Harry Truman

Strikes by meat packers and mine workers in 1946 prompted Henry P. Van Dusen and Liston Pope to consider the ethics of strikes and how the church should respond.

With Ukraine languishing outside the safety of the NATO alliance, the consensus seems to be that there is little the alliance can do as Putin enforces his latter-day Brezhnev Doctrine. That consensus view is wrong.

“The resistance to Russian expansion in Europe is right. The spectacle of American progressives supporting Wallace in opposing that resistance brings dismay to most European democrats.”

Keynoting a “Beat Dewey” rally at Madison Square Garden on September 12, 1946, Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace warned Americans against the Truman administration’s “get tough with Russia” policy. Reinhold Niebuhr responded.

“We are in danger of inflation because we do not have sufficient goods to meet the demands of the people despite the fact that we are producing more goods than any other nation on earth.”

In this article originally published by Christianity and Crisis on March 18, 1946, Charles W. Gilkey warns Americans not to worry that helping people abroad will make them “suckers.”

Seventy-five years ago, the Samuel Goldwyn masterpiece “The Best Years of Our Lives” premiered to universal critical and popular acclaim. Reviewing the film now, two overarching contrasts between past and present are clear.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ (UDHR) impact across the globe was beyond what Eleanor Roosevelt and its drafters could have imagined. As we look forward, the human rights agenda is in great need of reform and renewal. Perhaps a return to the spirit of 1948 and the wisdom of its original drafters can provide wisdom for the future.

In 1946 when the prospects for what would become the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) appeared dim, President Harry Truman appointed Eleanor Roosevelt to a UN committee where she could promote universal human rights.