This study focuses on Claude D. Pepper's senatorial career from 1936 through 1950. He came to the Senate as a supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, and, throughout his fourteen years in Congress, remained a committed liberal. Along with contemporary liberal politicians from the South such as Alabama Congressman Carl Elliott, Senator and later Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, and Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, Pepper supported an expansive role for the state in areas like health care, education, and regulation of the economy in solving the country's political, social, and economic problems. Yet, while he adhered to a position of federal activism on a broad range of interests, for the most part, he excluded racial justice from his agenda. In addition, Pepper challenged President Harry S. Truman's foreign policy. He believed that the Big Three wartime alliance--United States, Great Britain, Soviet Union--must continue into the post-war years in order to maintain peace. / The first chapter details Pepper's developing liberalism as a student at the University of Alabama and Harvard Law school. Chapter Two presents Pepper's rise to the Senate within the context of Florida politics and the national New Deal. In Chapter Three Pepper's reaction to fascism in Europe and Japanese imperialism in Asia is analyzed. He led the Senate in preparing the country for participation in World War II through his early involvement in formulating the Lend-Lease policy. Chapter Four describes Pepper's attempts to secure the New Deal during wartime. The fifth chapter traces Pepper's increasingly critical stands against Truman's confrontational policy toward the Soviet Union. The sixth and seventh chapters analyze Pepper's ties to Communism, ambivalence toward the emerging civil rights movement, and his challenge to Truman for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1948. Chapter Eight describes Pepper's defeat by George A. Smathers in the Florida Democratic Senatorial Primary of 1950. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-04, Section: A, page: 1497. / Major Professor: William W. Rogers. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77401 |
| Contributors | Kabat, Ric A., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 376 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
Page generated in 0.0022 seconds