Truman
"Early Life Harry S. Truman, the oldest of
three children born to
Martha Ellen Young Truman and John Anderson
Truman, was born in his family’s
small frame house in Lamar, Missouri, in
1884. Truman had no middle name; his
parents apparently gave him the middle
initial S. because two family relatives
names started with that letter. When
Truman was six years old, his family moved
to Independence, Missouri, where
he attended the Presbyterian Church Sunday
school. There he met five-year-old
Elizabeth Virginia ("Bess") Wallace, with
whom he was later to fall in love.
Truman did not begin regular school until he
was eight, and by then he was
wearing thick glasses to correct extreme
nearsightedness. His poor eyesight
did not interfere with his two interests,
music and reading. He got up each
day at 5 AM to practice the piano, and until
he was 15, he went to the local
music teacher twice a week. He read four or five
histories or biographies a
week and acquired an exhaustive knowledge of great
military battles and of
the lives of the world’s greatest leaders. Early
Career In 1901, when
Truman graduated from high school, his future was
uncertain. College had been
ruled out by his family’s financial situation, and
appointment to the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point was eliminated by his
poor eyesight. He began
work as a timekeeper for the Santa Fe Railroad at $35
per month, and in his
spare time he read histories and encyclopedias. He later
moved to Kansas
City, where he worked as a mail clerk for the Kansas City Star,
then as a
clerk for the National Bank of Commerce, and finally as a bookkeeper
for the
Union National Bank. In 1906 he was called home to help his parents run
the
large farm of Mrs. Truman’s widowed mother in Grandview, Missouri. For
the
next ten years, Truman was a successful farmer. He joined Mike
Pendergast’s
Kansas City Tenth Ward Democratic Club, the local Democratic
Party organization,
and on his father’s death in 1914 he succeeded him as
road overseer. An
argument soon ended the job, but Truman became the
Grandview postmaster. In 1915
he invested in lead mines in Missouri, lost his
money, and then turned to the
oil fields of Oklahoma. Two years later, just
before the United States entered
World War I, he sold his share in the
oil business and enlisted in the U.S.
Army. He trained at Fort Sill,
Oklahoma, but returned to Missouri to help
recruit others. He was elected
first lieutenant by the men of Missouri’s
Second Field Artillery. World
War I World War I began in 1914 as a local
European war between
Austria-Hungary and Serbia. Though U.S. President Woodrow
Wilson tried to
remain neutral, the United States was drawn into the war in
April 1917.
Truman sailed for France on March 30, 1918, and as a recently
promoted
captain was given command of Battery D, a rowdy and unmanageable group
known
as the Dizzy D. Truman succeeded in taming his unit, and the Dizzy
D
distinguished itself in the battles of Saint-Mihiel and Argonne. In April
1919
Truman, then a major, returned home, and on June 28 he married Bess
Wallace. The
following November, Truman and Eddie Jacobson opened a men’s
clothing store in
Kansas City. With the Dizzy D veterans as customers the
store did a booming
business, but in 1920, farm prices fell sharply and the
business failed. In the
winter of 1922 the store finally closed, but Truman
refused to declare
bankruptcy and eventually repaid his debts. Entrance Into
Politics Truman turned
to the Pendergasts for help. Jim Pendergast, Mike’s
son, persuaded his father
to give Truman permission to enter a four-way
Democratic primary for an eastern
Jackson County judgeship, which was
actually a job to supervise county roads and
buildings. Mike refused to
support Truman. In addition, one of the other
candidates was supported by the
Ku Klux Klan. Truman was advised to join the
Klan, but he objected to its
discriminatory policies against blacks, Jews, and
Roman Catholics.
Nonetheless, by campaigning on his war record and Missouri
background, Truman
won the primary and in the general election. In January 1923
he was sworn
into his first public office. A year later the Trumans’ only
child, Mary
Margaret, was born. United States Senator After a long, hard
battle,
Truman soundly defeated his Republican opponent. On January 3,
1935, Truman was
sworn in as the junior senator from Missouri. Truman’s
common sense and
knowledge of government and history impressed two of the
Senate’s most
influential men. One was vice president John Nance Garner, and
the other was
Arthur H. Vandenberg, Republican senator from Michigan.
With their aid, Truman
was named to two important committees, the
Appropriations Committee and the
Interstate Commerce Committee. Truman
also joined the subcommittee on railroads,
becoming vice-chairman and, later,
acting chairman. Despite pressures from
powerful railroad companies,
including the Missouri Pacific Railroad, he
recommended major regulatory
changes that were embodied in the Transportation
Act of 1940. 1940
Election To no one’s surprise, two Missouri Democrats
challenged Truman for
his Senate seat in the primary. One was Governor Lloyd
Stark, whom
Roosevelt supported, and the other was Maurice Milligan, whose
nomination for
a second term as U.S. district attorney Truman had opposed in the
Senate.
Truman began his primary fight with no political backing, no money, and
two
popular reformers as opponents. He traveled the state, making speeches
about
his record in short, simple language. He won the primary, and despite
his
Pendergast association, mentioned frequently by his Republican
opponent, he won
in November. His reelection was so unexpected that when he
returned to the
Senate, his colleagues gave him a standing ovation.
Second Term In 1941 the
United States government was preparing for World
War II, a conflict that had
begun in Europe in 1939. The government was
building army camps and issuing
defense contracts. Even before his second
term began, Truman’s constituents
had written him about waste and confusion
in the defense program. Truman toured
the camps and defense plants and
discovered appalling conditions. Back in the
new Senate he denounced the
defense program, demanded an investigation, and was
named the head of the
investigating committee. The Truman Committee During the
next two years the
Truman committee produced detailed reports on the defense
programs. Committee
members frequently visited defense installations to
substantiate the
testimony of contractors, engineers, and army and government
personnel.
Truman’s success in uncovering fraud and waste led the Senate in
1942 to
give the committee $100,000, an increase of $85,000 over the first
year.
It was estimated that the Truman committee saved the country $15
billion and
spent only $400,000. The committee also put Truman on the
national stage. With
increasing frequency, leading Democrats mentioned Harry
S. Truman as a potential
1944 vice-presidential candidate. Vice President
of the United States Before the
Democratic National Convention opened in
July 1944, it was assumed that
Roosevelt would run for a fourth term, but
his health became a matter of great
concern to party leaders, whose most
difficult task was to name his running
mate. The current vice president was
Henry A. Wallace, a strong proponent of
using the federal government to
regulate big businesses, protect the civil
rights of minorities, and
encourage labor unions. Wallace’s liberal views
offended many of the more
conservative leaders of the Democratic Party, and they
encouraged Roosevelt
to find someone more appealing to mainstream voters. Among
the leading
contenders were Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, and
Senators
Alben W. Barkley, James F. Byrnes, and Truman. Truman was nominated on
the
second ballot. After a whirlwind campaign and overwhelming victory,
Truman
took the oath of office as vice president on January 20, 1945. Truman
then
engineered the Senate confirmation of Roosevelt’s appointment of Henry
Wallace
as secretary of commerce and Federal loan administrator, attended the
funeral of
Tom Pendergast despite wide criticism, and cast the
tie-breaking Senate vote
that ensured that the United States would continue
delivering supplies to U.S.
allies after the war was over. However, he saw
very little of the president.
Soon after the inauguration, Roosevelt left
Washington for the month-long Yalta
Conference, where the Allies
discussed military strategy and political problems,
including plans for
governing Germany after the war. When Roosevelt returned in
March, he met
with Truman in two short meetings. When Roosevelt left for Warm
Springs,
Georgia, on March 30, Roosevelt had still not informed his vice
president
about the conduct of the war or the plans for peace. Thirteen days
later,
Truman was summoned to the White House, where Eleanor Roosevelt told
him,
"Harry, the president is dead." President of the United States
Wartime
President Truman’s first month in office was largely devoted to
briefings by
Roosevelt’s aides. He asked the founding conference of the
United Nations to
meet in San Francisco on April 25, as had been planned
before Roosevelt’s
death. When victory in Europe seemed certain, he insisted
on unconditional
German surrender, and on May 8, 1945, his 61st birthday,
he proclaimed
Victory-In-Europe Day (V-E Day). Truman convinced the San
Francisco conference
delegation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR) that the general
assembly of the new world peace organization should
have free discussions and
should make recommendations to the security
council. On June 26 he addressed the
final conference session, and six days
later he presented the United Nations
Charter to the Senate for
ratification. From July 17 to August 2, 1945, Truman
attended the Potsdam
Conference in Germany, meeting with Soviet Premier Joseph
Stalin, British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Clement Attlee,
Churchill’s
successor as British prime minister. The conference discussed how
to
implement the decisions reached at the Yalta Conference. As
presiding
officer, Truman proposed the establishment of the council of
foreign ministers
to aid in peace negotiations, settlement of reparations
claims, and conduct of
war crimes trials. He also gained Stalin’s promise to
enter the war against
Japan. In this first meeting with the other Allied
leaders, Truman confirmed his
earlier favorable impression of Churchill,
while he called the Soviets, in one
of his typically blunt statements,
"pigheaded people." On July 26, Truman
issued the Potsdam Declaration, which
called for Japan’s unconditional
surrender and listed peace terms. He had
already been informed of the successful
detonation of the first atomic bomb
at Alamogordo, New Mexico, ten days earlier.
Military advisers had told
Truman that a potential loss of about 500,000
American soldiers could be
avoided if the bomb were used against Japan. When
Japan rejected the
ultimatum, Truman authorized use of the bomb. On August 6,
1945, at 9:15
AM Tokyo time, the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, virtually
destroying the
city. The Supreme Allied Headquarters reported that 129,558
people were
killed, injured, or missing and 176,987 made homeless. Stalin sent
troops
into Manchuria and Korea on August 8, and the following day a second bomb
was
dropped on Nagasaki. About one-third of the city was destroyed, and
about
66,000 people were killed or injured. Japan sued for peace on
August 14. The
official Japanese surrender took place on September 2, 1945,
aboard the U.S.S.
Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. Domestic Affairs
Reconversion With the war
ended, Truman turned to the problem of reconverting
the country to peacetime
production without causing the inflation and
unemployment that followed World
War I. His message to the Congress of
the United States on September 6, 1945,
requested a permanent Fair Employment
Practices Commission to aid blacks; wage,
price, and rent controls to slow
inflation; extended old-age benefits; public
housing; a national health
insurance program; and a higher minimum wage. His
program was met with bitter
opposition by congressional leaders who felt he
wanted to move too far and
too fast. Congress’s price control bill was so weak
that on June 19, 1946,
Truman vetoed it, saying it gave a choice "between
inflation with a statute
and inflation without one." When he finally signed a
bill the following
month, prices had already risen 25 percent, and basic
commodities had risen
35 percent. Mounting Opposition Demobilization had
proceeded smoothly, but
increased prices led to strikes for higher wages,
particularly in basic
industries. Truman had always been on the side of labor,
but he would not
allow strikes to paralyze the nation. He used executive orders
and court
injunctions to end the strikes, offending labor unions in the
process.
Truman was the central figure in three controversial issues
concerning the
military. First, he insisted on transferring control and
development of nuclear
energy from the military to the civilian Atomic Energy
Commission and on placing
authority to use the bomb solely with the
president. Second, he persuaded
Congress to unify the armed forces under
a civilian secretary of defense. Third,
Truman ordered the armed forces
of the United States desegregated after Congress
refused to do so. This
decision, plus the military requirements of the Korean
War, ended most
discrimination in the U.S. Army and gave black men an
opportunity for
economic advancement denied them in many other areas. Truman had
at first
retained Roosevelt’s Cabinet, but he soon felt uncomfortable with it.
By
September 1946 only Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal remained.
New
Deal supporters particularly objected to the removal of Secretary of
Commerce
Henry A. Wallace, although he had publicly criticized Truman’s
foreign policy,
including its increasingly hostile attitude toward the USSR.
Congressional
Election of 1946 As the congressional campaigns began, even
Democrats were
divorcing themselves from Truman’s programs. By using the
Democratic
discontent and the issues of rising inflation, scarcity of meat,
and labor
unrest, the Republicans scored a resounding victory, capturing both
houses of
Congress. In his 1947 State of the Union message, Truman
requested a law to
strengthen the Department of Labor, establish a
labor-management relations
commission, and end jurisdictional and secondary
strikes. Instead, Congress
presented him with its Labor-Management Relations
Act of 1947, the Taft-Hartley
Act that greatly weakened the position of
labor unions. The act outlawed
union-only workplaces; prohibited certain
union tactics like secondary boycotts;
forbade unions to contribute to
political campaigns; established loyalty oaths
for union leaders; and allowed
court orders to halt strikes that could affect
national health or safety.
Truman vetoed the bill, but on June 23, 1947, the
bill was passed over his
veto. Instead of writing anti-inflation legislation,
Congress voted a
tax-cut bill giving 40 percent of the relief to those with
incomes in excess
of $5000. The bill became law over Truman’s veto. The
president once again
failed to gather support for his employment, national
health, or social
security measures. Foreign Policy Truman Doctrine Although the
United
States and the USSR had been allies against Germany during the war,
this
alliance began to dissolve after the end of the war, when Stalin,
seeking Soviet
security, began using the Soviet Army to control much of
Eastern Europe. Truman
opposed Stalin’s moves. Mistrust grew as both sides
broke wartime agreements.
Stalin failed to honor pledges to hold free
elections in Eastern Europe. Truman
refused to honor promises to send
reparations from the defeated Germany to help
rebuild the war-devastated
USSR. This hostility became known as the Cold War. In
1947 British Prime
Minister Attlee told Truman that a British financial crisis
was forcing Great
Britain to end its aid to Greece. At the time the USSR was
demanding naval
stations on the Bosporus from Turkey, and Greece was engaged in
a civil war
with Communist-dominated rebels. The president proposed what was
called the
Truman Doctrine, which had two objectives: to send U.S. aid to
anti-Communist
forces in Greece and Turkey, and to create a public consensus
so
Americans would be willing to fight the Cold War. Truman told Congress
that"it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who
are
resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside
pressures."
Congress fulfilled his request for $250 million for Greece
and $150 million for
Turkey. Marshall Plan Truman’s trip to Potsdam and
reports from former
President Herbert Hoover (1929-1933), who headed a
postwar food commission, gave
him an intimate knowledge of the problems of
war-torn Europe. With General
George C. Marshall, who was now secretary
of state, Truman drew up the European
Recovery Plan for the economic
rehabilitation of free Europe. This act, also
known as the Marshall Plan, was
designed to rebuild the European market, which
would benefit U.S. trade, and
to strengthen democratic governments in Western
Europe. The United States
wanted to counter the influence of the USSR, which it
was beginning to see as
its main rival. The U.S. government also believed that
West Germany, the
zone occupied by U.S., British, and French forces, would have
to be rebuilt
and integrated into a larger Europe. After careful planning,
Marshall
announced in June 1947 that if Europe devised a cooperative,
long-term
rebuilding program, the United States would provide funds. When the
USSR learned
that the United States insisted on Soviet cooperation with the
capitalist
societies of Western Europe and an open accounting of how funds
were used, the
USSR established its own plan to integrate Communist
states in Eastern Europe.
Under the Marshall Plan, the United States
spent more than $12.5 billion over a
four-year period. Berlin Airlift The
Marshall Plan and the amazing postwar
recovery of West Germany highlighted
the Soviet Union’s failure to stabilize
the economy of the zone it occupied,
East Germany. To embarrass the Allies the
Soviets closed off all Allied
access to the city of Berlin, which was surrounded
by Soviet-controlled East
Germany but the western part of which was under Allied
control. Truman
recognized that an accessible Berlin was vital for European
confidence in the
United States. On June 26, 1948, he ordered a full-scale
airlift of essential
products into the city that continued until May 12, 1949,
when the blockade
was lifted. Israel Since his early days in the White House,
Truman
supported the British Balfour Declaration of 1917, which had promised
the
Jews support for a national homeland in Palestine. He sympathized
with the
Jewish survivors of Nazi Germany, and in November 1947 he
supported the UN plan
to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab
states. In the face of
sustained pressure from pro-Arab delegations and from
those who feared the loss
of Arabian oil, Truman recognized the State of
Israel on May 14, 1948.
Presidential Election of 1948 When Truman decided
to run for a full term, he was
faced with a major split in the Democratic
Party. In 1948 Truman had asked for
an end to Jim Crow laws, which maintained
segregation in the South. He also
proposed laws to punish those responsible
for the hanging of blacks without
trials, called lynching; laws to protect
the voting rights of blacks; and a fair
employment practices commission to
end job discrimination. All of these angered
Southern Democrats. When
Northern Democrats inserted these positions into the
1948 Democratic
Party platform, a group of Southerners led by Governor J. Strom
Thurmond
of South Carolina left the party and formed the States’ Rights
Democrats,
or Dixiecrats. Henry Wallace and his supporters had also left to form
the
Progressive Party, and in addition, some influential Democrats
thought
victory would be possible only if the popular General Dwight D.
Eisenhower could
be drafted. The prospects were dim as Truman and his running
mate, Senator Alben
W. Barkley, set out on their campaign. Truman
received the Democratic Party
nomination, and in his acceptance speech, he
told the convention he would
reconvene Congress on July 26 to give the
Republicans a chance to carry out
their party’s platform pledges. When the
special session ended without passing
any important legislation, Truman had
his campaign weapon. He embarked on a
cross-country whistle-stop tour,
defending his record and blasting the"do-nothing Republican 80th Congress." No
one knows who first shouted,
"Give ’em Hell, Harry!" but the phrase
became the campaign slogan of 1948.
While thousands publicly and
privately conceded the election to the Republican
candidate, New York
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Truman continued to campaign,
making as many as 16
speeches in one day. A few hours after the polls closed on
November 2,
the Chicago Tribune issued an early edition with the headline
DEWEY
DEFEATS TRUMAN, but when the ballots were counted, Truman beat
Dewey by more
than 2 million votes. Second Term as President Foreign Affairs
Truman’s
inaugural address proposed four points of action. The first was
support of the
United Nations, the second was a continuation of the
Marshall Plan, the third
was collective defense against Communist aggression,
and the fourth was aid to
underdeveloped countries. North Atlantic Treaty
Organization Truman’s third
point was developed into the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), a
regional defense alliance, created by the North
Atlantic Treaty signed on April
4, 1949. NATO’s purpose was to enhance
the stability, well-being, and freedom
of its members by means of a system of
collective security. The defense plan was
greeted warmly by Western Europe,
which saw Stalin tighten the USSR’s grip on
the countries of Eastern Europe
and threaten the rest of Europe. The Senate
ratified the treaty, but only
after debating it at length. Truman then placed
Eisenhower in command of
the defense organization. Korea At the end of World War
II Korea was
divided, and a Communist regime was established in North Korea and
an
anti-Communist one in the South. Considerable civil strife in the South
and
growing opposition to South Korea’s president, Syngman Rhee, persuaded
the
North Korean leader, Kim Il Sung, that he would be welcomed by many
South
Koreans as a liberator intent on reuniting the two Koreas. At the
same time, Kim
would also undermine ongoing opposition to his own regime in
North Korea. A war
began on June 25, 1950, when the North Korean army,
equipped mainly by the USSR,
crossed the border and invaded South Korea. The
United States immediately sent
supplies to Korea and quickly broadened its
commitment in the conflict. On June
27 the UN Security Council, with the
Soviet Union voluntarily absent, passed a
resolution sponsored by the United
States calling for military sanctions against
North Korea. Three days
later, President Truman ordered U.S. troops stationed in
Japan to Korea.
American forces, those of South Korea, and, ultimately, combat
contingents
from 15 other nations were placed under United Nations command. The
action
was unique because neither the UN, nor its predecessor, the League
of
Nations, had ever used military measures to repel an aggressor. The UN
forces
were commanded by the U.S. commander in chief in East Asia, General
Douglas
MacArthur. Although the official policy of the United States and
the United
Nations was to limit the war to Korea to prevent the entrance
of the USSR, early
sucA war began on June 25, 1950, when the North Korean
army, equipped mainly by
the USSR, crossed the border and invaded South
Korea. The United States
immediately sent supplies to cesses persuaded Truman
to move troops into North
Korea. As UN soldiers approached the Chinese
border, however, China, after
several warnings to the United States, crossed
into North Korea and began
driving UN forces back toward the South. In
response, MacArthur publicly
requested an extension of the war into Communist
China itself, but now Truman
abandoned the idea of reunifying Korea by force
and returned to the original
goal of stopping the invasion of South Korea.
When MacArthur then publicly
attacked this policy, Truman relieved MacArthur
of his command in April 1951 and
replaced him with Lieutenant General Matthew
Ridgway. Until July 1953 UN forces
mostly engaged in a series of probing
actions known as the active defense. Point
Four Truman’s Point Four—aid
to underdeveloped countries—stemmed from his
belief "that we should make
available to peace-loving peoples the benefits of
our store of technical
knowledge in order to help them realize their aspirations
for a better life."
Congress debated Point Four for nearly 18 months before
approving it on June
5, 1950. By offering technical and scientific aid to those
who requested it,
Point Four helped reduce famine, disease, and the economic
hardships of 35
African and Asian nations by 1953. Domestic Affairs Fair Deal
Although he
had a Democratic Congress, Truman’s Fair Deal domestic program
again met
stiff opposition. Congress approved his public housing bill, expanded
social
security coverage, increased minimum wages and passed stronger farm
price
support bills, as well as flood-control, rural electrification, and
public power
measures. However, the legislators rejected his request to have
the Taft-Hartley
Act repealed, his plans for agricultural stabilization,
for construction of the
Saint Lawrence Seaway, and for the creation of
public hydroelectric companies in
the Missouri Valley and Columbia Valley.
They also rejected his civil rights
proposals. However, he strengthened the
civil rights section of the Justice
Department by executive orders, and
he appointed blacks to a few high offices.
Cold War at Home There was
also a Cold War at home. Some of Truman’s opponents
considered MacArthur’s
removal to be evidence that the administration was
lenient on Communism. This
was despite the fact that Truman had begun
investigating applicants for
government jobs in 1946; that he had led the fight
to aid Greece and Turkey
when the British could no longer do so; and that Truman
had used that issue
to create new security and intelligence agencies such as the
Central
Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council. Some
Republicans
nevertheless believed that Truman had not done enough. In 1948
American writer
and editor Whittaker Chambers testified before Representative
Richard Nixon and
the House Committee on Un-American Activities that he had
been a Communist in
the 1920s and 1930s and a courier in transmitting secret
information to Soviet
agents. He charged that State Department member Alger
Hiss was also a Communist,
and that he had turned classified documents over
to Chambers to be sent to the
Soviet Union. Hiss denied the charges but
Chambers produced microfilm copies of
documents that were later identified as
classified papers belonging to the
Departments of State, Navy, and War,
some apparently annotated by Hiss in his
own handwriting. The Department of
Justice conducted its own investigation, and
Hiss was indicted for
perjury, or lying under oath. The jury failed to reach a
verdict, but Hiss
was convicted after a second trial in January 1950 (see Hiss
Case). In
China the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, which had been
supported
by the United States, was unable to withstand the advance of Communist
forces
under Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). By the end of 1949 government troops
had
been overwhelmingly defeated, and Chiang led his forces into exile on
Taiwan.
The triumphant Mao formed the People’s Republic of China. Truman
critics
charged that the administration had failed to support Chiang Kai-shek
against
the Communists. Many people were also alarmed in September 1949, when
Truman
announced that the USSR had developed an atomic bomb. In February 1950
Wisconsin
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy charged in a speech in Wheeling,
West Virginia, that
the State Department knowingly employed 205 Communists.
He later reduced the
number to 57, and after an investigation all of the
charges were found to be
false. McCarthy continued to accuse other officials
of Communist sympathies.
Without any evidence, he was eventually
discredited, and the word McCarthyism
came to refer to accusations of
subversive activities without any evidence.
These incidents and others
convinced Congress to pass the Internal Security Act
of 1950, called the
McCarran Act, over Truman’s veto. The act forced the
registration of all
Communist organizations, allowed the government to intern
Communists
during any national emergencies, and prohibited Communists from doing
any
defense work. The act also prohibited the entrance into the United States
of
anyone who was a member of a "totalitarian" organization. Seizure of
the
Steel Mills Despite the administration’s efforts to prevent a strike
that
would close the country’s steel mills, a strike date was set for early
April
9, 1952. Just hours before the scheduled strike, before a
nationwide radio
audience, Truman directed Secretary of Commerce Charles
Sawyer to seize the
mills to ensure their production to support the war
efforts. However, on June 2,
1952, the Supreme Court of the United States
in a 6 to 3 decision on Youngstown
Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer declared
the seizure unconstitutional.