John F. Kennedy: Politics of the 35th President of the United States

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John F. Kennedy: Politics of the 35th President of the United States
John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Picture: biography.com
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Reformism in the politics of the US ruling class first manifested itself most clearly in the 1930s. The coming to power in 1933 of the Democratic Party, led by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, marked a turn in both domestic and US foreign policy. The “New Deal” included the strengthening of industry through state support for the largest monopolies and the development of large-scale state construction.

Under pressure from workers, laws have been passed that prohibit child labor, establish the length of the working week and minimum wages. In 1935, the “Wagner Labor Relations Act” was adopted, and in 1938 the law on “fair employment of labor.” Public works were expanded to save the starving army of the unemployed. In 1935, for the first time, a law on social insurance for unemployment and old age was adopted. These acts were often violated and circumvented, but their birth was a major victory for the working class. The pressure of reaction intensified during the Cold War in the late 1940s. XX century.

The Labor Relations Act of 1935 recognized the right of workers to form trade unions, hold strikes in defense of their interests, and conclude collective agreements with enterprises. The law prohibited businesses from violating these rights, interfering in the internal affairs of trade unions, and discriminating against their members in hiring and firing.

Restriction of unions

In 1947, the so-called. “Taft-Hartley Act”, which sharply limited the rights of trade unions. The House Un-American Activities Committee and the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Commission launched a campaign against progressive figures and organizations.

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A subcommittee of the commission of the House of Representatives on labor and education took up the progressive workers of the trade unions. In addition to them, the 33rd US President Harry Truman, who succeeded the deceased President Roosevelt, created the Loyalty Review Commission. A black list of 122 organizations was announced, belonging to which was considered as disloyalty to the state. In 1950, the “Maccaren Law” was passed, directed against left-wing parties and similar organizations.

D. D. Eisenhower’s laws

The Basic Laws passed during the administration of Dwight David Eisenhower (1953-1960) were intended to limit workers’ rights in some way. Of these, two should be noted: the Control of Communists Act of 1954 and the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959

The first outlawed the Communist Party: the Communists were deprived of the right to be in the civil service, work in military factories and travel abroad. The rule of law and control over the Communist Party extended to both organizations and trade unions, if communists were found in their ranks. The second law was passed as an addition to the Taft-Hartley law and further limited the rights of trade unions. In addition, he reaffirmed the ban on communists from holding leadership positions in trade unions.

McCarthyism

The most characteristic phenomenon for the inner life of this period was the so-called. “McCarthyism” is a widely prepared offensive by ultra-right forces against the rights of American workers and supporters of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Senator McCarthy’s attempts to intervene in the affairs of the Eisenhower government ended in defeat.

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The majority of the ruling class, which did not object to the persecution of the progressive forces of the country, did not see the need to break the existing system of government. The US ruling circles, supported by the growing resistance to McCarthyism on the part of trade unions and liberal-progressive organizations, gave up, condemning Senator McCarthy himself. As a concession to the right, the Un-American Activities Investigation Commission was retained and a series of anti-working class laws passed.

JFK comes to power

Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy came to power in 1961 through the very coalition that made it possible for Franklin Roosevelt to win the US presidential election four times, and under the slogans of continuing the course in domestic politics, last held in the 30s and 40s of the last century.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Picture: magnumphotos.com

But popular support this time was incomparably less. F. Roosevelt defeated his Republican opponent in 1932 by a margin of 7 million votes, Kennedy in 1960 by only 113,000.

As in the days of Roosevelt, the programs of the Democratic and Republican parties in 1960 differed on a number of fundamental issues. In particular, the approach to such problems as the pace of economic development, the role of the state in the country’s economy, and the attitude towards the working class was different.

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The Democrats advocated further centralization of state power, more active state intervention in the economy and outlined an increase in economic growth by 5% per year. Republicans, for their part, although they supported the idea of ​​accelerating the pace, but without government intervention, but only with the help of “free market play.” In addition, they opposed the strengthening of the federal government and for the strengthening of the power and rights of the states. The Democratic Party promised to raise the minimum wage, repeal parts of the Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin laws, improve nursing care, and so on.

The idea of ​​accelerated economic development of the country and the promise of the Democrats attracted the voices of working people in the main industrial states and large cities, with the help of which Kennedy entered the White House. From that moment on, the democratic party began the stage of bourgeois reformism, with the aim of ensuring the predominance of the ideas of “class peace” in the sphere of the working classes.

The Kennedy administration directed all its efforts towards overcoming the economic stagnation of 1960-1961 and its consequences. It stimulated investment, encouraged new construction, and launched scientific research.

First steps

The efforts of the Kennedy government, which coincided with the trends in the development of the economy, led to the fact that the stagnation was overcome at the very beginning of the new president’s activity. Despite visible achievements, the policy of extensive government intervention in the economy caused criticism and opposition from some of the monopolies, who do not understand the urgent need to strengthen state support and regulation of business and the emergence of new forms of government participation in the country’s economy.

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The Kennedy administration pursued many measures whose true class meaning was not understood by most economic and financial power holders, such as increasing the number of antitrust investigations, meddling in price policy, restricting the export of capital, attempts to reduce the number of loopholes for evasion from paying taxes. In addition, from their point of view, raising the minimum wage, improving health and welfare, education, training and retraining at the expense of the state, increasing unemployment benefits – all this was an excess, a waste of public funds, a harmful concession that corrupts the masses.

Dissatisfaction with Kennedy’s policies on the part of individual monopoly groups was sometimes so strong that it led to a break in their relationship with the government. Thus, the Business Council, an advisory body to the Department of Commerce, consisting of entrepreneurs and financiers, severed its relationship with the government as a protest against its “anti-entrepreneurial” policy and began to operate further as an organization independent of the government. Relations with steel and oil tycoons became especially aggravated.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Picture: Picturemakersllc | Dreamstime

The former, under pressure from Kennedy, were forced to abandon the increase in the price of steel, which they had already announced; Raising the minimum wage and extending it to a new contingent of workers hurt the interests of the entrepreneurs of the South, limiting part of their profits from exploiting the country’s cheapest labor force.

First failures

Kennedy, beginning his career as president, repeatedly appealed to that part of the monopoly circles that were dissatisfied with him, calling for the need for cooperation. However, full contact with this part of the circles did not work out. Three years later, Kennedy noted bitterly: “Now that … corporate profits, net of taxes, have reached a record amount and are about 43% higher than three years ago, business people still suspect us of being against private arrived”.

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Dissatisfaction with domestic policy was also growing among the working people. Despite a significant rise in production, the number of unemployed continued to be high. The Democratic government also failed to deliver on its party’s main election promise to change some sections of the anti-worker laws, even though the president brought the matter before Congress. The main reason for the failure of the president’s proposal was that it did not correspond to the guidelines of the main part of the ruling class, and the trade unions did not organize any energetic and wide-ranging struggle against anti-worker laws that could force big business to make concessions. Played a role and the dominance of the Republican coalition in Congress.

A number of other bills introduced by the Kennedy government, including redevelopment of chronically unemployed areas, increased spending on public works, retraining of the workforce, and medical care for the elderly, were either rejected by Congress or had their appropriations cut. During his lifetime, no measures were taken to alleviate the plight of African Americans. Although the events of 1963 forced the Kennedy government to enter Congress twice with a proposal to pass a law on their civil rights.

Disagreements with trade unions

During the Kennedy presidency, only a law was signed to increase the minimum wage to $ 1.25 per hour and extend it to another 3.5 million people (until 1961, the minimum wage applied to 24 million workers). In addition, to alleviate the situation of the unemployed, the Democratic government has implemented a temporary increase in the period for receiving benefits from 26 to 39 weeks. A law on benefits for unemployed families with children has been adopted. Along with such measures, the Kennedy government continued to pursue a “hard line” against workers.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Picture: thoughtco.com

Kennedy opposed union demands for a shorter workweek and actively intervened in business-union relations. Thus, the President applied the Taft-Hartley Act against striking sailors who demanded the elimination of discrimination on American ships flying the flags of other countries, and disrupted their strike. In 1962, the Kennedy government forbade employers from entering into a collective agreement with the union of miners and smelters on the pretext that the union was allegedly infiltrated by the Communists. At his suggestion, in 1963, Congress passed a law on compulsory government arbitration in rail transport to disrupt the strike of railroad workers.

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The Kennedy government insistently demanded more accommodating unions, threatening otherwise to support the new anti-worker bills that were submitted to Congressional committees by the dozens. In order to undermine the morale of the workers and make them more accommodating in the negotiations on the conclusion of collective agreements, Kennedy actively promoted the creation of a system of “Committees of Human Relations” between employers and workers.

A tragic end

The policy of President Kennedy caused criticism and discontent, both from a significant part of the monopoly business, and from the working people.

Kennedy understood that in the upcoming 1964 elections, he would face the task of changing the attitude of the majority of voters towards him and reducing the number of dissatisfied people to a minimum. This task was all the more difficult because in the 1960 elections, 28 states gave their electoral votes to Republican candidate Nixon and only 22 voted for Kennedy.

Kennedy saw the way out of this situation and the path to gaining popularity in accelerating the pace of economic development, one of the main incentives of which he considered the reduction of income tax on personal income and corporate income. But all his plans and calculations remained unfinished. Shots in Dallas ended the life of the 35th President of the United States in November 1963.
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