This article argues for the importance of reframing the history of school desegregation in the United States beyond Black and white and beyond the regional frames through which this history has been interpreted. In Western states, most Latino children attended schools segregated not by law but by custom starting in the early twentieth century; Latino students also encountered de facto segregation in the Eastern and Midwestern cities with large Puerto Rican populations by the 1950s. Parents, students, advocates, and activists protested the inequality of educational outcomes for Latino children over many decades, developing distinctive strategies to address the combination of racial and language-based discrimination faced by Latino students. Yet, because they were marginalized in political debates in the 1960s and 1970s and because most national-level historical scholarship on school desegregation focuses on Black and white participants, Latinos’ role in this aspect of our national civil rights history has remained obscured.

Winning the war on the home front and overseas meant that citizens of different races, religions, and ethnic appellations needed to work together peacefully in the “arsenal of democracy.” Prior to America's entrance into the war, community leaders recognized that selected social problems must be addressed in order to promote domestic harmony and boost urgently needed defense production in war communities. Instead of viewing the war years as distracting community interest from social problems, social welfare organizations pressed localities to acknowledge and act to alleviate ongoing difficulties that presented themselves, sometimes in dramatic fashion, as serious obstacles to the war effort. Race riots in Harlem and Detroit, the “zoot-suit” struggles on the West Coast, “khaki-wacky” girls who chased after servicemen, the erosion of child labor laws, significant population shifts across the nation, and a record number of teenage dropouts highlighted the structural cracks in American society. Clear understanding of the expedient nature of wartime social work mobilized efforts to establish national and local strategies that would enable wartime programs to continue into the postwar era.

The purpose of this issue is to explore the possible political futures of parties and movements of the “democratic left” in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the European Union, Poland, and Russia. The task could not proceed without clear definition, or definitions, of the “democratic left” because of national variations. There is “liberalism” or “progressivism” in the United States of many hues, but with no “social democracy” or politically viable socialism to the left. Socialism, in the old sense, of ownership of the means of production, has died in Britain, and the present government of “New Labour” refers to itself as the “Third Way” between capitalism and socialism. But there is much controversy at home whether “social democracy” has been also jettisoned in favor of a kind of “neoliberalism” that has embraced markets and trimmed social security. The large, democratic parties of the left in France and Germany derive from traditions of “social democracy” that have challenged many capitalist values and institutions, whether from Marxist or non-Marxist perspectives, and sought to establish a state and society organized around principles of social justice. These parties may win national elections but are torn between old left politics and the need to form larger coalitions in order to win. One might ask, Why include Poland and Russia? The purpose was to ask if new democratic forms of “social democracy” could be discerned in the ashes of defunct communist systems that might bear some resemblance to the politics of Western Europe.

Huzza! My brave boys, our work is complete;

The world shall admire Columbia's fair feat;

Its strength against tempest and time shall be proof, And

thousands shall come to dwell under our roof:

Whilst we drain the deep bowl, our toast still shall be

Our government firm, and our citizens free.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt shaped the role of the modern president in part with his relentless pursuit of grand policies and his ability to marshal historic legislation through Congress. In this article, I focus on one legislative tactic employed by FDR that has received little attention—the detailing of Executive Branch staff to select Senate committees. This tactic, effectively a blending of legislative powers, was used to implement FDR’s ambitious postwar domestic agenda as detailed in his Second Bill of Rights. I find that the tactic, used late in FDR’s presidency, was moderately effective, served as a substitute for the personal energy FDR applied to the presidency in his first term, and created a backlash that contributed to the adoption of the Legislative Reform Act of 1946. With these findings I conclude that FDR deserves credit as a transitionary figure for the modernity of Congress, as well as the presidency.

At the behest of the Roosevelt administration in 1935, the U.S. Senate established a special committee to investigate lobbying activities by opponents of the “death sentence” of the Public Utility Holding Company Bill. Chaired by Hugo L. Black (D-Ala.), the “Black Committee” expanded its mission into a more general probe of anti–New Deal organizations and individuals. The committee used highly intrusive methods, notably catch-all dragnet subpoenas, to secure evidence. It worked closely with the IRS for access to tax returns and with the FCC to obtain copies of millions of telegrams. When the telegram search became public information, there was a major backlash from the press, Congress, and the courts. Court rulings in 1936, resulting from suits by William Randolph Hearst and others, not only limited the committee’s powers but provided important checks for future investigators, including Senator Joseph McCarthy.

In 1765, as part of a series of economic and political reforms implemented by the Spanish Bourbons in their American colonies, the tobacco trade of colonial Mexico was monopolized and its management placed in the hands of royal bureaucrats. By the 1790s, Mexico's tobacco monopoly was one of the largest organized industries in colonial Mexico (along with silver mining and textiles) and employed almost 20,000 individuals. In fiscal terms, tobacco revenues were second only to the silver tithe as the most valuable source of government income and accounted for almost one-fifth of total state revenues at the peak of its production. Its organization approximated a vertically integrated industry: Production and supply of tobacco leaf was regulated through a series of contracts that determined who produced tobacco, how much they produced, the prices paid for it, and where it was to be grown. The reorganization of the tobacco trade under Bourbon management resulted in the restriction of tobacco production to one small specific geographical area in southeastern Mexico: the two small villas of Orizaba and Córdoba in the modern-day state of Veracruz. The tobacco produced, in turn, was manufactured into cigarettes and cigars in six state-managed tobacco manufactories, the largest located in Mexico City, the political and commercial capital. Monopoly goods were marketed through government licensed stores throughout Mexico. Private trading and manufacture in tobacco goods became an illegal offense. Compliance with such regulations was enforced by a military corps employed by the monopoly administration, although contraband trade of tobacco was never eliminated.

Students of American corporate political behavior have long asked whether or not the corporate sector acts collectively to influence the public policy process. Corporate concentration of wealth in the late nineteenth century first suggested particular business interests enjoyed a privileged political position. After World War II American pluralists, while conceding that economic concentration posed a threat to democracy, noted that economic concentration could not be translated into political privilege without a high degree of corporate political unity. In this respect, they reasoned that big business was unlikely to engage in collective action because of the divisive nature of economic competition. For a long while, this optimism about the market's policing powers assuaged most fears of corporate political domination, even though several scholars offered contrary evidence. The recent corporate political mobilization, however, has renewed the debate on corporate political unity.

Traditional accounts of the Eighteenth and Twenty-first Amendments to the U.S. Constitution largely ignore the role of the major political parties. We argue that partisan politics was an integral part of the constitutional politics of this period. The need to manage divisions within both parties’ electoral coalitions during the transition from the third to the fourth-party systems led to the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment without support from either national party. While most accounts trace prohibition’s demise to widespread noncompliance and the graft it generated, we argue that elite congressional support for prohibition gave way when civil service reforms removed federal prohibition agents as patronage resources. We also argue that by giving states control of designing state conventions, and thereby risking state malapportionment of conventions, Democrats succeeded in overcoming the traditional fissures that divided their southern and northern wings.

This article examines out-of-home placements in Denmark over a seven-decade period from 1905 to 1975. The Danish state delegated this responsibility to a, using the words of Kimberly J. Morgan and Ann Shola Orloff, “difficult-to-classify public-private hybrid,” the Children’s Welfare Boards (CWBs). These CWBs comprised private citizens selected by the municipality. The article shows how the CWBs acted as interpreters, mediators, and implementers of state policy at the street level while also functioning as the direct link between government and citizens. The findings reveal an inherent conflict between center and periphery in that the state’s nationwide regulations and bureaucratic practices, intended to apply to all citizens uniformly, were to be implemented by local units within municipalities that operated according to logics other than those of the state. The vase of variations in child out-placement practices shows the importance of examining local variations in studying the history of policy implementation.

In 1943, Georgia’s constitution was amended to lower the voting age to eighteen, making it the first—and for twelve years, the only—state in the Union to establish a voting-age requirement below twenty-one. Despite being widely considered at the time by several national and state political actors, Georgia’s reform represents an important and unappreciated historical puzzle. First, few would regard mid-twentieth-century Georgia as being even modestly progressive, especially regarding voting rights. Second, there is no evidence that an organized group lobbied for the reform. Further, there is no reason why lowering the voting age was inherently unique to Georgia qua Georgia. Instead, this study offers a detailed historical analysis highlighting the dedication of its young governor, and argues that Ellis Arnall’s political entrepreneurialism coupled with growing intraparty factionalism in Georgian politics and strategic timing facilitated this rare instance of electoral progressivism in the Deep South.

This article analyzes the attitudes of Dutch employers toward social policy in the early twentieth century. Recent literature has evolved from an emphasis on power to an emphasis on preferences. Moving away from the traditional view that unions and social democrats forced social laws on employers, recent scholars suggest that firms saw specific advantages in the introduction of social laws. However, I show that the attitudes of Dutch business representatives, rather than seeking these specific advantages, merely reflected a willingness to consult, inspired by their macroeconomic view. Employers expressed the wish to attain an organized form of capitalism and accepted regulated forms of codetermination. Once the consultative platforms were in place, employers pursued strategic goals, such as labor peace and disciplining the unions. This paved the way for accepting welfare state expansion. In sum, mid-twentieth century business interests were strongly oriented toward coordinated capitalism.

Robert S. McNamara recently raised a stir about America's involvement in the Vietnam War. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, his personal apology for his role as Secretary of Defense (1961–68) during the first phase of the war, shot to the top of the best-seller lists. But the author was surely more interested in uncovering some forgiveness, some sympathy for his plight, than he was in royalties. If so, he certainly must be disappointed. What McNamara uncovered beneath the surface of current events were several generations of Americans who still have powerful emotions about the war and still hate the leaders—McNamara included—who guided the nation into that debacle.

On 4 June 1965, President Johnson, in his famous speech at Howard University, endorsed preferential treatment for black Americans and the idea of equality of results. To justify a departure from the ideal of a colorblind state, Johnson offered an alternative that might be called black exceptionalism. In response to the widely held view that blacks, like immigrants, should receive no assistance from the state in their quest to enter the mainstream of society, Johnson asserted that the oppression suffered by blacks made them unique. At the core of his justification was the plight of the black family in slavery and freedom and its impact on black children. “When the family collapses,” he stated, “it is the children that are usually damaged.”1 With words freighted with importance for the future of liberalism, he articulated a new conception of equality, one enforced by an activist state: “We seek not just freedom but opportunity–not just legal equity but human ability–not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and as a result.” Toward this end, he called for a conference to chart the future of racial liberalism.