Unconditional Surrender Truman
Harry S Truman
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« on: June 23, 2015, 07:30:00 PM » |
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Eleanor Roosevelt's landslide victory in the Election of 1948 swept the Populist Party back into power more than a decade after Huey Long's corruption had nearly run it into the ground. With supermajorities in both houses of Congress, the party had no trouble enacting its domestic agenda, the hallmark of which was the National Healthcare Service, or NHS, a state-run healthcare program that replaced the private insurers of the past. Congress also voted to expand the public works projects begun under President Warren and to greatly increase welfare spending, in keeping with trends elsewhere in the Western world.
Despite these accomplishments, Roosevelt's term has been dominated by foreign policy issues, primarily the ongoing conflict in Korea. Following the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1949, the League of Nations launched a US-led effort to repel the Communist attackers. By 1952, the fighting has ground to a stalemate along the 38th Parallel as the president and her allies work to arrange a cease-fire. The Communist takeover of China has likewise led to accusations that Roosevelt
is "soft on Communism", a charge Secretary of State Dwight Eisenhower has refuted as "ludicrous".
The charge of Communist infiltration of the government, however, has not been easily dismissed. Wisconsin Congressman Joseph McCarthy, a former Democrat who was elected as the American Party candidate from his district in 1950, has accused the president and her cabinet of shielding Communist sympathizers from prosecution. While Roosevelt has so far resisted calls to establish an official investigation into Communist activities in the government, she has paid dearly for this decision, and some within the People's Party fear that she will drag them down with her.
While Roosevelt is opposed only by Tennessee Senator Albert Gore in her quest for renomination, the American Party Convention is a free-for all. No less than seven candidates have entered the race, from progressives Wayne Morse and Thomas Dewey to conservatives like John Bricker and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. Congressman McCarthy is also in the running, as is Richard Nixon, who has echoed McCarthy's anti-Communist sentiments.
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