The Politics of Us Disaster Relief, 1927-2005
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
POLITICAL DISASTERS: THE POLITICS OF U.S. DISASTER RELIEF, 1927-2005 _______________ A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston _______________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of ! Doctor of Philosophy ! ______________ By Natalie M. Schuster May 2014 POLITICAL DISASTERS: THE POLITICS OF U.S. DISASTER RELIEF, 1927-2005 _______________ An Abstract of a Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston _______________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of ! Doctor of Philosophy ! ______________ By Natalie M. Schuster May 2014 ! ABSTRACT This study combines the fields of political and environmental history to understand the evolution of federal disaster relief policy in the United States from 1927-2005, specifically the development of US federal natural disaster relief as a component of the welfare state. The institutionalization of disaster relief as a function of the welfare state occurred because the New Deal’s unprecedented bureaucratic apparatus combined with major disasters and the need for assistance; the confluence established the government’s dominate role in disaster relief. Over the course of the twentieth century, federal disaster relief policy developed and increased alongside the expansion of presidential authority and a welfare state that increasingly became bureaucratically complex. Yet, at the same time, the success of the welfare state has been stymied by consistent traditions of individualism, limited government, a belief in the market economy, and ineffective bureaucracy. In examining the affects of disaster policy on the people, disaster relief, like the welfare state in general, often overlooks the people who would most benefit from federal help because it focuses primarily on the maintenance and extension of capitalism. This study also describes the negative affects of disaster relief policy on certain groups and classes such as racial and ethnic minorities and those who do not own property. The study helps to explain why federal relief has historically failed to directly ease the burdens of many disaster victims. The simple answer: it was never designed for that purpose. ! iv! TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction – Political Nature 1 Chapter One – Not an Act of God, But an Act of Government 16 Chapter Two – A New Deal for Disaster 54 Chapter Three – Natural Power 92 Chapter Four – The Polio-Drought Complex 129 Chapter Five – Executive Disasters 180 Chapter Six – “We Deal With Things and Not With People” 225 Chapter Seven – “This Is A Forgotten Place Over Here” 280 Chapter Eight – “This ‘Who Shot John Thing’” 328 Epilogue 381 Bibliography 394 ! ! v! Common Abbreviations in Text and Notes Organizations AAA Agricultural Adjustment Act AFSC American Friends Service Committee CIA Central Intelligence Agency CSTI California Specialized Training Institute DEFRA Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 DoD Department of Defense EPA Environmental Protection Agency FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency FHA Federal Housing Administration FmHA Farmers Home Administration HEW United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare HUD Department of Housing and Urban Development INS United States Immigration and Naturalization Service MVA Missouri Valley Authority NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NBC National Broadcasting Company NEA National Endowment for the Arts NEH National Endowment for the Humanities NFIP The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis ! vi! NIIP National Swine Influenza Immunization Program NSC-68 National Security Council Report 68 OEP Office of Emergency Planning OMB Office of Management and Budget OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration SBA Small Business Administration SRC Southern Regional Council TEFRA Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 TVA Tennessee Valley Authority WPA Works Progress Administration (after 1939, Work Projects Administration) Archives DDEL Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library FDRL Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library GHWBL George H.W. Bush Presidential Library GRFL Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library HHL Herbert Hoover Presidential Library SCPP Secretary of Commerce Period Papers HSTL Harry S. Truman Presidential Library JCL Jimmy Carter Presidential Library LBJL Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library WHCF White House Central Files ! vii! RNL Richard Nixon Presidential Library WHCF White House Central Files RRL Ronald Reagan Presidential Library GBL George H.W. Bush Presidential Library WHORM White House Office of Records Management BPR Bush Presidential Records WJCL William J. Clinton Presidential Library ! ! viii! Introduction Political Nature By the summer of 1931, the drought that stretched across the Great Plains and became known as the Dust Bowl (1930-36) had emerged as a national disaster. Charles Franck wrote President Herbert Hoover from his home in Brooklyn, New York, on June 17, 1931 with a solution. A large number of airplanes should be equipped with tanks, filled to carrying capacity with water, and “fitted up with [a] sprinkler apparatus.”1 Franck’s aerial sprinkling devices, he trusted, could put an end to the misery caused by the natural calamity then underway. He contended that the executive branch of the federal government had a new duty to rescue the nation from nature. Many letters with similar, wild ideas found their way to the White House during the dust storms. While several were simply dismissed as silly experimental suggestions, the letters indicated a desire for significant government planning to handle the affects of the natural world, particularly natural disaster mitigation and relief. The federal government had been deeply involved in nature in several ways—water rights, land clearance, natural resource management, etc.—throughout the nation’s history. The American people were familiar to such traditions and in the twentieth century became evermore accustomed to the central management of disaster relief. The federal government’s involvement in natural disaster relief increased over time as the structure of the federal government changed. As the state (or the centralized national !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Lawrence Richey to Charles C. Franck, June 19, 1931, “Drought, 1931-1932 and Undated,” Secretary’s File Series, Herbert Hoover Papers, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. ! 1! government including the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, the military, financial institutions, and, increasingly, administrative bureaucracies) expanded and modernized, it became evermore active in everyday life through the edifices of a welfare state. The governmental structure of the modern state became more complicated overtime and assumed administrative capacities (the administrative state) over aspects of life affecting its people. During the twentieth century, disaster relief not only fell under government responsibility, but also indeed became a basic government service and an entitlement of the welfare state. The development of disaster relief as an entitlement of the U.S. welfare state took place over the course of the twentieth century, gaining momentum in the 1920s, solidifying during the New Deal era, and strengthening during the Great Society. The creation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in April 1979 legitimized the institutionalization of federal relief. Disaster relief survived as a component of the welfare state during the conservative resurgence of the late twentieth century. The development of disaster relief as an entitlement occurred slowly through a series of patchwork legislative initiatives over the twentieth century. These activities build on a nineteenth century legacy of federal aid to disaster victims. For example, the Army Corps of Engineers helped former slaves escape a Mississippi River flood in 1865, provided relief operations during the Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood in 1889, and helped San Francisco, California recover from the 1906 earthquake.2 Moving from a series of isolated responses, disaster relief became an integral component of the welfare state even as that welfare state increasingly drew critics.3 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 Ted Steinberg, Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America (New York: Oxford, 2000), 1, 3, 25-27, 70, 72. 3 For literature that explains the historical opposition of Americans to welfare based largely on the idea that welfare would make for a lazy citizenry opposed to hard work and dependent ! 2! Its staying power as a government service despite conservative expansion underscores a paradox of American political culture that serves to undermine disaster relief policy. Stephen Skowronek explains the paradox as conflicted philosophies of governance. A “sense of state” pervades contemporary politics and seemingly intrudes into all aspects of our lives. “We have labeled this organization an administrative state, a bureaucratic state, a capitalist state, a corporate state, a postindustrial state, a regulatory state, a welfare state,” he writes. Despite what one brands it, continues Skowronek, “we have yet to consider the grand historical irony that lingers behind these labels. After all, it is the absence of a sense of the state that has been the great hallmark of American political culture.”4!!The absence of a sense of state, or persistent values of limited government amid the reality of a large