Fasttrack to America's Past
   Teacher Key
Return to Originating Page



Page 208


Page 209

 		 Page 208 & 209 - Eisenhower on the Issues of the 1950s

The reading selections

   These readings show President Eisenhower's views of two key issues of the 1950s:  The Cold War and racial integration of schools.
 
   The first reading selection is from a speech made in 1953, shortly after the death of Russian leader Joseph Stalin.  Eisenhower asks Americans and Russians to consider the true cost and danger of continuing the Cold War, and pledges that America will support efforts for peace.
 
   The second selection is Eisenhower's announcement in 1957 that he was sending in federal troops to support a court order to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The pictures

1.  A bag of coins, here representing the high cost of the Cold War.  President Eisenhower gives in his speech several examples to show, in very concrete terms, what America was giving up to pay for the weapons of the conflict.

2.  Dwight D. Eisenhower, elected president in 1952.  He served two terms, and gave a sense of stability to the decade of the 1950s.
 

Group discussion question, page 208

   President Eisenhower tells Americans that the cost of the Cold War in not just money, but the many good things that the money could buy if it were not going toward weapons.
 
   Economists call this the "opportunity cost."  As Eisenhower explains, the money spent to build a modern bomber could be spent instead to build a modern school in more than 30 cities.  He gives several other examples as well.
 
   In a memorable and poetic line, the president reminds his listeners that the world in arms "is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."

   Eisenhower wants Americans to look again at the dangers and costs of the Cold War.  He wants the Russian leadership to do the same.  With the death of the Soviet communist dictator Joseph Stalin, he believes that there is an opportunity to build a better and safer world.  Such a world would be built on trade rather than fear, and would allow all peoples to become "productive and prosperous."

Group discussion questions, page 209

   President Eisenhower tells his listeners that "disorderly mobs" and "misguided persons" in Little Rock were preventing the peaceful integration of Central High School.  He makes it a point to say that most people in the city are law abiding and "respect the law, even when they disagree with it."

   Eisenhower declares, however, that he will uphold the Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregated schools.  He announces that he is issuing an Executive Order to use federal troops to enforce the law at Little Rock.  He also calls on the citizens of the state to help stop interference with the law, and thereby remove "a blot on  the fair name and high honor of our nation."
 
   The principle at stake in Little Rock, he says, is the principle that "we are a nation in which laws, not men, are supreme."







Copyright Notice

   Copyright 2018 by David Burns.  All rights reserved.  Illustrations and reading selections appearing in this work are taken from sources in the public domain and from private collections used by permission.  Sources include: the Dover Pictorial Archive, the Library of Congress, The National Archives, The Hart Publishing Co., Corel Corporation and its licensors, Nova Development Corporation and its licensors, and others.  Maps were created or adapted by the author using reference maps from the United States Geological Survey and Cartesia Software.  Please see the home page for this title for more information.