Fair Deal

The Fair Deal was the slogan that President Harry Truman applied to the 21-point program that he presented to Congress on September 5, 1945, to convert the economy from wartime to peacetime status. The message to Congress emphasized passage of the Full Employment Act to provide jobs for U.S. servicemen and servicewomen returning from World War II. When Congress passed the Employment Act of 1946 (dropping “Full” from the title), it converted the measure from a guarantee of employment into a bill creating an economic advisory system for the President.

In 1949, after winning reelection, Truman presented a State of the Union address that again referred to a Fair Deal program. He called for protecting the civil rights of black Americans by establishing a fair employment commission. He also proposed federal aid to education, more funding for public housing, national health insurance, an expansion of Social Security benefits, an increase in the minimum wage, new land reclamation and public power programs, and a program of technical assistance to underdeveloped nations.

See also Truman, Harry S.

Sources

• Alonzo Hamby, Beyond the New Deal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973)

Fair Deal was the phrase adopted by President Harry S. Truman to characterize the program of domestic legislation his administration sought to pass through Congress. In September 1945 Truman sent to Congress a twenty-one point program, based in part on the Democratic platform of 1944. The Fair Deal called for a full-employment law, the permanent establishment of the Fair Employment Practices Committee, and progressive legislation on housing, health insurance, aid to education, atomic energy, and the development of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Congress passed the Employment Act of 1946, which established the Council of Economic Advisers, but Republican victories in the 1946 midterm congressional elections blocked further passage of Fair Deal legislation. In 1948 Truman defeated the Republican candidate, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, and Democrats recaptured control of Congress. In his annual message to Congress in January 1949, during which he coined the phrase "Fair Deal," Truman asked for laws on housing, full employment, higher minimum wages, better price supports for farmers, more organizations like the Tennessee Valley Authority, the extension of social security, and fair employment practices. Congress responded by passing a slum clearance act, raising the minimum wage, and extending social security benefits to 10 million more people. The coming of the Korean War in June 1950 and a general prosperity lessened interest in the Fair Deal program, but many of Truman's social welfare proposals—as well as his proposals for the development of atomic energy and the St. Lawrence Seaway, for example—were legislated in subsequent administrations.

Bibliography

Hamby, Alonzo L. Beyond the New Deal: Harry S. Truman and American Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973.

McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.

—Vincent C. Hopkins/A. G.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: fair treatment
  Synonym: square deal

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