Following his election to the office of President of the United States, in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his attempt to overcome the economic difficulties caused by the depression of 1929. His program for recovery included the enactment by Congress of many new pieces of legistlation. A great amount of this legislation was ruled out by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. Subsequently, the President on February 5, 1937, presented a proposal to alter the court system of the United States. This proposal brought forth a surge of public opinion throughout the nation. Sharp divisions of opinion occurred concerning the merits of the President's suggested reform The purpose of this study to dermine, (1) the reactions of the electorate to the proposal; (2) the reactions of the various agencies of public opinion; (3) wheather these agency reactions were cuases or effects of public feeling; (4) the importance of public opinion in such a matter.

The essential problem of politics are ancient general, and persistent. A particular political system, such as that of the United States, can be interpreted as a way of coping with recurring problems. Some of the ways a political system deals with problems may be unique, some commonplace. Because it meets its problems in a particular time and place with a special body of past experiences to go on, each political system is unique; so too the American system is unique. But because some problems have recurred ever since civilized men have tried to live together, every political system has had to deal with enduring dilemmas. Its solutions may be unique, the basic questions are not. The focus of this paper is directed toward one particular problem -- the issue of conflict and consensus, political power and political order, in a changing democratic society with politics seen as the means whereby the community balances the tension between conflict and consensus. The American ancestors chose to live in a community, with its numerous and obvious advantages. But, when strong human beings seek the company of one another, conflict seems to be an inescapable aspect of community and hence of the human condition. While conflict has been the focus of attention by many -- philosophers, historians, social scientists, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke -- it is James Madison who perhaps more than any other single individual gave shape to American conflict in his modeling the American constitutional system. He held the conflict is built into the very nature of man, and thus a system must be devised through which it is channeled and controlled. Conflict and consensus, among other things, involve the interaction of power, order, liberty, and flexibility. It is to the Age of Jackson and the political philosophies promulgated by the founding fathers, that this research turns to gain an insight into how "factions" are channeled and controlled in the United States -- to gain insight into basic pluralistic political patterns of the United States.

Early voting studies before television predominance determined that mass media had a "limited effect" on American voting behavior. This work reassesses the limited-effects notion. The thesis is that the mass media do have significant impact on voting decisions. A trend study, the work utilizes the Center for Political Studies national presidential election surveys 1952-1976, and multiple regression analysis to examine the impact of media, social, and political variables on the dependent variable, time of voting decision.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)

The purpose of this paper is to examine, from a local perspective, the reaction of the southern conservative wing of the Democratic party to the liberal changes which occurred in that organization as a result of the transitional decades of the 1930s and 1940s. In particular, the study focuses on the growing sense of alienation and the eventual withdrawal of a handful of Texas Democrats from affiliation with the national body and their subsequent realignment with other dissident Dixie Democrats in the short-lived States' Rights party of 1948. This work is based essentially on the personal recollections of Texans who participated in the States' Rights movement and on those papers of the party's leaders which have survived until today.

On 23 April 1964, five months after assuming the office of President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson launched the "More Flags" program as United States policy. While the publicly stated purpose of.the "More Flags" program was to obtain as much non-military free world aid for the Republic of Vietnam as possible, the program's principle goal centered around Lyndon Johnson's desire to obtain an international consensus for America's policies toward Vietnam and Southeast Asia. The "More Flags" program continued to serve both goals for the remainder of Johnson's presidency. Although started with high expectations of success, the "More Flags" program never succeeded in achieving the levels of international cooperation Lyndon Johnson desired. In fact, the program's significant lack of success necessitated a number of changes, during the program's first year, in both its stated goals and in the methods used to prosecute it's implementation. The most important of these changes would be Washington's use of the program's beneficent objectives to mask it's use as the means through which the United States would purchase mercenary troops to fight in South Vietnam. "Mercenaries in Service to America: The 'More Flags' Foreign Policy of the United States," presents the available history of the "More Flags" program during the years of the Johnson Presidency, with an emphasis on the documentation of the program's use as a disguise for America's obtaining mercenary forces from the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand. The non-mercenary troop contributions from Australia and New Zealand are likewise examined. The majority of documentary evidence comes from the original sources documents in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This research project proposes to try to isolate and measure the influence of “regime fatigue” on gubernatorial elections and senatorial elections in the United States where there is no incumbent running. The research begins with a review of the negativity effect and its potential influence on schema-based impression forming by voters. Applicable literature on the topics of social clustering and homophily is then highlighted as it provides the vehicle through which the negativity effect disseminates across collections of socially-clustered individuals and ultimately contributes to changing tides of public opinion despite the fact that the political party identification can remain relatively fixed in the aggregate.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / After governing Indiana during the Civil War, Oliver P. Morton acquired great national influence as a Senator from 1867 to 1877 during Reconstruction. He advocated for African American suffrage and proper remembrance of the Union cause. When he died in 1877, political colleagues, family members, and many Union veterans recalled Morton’s messages and used the occasion to reflect on the nation’s memories of the Civil War and Reconstruction. This thesis examines Indiana’s Governor and Senator Oliver P. Morton, using his postwar speeches, public commentary during and after his life, and the public testimonials and monuments erected in his memory to analyze his role in defining Indiana’s historical memories of the Civil War and Reconstruction from 1865 to 1907. The eulogies and monument commemoration ceremonies reveal the important reciprocal relationship between Morton and Union veterans, especially Indiana members of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). As the GAR’s influence increased during the nineteenth century, Indiana members used Morton’s legacy and image to promote messages of patriotism, national unity, and Union pride. The monuments erected in Indianapolis and Washington, D. C., reflect Indiana funders’ desire to remember Morton as a Civil War Governor and to use his image to reinforce viewers’ awareness of the sacrifices and results of the war. This thesis explores how Morton’s friends, family, political colleagues, and influential members of the GAR emphasized Morton’s governorship to use his legacy as a rallying point for curating and promoting partisan memories of the Civil War and, to a lesser extent, Reconstruction, in Indiana.

Despite the amount of scholarship on the Stamp Act Crisis, no study has used advertisements as a main source. This study attempts to show that a valuable, objective source has been overlooked, through the quantitative analysis of 5,810 advertisements before, during and after the Stamp Act Crisis from five port cities: Boston, Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, and Portsmouth. The findings reveal the colonists' strong connection to imported British luxury goods, and a lack of interest in American-made goods, especially before and after the boycott. Advertisements also demonstrate that the decision of many merchants to place the needs and expectations of their community before their own personal gain offered a rare economic opportunity for others. The colonists' devotion to imports tested the strength of the boycott, especially among Boston merchants, who continued to advertise imported goods a good deal more than any other city. This lack of dedication to the boycott on the part of the Boston merchants shows disunity among the colonies, at a time when many argue was the first instance of colonial nationalism. Capitalism challenged and undermined a commitment to communal sentiments such as nationalism. Moreover, if Americans did share a sense of nationhood during the Stamp Act Crisis, it cannot be gauged by a rejection of "Englishness."

This work examines the actions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first year of the Korean War. Officially created in 1947, the Joint Chiefs saw their first true test as an institution during the conflict. At various times, the members of the JCS failed to issue direct orders to their subordinate, resulting in a divide between the wishes of President Truman and General MacArthur over the conduct of the war. By analyzing the interaction between the Joint Chiefs and General Douglas MacArthur, the flaws of both the individual Chiefs as well as the organization as a whole become apparent. The tactical and strategic decisions faced by the JCS are framed within the three main stages of the Korean War.