fell to Mao Tse Tung and the communists and, the same year, the Soviets developed an atomic bomb. Americans were nervous about the Communists, and Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee got Congress active in the Second Red Scare. They conducted character investigations of “American communists” (actual and alleged), and their roles in (real and imaginary) espionage, propaganda, and subversion favoring the Soviet Union—in the process revealing the extraordinary breadth of the Soviet spy network in infiltrating the federal government; the process also launched the successful political careers of Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy, and Joseph McCarthy. Some of the Red Scare was exacerbated by a turf war between J. Edgar Hoover in the FBI and the CIA.

Truman appointed four Supreme Court Justices, one of whom was Indiana’s Sherman Minton. The New York Times said that Minton’s appointment was an example of cronyism and favoritism for an unqualified candidate. (Indiana Senator William Jenner unsuccessfully led the opposition to his confirmation.)

During Truman’s term, the 22nd Amendment was passed limiting Presidents to two terms. Truman himself was grandfathered and was eligible for a third term. In fact, he allowed his name to be put in nomination in New Hampshire, but he was unpopular at this point and did not do well. He announced at that point that he was not seeking the Presidency, and Adlai Stevenson of Illinois got the nomination. Truman had reached out to Eisenhower to gauge his interest in being the Democratic nominee, but Ike — a long-time military man and, therefore, not a regular member of either party —  was more interested in the Republican nomination.

With three months to go until the bicentennial, we’ll head into the tenth installment of my bicentennial series. Generally, it will cover the period from 1945 to 1961 when the nation will experience a post-war boom and the red scare. The Presidents were Harry Truman (1945-1953) and Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961). The Governors were Ralph Gates (1945-1949), Harry Schricker (again) (1949-1953), George Craig (1953-1957), and Harold Handley (1957-1961).

Harry Truman (1945-1953)

Harry S. Truman (the “S.” not standing for anything in particular) was a farm boy from Missouri, born in 1884. After high school, he worked a variety of odd jobs, including time keeper on the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe railway. He apparently slept in hobo camps near the railway at times. He’s the last U.S. President not to have graduated from college. In 1906, he returned to the family farm where he lived until the Great War in 1917. He served in the National Guard from 1905 to 1911 when he was kicked out for bad eyesight. However, he re-joined in 1917 when the U.S. joined the war. During the war, he became acquainted with the nephew of Kansas City political boss, Tom Pendergrast. By the end of the war, Truman had been promoted to captain and commanded an artillery battery.

After the war, Truman was briefly a haberdasher, in business from 1919 until a recession hit in 1921. Debts from that failed business lingered until 1934 when he paid them off with the aid of a political supporter. With the help of the Pendergast machine, Truman was elected to a county position in 1922, lost in the Coolidge wave of 1924, and was elected again in 1926. Also, in 1926, he became president of the National Old Trails Association and, in that capacity, oversaw the dedication of the Madonnas of the Trail along the Old National Road. (Indiana’s is in Glen Miller Park in Richmond, Indiana about ¾ of a mile from where I grew up.)

In 1933, Truman became state director of the Federal Re-Employment program, a New Deal program. This was done at the request of Tom Pendergast and was some political back-scratching for the favorable vote for FDR in Kansas City. This gave Truman some federal connections and an enthusiasm for the New Deal. In 1934, though not Pendergast’s first choice, he was Pendergast’s candidate for the U.S. Senate. He beat out some other Democrats in the primary and then became Senator. The 1940 election would be tougher for Truman, having to overcome the taint from Pendergast’s imprisonment for income tax evasion, but he won close fights in the primary and general for re-election. Truman’s tour of military bases in late 1940 revealed waste and profiteering. He launched investigations which ended up saving the U.S. on the order of $15 billion, gained Truman a national reputation, and helped him shake the reputation as Pendergast’s errand-boy.

In 1944, Democratic leaders were unhappy with Henry Wallace as Roosevelt’s vice-president. When FDR decided to run again, it was not much of a secret that his health was a concern, and those leaders did not want to see Wallace become President. Truman was among the people FDR was agreeable to having on the ticket with him. The pair drubbed the Dewey/Bricker ticket with an electoral vote of 432 to 99. Once he was vice-president, Roosevelt mostly ignored him. He was vice-president for just 82 days when FDR passed away on April 12, 1945.

Within two weeks, Truman learned that the U.S. was working on an atomic bomb. Within a month, Truman had the privilege of presiding over V-E Day, formally accepting the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. The Trinity Test of the A-bomb on July 12, 1945, was successful, and in his diary on July 25, Truman wrote, “We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.”

The Japanese did not accept the terms of surrender given to them with the Potsdam Declaration, and invasion of the mainland was imminent. Rather than sustain the casualties that would be caused by such an invasion, Truman gave the order to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 1945, respectively.

Truman always said that attacking Japan with atomic bombs saved many lives on both sides; military estimates for the invasion of mainland Japan were that it could take a year and result in 250,000 to 500,000 American casualties. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, and Nagasaki three days later, leaving 105,000 dead.

Japan surrendered on August 10.

The post-war transition would be choppy. Truman was determined to reduce government spending on the military quickly. Factories would no longer be producing military supplies at the same time soldiers would be returning home, looking for jobs. Labor and management which had put aside their differences for the war would go back to contending with one another. Congress had been ignored by the executive branch and was looking to exercise its prerogatives.

The end of the war and the release of price controls led to a significant increase in prices. Labor demanded an increase in wages. There was a steel strike in January 1946 involving 800,000 workers. There was a coal strike in April and a rail strike in May. Truman’s response was seen as ineffective. In 1946, Republicans took control of Congress for the first time since 1930. Included in this freshman class were Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon. By 1946, 25% of American workers were involved in the labor movement. The strikes of 1946 combined with the Republican control of Congress that year led to the Taft-Hartley Act which limited the power of the unions.

The amendments enacted in Taft–Hartley added a list of prohibited actions, or unfair labor practices, on the part of unions to the NLRA, which had previously only prohibited unfair labor practices committed by employers. The Taft–Hartley Act prohibited jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. It also required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits with the government. Union shops were heavily restricted, and states were allowed to pass right-to-work laws that outlawed closed union shops. Furthermore, the executive branch of the federal government could obtain legal strikebreaking injunctions if an impending or current strike imperiled the national health or safety.

Next time: More Truman, including “The Fair Deal” and sacking MacArthur.

We’ll end this fairly long Installment 9 with a short story about Governor Schricker and how his heart was softened by a cow.

Jennifer Thomas Hoston tells a story involving her father and Governor Schricker. Her father, Leroy Thomas, was a black man who was accused of stealing a cow in Arkansas and fleeing to Indiana. In fact, he seems to have stolen the cow, but the circumstances mitigated the offense somewhat. He was caring for the cow in exchange for rent and, among other things, he faced a sudden need to move to Indiana to care for his father-in-law.

That was no matter in Arkansas where a black man stealing from white people might well face the death penalty. He was facing extradition from Indiana to Arkansas. A Bishop Davis intervened on Thomas’ behalf. Initially, Schricker was against providing any assistance. The law was the law and he was not inclined to deviate from the law for a sad story. But, Davis prevailed upon Governor Schricker to at least meet Thomas’ wife. Mrs. Thomas was apparently pleasant, charming, elegant, and beautiful.  

On the second meeting, Bishop Davis again pleaded Thomas’ case, but the governor was implacable. He showed some sympathy when he tried to reassure Mrs. Thomas that the governor from Arkansas was a fair man. Mrs. Thomas responded that Mr. Thomas would probably never reach Arkansas. The sheriff extraditing Thomas could and probably would kill him with impunity. She explained that Governor Schricker did not know how things were in the South. She said:

Your Honor, please have mercy on me and my five little children. They need their father, and I need my husband. A cow is not worth him losing his life over. I don’t want my husband to be killed over a cow, Your Honor.

The Governor responded by having her tell him a little bit about the cow; then telling a story about how he had met his wife in Knox, Indiana — as he walked to work at the Clerk’s office and she was out in the morning milking a cow as one of her chores before going to her job as a teacher. The governor eventually softened, refused the extradition, and arranged for Thomas to be charged with a minor crime. Ultimately Thomas served one day and paid $30.

Reportedly FDR inquired as to whether Governor Schricker would run for Vice-President with him. Schricker apparently declined, saying “a man ought to know his limitations.” I’m not entirely certain of my source on that story. FDR seems to have supported everyone and no one for Vice-President. So, for him to come right out and invite someone to the job seems a little out of character. But the quote from Schricker about knowing one’s limitations seems in character for his simple Hoosier persona. So, maybe.

I don’t think I’m spoiling too much by mentioning that we’ll see Governor Schricker in the next installment. He sat out a term and then was re-elected.

That brings this installment 9 to a close. Next time, we’ll inch ever closer to the present with the post-war era, 1945-1961.

Nationally, Republicans did not gain ground in Congress, but they did not lose the ground they’d made up in 1938 either. Wilkie won Indiana by 25,000 votes — not a huge margin but not bad for a state that FDR had won by 240,000 in 1936.

The Republicans as a whole did well in Indiana, a performance that reaffirmed the direction taken in 1938 and suggested that Democratic victories during the first half of the decade had been out of step with more familiar Hoosier politics. Republicans won eight of twelve congressional seats, a gain of one, and scored a major victory when Raymond E. Willis defeated incumbent Sherman Minton for the United States Senate. Republicans took control of both houses of the state legislature and swept all state offices save one. The single exception scarcely challenged the proposition that under “normal” conditions, Indiana politics tended to be centrist, if not tilted somewhat to the right. Lieutenant-Governor Henry F. Schricker fashioned himself into a conservative “Jeffersonian” Democrat. Running for the state’s highest office, he distanced himself from the McNutt machine and, indeed, was barely a New Dealer. Schricker, whose political trademark was his large white hat, gave his campaign a personal touch as he visited county fairs and community gatherings, eating more fried chicken than he wanted and often sharing a “chaw” of tobacco to show he truly was one of the boys. Schricker won the governor’s race, defeating Glen R. Willis of Kokomo by little more than 10,000 votes.

Governor Schricker was elected as a Democrat and he faced a General Assembly that was Republican for the first time in years. The General Assembly pretty quickly tried to assert its authority and unwind some of what Paul McNutt had done in terms of focusing power in the hands of the executive branch. Schricker himself was in favor of the repeal of some of the governor’s powers. However, the bill presented to him went too far, reducing him (in his mind) to the status of an “errand boy.” He vetoed the bill, but the General Assembly needs only a simple majority to override a veto in Indiana, so they simply passed it again. The General Assembly continued their efforts and passed the State Administration Act of 1941 to further limit the governor’s authority.

The governor (a Democrat) and the Indiana Secretary of State, James Tucker (a Republican) filed suit and countersuit concerning the General Assembly’s assertion of authority. The Indiana Supreme Court was mostly Democratic at the time and gave the governor a victory, holding that the State Administration Act was an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers which guaranteed the executive branch a certain amount of authority. Because the General Assembly met only once every other year, the General Assembly could not respond until 1943.

In 1943, the General Assembly limited the patronage system and imposed a merit system. It also revised the two-percent system so that both parties shared the proceeds; apparently believing that it became honest graft if the parties shared the spoils.

World War II

During the term of Governor Schricker, Indiana — like the rest of the country — became deeply involved in World War II. Approximately 363,000 Hoosiers served in the war and 10,000 died in service. Indiana produced $3.2 billion worth of war supplies and constructed factories valued at about a billion dollars. (This sort of thing gave a lot of support to Keynes theory that the way to get out of the Depression was just to spend a bunch of money, even if you were just going to blow up what you bought with it.) Our number of volunteers, per capita, was somewhat below average for the country while our war production, per capita, was above average (third in the nation as a ratio of population to production.) Indiana’s geographic qualities, among others, made it an attractive place for military contracts. By war’s end, the tate had “ten ordnance plants, seven air bases, six storage depots, five training camps, two great general hospitals, and the Army’s largest proving ground.” In the period from 1941 to 1943, the state went from a condition of severe unemployment to having a labor shortage.

There were growing pains. There was a synthetic rubber plant in Gary on which $5 million was spent but no rubber was ever produced. In Charlestown, where a $150 million powder plant was being constructed, the town of 900 could not accommodate the 13,000 construction workers. Federal money eventually arrived, providing for the construction of infrastructure and housing. However, Indiana’s sometimes anachronistic local government traditions interfered in at least one case. The township trustee canceled the construction of a $600,000 school project funded by the Public Works Administration after eight months of work had gone into it.

The defiant stand of the Charlestown Township trustee illustrates another aspect of the Hoosier’s grass-roots attitude toward the war—his tendency to be suspicious and perhaps hypercritical of anything which emanated from Washington. Much of this jaundice was undoubtedly justified but some of it was simply pig-headed—unfortunately it is not always possible to classify the reaction.

Describing the way Hoosier businessmen sometimes chafed at federal regulation, there is the shipbuilder who quipped that he had no trouble knowing when to launch a ship. He “simply weighed it every day and when the weight of the ship equalled the weight of the paper work on the contract, she was ready.”

Between 1940 and 1950, Indiana’s population increased by 500,000. The benefits were not, however, distributed equally. The war did not particularly improve the lot of the lower Wabash valley despite the construction of the Wabash River Ordnance Works, the Vigo Ordnance plant, and other war activity. Despite the population growth and economic activity, 18 counties in coal and agricultural areas lost population. Nevertheless, “the war unquestionably increased the prosperity and physical comfort (and taxes!) of virtually every resident of Indiana.”

The report linked above notes that discrimination continued against black people. It also noted the impact of the war on the nation’s children — school construction lagged and the classrooms were outdated; teachers were drafted into the war and lured out of the classrooms to higher paid war jobs; and kids had less supervision at home when women joined the workforce. Mental institutions, probably never very well-funded, got even worse. “Suffice it to say that the war simply aggravated almost beyond endurance the evils which had long haunted these places of misery—totally inadequate budgets, grossly underpaid and consequently incompetent personnel, and obsolete equipment. In 1942, Indiana ranked thirty-ninth among the forty-eight states in her provision for mental cases.”  Indiana was also apparently a hotbed of Prostitution and venereal disease. Selective service doctors found syphilis in 3.4% of the people they examined — the highest rate north of the Ohio River.

Institutions of higher education took a hit during the war with professors and male students sent off to war. Wabash College was down to 10 civilian students in 1945. But, with some clever cost saving maneuvers and vigorous fund raising efforts, the state’s colleges pulled through.

The report of the War History Commission in 1956 concluded by asking a few questions:

The War History Commission was not told to write a history of Indiana’s intellectual response to the war: perhaps that cannot be done. Did World War II engender the same kind of hysteria in Hoosiers which led them to prohibit the teaching of German in the schools in 1917? Did Indiana succumb to the kind of postwar depravity which had fostered the Ku Klux Klan in the twenties? Did Hoosiers, on the other hand, achieve a new sense of world responsibility and a new understanding of world problems from their participation in the war? Perhaps they did. But the evidence is not yet complete and irrefutable. Only time, and future historians, will tell.