ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the reason that employment guarantee was eliminated, particularly since both the public and most politicians believed that job creation would be required during the impending postwar demobilization and reconversion. It discusses a report on problems of study and interpretation. The best scholarly works on domestic policy during the war remained the succinct but useful 1972 study by Polenberg and one by Blum four years later. New Deal liberals viewed the passage of the act as a severe defeat for Harry Truman and a betrayal of Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) policies. Favorable evaluations of Truman emphasized the degree to which he held enough of the New Deal coalition together to pass modest progressive legislation as well as protect social security and other liberal initiatives. If Truman can be faulted, it is for trying to maintain a New Deal coalition, which FDR knew needed reconstruction.
