Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T11:42:06.377Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Buying Our Boys Back”: The Mass Foundations of Fiscal Citizenship in World War II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

James T. Sparrow
James T. Sparrow
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Just after 8:00 in the morning on Tuesday, September 21, 1943, the singer and radio star Kate Smith addressed her national audience with a personal story that set the tone for the marathon bond drive she would conduct over the next eighteen hours. In her usual self-effacing manner, she began by recounting the words of a man whose speech at a recent bond rally in Utica, New York, held special meaning for her audience:

You know, friends, when we buy War Bonds, we're not buying tanks and guns and shells and planes. What we're really doing is buying our boys back … bringing them home to us, safe and sound once again. Now I know there isn't a person listening to me who wouldn't give everything he has to buy his boy back. … I'd give anything … all my money, or my health, or my own life … to buy my boy back from the War. But I'm afraid I can't do that now. You see, I got a telegram from Washington this morning. My boy isn't coming back.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , April 2008 , pp. 263 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. “Kate Smith, First Spot on the Network,” Tuesday, 21 September 1943, typed transcript, 4–5. In Kate Smith Bond Drive Records (B-0200), Bureau of Applied Social Research (basr), Columbia University [hereafter cited as Smith basr recs]; Merton, Robert K., Mass Persuasion: The Social Psychology of a War Bond Drive (New York, 1946) 3, 60–64.Google Scholar

2. Spot 7, Smith basr recs. Confirmed as most influential in Merton, Mass Persuasion, 53 n.7.

3. Spot 6, Smith basr recs; Merton, Mass Persuasion, 52–53.

4. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, D.C., 1975)Google Scholar, Series F1, Y457 [hereafter cited as Hist. Stat. U.S.]. The starting point for any history of this regime is Brownlee, W. Elliot, Federal Taxation in America: A Short History, 2d ed. (Cambridge, 2004)Google Scholar; and Brownlee, , ed., Funding the Modern American State: The Rise and Fall of the Era of Easy Finance (Cambridge, 1996)Google Scholar, esp. chaps. 1 and 2. See also Stein, Herbert, The Fiscal Revolution in America (Chicago, 1969; 2d rev. ed. Washington, D.C., 1996)Google Scholar; Witte, John F., The Politics and Development of the Federal Income Tax (Madison, 1985)Google Scholar; Sparrow, Bartholomew, From the Outside In: World War II and the American State (Princeton, 1996)Google Scholar; Morse, Jarvis M., “Paying for a World War: The United States Financing of World War II,” manuscript (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Treasury Library, 1975)Google Scholar; Vatter, Harold, The U.S. Economy in World War II (New York, 1985)Google Scholar; Zelizer, Julian, Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress, and the State, 1945–1975 (Cambridge, 1998).Google Scholar

5. My approach to resource extraction emphasizes the centrality of what Margaret Levi calls ruler credibility and taxpayer expectations of equal cooperation (i.e., equity), rather than treating them as mere constraints on rulers' designs; see her Of Rule and Revenue (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988), 52–67.Google ScholarPubMed

6. Jones, Carolyn C., “Mass-Based Income Taxation: Creating a Taxpaying Culture, 1940–1952,” in Funding the Modern American State, 1941–1995: The Rise and Fall of the Era of Easy Finance, ed. Brownlee, W. Elliot (Cambridge, 1996)Google Scholar; Samuel, Lawrence R., Pledging Allegiance: American Identity and the Bond Drive of World War II (Washington, D.C., 1997)Google Scholar; and Kessler-Harris, Alice, In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th-Century America (New York, 2001)Google Scholar, chap. 4. See also Blum, John M., V Was for Victory (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; and Brinkley, Alan, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (New York, 1995)Google Scholar.

7. Westbrook, Robert, Why We Fought: Forging American Obligations in World War II (Washington, D.C., 2004)Google Scholar; Leff, Mark H., “The Politics of Sacrifice on the American Home Front in World War II,” Journal of American History 77 (03 1991): 1296–1318Google Scholar. See also Brinkley, End of Reform; Nelson Lichtenstein, chap. 6, Labor's War at Home: The CIO in World War II (Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar; and Young, Roland, intro., 6, Congressional Politics in the Second World War (New York, 1956).Google Scholar

8. Susman, Warren I., Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1984), 122–210.Google Scholar

9. On the mutually constitutive nature of obligation and entitlement in forging citizenship, see Kerber, Linda, No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship (New York, 1998).Google Scholar

10. B. Sparrow, From the Outside In, esp. chap. 4.

11. Hist. Stat. U.S., A6, D1, Y393–5, Y403.

12. Total wartime taxes in Vatter, The U.S. Economy in World War II. Other numbers are from Hist. Stat. U.S., F1, F8, Y359.

13. In 1944 the Income Tax Unit examined about 2.5 million tax returns (from a total of 47.1 million filed); of those, 473,166 received a full audit. See the U.S. Office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Annual Report for 1944 (Washington, D.C., 1945), 19.Google ScholarPubMed

14. Hist. Stat. U.S., Y394–401, Y403; B. Sparrow, From the Outside In, 136, table 4.3.

15. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Annual Report for 1950 (Washington, D.C., 1951), 483, table 7.Google ScholarPubMed

16. “Pretest Results on Form 1040A Income and Victory Tax,” Special Memorandum no. 91, 13 October 1943, 4; “Pretest Results on Four Proposed 1040A Income Tax Blanks,” Special Memorandum no. 101, 23 January 1944, 22–4; in boxes 1798 and 1803, Records of the Office of War Information (owi), stored in the records of the Office of Government Records, RG 44, National Archives—College Park [hereafter cited as owi, box 1798, 1803].

17. Jones, Carolyn C., “Split Income and Separate Spheres: Tax Law and Gender Roles in the 1940s,” Law and History Review 6 (Fall 1988): 259–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity, chap. 4.

18. Jones, “Mass-Based Income Taxation,” 107–10.

19. Stein, Herbert, The Fiscal Revolution in America (Chicago, 1969; 2d rev. ed. Washington, D.C., 1996), chaps. 8–9, esp. 169–70, 180–82, 220–32Google Scholar; see also B. Sparrow, From the Outside In, 98.

20. Hist. Stat. U.S., F1, Y493.

21. Blum, V Was for Victory, 16–21.

22. Samuel, Lawrence R., Pledging Allegiance: American Identity and the Bond Drive of World War II (Washington, D.C., 1997), chap. 1, esp. 30–31.Google Scholar

23. Average tax payments were $332 in 1943 and $341 in 1945; B. Sparrow, From the Outside In, 137. Minute Man 5.11 (February 1946): 6.

24. Hist. Stat. U.S. F553.

25. Samuels, Pledging Allegiance, chap. 3; B. Sparrow, From the Outside In, chap. 4, esp. 114–18.

26. Jones, “Mass-Based Income Taxation.”

27. Converse, Jean M., Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence, 1890–1960 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), 72–73, 154–74.Google Scholar

28. Patterns in all six drives analyzed in “Appraisal of the Victory Loan Drive,” Program Surveys Report no. 41, March 1946, 11–12, tables 3 and 3a, in box 22, Historical Files, 1941–69, Savings Bond Division, Office of the National Director, General Record of the Department of the Treasury, RG 56, National Archives—College Park [hereafter cited as BAE Report no. 41].

29. “Appraisal of the Victory Loan Drive,” 13–15, tables 4, 4a, 5, 5a.

30. Cantril, Hadley, ed., Public Opinion 1935–46 (Princeton, 1951), items 64, 76, 92, 320–21, 323.Google Scholar

31. Sparrow, James T., ‘Fighting over the American Soldier: Moral Economy and National Citizenship in World War II,” Ph.D. diss. (Brown University, 2002), 369.Google Scholar

32. “Bond Redemptions in March, 1944,” Program Surveys Study 93–I, 7 April 1944, 1, 2, 11; “Factors Involved in Plans to Pay Income Taxes in 1943,” Program Surveys Memo by Gould, 12 January 1943, 6–7, both in box 1, Dorwin Philip Cartwright MS, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

33. See the discussion of “earmarking” described in Zelizer, Viviana, The Social Meaning of Money: Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief, and Other Currencies (Princeton, 1997), 6–30Google Scholar. Lichtenstein, Nelson, The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor (New York, 1995), chap. 10.Google Scholar

34. Calder, Lendol, Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit (Princeton, 1999), 18–22, 274–91.Google Scholar

35. Education Section, U.S. Savings Bonds Division, School Savings in Action (U.S. Treasury handbook, n.d. [1943]). Equipment was so central to promotions that the Treasury kept an accurate price list for munitions, vehicles, vessels, etc., in “War Finance Program— Background” folder, box 30, Odegard MS [hereafter cited as Odegard MS]. On bombers named after cities, see Ted Gamble to Morgenthau, 7 May 1942, Morgenthau Diaries, vol. 525, p. 47 [hereafter cited as Morgenthau Diaries, 525:47]. Both collections are in the FDR Library, Hyde Park.

36. During the war, employment levels approached 100 percent, real wages rose by one-third, and personal consumption rose by 15 percent, despite shortages.

37. “A Case Book on the Ten Percent Plan,” [31 August 1942], “Payroll Savings Promotion” folder, box 19, Odegard MS.

38. “Personal Solicitation in the Third War Loan,” n.d., 11–12, in folder “Advertising: Third War Loan—Personal Solicitation—1943,” box 9; –A Case Book on the Ten Percent Plan,” both in Odegard MS.

39. Minutes, 10 March 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, 615:150.

40. “An Appraisal of the Third War Loan Drive, Part IV: Solicitation in the Third War Loan,” BAE Report no. 19, 7 December 1943, 2–3; “Appraisal of the Victory Loan Drive,” 8–9, tables 1 and 1a.

41. Merton, Mass Persuasion, chaps. 2–6.

42. Westbrook, Why We Fought, chap. 3.

43. Merton, Mass Persuasion, appendix C, pp. 200, 201, tables I–A, I–B.

44. Quoted in “Size,” 21 November 1944, 2, Smith basr recs.

45. Merton, Mass Persuasion, 79–89, 94–96, 101–2 (chart III), 146–52.

46. Interview transcript no. 022, 3, answer to question 14, Smith basr recs. Merton, Mass Persuasion, 111, determined that 63 out of 75 interviews displayed such deep involvement.

47. Merton, Mass Persuasion, 45–54.

48. “Appraisal of the Victory Loan Drive,” 16–17, tables 6 and 6a.

49. Merton, Mass Persuasion, 112–13, 137–38.

50. Interview transcript, “non-buyer 101,” 1, question 3, Smith basr recs. Emphasis in the original.

51. Ibid., 6, “free answer.”

52. Transcript of radio address in Randolph Paul to Morgenthau, 17 March 1943, Morgenthau Diaries 617:83.

53. Fireside chat 8 September 1943, in FDR's Fireside Chats, ed. Buhite, Russell D. and Levy, David W. (Norman, Okla., 1992), 270Google Scholar; On FDR as the “great white father,” see Gerstle, Gary, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, 2001), chaps. 4–5.Google Scholar

54. Reprinted in Lawrence and Cornelia Levine, The People and the President: America's Conversation with FDR (Boston, 2002), 460.Google Scholar

55. Cantril, , ed., Public Opinion, 1935–1946, p. 311Google Scholar, item 2; see also p. 314, items 5, 7, 9.

56. Leff, “The Politics of Sacrifice”; Lichtenstein, Labor's War at Home, chap. 6.

57. Reprinted in Levine and Levine, The People and the President, 466–67.

58. Frank Martel, Editor, AFL Daily News, Labor Temple, Detroit, to Clyde Hart, owi, 17 November 1943, 1–2, in owi, box 1747.

59. Harry B. Winkeler, St. Louis Labor Tribune, to Clyde Hart, owi, 16 November 1943, 1–2, in owi, box 1748.

60. Campbell, Andrea Louise and Morgan, Kimberly J., “Financing the Welfare State: Elite Politics and the Decline of the Social Insurance Model in America,” Studies in American Political Development 19 (Fall 2005): 173–195Google Scholar; Morgan, , “Financing the Welfare State: U.S. Tax Politics in Comparative Perspective,” paper presented at RC-19,8 September 2005Google Scholar; Steinmo, Sven, Taxation and Democracy: Swedish, British, and American Approaches to Financing the Modern State (New Haven, 1993).Google Scholar

61. Kennedy, David M., Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York, 1999).Google Scholar

62. See, e.g., “Income and Savings in Buffalo,” BAE Report no. 1, 22 August 1942, 13.

63. “Appraisal of the Sixth War Loan, Part II: Identification and Motivation,” BAE Report no. 32, 1 February 1945, 2; “Appraisal of the Victory Loan Drive,” 13, tables 4 and 4a.

64. “Attitudes toward Income Taxes,” Special Memo no. 67, 10 July 1943, esp. 8, 10, owi, box 1802.

65. Blum, V Was for Victory, 92–100; Hist. Stat. U.S., F543, G416; Vatter, The U.S. Economy in World War II, 108, chart 6.2, 138–42.

66. Buhite and Levy, FDR's Fireside Chats, 288–89; Sunstein, Cass, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever (New York, 2004)Google Scholar; J. Sparrow, “Fighting over the American Soldier,” 320–22.

67. “The Sale of War Bonds in Urban Areas,” BAE Report no. 12, 4 June 1943, 6–7, tables 3–4.

68. “Reasons People Give For and Against Buying Bonds,” BAE Report no. 11, 3 June 1943, 16.

69. Morse, “Paying for a World War,” 170.

70. “The Buying of War Bonds and Stamps,” Study 55, 9 October 1942, 1, owi, box 1784A.

71. “The Buying of War Bonds and Stamps,” 2; 10 percent goal among the wealthy corroborated in Merton, Mass Persuasion, 112–13. “Participation in the War Savings Program: Public Attitudes with Respect to Spending or Saving,” BAE Report no. 4, 29 December 1942.

72. Hist. Stat. U.S., E135.

73. Jacobs, Meg, “‘How About Some Meat?’: The Office of Price Administration, Consumption Politics, and State Building from the Bottom Up, 1941–1946,” Journal of American History 84 (12 1997): 910–941Google Scholar; and Jacobs, , Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth Century America (Princeton, 2005), chaps. 5–6.Google Scholar

74. U.S. Treasury, Annual Report for 1950 (Washington, D.C., 1951), 561, table 30Google ScholarPubMed; Hist. Stat. U.S., F1, F3, F5.

75. Survey Research Center, Foreign Aff airs Study, June 1951, Study no. ICPSR-7219, var 10 [electronic file, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research <http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/>]; Hist. Stat. U.S. F1, Y493.

76. Jones, Carolyn C., “Vivien Kellems and the Folkways of Taxation,” in Total War and the Law: The American Home Front in World War II, ed. Ernst, Daniel R. and Jew, Victor (Westport, Conn., 2002), 121–148.Google Scholar

77. Cantril, , ed., Public Opinion 1935–1946, 321–323 items 76, 89, 92.Google Scholar

78. Graetz, Michael J., The Decline (and Fall?) of the Income Tax (New York, 1997), 3.Google Scholar

79. USORC.55SEP, R31 (Opinion Research Corporation, July 1955); USORC.54SEP, R17 (Opinion Research Corporation, September 1954) corroborates with almost identical responses (44% said unfair “because favored some groups too much,” 35% said fair, 20% had no opinion). On the relative importance of taxes, see question ID USGALLUP.50–460, QTP03A (5%, Gallup, August 1950); USGALLUP.50–461, QK04A (10%, Gallup, September 1950); USGALLUP.50–461, QK04A (10%, Gallup, September 1950); USGALLUP.52–488, Q03B (3%, Gallup, March 1952); USGALLUP.52–495, Q03 (6%, Gallup, July 1952); USGALLUP.54–528, QK03 (3%, Gallup, March 1954); USGALLUP.060454, RK23B (4%, Gallup, June 1954); USORC.54SEP, R04 (3%, Opinion Research Corporation, September 1954); USORC.55SEP, R57 (8%, Opinion Research Corporation, September 1955) [Public Opinion Online, Roper Center, University of Connecticut, via lexis-nexis <http://web.lexis-nexis.com/>].

80. Findings of the Survey of Consumer Finances summarized in Katona, George, Psychological Analysis of Economic Behavior (New York, 1951), 72–81Google Scholar; Federal Reserve Bulletin, January 1946, June issues 1947–49.

81. J. Sparrow, “Fighting over the American Soldier,” chap. 4.

82. Brinkley, End of Reform.

83. Patterson, James T., Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (New York, 1996), chap. 3Google Scholar. On various rights movements in the 1940s, see Cohen, Lizabeth, A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York, 2003)Google Scholar; Jacobs, Meg, Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton, 2005)Google Scholar; Korstad, Robert and Lichtenstein, Nelson, “Opportunities Found and Lost: Labor, Radicals, and the Early Civil Rights Movement,” Journal of American History 75 (12 1988): 786–811Google Scholar; Klein, Jennifer, For All These Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping of America's Public-Private Welfare State (Princeton, 2003)Google Scholar; Goluboff, Risa, The Lost Promise of Civil Rights (Cambridge, Mass., 2007)Google Scholar; Anderson, Carol, The United Nations and the African-American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944–1955 (Cambridge, 2003)Google Scholar; Borgwardt, Elizabeth, A New Deal for the World: America's Vision for Human Rights (Cambridge, Mass., 2005).Google Scholar

84. Lubell, Samuel, The Future of American Politics (New York, 1952), 216–218.Google Scholar