Chapter Eleven takes up Rogers’ engagment with the Great Depression of the 1930s, the economic disaster that marked the culmination of his influence as a commentator on American political life. The Oklahoman castigated Wall Street for foolish financial practices and criticized Americans for buying on credit, two practices in the 1920s he believed underlay the economic collapse. With typical good-humored civility, he initially sympathized with Herbert Hoover as a victim of circumstances but soon denounced the president’s refusal to promote relief programs and job-creation initiatives. Rogers became an enthusiastic supporter of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. The humorist became one of the biggest boosters of FDR’s programs as necessary to save the American system. While suspicious of federal government overreach and the encouragement of labor radicalism, he deemed the New Deal largely a success. Throughout the Depression, Rogers maintained his populist outlook, consistently criticizing economic and social elites while laboring to protect and uplife America’s common, working citizens. His acclaim for "the little fellow" further elevated his public stature in America.

The chapter examines the different phases of the wartime ‘special relationship’ between the UK and the USA. Roosevelt’s initial contact with Churchill was born of the realisation that American security was tied to that of the UK but with the over-riding caveat that the USA would not become ‘a tail on the British kite’. Initially, Churchill worked hard to convince Roosevelt that Britain was serious about continuing the war, while FDR pursued a strategy of hemispheric defence. Co-operation then increased with Roosevelt developing a policy of all aid short of war. Pearl Harbor ushered in the high-water mark of the alliance, albeit with disagreements about strategy. FDR saw an opportunity to draw the English-speaking peoples together to create a new, multilateral world order that rejected imperialism, while Churchill saw the war as a means to restore the British Empire and perpetuate British power. Roosevelt’s pursuit of a bilateral relationship with Stalin led to a final phase of increasing tension. Ultimately, the special relationship that emerged from the war would become far more important in the UK than in the USA, yet it owed much to the two people’s shared belief in preserving democracy.

The British Empire provided the context in which both Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt came to maturity and defined and aggravated their differences as national leaders. The chapter begins by comparing the shared beliefs and values of Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt on empire and race before showing how Franklin Roosevelt emerged from his cousin’s shadow to develop a hostility towards the British Empire inspired by genuine idealism as well as calculating pragmatism. It documents the tension between Churchill’s imperialism and his appreciation that American participation in the war was the key to victory, examining the differences between the two leaders before looking at their wartime relationship through the lens of their very different responses to events in the British Empire, especially in India. Churchill’s dispute with Roosevelt on the subject of the British Empire went to the heart of the relationship between a Democrat president who wanted to create a new world order imbued with American values and a Conservative prime minister who aimed to maintain the old world in all its glory. This disjunction threatened the stability of the wartime alliance.

We have longed believe that after Pearl Harbor, Americans demanded the removal of Japanese Americans from the west coast and into concentration camps. This views stems largely from the racist sentiments expressed by some prominent politicians and media figures along with one oft-cited poll showing fifty-nine percent of Americans supporting internment. But a closer look at public opinion polls conducted in the months after Pearl Harbor but before the President’s interment order reveal remarkably low support for the policy. The letters that supposedly flooded into the White House calling for mass evacuations only swelled after the order on February 19, 1942. In other words, it was only after Japanese Americans were framed as dangerous that the general public approved of internment.Unfortunately for the roughly 112,000 Japanese Americans living on the west coast, they were about to become the victims of one of America’s worst cases of misplaced revenge. Tragically, this would be only the first of many vengeful acts America inflicted upon the innocent during and shortly after the war. And with each destructive deed, a majority of Americans insisted that this is not who we are. Why, then, did the politics of vengeance prevail?

Fierce partisan conflict in the United States is not new. Throughout American history, there have been polarizing struggles over fundamental questions relating to the meaning of the Declaration, the Constitution, and the relationship between the two. These struggles over ideals have become all encompassing when joined to battles over what it means to be an American – conflicts that have become more regular and dangerous with the rise of the administrative state. The idea of a “State” cuts more deeply than suggested by Max Weber’s definition of “a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Beyond the powers of government, the State represents a centralizing ambition (at least for progressive reformers) to cultivate, or impose, a vision of citizenship. In Randolph Bourne’s words, the State is a “concept of power” that comes alive in defense of or in conflict with an ideal of how such foundational values of Americanism as “free and enlightened” are to be interpreted and enforced. The ideal is symbolized not by the Declaration and the Constitution but rather in rallying emblems such as the flag and Uncle Sam.

This chapter describes the monetary antagonism that pervaded the world from Roosevelt's inauguration in 1933 to the development of an uneasy ceasefire by the middle of 1935. Roosevelt's departure from the gold standard fundamentally changed the monetary system, and his chaotic method of doing so exacerbated the mutual suspicion already rife in the great capitals of the world. Once Roosevelt officially devalued the dollar in January 1934, Britain and France were clueless as to what, if anything America would do next; America and France were furious as Britain refused to stabilize the pound; and the world watched France flounder as its currency increasingly came under pressure. While Britain and America reached an uneasy suspension of monetary hostilities in 1935, the precariousness of the franc meant that this superficial stability was liable to crumble at any moment.

Two sentiments governed the postwar world: fear and hope. These two feelings dominated the debates that gave birth to both the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The League of Nations had failed. Leaders had expressed the desire for a world grounded in human rights but could not agree on what that meant or whether individual rights trumped the sovereign rights of nations. The UN Charter reflected these concerns, recognizing human rights but leaving their scope undefined. No precedents existed to guide the work. A committee of eighteen nations, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, accepted the unprecedented assignment of defining basic rights for all people everywhere. After consulting with noted jurists, philosophers, and social justice organizations, the committee set out to draft a document that would recognize the horrors of war and engender a commitment to peace. They envisioned a world governed more by hope than by fear. It was hard work. The debate was punctuated by escalating Cold War politics. A legally binding document seemed out of reach. All efforts turned instead to securing a declaration of human rights, which ultimately paved the way for legally binding commitments and energized a budding human rights movement.

The idea of bringing into being supranational organizations to resolve disputes between states has a distinguished lineage, going as far back as Dante Alighieri’s On World Government, Rousseau’s A Project of Perpetual Peace and Kant’s proposal for a federation of nations operating under the rule of law, and eventually evolving into “a perfect civil union of mankind.” The League of Nations was a first attempt to pool national sovereignties together to deal with the problem of war, a milestone in a long process intended to strengthen the effectiveness of mechanisms of international cooperation. The UN was initially conceived as an international entity founded on federalist principles, with substantial powers to enact laws that would be binding on member states, but it emerged as a rather less ambitious entity with two fundamental flaws: the principle of one country–one vote in the General Assembly and the veto within the Security Council, both undermining the democratic legitimacy of the organization. The chapter also reviews the concerns raised by Grenville Clark and others who thought that if member countries could not agree upon well-defined powers that they would be willing to yield, no global authority adequate to maintain peace would arise in our time.

Chapter 8 examines presidential remarks concerning Court cases prior to the modern presidency. This chapter enables us to place modern presidents in historical perspective and to illuminate how constitutional and political concerns motivated early presidents to discuss Court decisions. We examine all presidential remarks related to Supreme Court cases from 1789 through 1953 (Washington to Truman). We show that historic presidents rarely discussed the Court’s cases in their public rhetoric, choosing instead to share their opinions about the Court’s cases in their private correspondences. However, Theodore Roosevelt’s tenure marked the end of this norm, which was eviscerated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was in regular conflict with the Court.

This introductory chapter describes the general theoretical relationship between war and the inclusion of marginalized groups, provides historical background on civil rights politics in the World War II era, and addresses several methodological and definitional issues.

This chapter gathers the evidence from the preceding chapters to offer a refinement of the more general theoretical relationship between war and the inclusion of marginalized groups based on this book's analysis of World War II and the response to black civil rights advocacy. The chapter then discusses questions that remain open for future scholarship, particularly possibilities that might arise from expanding the scope of the analysis to other political institutions and other marginalized groups. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the importance of studying war to better understand the outcomes of not just civil rights politics, but domestic political processes more generally.

This chapter examines the Roosevelt administration’s record on civil rights in the context of the Second World War. Relying on internal executive branch documents, as well as attempts by black newspapers to get the administration to comment on the Double-V campaign, the chapter demonstrates the White House’s familiarity with the Double-V rhetoric of civil rights activists, and frames this as part of a larger debate within the Roosevelt administration about whether to maintain a New Deal focus on social policy or focus almost entirely on the military aspects of World War II. The chapter then examines how wartime activism compelled Roosevelt to issue an executive order to combat defense industry discrimination, while similar efforts to integrate the armed forces proved unsuccessful.