Just Mild about Harry

Harry Truman had a dim view of newspaper pundits, especially Drew Pearson. Although Pearson supported Truman’s Fair Deal, he got on the president’s wrong side by publishing perceived slights of his wife and daughter. Truman fired some of his best sources in the cabinet, but leaks continued, leading Truman to have the FBI investigate Pearson and tap his phones. Pearson regretted the collapse of the alliance with the Soviet Union but supported American foreign policy during the Cold War. In 1947 he sponsored the Freedom Train to collect food and supplies for Western Europe. Holding Defense Secretary James Forrestal responsible for the deepening Cold War, Pearson conducted a sustained attack on him. Blame for Forrestal’s suicide later fell on the columnist. Pearson also targeted Truman’s aide, General Harry Vaughn, for influence peddling and called for his dismissal. Truman responded that he would not let “any S.O.B.” dictate whom he fired.

CARVING A FAIR DEAL TO SECURE RIGHT TO EDUCATION WITHIN COPYRIGHT FRAMEWORK

Introduction Copyright law as a tool for promoting knowledge and education Right to Education as a Human Right Right to education vis a vis Copyright law International effort to Balance the competing legal rights Right to Education exception within the Indian Copyright law Conclusion – Need to provide Affordable education

The Battle for the Clergy

Covering the period from 1945 to 1960, this chapter examines a series of clergy education initiatives that attempted to build support for libertarian economic ideas. Launched by conservative activists and organizations, these programs sought to undermine clerical support for the New Deal–era welfare state, but they mostly ended in failure. With financial support from the wealthy oil executive J. Howard Pew, organizations like Spiritual Mobilization and the Christian Freedom Foundation spread the gospel of free enterprise using newsletters, radio broadcasts, and sermon contests. But polls funded by Pew himself found they had little impact on the political or economic views of rank-and-file ministers. The National Association of Manufacturers’ (NAM) clergy-industry program was marginally more successful, though its organizers were similarly disappointed at their inability to stoke clerical opposition to the New Deal/Fair Deal agenda. The chapter concludes with a series of observations on why Christian Libertarianism gained little traction with either ministers or lay people during the 1950s.