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Eisenhower and the Politics of the 1950s
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Although President Eisenhower frustrated both conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans alike in the 1950s, he enjoyed great popularity among the American public.
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Respond to this statement, specifying whether you partly or entirely agree or disagree. Use your knowledge of the time period and the sources provided to support your arguments.
Primary source: Book review by Irving Howe of Invisible Man (1952).
Background information: New York intellectual Irving Howe affirms Ralph Ellison's book Invisible Man as a "Negro novel."
. . . No other writer [Ralph Ellison] has captured so much of the confusion and agony, the hidden gloom and surface gaiety of Negro life. His ear for Negro speech is magnificent: a share–cropper calmly describing how he seduced his own daughter, a Harlem street–vender spinning jive, a West Indian woman inciting her men to resist an eviction. The rhythm of the prose [in Invisible Man] is harsh and tensed, like a beat of harried alertness. The observation is expert: Ellison knows exactly how zoot–suiters walk, making stylization their principle of life, and exactly how the antagonism between American and West Indian Negroes works itself out in speech and humor. For all his self–involvement, he is capable of extending himself toward his people, of accepting them as they are, in their blindness and hope. And in his final scene he has created an unforgettable image: "Ras the Destroyer," a Negro nationalist, appears on a horse, dressed in the costume of an Abyssinian chieftain, carrying spear and shield, and charging wildly into the police—a black Quixote, mad, absurd, yet unbearably pathetic.
Some reviewers, from the best of intentions, have assured their readers that this is a good novel and not merely a good Negro novel. But of course Invisible Man is a Negro novel—what white man could ever have written it? It is drenched in Negro life, talk, music: it tells us how distant even the best of the whites are from the black men that pass them on the streets; and it is written from a particular compound of emotions that no white man could possibly simulate. To deny that this is a Negro novel is to deprive the Negroes of their one basic right: the right to cry out their difference.
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Irving Howe, review of Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, The Nation 174, no. 19 (10 May 1952): 454.
Reprinted with permission from The Nation.
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Primary source:
Subversive Influence in the Educational Process . . ., U.S. Senate hearing, 1952.
Background information: This excerpt is from an exchange between Dr. Morrison, a professor of physics at Cornell University, and Mr. Morris, a member of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act. An article that Dr. Morrison had published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, February 1949, was the subject of this exchange.
[ . . . ]
Mr. Morris. Did you contribute an article to the Scientific American?
Dr. Morrison. I have had it published. I don't know if you call that contributing or not.
Mr. Morris. Did you write a review of a book by an Englishman named P.M.S. Blackett, entitled "Fear, War, and the Bomb?"
Dr. Morrison. I reviewed P.M.S. Blackett's book for the Herald Tribune and for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
Mr. Morris. And you praised that book?
Dr. Morrison. I said that book had many excellent things in it. I also criticized an amendment. I wrote an honest review of the book.
Mr. Morris. Mr. Chairman, may that review of Dr. Morrison of P.M.S. Blackett's book entitled "Fear, War, and the Bomb" be put into the record?
The Chairman. It may be made part of the record.
(The material referred to follows:)
"BLACKETT'S ANALYSIS OF THE ISSUES"
by Philip Morrison
[Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, February 1949]
It is 3 years since the writing of the first extensive political work of the atomic scientists: One World or None. Now the same publishers put out the American edition of a book by another scientist, the distinguished, well-informed, and earnest P.M.S. Blackett of Great Britain. As a contributor to the first book, I feel no proprietary pangs in urging all those who bought or borrowed it—and there were many—to get hold of the Blackett book.
It is written at a sadder time, and perhaps a wiser one. It is written by a man whose experience is both that of a physicist and that of a military man, and who is no American, but an Englishman, willing to take a somewhat more critical position on the issues of the day than almost any American scientist has publicly done. It is a book which does Professor Blackett credit for its thoughtfulness and scope, even though as he himself points out it is by no means "the whole truth." Read it if you wish to have an opinion on the issues of atomic energy.
My piece in One World or None was the description of the effect of a single atomic bomb on New York City. It is a frightening article, as I have many times tested by direct observation. Yet it is a major thesis of the Blackett book—and I believe a correct thesis—that even a thousand bombs will not of themselves decide the issue of a major war. We said there is no defense, and we meant it. It is still true. But we spoke in a different language from the language of Blackett. We did not speak in terms of strategy, in terms of overall economies, in terms of production and territorial conquest. We spoke of the impact of the bomb on the homes and the hopes of men and women.
I wrote of the lingering death of the radiation casualties, of the horrible flash burns, of the human wretchedness and misery that every atomic bomb will leave near its ground zero. Against this misery there is indeed no real defense. Neither our oceans nor our radar nor our fighters can keep us intact through another major war. But—and I quote Blackett (p. 159): "The very effective campaign, largely initiated by the atomic scientists themselves, to make the world aware of the terrible dangers of atomic bombs, played an important part in bringing pressure to bear on the American Government to propose measures to control atomic weapons and to take them out of the hands of the military."
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Subversive Influence in the Educational Process: Hearings Before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, 82nd Cong., 2nd sess., September 8, 9, 10, 23, 24, 25, and October 13, 1952.
Courtesy of Alan Filreis, Professor of Literature, University of Pennsylvania.
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Primary source: George Striker, "College Files Open to Official Investigations Give 'Significant' Facts, Dean McKnight Says," newspaper article, 1953.
Background information: This article in the Columbia University student newspaper reports that the dean of students provided federal investigators with information about students who had attended the university.
All significant information is given to government investigators in loyalty investigations of Columbia College students or graduates, Nicholas D. McKnight, Dean of Students, announced yesterday.
"Our practice," the Dean [read] out in a prepared statement, "is to furnish the investigators with the scholastic records of the individuals in whom they are interested." He said also that in addition to disclosure of academic records, the Dean's office attempts "to provide accurate pictures of the graduate's qualities and capacities by referring to "personnel folders." "We often refer them to members of the staff for additional opinion and information."
The personnel folders contain personal reports on undergraduates filed by the instructors at the conclusion of the semester.
In reply to a reporter's question on whether or not he would mention that a graduate was a member of the Young Marxist League, no longer active on the Columbia campus, Dean McKnight said that it would depend upon the individual case.
"We would not cover up any information which we believed to be of significance," he said.
The question posed by loyalty probers according to the Dean is mostly worded in the form, "Do you have any reason to question his loyalty, and if so why?" The Dean did not comment directly on the percentage of favorable loyalty reports to unfavorable ones issued by the Dean's Office but his statement said:
"In most instances the cooperation which we give is distinctly helpful to the job applicants who deserve to have their good records accurately presented."
Dean Carl W. Ackerman of the School of Journalism has discontinued his practice of supplying information, charging that these investigations curtail academic freedom in an article in the April 3 issue of the Bulletin of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Dean McKnight had no comment on Dean Ackerman's allegations on the Congressional probers.
He did however confirm Dean Ackerman's statement that these investigations are large in number. He said also that in addition to the frequent checks for jobs there is a rare investigation to see whether a student is subversive.
As an example of this he mentioned that a month ago the McCarthy Senate investigating committee subpoenaed the records a Columbia College graduate working for the Voice of America. He refused to disclose the name of the graduate.
In such a case, the Dean said however, the office has no choice but to give the full records to the committee.
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George Striker, "College Files Open to Official Investigations Give 'Significant' Facts, Dean McKnight Says," The Spectator, 8 April 1953.
Courtesy of Columbia University Archives - Columbiana Library.
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Primary source: William H. Whyte, "The Fight Against Genius," 1956.
Background information: William Whyte discusses the institutionalized and bureaucratized aspects of life in America.
Suppose for the moment that you were given this mental exercise: without knowing anything about how scientists work today, you were to imagine what would happen if the Social Ethic were applied to science as it has been in the rest of organization life. The chances are that you would imagine, among other things, that: (1) scientists would now concentrate on the practical application of previously discovered ideas rather than the discovery of new ones; (2) they would rarely work by themselves but rather as units of scientific cells; (3) organization loyalty, getting along with people, etc. would be considered just as important as thinking; (4) well-rounded team players would be more valuable than brilliant men, and a very brilliant man would probably be disruptive. Lastly and most important, these things would be so because people believe this is the way it should be.
Well? Of the $4 billion currently being spent on research and development by government, industry, and the universities, only about $150 million--or less than 4 per cent--is for creative research. The overwhelming majority of people engaged in research, furthermore, must now work as supervised team players, and only a tiny fraction are in a position to do independent work. Of the 600,000 people engaged in scientific work, it has been estimated that probably no more than 5,000 are free to pick their own problems.
[. . . ]
So far only a few people have had the nerve to come out flatly against the independent researcher, but the whole tenor of organization thinking is unmistakably in that direction. Among Americans there is today a widespread conviction that science has evolved to a point where the lone man engaged in fundamental inquiry is anachronistic, if not fundamental inquiry itself. Look, we are told, how the atom bomb was brought into being by the teamwork of huge corporations of scientists and technicians. Occasionally somebody mentions in passing that what an eccentric old man with a head of white hair did back in his study forty years ago had something to do with it. But people who concede this point are likely to say that this merely proves that basic ideas aren't the problem any more. It's nice to have ideas and all that, sure, but it's American know-how that does something with them, and anyway there are plenty of ideas lying fallow. We don't really need any more ivory-tower theorizing; what we need is more funds, more laboratory facilities, more organization.
The case for more fundamental inquiry has been argued so eloquently by scientists that there is little the layman can contribute in this respect. My purpose in these next three chapters, however, is not to add an amen, though this is in order, but to demonstrate the relationship between the scientist and the management trends I have been discussing in other contexts. The parallels between the organization man and the scientist should not be drawn too closely; their functions are not alike and between the managerial outlook and the scientific there is a basic conflict in goals that is not to be smothered by optimism.
I do not say this in qualification of my argument. It is my argument. For the fact is that the parallels are being drawn too closely, and in a profoundly mistaken analogy. The Organization is trying to mold the scientist to its own image; indeed, it sees the accomplishment of this metamorphosis as the main task in the management of research. It may succeed.
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William H. Whyte, Jr., "The Fight Against Genius," chapter 16 in Organization Man (New York: Doubleday, 1956), 225–26.
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Primary source: W. E. B. DuBois, "I Won’t Vote," op-ed, 1956.
Background information: DuBois discusses American democracy and why he is frustrated with party politics in the United States.
[ . . . ]
In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no "two evils" exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say. . . .
[ . . . ]
. . . [H]ow does Stevenson differ from Eisenhower? He uses better English than Dulles, thank God! He has a sly humor, where Eisenhower has none. Beyond this, Stevenson stands on the race question in the South not far from where his godfather Adlai stood sixty-three years ago, which reconciles him to the South. He has no clear policy on war or preparation for war; on water and flood control; on reduction of taxation; on the welfare state. . . .
[ . . . ]
I have no advice for others in this election. Are you voting Democratic? Well and good; all I ask is why? Are you voting for Eisenhower and his smooth team of bright ghost writers? Again, why? Will your helpless vote either way support or restore democracy to America?
[ . . . ]
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W. E. B. DuBois, "I Won’t Vote," The Nation 183, no. 16 (20 October 1956): 324–5.
Reprinted with permission from The Nation.
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Primary source: John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society, 1958.
Background information:
Galbraith's classic study of 1950s America discusses the irony of the existence of significant poverty in affluent America.
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[. . . ]
Poverty—grim, degrading, and ineluctable—is not remarkable in India. For few, the fate is otherwise. But in the United States, the survival of poverty is remarkable. We ignore it because we share with all societies at all times the capacity for not seeing what we do not wish to see. Anciently this has enabled the nobleman to enjoy his dinner while remaining oblivious to the beggars around his door. In our own day, it enables us to travel in comfort by Harlem and into the lush precincts of midtown Manhattan. But while our failure to notice can be explained, it cannot be excused. "Poverty," Pitt exclaimed, "is no disgrace but it is damned annoying." In the contemporary United States, it is not annoying but it is a disgrace.
[. . . ]
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John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society, 4th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), 254.
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Primary source: Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi, memoir, 1968.
Background information: Moody reveals her experience of wandering into the white section of the local theater; she realizes, after the incident, that "whiteness" provided her friends with a different life.
Every Saturday evening Mama would take us to the movies. The Negroes sat upstairs in the balcony and the whites sat downstairs. One Saturday we arrived at the movies at the same time as the white children. When we saw each other, we ran and met. Katie walked straight into the downstairs lobby and Adline, Junior, and I followed. Mama was talking to one of the while women and didn't notice that we had walked into the white lobby. I think she thought we were at the side entrance we had always used which led to the balcony. We were standing in the white lobby with our friends, when Mama came in and saw us. "Essie Mae, um gonna try my best to kill you when I get you home. I told you 'bout running up in these stores and things like you own 'em!" she shouted, dragging me through the door. When we got outside, we stood there crying, and we could hear the white children crying inside the white lobby. After that, Mama didn't even let us stay at the movies. She carried us right home.
All the way back to our house, Mama kept telling us that we couldn't sit downstairs, we couldn't do this or that with the white children. Up until that time I had never really thought about it. After all, we were playing together. I knew that we were going to separate schools and all, but never knew why.
After the movie incident, the white children stopped playing in front of our house. For about two weeks we didn't see them at all. Then one day they were there again and we started playing. But things were not the same. I had never really thought of them as white before. Now all of a sudden they were white, and their whiteness made them better than me. I now realized that not only were they better than me because they were white, but everything they owned and everything connected with them was better than what was available to me. I hadn't realized before that downstairs in the movies was any better than upstairs. But now I saw that it was. Their whiteness provided them with a pass downstairs in that nice section and my blackness sent me to the balcony.
Now that I was thinking about it, their schools, homes, and streets were better than mine. They had a large red brick school with nice side–walks connecting the buildings. Their homes were large and beautiful with indoor toilets and every other convenience that I knew of at the time. Every house I had ever lived in was a one– or two–room shack with an outdoor toilet. It really bothered me that they had all these nice things and we had nothing. "There is a secret to it besides being white," I thought. Then my mind got all wrapped up in trying to uncover that secret.
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Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi (New York: Dell/Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1968).
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Primary source: Eisenhower at Football Game, photograph.
Background information: Eisenhower served as president of Columbia University; here he is seen waving a Columbia University pennant in one hand and an Army pennant in the other at a college football game.
Courtesy of Columbia University Archives-Columbiana Library.
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