One of the thoughts that occurred to me from reading the Eisenhower book by Jim Newton is that the conservative wing of the Republican party has, at its foundation, been reactive ever since FDR. Robert Taft, who possibly would have been the Republican nominee had Eisenhower chosen not to run, and who was the head of the Republican right wing, made a career, in large part, by being in opposition to New Deal programs. Even his most enduring legacy, the Taft-Hartley act of 1947 was a reaction to the Wagner Act of 1935.
I think there is a zig zag line that runs through Taft, Goldwater, Reagan and today's Republican party that would still love to privatize social security and eviscerate Medicare and Medicaid. It isn't a straight line, primarily because of the shifting positions on foreign policy. Taft was an isolationist who distrusted international involvements, and we've now reached a position where the only acceptable Republican stance is hawkishness.
An interesting alternative history assignment could center around what would have happened in 1952 if Eisenhower had chosen not to run. If Taft had won the nomination and the presidency, his vice-presidential selection would have been all-important, because Taft died in July 1952, just months after Ike's inauguration..
Some other tidbits I picked up:
The Republicans chose Douglas MacArthur as their keynote speaker for their 1952 convention. This was a year and a half after Truman asserted his constitutional authority and fired MacArthur for making public statements at variance with administration policy. It was an arrogant choice, it seems to me. Apparently Mac went over about as well as Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair. "The Democratic Party has become captive......to set the national course unerringly toward the socialist regimentation of a totalitarian state."
Apparently this Republican penchant for slinging the S word is a venerable old tradition. Eisenhower's two older brothers both accused Ike of following socialistic policies. One of his brothers was quoted as saying he, Edgar, was "the only real Republican in the family."
Eisenhower, in addition to having a considerable temper, also had a bit of a sense of humor. At the time of MacArthur's firing in 1951, Eisenhower was not yet an official candidate for the nomination, but Lucius Clay, busy trying to organize support for a presidential run, advised him to keep quiet. Ike supposedly replied, "I am going to maintain silence in every language known to man."
Writing of the Senate Republican leader, William Knowland, Ike said "In his case, there seems to be no final answer to the question 'How stupid can you get?'"
When meeting his bald headed Secretary of the Treasury for the first time, Ike said "I see you part your hair the same way I do."
Finally, Churchill's comment about Eisenhower's Secretary of State: "Dull, Duller, Dulles"
4 comments:
Am really enjoying this series, keep it going.
In response to your comments about the ancient history and its connection from FDR to now is interesting, too. As you know, I am quite an admirer of certain accomplishments of the FDR administrations, particularly the Banking Act and the SEC Act (1933 and 1935?) that set the stage for the phenomenal growth and prosperity by providing financial stability and a requirement for independent review and separation. Those survived until Glass-Steagall was gutted during the Clinton years.
I am not so much an admirer of the way the country recovered from the Depression. Government stimulus didn't work very well, world war did. When Germany invaded Poland, we had negative interest rates, deflation and a stagnant (or worse) economy after nearly 8 years of government stimulus. Thx Adolph.
One of the things I found fascinating with Eisenhower was the question of his ultimate motives. He didn't seem to be motivated so much by ego, yet he had a huge ego. He was not an idealist, but his decision to run against Taft for the Republican nomination had a lot to do with certain beliefs. Certainly, Taft's isolationism was disdained by Ike in the world he recognized as being small and getting smaller. His centrist, moderate, find a middle ground methods would make him highly suspicious of someone like Taft.
You only mention the Republicans that he found to be extremist. Apparently, there were no Democrats.
He was also no fan of Richard Nixon. "Give me a week and I may think of something," when asked about Nixon's contributions in the eight years.
Just wondered if Newton touched on that matter of motivation.
You are right about Suez--I was thinking of something else in the same region where he threw a whole bunch of troops at it. You are correct, that he refused to go along with the British and French who wanted to interfere with local matters, like they had done many times in the past.
Who do you think Taft might have chosen? Nixon was not yet enough of a factor, was he? Despite being Eisenhower's VP?
Newton doesn't speculate much on what motivated Eisenhower. He devotes some time to identifying some of the important people who convinced Ike to get into politics, but he doesn't say much about the arguments they used, or why Eisenhower agreed.
I'm not sure Taft would have got the nomination if Ike hadn't got into the race. I don't know enough about that time, but it was another 12 years before Goldwater was able to win the nomination. Possibly the moderate wing of the party that coalesced around Ike would have found someone else. Possibly Earl Warren?
It's a gold mine for alternative history buffs. What if Warren had been elected president instead of Ike? Who would he have appointed Chief Justice?
Another alternative would be Taft as the nominee and Ike (if he would have accepted) as the VP. That would have made him president in July, which still would have given him time to nominate Warren.
Some contemporary right wing revisionism is that FDR's New Deal, rather than solving the depression prolonged it. They have a theory, similar to what we hear today, that the New Deal left the job creators too uncertain, too lacking in confidence, and too over regulated to invest in development projects.
It is true that the New Deal stimulus did not solve the depression, but it was making progress and the trends were all in the right direction. The economic dip in 1938 was actually precipitated by FDR's accepting the arguments of the right and backing off on some of his own programs.
FDR was not a Keynesian, by the way, because Keynes didn't publish his seminal work until 1936. If FDR had applied truly Keynesian solutions, I believe the New Deal stimulus spending would have been a lot more.
(If you think of the New Deal as a series of trial and error programs applied to a national problem, instead of the application of a unified socialistic philosophy, it is easy to see that some aspects worked better than others. I think it is generally agreed that the wage and price controls, which were a part of some program I can't remember now, were a mistake and a failure.)
If you want to thank Hitler, that's fine. But government spending on war is still government spending, and it had the desired stimulus effect.
Thanks for the encouragement. Maybe I have one more Eisenhower post in me.
Regarding wage and price controls, when was the last time we had those? It wasn't that long ago, was it? Like in the Carter years?? I just want to forget it.
I am not very well-informed on FDR, but I think you have alerted me to the idea that he sort of bounced from one idea to another. Wonder why the first part of the 20th century was such a fertile time for those who thought they could solve the world's economic and/or social problems, like Keynes and Marx/Lenin. In more modern days, not so many omnibus theories, more specialized and on a different scale.
Speculation on the 1952 election is fun. But, more interesting is the discussion of the authors on a complex man who I was always taught was pretty simple.
Nixon was the first president to impose wage and price controls during peace time, and I believe the last. I don't believe there were any mandatory wage and price controls under Carter.
Really? Keynes, Marx and Lenin? C'mon.
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