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“Buying Our Boys Back”: The Mass Foundations of Fiscal Citizenship in World War II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

James T. Sparrow
James T. Sparrow
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

Just after 8:00 in the morning on Tuesday, September 21, 1943, the singer and radio star Kate Smith addressed her national audience with a personal story that set the tone for the marathon bond drive she would conduct over the next eighteen hours. In her usual self-effacing manner, she began by recounting the words of a man whose speech at a recent bond rally in Utica, New York, held special meaning for her audience:

You know, friends, when we buy War Bonds, we're not buying tanks and guns and shells and planes. What we're really doing is buying our boys back … bringing them home to us, safe and sound once again. Now I know there isn't a person listening to me who wouldn't give everything he has to buy his boy back. … I'd give anything … all my money, or my health, or my own life … to buy my boy back from the War. But I'm afraid I can't do that now. You see, I got a telegram from Washington this morning. My boy isn't coming back.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , April 2008 , pp. 263 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2008

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References

Notes

1. “Kate Smith, First Spot on the Network,” Tuesday, 21 September 1943, typed transcript, 4–5. In Kate Smith Bond Drive Records (B-0200), Bureau of Applied Social Research (basr), Columbia University [hereafter cited as Smith basr recs]; Merton, Robert K., Mass Persuasion: The Social Psychology of a War Bond Drive (New York, 1946) 3, 60–64.Google Scholar

2. Spot 7, Smith basr recs. Confirmed as most influential in Merton, Mass Persuasion, 53 n.7.

3. Spot 6, Smith basr recs; Merton, Mass Persuasion, 52–53.

4. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, D.C., 1975)Google Scholar, Series F1, Y457 [hereafter cited as Hist. Stat. U.S.]. The starting point for any history of this regime is Brownlee, W. Elliot, Federal Taxation in America: A Short History, 2d ed. (Cambridge, 2004)Google Scholar; and Brownlee, , ed., Funding the Modern American State: The Rise and Fall of the Era of Easy Finance (Cambridge, 1996)Google Scholar, esp. chaps. 1 and 2. See also Stein, Herbert, The Fiscal Revolution in America (Chicago, 1969; 2d rev. ed. Washington, D.C., 1996)Google Scholar; Witte, John F., The Politics and Development of the Federal Income Tax (Madison, 1985)Google Scholar; Sparrow, Bartholomew, From the Outside In: World War II and the American State (Princeton, 1996)Google Scholar; Morse, Jarvis M., “Paying for a World War: The United States Financing of World War II,” manuscript (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Treasury Library, 1975)Google Scholar; Vatter, Harold, The U.S. Economy in World War II (New York, 1985)Google Scholar; Zelizer, Julian, Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress, and the State, 1945–1975 (Cambridge, 1998).Google Scholar

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11. Hist. Stat. U.S., A6, D1, Y393–5, Y403.

12. Total wartime taxes in Vatter, The U.S. Economy in World War II. Other numbers are from Hist. Stat. U.S., F1, F8, Y359.

13. In 1944 the Income Tax Unit examined about 2.5 million tax returns (from a total of 47.1 million filed); of those, 473,166 received a full audit. See the U.S. Office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Annual Report for 1944 (Washington, D.C., 1945), 19.Google ScholarPubMed

14. Hist. Stat. U.S., Y394–401, Y403; B. Sparrow, From the Outside In, 136, table 4.3.

15. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Annual Report for 1950 (Washington, D.C., 1951), 483, table 7.Google ScholarPubMed

16. “Pretest Results on Form 1040A Income and Victory Tax,” Special Memorandum no. 91, 13 October 1943, 4; “Pretest Results on Four Proposed 1040A Income Tax Blanks,” Special Memorandum no. 101, 23 January 1944, 22–4; in boxes 1798 and 1803, Records of the Office of War Information (owi), stored in the records of the Office of Government Records, RG 44, National Archives—College Park [hereafter cited as owi, box 1798, 1803].

17. Jones, Carolyn C., “Split Income and Separate Spheres: Tax Law and Gender Roles in the 1940s,” Law and History Review 6 (Fall 1988): 259–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity, chap. 4.

18. Jones, “Mass-Based Income Taxation,” 107–10.

19. Stein, Herbert, The Fiscal Revolution in America (Chicago, 1969; 2d rev. ed. Washington, D.C., 1996), chaps. 8–9, esp. 169–70, 180–82, 220–32Google Scholar; see also B. Sparrow, From the Outside In, 98.

20. Hist. Stat. U.S., F1, Y493.

21. Blum, V Was for Victory, 16–21.

22. Samuel, Lawrence R., Pledging Allegiance: American Identity and the Bond Drive of World War II (Washington, D.C., 1997), chap. 1, esp. 30–31.Google Scholar

23. Average tax payments were $332 in 1943 and $341 in 1945; B. Sparrow, From the Outside In, 137. Minute Man 5.11 (February 1946): 6.

24. Hist. Stat. U.S. F553.

25. Samuels, Pledging Allegiance, chap. 3; B. Sparrow, From the Outside In, chap. 4, esp. 114–18.

26. Jones, “Mass-Based Income Taxation.”

27. Converse, Jean M., Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence, 1890–1960 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), 72–73, 154–74.Google Scholar

28. Patterns in all six drives analyzed in “Appraisal of the Victory Loan Drive,” Program Surveys Report no. 41, March 1946, 11–12, tables 3 and 3a, in box 22, Historical Files, 1941–69, Savings Bond Division, Office of the National Director, General Record of the Department of the Treasury, RG 56, National Archives—College Park [hereafter cited as BAE Report no. 41].

29. “Appraisal of the Victory Loan Drive,” 13–15, tables 4, 4a, 5, 5a.

30. Cantril, Hadley, ed., Public Opinion 1935–46 (Princeton, 1951), items 64, 76, 92, 320–21, 323.Google Scholar

31. Sparrow, James T., ‘Fighting over the American Soldier: Moral Economy and National Citizenship in World War II,” Ph.D. diss. (Brown University, 2002), 369.Google Scholar

32. “Bond Redemptions in March, 1944,” Program Surveys Study 93–I, 7 April 1944, 1, 2, 11; “Factors Involved in Plans to Pay Income Taxes in 1943,” Program Surveys Memo by Gould, 12 January 1943, 6–7, both in box 1, Dorwin Philip Cartwright MS, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

33. See the discussion of “earmarking” described in Zelizer, Viviana, The Social Meaning of Money: Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief, and Other Currencies (Princeton, 1997), 6–30Google Scholar. Lichtenstein, Nelson, The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor (New York, 1995), chap. 10.Google Scholar

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35. Education Section, U.S. Savings Bonds Division, School Savings in Action (U.S. Treasury handbook, n.d. [1943]). Equipment was so central to promotions that the Treasury kept an accurate price list for munitions, vehicles, vessels, etc., in “War Finance Program— Background” folder, box 30, Odegard MS [hereafter cited as Odegard MS]. On bombers named after cities, see Ted Gamble to Morgenthau, 7 May 1942, Morgenthau Diaries, vol. 525, p. 47 [hereafter cited as Morgenthau Diaries, 525:47]. Both collections are in the FDR Library, Hyde Park.

36. During the war, employment levels approached 100 percent, real wages rose by one-third, and personal consumption rose by 15 percent, despite shortages.

37. “A Case Book on the Ten Percent Plan,” [31 August 1942], “Payroll Savings Promotion” folder, box 19, Odegard MS.

38. “Personal Solicitation in the Third War Loan,” n.d., 11–12, in folder “Advertising: Third War Loan—Personal Solicitation—1943,” box 9; –A Case Book on the Ten Percent Plan,” both in Odegard MS.

39. Minutes, 10 March 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, 615:150.

40. “An Appraisal of the Third War Loan Drive, Part IV: Solicitation in the Third War Loan,” BAE Report no. 19, 7 December 1943, 2–3; “Appraisal of the Victory Loan Drive,” 8–9, tables 1 and 1a.

41. Merton, Mass Persuasion, chaps. 2–6.

42. Westbrook, Why We Fought, chap. 3.

43. Merton, Mass Persuasion, appendix C, pp. 200, 201, tables I–A, I–B.

44. Quoted in “Size,” 21 November 1944, 2, Smith basr recs.

45. Merton, Mass Persuasion, 79–89, 94–96, 101–2 (chart III), 146–52.

46. Interview transcript no. 022, 3, answer to question 14, Smith basr recs. Merton, Mass Persuasion, 111, determined that 63 out of 75 interviews displayed such deep involvement.

47. Merton, Mass Persuasion, 45–54.

48. “Appraisal of the Victory Loan Drive,” 16–17, tables 6 and 6a.

49. Merton, Mass Persuasion, 112–13, 137–38.

50. Interview transcript, “non-buyer 101,” 1, question 3, Smith basr recs. Emphasis in the original.

51. Ibid., 6, “free answer.”

52. Transcript of radio address in Randolph Paul to Morgenthau, 17 March 1943, Morgenthau Diaries 617:83.

53. Fireside chat 8 September 1943, in FDR's Fireside Chats, ed. Buhite, Russell D. and Levy, David W. (Norman, Okla., 1992), 270Google Scholar; On FDR as the “great white father,” see Gerstle, Gary, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, 2001), chaps. 4–5.Google Scholar

54. Reprinted in Lawrence and Cornelia Levine, The People and the President: America's Conversation with FDR (Boston, 2002), 460.Google Scholar

55. Cantril, , ed., Public Opinion, 1935–1946, p. 311Google Scholar, item 2; see also p. 314, items 5, 7, 9.

56. Leff, “The Politics of Sacrifice”; Lichtenstein, Labor's War at Home, chap. 6.

57. Reprinted in Levine and Levine, The People and the President, 466–67.

58. Frank Martel, Editor, AFL Daily News, Labor Temple, Detroit, to Clyde Hart, owi, 17 November 1943, 1–2, in owi, box 1747.

59. Harry B. Winkeler, St. Louis Labor Tribune, to Clyde Hart, owi, 16 November 1943, 1–2, in owi, box 1748.

60. Campbell, Andrea Louise and Morgan, Kimberly J., “Financing the Welfare State: Elite Politics and the Decline of the Social Insurance Model in America,” Studies in American Political Development 19 (Fall 2005): 173–195Google Scholar; Morgan, , “Financing the Welfare State: U.S. Tax Politics in Comparative Perspective,” paper presented at RC-19,8 September 2005Google Scholar; Steinmo, Sven, Taxation and Democracy: Swedish, British, and American Approaches to Financing the Modern State (New Haven, 1993).Google Scholar

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63. “Appraisal of the Sixth War Loan, Part II: Identification and Motivation,” BAE Report no. 32, 1 February 1945, 2; “Appraisal of the Victory Loan Drive,” 13, tables 4 and 4a.

64. “Attitudes toward Income Taxes,” Special Memo no. 67, 10 July 1943, esp. 8, 10, owi, box 1802.

65. Blum, V Was for Victory, 92–100; Hist. Stat. U.S., F543, G416; Vatter, The U.S. Economy in World War II, 108, chart 6.2, 138–42.

66. Buhite and Levy, FDR's Fireside Chats, 288–89; Sunstein, Cass, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever (New York, 2004)Google Scholar; J. Sparrow, “Fighting over the American Soldier,” 320–22.

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68. “Reasons People Give For and Against Buying Bonds,” BAE Report no. 11, 3 June 1943, 16.

69. Morse, “Paying for a World War,” 170.

70. “The Buying of War Bonds and Stamps,” Study 55, 9 October 1942, 1, owi, box 1784A.

71. “The Buying of War Bonds and Stamps,” 2; 10 percent goal among the wealthy corroborated in Merton, Mass Persuasion, 112–13. “Participation in the War Savings Program: Public Attitudes with Respect to Spending or Saving,” BAE Report no. 4, 29 December 1942.

72. Hist. Stat. U.S., E135.

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80. Findings of the Survey of Consumer Finances summarized in Katona, George, Psychological Analysis of Economic Behavior (New York, 1951), 72–81Google Scholar; Federal Reserve Bulletin, January 1946, June issues 1947–49.

81. J. Sparrow, “Fighting over the American Soldier,” chap. 4.

82. Brinkley, End of Reform.

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