FAIR DEAL

FAIR DEAL was the phrase adopted by President
Harry S. Truman to characterize the program of domestic
legislation his administration sought to pass through
Congress. In September 1945 Truman sent to Congress
a twenty-one point program,based in part on the Dem-
ocratic
platform of 1944. The Fair Deal called for a fullemployment
law,the permanent establishment of the Fair
Employment Practices Committee,and progressive legislation
on housing,health insurance, aid to education,
atomic energy,and the development of the St. Lawrence
Seaway. Congress passed the Employment Act of 1946,
which established the Council of Economic Advisers,but
Republican victories in the 1946 midterm congressional
elections blocked further passage of Fair Deal legislation.
In 1948 Truman defeated the Republican candidate,Governor
Thomas E. Dewey of New York,and Democrats
recaptured control of Congress. In his annual message to
Congress in January 1949,during which he coined the
phrase “Fair Deal,” Truman asked for laws on housing,
full employment,higher minimum wages, better price
supports for farmers,more organizations like the Tennessee
Valley Authority,the extension of social security,
and fair employment practices. Congress responded by
passing a slum clearance act,raising the minimum wage,
and extending social security benefits to 10 million more
people. The coming of the KoreanWar in June 1950 and
a general prosperity lessened interest in the Fair Deal program,
but many of Truman’s social welfare proposals—as
well as his proposals for the development of atomic energy
and the St. Lawrence Seaway,for example—were
legislated in subsequent administrations.


“Falsies!” Two months before Republican Dwight D.
Eisenhower’s victory in the election to succeed President
Harry S. Truman,Fred Little Packer’s cartoon in the New York
Mirror, 6 September 1952,mocks the Democrats and
Truman’s Fair Deal program by claiming that the nation’s
economy only seems prosperous,because of inflation and
spending on the Korean War. Library of Congress

“E PLURIBUS UNUM”

“E PLURIBUS UNUM” (Out of many, one), motto
featured on the Great Seal of the United States. After
declaring independence, the Continental Congress appointed
Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas
Jefferson to devise a seal. In consultation with Swiss-born
artist Pierre Euge`ne du Simitie`re, they selected E Pluribus
Unum, motto of the popular London-based anthology,
Gentleman’s Magazine, to emblematize the diversity
of the American people. Scholars have not located the
exact phrase in classical literature, but Virgil’s Moretum
contains a similar expression. Subsequent committees
kept this motto, but substituted an eagle for the proposed
heraldic shield. Adopted by Congress on 20 June 1782,
the Great Seal appears on numerous currencies, seals, and
flags.

DAKOTA EXPEDITIONS OF SIBLEY AND SULLY

DAKOTA EXPEDITIONS OF SIBLEY AND
SULLY (1863–1865). In 1863, during the American
Civil War, Major General John Pope ordered Union
general Henry Hastings Sibley to march from Camp
Pope near Fort Ridgely, Minnesota, against the Dakota
(Sioux) Indians, who had taken part in hostilities of 1862
in Minnesota. He was to drive them west toward the
Missouri River, and General Alfred Sully was ordered to
proceed up the Missouri and intercept the Dakotas before
they could cross to the western side of the river. Sibley
set out on 16 June and established his field base at Camp
Atcheson, North Dakota. He defeated the Dakotas in
three battles: at Big Mound, Kidder County, on 24 July;
at Dead Buffalo Lake on 26 July; and at Stony Lake on
28 July. Retreating Dakota fighters held back Sibley’s
army until their families crossed to safety on the western
side of the Missouri.
Sibley established his camp at the mouth of Apple
Creek, near present-day Bismarck, North Dakota. On 1
August he began his return march by way of Camp Atcheson
to Fort Abercrombie, which he reached on 23 August.
Meanwhile, Sully established headquarters at Sioux
City, Iowa, and set up a base camp at Fort Pierre, South
Dakota. On 13 August he left the fort for a quick march
northward. On 3 September he fought a battle near White
Stone Hill, North Dakota; the Dakota camp was dispersed
and their supplies destroyed. Sully took prisoners
and returned to his winter quarters at Sioux City.
Sully conducted the next two summer campaigns. In
the summer of 1864 his army proceeded up the Missouri
River from Sioux City, accompanied by two steamboats
that carried his supplies to the rendezvous point at the
site of the new army post at Fort Rice, North Dakota.
Leaving a part of his force to construct the fort, he
marched northwest to the Dakota camp located in the
Killdeer Mountains. There a battle was fought on 28 July,
and the Dakotas were defeated and scattered. The follow-
ing summer, Sully’s force moved up the Missouri River to
Fort Rice and marched north of Devils Lake. On 2 August
he set out for the Mouse (Souris) River and from there
marched southwest to Fort Berthold. There he met the
famous Jesuit missionary Father Pierre Jean De Smet.
Sully’s force returned to Fort Rice on 8 September and
went into winter quarters at Sioux Falls, South Dakota.