Résumé: Au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, la nécessité de moderniser la politique d’immigration américaine fait l’unanimité, la principale loi régissant l’immigration datant de 1924. Cependant, la question des paramètres de la réforme fait naître un débat fortement polarisé. Les défenseurs du statu quo, qui souhaitent maintenir le système des quotas nationaux faisant de l’origine nationale le premier critère d’admission, auront initialement le dessus, comme en fait foi le passage du McCarran-Walter Act en 1952. D’autre part, les partisans d’une libéralisation affirment que cette loi restrictive et discriminatoire va à l’encontre des objectifs de la politique étrangère américaine, particulièrement dans un conflit aussi idéologiquement chargé que la Guerre Froide. Au courant des années cinquante et au début des années soixante, les réformateurs libéraux auront progressivement le dessus dans le débat, si bien qu’une nouvelle loi sera adoptée en 1965. Ce mémoire propose d’aborder cette période de réforme sous l’angle de l’opinion publique. À partir, des sources permettant de prendre le pouls de la société américaine au sujet de la politique d’immigration, il a été possible d’observer une libéralisation progressive de l’opinion publique durant la période. Dans le cadre de ce mémoire, l’interprétation de cette évolution est centrée sur l’influence grandissante des enjeux de la Guerre Froide dans le débat entourant la réforme. / Abstract: Following the Second World War, immigration policy became an important issue for the United States, as the main immigration law dated back to 1924. If the idea that immigration policy needed to be modernized was shared by most legislators, the debate over the adoption of a new law was fierce. Those who favoured a restrictive policy based on the reaffirmation of the national origins quota system, which made nationality the main criteria for admission, got their wish when the McCarran-Walter Act was enacted in 1952. On the other side of the debate, those who favoured liberalization saw the new law as discriminatory and harmful to American foreign policy objectives, particularly in the context of the ideologically charged Cold War. During the late fifties and early sixties, liberal reformers progressively gained the upper hand, and a new law was adopted in 1965. This study analyses how American public opinion reacted to the immigration policy reform debate. The study of primary sources reflecting the attitudes of the American public on immigration policy revealed that public opinion underwent a progressive liberalization during the era of reform. The interpretation of this liberalization is centered on the growing influence Cold War dynamics in the immigration reform debate.

At the turn of the twentieth century, apples served as a catalyst for far-reaching social and environmental change in the North American West. As people debated the future of North American society as a rural or urban civilization, rural advocates found their answer in horticulture. Steadfast in their conviction that urban environments were corrupt, immoral, and disordered, people on both sides of the international boundary engaged in a boisterous promotional campaign that culminated with the creation of an orcharding landscape that spanned British Columbia, Washington State, and Oregon. Consequently, countless communities found new purpose or came into existence organized around the cultivation of apples and other assorted fruits. Fully aware of negative stereotypes that depicted farming as backwards and unfulfilling, horticulturists argued that fruit farming would lead to the creation of a modern countryside. Guided by scientific agriculture, refined and intelligent settlers would transform rural life by uniting in partnership with “Dame Nature,” leading to bountiful harvests as nature was finished to its “intended end.” As a result, the orcharding landscape would organize an alternative modernity that stood in juxtaposition to the urban-industrial axis of development. Despite their location in different political projects, fruit farmers on either side of the International Boundary bore striking affinities that were affirmed and reinforced through publications, associations, exhibitions, and educational initiatives, underlining the significance of the border as a vantage to appreciate divisions as well as continuities. While the creation of a modern countryside was sustained by high hopes, growers did not anticipate that nature’s bounty would in many instances stand as a curse rather than a blessing. Through two world wars, growers wrestled with the changing contours of rural life, particularly as it related to rural growth. While orcharding endured, its original conception as the nucleus of a progressive and middle class rural society did not.

During the Great Depression, for the first time in its history, the federal government provided relief to the unemployed and destitute through myriad New Deal agencies. This dissertation examines how "general relief" (direct or "make-work") from federal programs—primarily the Emergency Relief and Construction Act (ERCA) and Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)—was acquired and administered by the government of Texas through state administrative agencies. These agencies included the Chambers of Commerce (1932-1933), Unofficial Texas Relief Commission (1933), Texas Rehabilitation and Relief Commission (1933), Official Texas Relief Commission (1933-1934), Texas Relief Commission Division of the State Board of Control (1934), and the Department of Public Welfare (1939). Overall, the effective administration of general relief in the Lone Star State was undermined by a political ideology that persisted from, and was embodied by, the "Redeemer" Constitution of 1876.

At the turn of the twentieth century, apples served as a catalyst for far-reaching social and environmental change in the North American West. As people debated the future of North American society as a rural or urban civilization, rural advocates found their answer in horticulture. Steadfast in their conviction that urban environments were corrupt, immoral, and disordered, people on both sides of the international boundary engaged in a boisterous promotional campaign that culminated with the creation of an orcharding landscape that spanned British Columbia, Washington State, and Oregon. Consequently, countless communities found new purpose or came into existence organized around the cultivation of apples and other assorted fruits. Fully aware of negative stereotypes that depicted farming as backwards and unfulfilling, horticulturists argued that fruit farming would lead to the creation of a modern countryside. Guided by scientific agriculture, refined and intelligent settlers would transform rural life by uniting in partnership with “Dame Nature,” leading to bountiful harvests as nature was finished to its “intended end.” As a result, the orcharding landscape would organize an alternative modernity that stood in juxtaposition to the urban-industrial axis of development. Despite their location in different political projects, fruit farmers on either side of the International Boundary bore striking affinities that were affirmed and reinforced through publications, associations, exhibitions, and educational initiatives, underlining the significance of the border as a vantage to appreciate divisions as well as continuities. While the creation of a modern countryside was sustained by high hopes, growers did not anticipate that nature’s bounty would in many instances stand as a curse rather than a blessing. Through two world wars, growers wrestled with the changing contours of rural life, particularly as it related to rural growth. While orcharding endured, its original conception as the nucleus of a progressive and middle class rural society did not.

En 1909, Léopold II décide, sans raison apparente, de vendre tous ses objets d'art sur le marché de l'art américain. Ce geste extraordinaire est sans doute lié à son opiniâtre volonté de prévoir pour son successeur un patrimoine dynastique. Empêché de le faire, il préfère tout vendre lui-même, y trouvant sans doute un certain plaisir car cet homme d'affaires est émoustillé par les prix faramineux que le marché américain offre à la veille de la Grande guerre. En outre, certaines pièces qu'il met en vente (c'est le cas de plusieurs tableaux) ont été abîmées par l'incendie du château de Laeken en 1890. Il aurait même vendu un faux, le Portrait de Duquesnoy par Van Dyck ... / Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Master of Arts / Department of History / Donald J. Mrozek / This thesis examines the internationalist message in news coverage and editorial commentary of a select group of American newspapers in the last throes and years immediately after World War I. Some historians have misinterpreted this period as a "return" to isolationist sentiments throughout America. However, the articles and editorials in these papers presented a message that America was still concerned with the happenings of the world and willing to participate in ascertaining solutions to the problems confronting Europeans as well as other peoples around the globe. The first chapter looks at the late stages of the war through the Senate's rejection of the Versailles Treaty. These papers initially presented a message of hope that the war could become the last war in history, spearheaded by President Wilson's Fourteen Point program. However, these hopes were dashed when the Fourteen Points were largely overlooked in the treaty. In the ensuing fight between the administration and the treaty's dissenters there were no threats of isolating the country from world affairs. According to these sources, those proposing reservations to the treaty were unwilling to commit the country to the League of Nations because they believed the League to be a permanent military alliance that violated the Constitution. The second chapter examines how the debate over the treaty and League membership became significant issues throughout 1920, reaching a climax with the presidential election in November. This section focuses on the coverage of Senator Harding's message of continued U.S. international participation throughout the campaign. The coverage from these papers regarding the international affairs of and events during the Harding administration is investigated in the final chapter. This chapter focuses heavily on the reactions to the Washington Conference of 1921-1922 which established international naval arms limitations. Harding and his policies enjoyed significant popular support from many of these papers because they believed he established a lasting peace. Throughout this period, the editorials and news coverage in these papers presented U.S. leaders as actively participating in global affairs rather than proposing the country step back from a leadership position in the world.

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Scholars of human rights and constitutional law have described in great detail the abuses perpetrated by the armed forces and secret services of the United States in the context of the ‘war on terror’. There is copious literature explaining why these violations of fundamental human rights are not justifiable, and why they are not consistent with international treaties or that nation’s constitution. This thesis builds upon this research, but strikes out in a new direction. It does so by asking whether these abuses, combined with the changes to the legal order of the United States that made them possible, have produced a qualitative transformation of its constitutional structure. In particular, this thesis tracks the empowering of the executive. Increasingly, whenever it purports to act in the interests of national security, the executive claims the authority to act unilaterally in a manner that overrides even non-derogable rights. These novel constitutional reserve powers, which this thesis demonstrates were derived from President Nixon’s theory of the executive, were used to justify indefinite arbitrary detention, torture, mass surveillance without warrants, and extra-judicial execution. This thesis seeks to determine if the constitutional crisis inaugurated by this theory of executive supremacy over the laws has been terminated, or whether it has continued into the Obama Administration. If this theory is current within the executive branch, and especially if the violations of jus cogens norms has continued, it signifies a cross-party consensus about a paradigm shift in American constitutionalism. Accordingly, given the fact that the abuse of executive supremacy is what led to the development of the rule of law, this thesis will ask the question of whether the United States is being governed in accordance with its basic minimum norms. This thesis explores whether the executive is still subject to checks and balances from the legislature and the judiciary, such that it cannot violate non-derogable rights at will and with impunity. If the contrary proposition is true, it demonstrates that the crisis of the rule of law in the United States is ongoing, and this permanent state of exception demands significantly more scholarly attention. / Public, Constitutional, and International Law / LLD

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