ECCLES, MARRINER STODDARD (1890–1977). Born in Utah and a graduate of Brigham Young College in 1909, Marriner Eccles took over his family’s businesses following his father’s death in 1912. Together with his brother and other associates, he created the Eccles-Browning Bank in 1924 and the First Security Corporation in 1928. Established as a successful and influential banker, Eccles helped to draft the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 and joined the Treasury as an assistant to Henry Morgenthau in 1934. In 1935, he became chair of the Federal Reserve. In this capacity, Eccles encouraged the application of the theories of John Maynard Keynes. He continued to have a significant influence throughout World War II and afterward took part in the discussions at the Bretton Woods Conference that led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in 1946. Eccles also urged support of the Marshall Plan in 1947. Although he was not reappointed as chair of the Federal Reserve, he stayed on as vice chairman until 1951. Afterward, he returned to his private business and established the Marriner S. Eccles Library and Fellowship in Political Economy at the University of Utah. The Federal Reserve Building in Washington, D.C., is named in his honor.
ECONOMIC BILL OF RIGHTS. In his State of the Union Address to Congress on 11 January 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for measures to provide a second bill of rights offering U.S. citizens economic security in the postwar world. The principles he outlined included the right to employment and a living wage; the right to a fair and adequate return for farmers; freedom from unfair competition for businessmen; the right to a decent home; and medical care, education, and economic security against the risks of unemployment, accident, and old age. One measure enacted in line with these proposals was the Employment Act of 1946. Harry S. Truman’s Fair Deal also included some of these proposals.
ECONOMIC STABILIZATION ACT, 1942. Passed on 2 October 1942, the Economic Stabilization Act (sometimes known as the Antiinflation Act) was intended to control the cost of living. It increased the power of the Office of Price Administration to include rationing and gave the National War Labor Board power to control wages by limiting all increases to the 15 percent established in the “Little Steel” formula in 1942.
ECONOMY ACT, 1933. Passed on 20 March 1933, the Economy Act was outlined by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his second message to Congress at the start of the New Deal and was passed in only two days. The act cut the pay of workers in federal government and the armed forces by 15 percent and cut spending in government departments by 25 percent. It also cut payments to veterans. The measure was intended to help balance the budget and allow spending on New Deal programs.
EINSTEIN, ALBERT (1879–1955). Born in Ulm, Germany, and educated in Munich and Zurich, Switzerland, Albert Einstein developed the theory of relativity published in a series of articles in the Annals of Physics in 1905. This was the most revolutionary development in physics since Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity in the 17th century. From 1913 until 1933 Einstein was the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics in Berlin, Germany. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1919 and published The Principle of Relativity in 1923.
Jewish by origin and a committed pacifist, Einstein was forced to emigrate when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, and he secured an appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. In 1939, he wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt expressing his concern that Germany might develop nuclear weapons first and urging the president to ensure that the United States prevented such an act. This provided the incentive for the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb in the United States. Einstein spent the rest of his career trying to establish the relationship between gravitation and electromagnetism.
EISENHOWER, DWIGHT DAVID (“IKE”) (1890–1969). 34th president of the United States. Born in Denison, Texas, Dwight D. (“Ike”) Eisenhower graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1915 and was commissioned in the infantry. During World War I, Eisenhower remained in the United States in charge of training camps. After the war, he served in Panama and attended the General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Texas, and the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. After serving as General Douglas MacArthur’s chief of staff and a term in the Philippines, Eisenhower was appointed head of the War Plans Division in Washington, D.C., in December 1941. In May 1942, he was given command of U.S. troops in Great Britain, and in July he was appointed to lead the Allied invasion of North Africa in November. He led the invasion of Sicily on 10 July 1943 and the invasion of Italy on 9 September 1943. In December 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Eisenhower as supreme allied commander with the responsibility of leading the invasion of Europe in June 1944.
Although sometimes criticized for his caution, Eisenhower was an excellent strategist, and he managed to get the best out of British General Bernard Montgomery and American George S. Patton. However, Eisenhower’s insistence that fighting be continued on a broad front meant that supplies were spread thinly, and it left Allied forces vulnerable to counterattack, which occurred during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. Nonetheless, Eisenhower was able to turn the tide by his effective use of manpower and the support for the forces holding Bastogne, Belgium. Once the Germans were forced back, Eisenhower continued the broad front strategy rather than letting either Montgomery or Patton move on to Berlin. Instead, he left it to the Soviet army to take the German capital. In November 1945, Eisenhower replaced General George C. Marshall as the U.S. Army’s chief of staff. Eisenhower retired in 1948 and produced his war memoir, Crusade in Europe, that year.
After leaving the army, Eisenhower became president of Columbia University in New York City. He resisted overtures from both political parties to run on the presidential ticket in 1948. In 1951, he became first Allied supreme commander in Europe, and he provided military leadership for the newly formed North Atlantic Treaty Organization. However, in 1952 he was persuaded to run as the Republican presidential candidate, and he defeated Senator Robert A. Taft to win the party’s nomination. He easily defeated Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson and went on to win a second term in 1956, again defeating Stevenson.
As president, Eisenhower practiced what he called “dynamic conservatism,” or “moderate progressivism,” meaning that he was liberal on social issues but conservative on economic matters—his was a “middle way.” He distanced himself from Joseph McCarthy and disapproved of the worst excesses of McCarthyism. Abroad, Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end and refused to commit U.S. troops to the war in Vietnam following the French defeat in 1954. He did, however, sanction the overthrow of an apparently left-wing government in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954. During the 1950s, the United States became increasingly involved in the Middle East, sending troops to the Lebanon in 1958 but refusing to support the British and French in the Suez Crisis of 1956. In 1959, Eisenhower approved preparations by the Central Intelligence Agency for an invasion of Cuba to overthrow the new regime of Fidel Castro. Those plans led to the failure in the Bay of Pigs in 1961.
At home, Eisenhower accepted the basic reform initiatives of the New Deal, extending Social Security and raising minimum wage levels. His administration also approved the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway and embarked on a massive road-building scheme with the 1956 Federal Highways Act. Following the Soviet success in launching Sputnik, an unmanned satellite, in 1957, Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) in 1958 and provided federal funding for scientific research through the National Defense Education Act. Although as a fiscal conservative he aimed for a balanced budget, he only achieved that balance on two occasions. However, he supported such probusiness policies as the reduction of corporation taxes and increased tax relief. He refused to support any expansion of the Tennessee Valley Authority or federal control of atomic energy. Moreover, Eisenhower only reluctantly acted on civil rights issues, disapproved of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, and used federal troops in Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation of the public schools only when forced to by Governor Orval Faubus. Although he took a strong position against the Soviet Union when they shot down a U-2 U.S. spy plane in 1960, when Eisenhower left office he warned against the dangers of a growing “military-industrial complex.” He retired in Abilene, Kansas.
EISENHOWER, MILTON STOVER (1899–1985). The younger brother of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Milton Eisenhower was also born in Abilene, Kansas. He studied journalism at Kansas State College in Manhattan, Kansas, where he then taught. He served briefly in the U.S. Consulate in Edinburgh, Scotland, before becoming assistant to William Jardine, Calvin Coolidge’s secretary of agriculture. In 1928, Eisenhower became director of information in the Department of Agriculture, a position he held until 1941. In 1942, he was appointed to head the War Relocation Authority responsible for the supervision of the camps established to house the interned Japanese Americans during World War II. His attempts to provide reasonable conditions in the camps were to some extent limited due to the resistance he encountered from politicians and military officials. He later regretted his involvement in the relocation. After only 90 days, Eisenhower moved to the Office of War Information, where he became assistant to Elmer Davis.
In 1943, Eisenhower left government service to become president of Kansas State College, a position he held until 1950 when he became president of Pennsylvania State University. In 1956, he moved to become president of Johns Hopkins University. He retired in 1967 but took the position again briefly from 1971 until 1972.
During his brother’s presidency, Eisenhower acted as adviser, speechwriter, and special representative. He also assisted President John F. Kennedy and was chair of President Lyndon Johnson’s National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. His political memoir, The President is Calling, was published in 1974.
ELLINGTON, EDWARD KENNEDY (“DUKE”) (1899–1974). The African American jazz musician and composer was born Edward Kennedy Ellington but acquired the nickname “Duke” as a schoolboy in Washington, D.C. Ellington did not have professional musical training, but he learned how to play from other black musicians. He formed his first group in 1917, and in 1923 he and several band members moved to Harlem, New York, where they found work in clubs. In 1924, Ellington became the bandleader and developed an improvisational style of composition. In 1926, the Ellington band recorded “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo,” followed in 1927 by “Birmingham Breakdown” and “Black and Tan Fantasy.” It was in 1927 that the group became the resident band at Harlem’s famous Cotton Club. Over the coming years, Ellington and his band composed and recorded the jazz classics “Creole Love Call” (1927), “Mood Indigo,” (1930) “Sophisticated Lady” (1932), “Solitude” (1934), and many more. With successful recording and live radio broadcasts from the Cotton Club from 1931 onward, Ellington became a major figure in popular music. In 1933, he made his first visit to London and other European locations.
Ellington continued to produce great jazz hits through band and record label changes. After moving from Columbia to Victor in 1940, the band recorded “Take the ‘A’ Train,” “Cotton Tail,” and “Ko-Ko.” He also began to produce symphonic pieces, like “Black, Brown, Beige,” in 1943, and extended pieces, like “Harlem,” in 1948. After a brief lull in their success, the Ellington band had a revival of fortunes following a performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956, and they continued to perform throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as well as provide film scores and music for theater. Before he died, Ellington had been awarded honorary degrees, membership in the American Institute of Arts and Letters, the French Legion of Honor, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
EMERGENCY BANKING ACT, 1933. Faced with the collapse of the country’s financial institutions in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash and onset of the Great Depression, newly elected president Franklin D. Roosevelt convened a special session of Congress to enact the emergency Banking Act on 9 March 1933. It formalized the bank holiday already declared by the president and implemented procedures to protect banks from further collapse, including action by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to relieve banks of debts. These measures originated from earlier proposals under the administration of Herbert Hoover. See also BANKING.
EMERGENCY FARM MORTGAGE ACT, 1933. An amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 providing for refinancing of farm mortgages through the purchase of tax exempt bonds. It also provided $200 million in loans to enable farmers to redeem land already lost through foreclosure. See also AGRICULTURE.
EMERGENCY PRICE CONTROL ACT, 1942. Passed in January 1942 to control inflation during World War II, the Emergency Price Control Act reorganized the Office of Price Administration to give it more power under a single administrator and the authority to fix prices or rents, commodities, and services.
EMERGENCY RELIEF APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1935. Passed on 8 April 1935, the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act of 1935 provided $4.8 billion for work relief programs to alleviate unemployment. This was the largest peace-time appropriation up to that point. It led to the creation of the Works Progress Administration on 6 May 1935.
EMERGENCY RELIEF APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1937. Concerned about the continuing cost of relief and the need to balance the federal budget, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked for only $1.5 billion in relief spending for 1937–1938. The Emergency Relief Appropriations Act of 1937, passed on 22 July 1937, also excluded aliens not in the process of becoming citizens from work relief programs. The resulting cuts in spending are thought to have contributed to the “Roosevelt Recession” that year.
EMPLOYMENT ACT, 1946. The Employment Act of 1946, passed on 20 February 1946, created the Council of Economic Advisers as part of the White House staff, whose duty was to “formulate and recommend national economic policy” that would further the national goal of “maximum employment, production, and purchasing power.” The act was intended to address the fear among many Americans that the mass unemployment of the Great Depression might return after World War II and to provide for economic growth.
The idea for the bill emerged from the National Resources Planning Board, the New Deal’s official planning agency, which in the early 1940s promoted the idea of “full employment” as a postwar goal. It also reflected President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s call in 1944 for an “economic bill of rights,” which included “the right to a useful and remunerative job.” Progressive labor and farm groups were also actively lobbying for legislation to promote government-guaranteed full employment, as were leading economists influenced by John Maynard Keynes. When the bill was introduced in Congress in January 1945, it was titled the Full Employment Bill. It called for the president to adopt economic policies that would create jobs for anyone who wanted them by using compensatory federal spending to create jobs if the private sector appeared unlikely to generate enough employment. President Harry S. Truman supported the measure after Roosevelt’s death, as did most New Dealers in Congress. However, after the mid-term elections in 1946, not enough New Dealers remained to enact the original bill.
After strenuous opposition from employers, who feared that a full employment economy would drive up labor costs, conservatives in Congress diluted the legislation, and the phrase “full employment,” disappeared from both the title and body of the bill, as did all the specific policy requirements that gave the phrase meaning. However, the act did require that the president issue an annual economic report indicating the state of the economy and outlining the government’s economic goals and means of achieving them. The Council of Economic Advisers did at times encourage presidents to choose policies that promoted economic growth. Thus, while the Employment Act did not guarantee full employment, it did help make fiscal policy an important element of economic planning and indicated that the federal government would continue to have a central role in ensuring the nation’s economic well-being in the postwar era.
ENDO V. UNITED STATES (323 U.S. 283 1944). Mitsuye Endo was a Japanese American native of California, who in 1942 applied for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the legality of her internment in a relocation center during World War II. Her case eventually reached the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously on 18 December 1944 that the government had no right to hold citizens whose loyalty they had conceded. On the basis of this decision, the War Relocation Authority gradually began to release the inmates of the camps back into society.
ENOLA GAY. The name given to the B-29 bomber from which the first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.
ENTERTAINMENT, ARTS, AND LEISURE. See ART; CINEMA; LITERATURE AND THEATER; RADIO; SPORT; TELEVISION.
EUROPEAN RECOVERY PROGRAM (ERP). Popularly known as the Marshall Plan, the ERP was intended to help contain communism abroad by rebuilding the economies of postwar Europe and averting a return to the conditions that brought about the Great Depression and World War II. The program of aid was announced by Secretary of State George C. Marshall at Harvard University on 5 June 1947. Following a conference in Paris in July through September, a four-year recovery plan was agreed on, and President Harry S. Truman approved the first appropriation bill in April 1948.
Between 1948 and 1952, $13 million of aid in different forms was provided to participating Western European countries (and the western zone of Germany) through the Committee for European Economic Cooperation and the U.S. Economic Cooperation Administration. The resultant move to unify the economy of West Germany led to the Berlin Blockade in 1948 and the formation of a Soviet-led economic bloc in Eastern Europe, the Committee for Mutual Economic Assistance or COMECON. The Marshall Plan prevented the economic collapse of Western Europe and spurred economic recovery and the move toward economic integration. See also COLD WAR.
EVANS, WALKER (1903–1975). Famous photographer Walker Evans was born to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri, and educated in private schools and at Williams College. He lived for a time in Paris, where he developed an interest in photography. Evans’s first photographs were published in 1930, and in 1935 he joined the Farm Security Administration, where he worked until 1938. In 1935, he took leave to visit Alabama with James Agee, producing the study of sharecropping families that was published as Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). The Museum of Modern Art held an exhibition of Evans’s work in 1938, the first time an exhibition had been devoted to a single photographer. In 1943, Evans became a contributing editor at Time magazine, and in 1945 he moved to Fortune magazine, where he remained as an editor until 1965 when he took up the position of professor of graphic design at the Yale School of Art and Architecture. See also ART.
EVIAN CONFERENCE, 1938. As growing numbers of Jewish refugees fled from Nazi persecution in Germany, representatives from 32 countries met at the nine-day Evian Conference held in the French town of Evian in July 1938, called largely at the instigation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The U.S. representative was not a member of the administration, but a businessman friend of the president, Myron C. Taylor. The conference proved ineffectual and failed even to issue a statement condemning the situation in Germany. The United States failed to raise the quota of Germans and Austrian immigrants in order to admit Jewish refugees, and on some occasions ships bearing Jews were turned away from U.S. ports. Between 1939 and 1945 only 250,000 Jews were admitted to the United States.