The Greatest Legislation
Over Here tells the story of the G.I. Bill
By Andrew Benedict-Nelson
Tuesday March 6, 2007
Those of us who grew up after the debut of MTV are long accustomed to associating the struggle for justice with self-expression: the protest song, the march on the Mall, the bumper sticker, the standard tools of protest since the Vietnam War. The more people get involved, get aware, get active, we think, the closer we come to a just society.
But what was arguably America’s most influential social justice initiative was not the result of a nationwide movement or even a really great rock anthem. It was instead the prosaically named Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944—better known as the G.I. Bill—and like any piece of complex legislation, it was the child of late-night compromises between strange bedfellows. Most of the public had no idea the bill was passed. Many soldiers would not learn of their potential benefits until long after they came home. Yet the outcome, as detailed in Edward Humes’ book Over Here: How the G. I. Bill Transformed the American Dream, was the sort of equality of opportunity Americans still think they stand for and an economic and cultural renaissance we have yet to fully appreciate.
As Humes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, makes clear, the motivations behind the G. I. Bill were far more complicated than a spontaneous outpouring of goodwill for America’s heroes. Never mind the fact that John E. Rankin, the principal sponsor of the bill that finally passed, was an outright supporter of the Ku Klux Klan; legislators of all political stripes understood that the veterans who would gain from the post-war benefits package could have threatened the nation’s future just as easily as they have preserved it. Earlier mass mobilizations of Americans, from the Revolutionary War to World War I, had been followed by a threat to the nation’s political elites when veterans demanded their due. One of the early challenges of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration had been placating the “Bonus Army” of WWI vets who occupied Washington, D.C., demanding their pay. Even more ominous was the fact that in Germany and Russia, totalitarian movements had been fueled by the resentment of veterans of previous wars who felt slighted by the countries they had served.
Of course the G. I. Bill was not entirely built on cynicism and fear. Roosevelt and other architects of the New Deal saw benefits for returning veterans as a way of promoting a “Second Bill of Rights,” an economic guarantee of basics like housing and health care to ensure that political freedoms had meaning. Such a vision was never achieved, but the two forces compromised to create one of the most far-reaching government programs in history. Returning veterans received a year’s unemployment pay, free tuition at any school that would accept them, government-subsidized home loans, state-provided health care, and more.
By illustrating how these benefits changed the lives of several veterans, Humes explores the deep impact this single piece of legislation had on American life. One example among many is Richard Koch. The son of an immigrant farm family, Koch joined the Air Force shortly after the war began and was eventually captured behind enemy lines. While in a POW camp, he read whatever books he could find, and found himself drawn to a biography of the famous Mayo medical family. By the time the war had ended, Koch decided he wanted to be a doctor—a dream the G. I. Bill made possible. Humes goes on to relate how Koch became a famous pediatrician, a career built upon serving a new generation of children in a new generation of hospitals in a new generation of suburban communities—themselves consequences of the G. I. Bill.
Humes’ practiced storytelling technique makes Over Here an ideal historical argument for the reader who doesn’t know he or she is looking for one. Habitual conservative critics of “big government” will find themselves drawn in by stories of war heroism, then taken aback to discover that without massive federal spending, there might have been no “Greatest Generation.” Those who tend to see government intervention as a cure-all will be sobered by Humes’ account of how the G. I. Bill unintentionally hollowed out America’s inner cities by subsidizing home-buying in the suburbs, and contributed to the stifling gender coded culture of the 1950s. And the reader who might normally skip the “Rosie the Riveter” sidebar in an American history textbook will find that debates over gender and race were essential to the G. I. Bill’s outcomes, even if their influence wasn’t always obvious.
Perhaps the most important hidden argument of Over Here, however, lies in the humility of both its heroes and the legislation that made them who they are. Humes admires the restraint of leaders like Bob Dole and George McGovern, both of whose educations were funded by the G. I. Bill. While today’s politicians brag about their military backgrounds and their unwavering support of “the troops,” the soldiers of the World War II generation saw military service as a mix of privilege and sacrifice—in other words, as duty. And while Humes speculates about what might have happened if the G. I. Bill had provided more benefits to more people, his narrative also shows the virtue of a seemingly modest government program that was “flexible, democratic, and utterly nonjudgmental”—and therefore dynamic.
The main failing of Humes’ book, then, is that while he does an excellent job of putting the G. I. Bill into the historical context of World War II, he provides little comparison with other, less successful government interventions. What gave those Americans the political will to fund higher education for millions of people, while our current legislators let federal student aid turn into banking industry corporate subsidies? Why, one might wonder, was the G. I. Bill so successful when programs like federal housing projects are widely considered to have failed?
It’s easy to attribute the G.I. Bill’s success to the spirit of the times (or, as Humes sometimes seems to do, to a charismatic leader like FDR). But at least part of the victory is owed to successful political compromise and legal design—and faith that the democratic process is adequate to address society’s problems. Many Americans have grown cynical enough about government to think that problems as daunting as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina or sorting out the mess in Iraq cannot be solved by open and honest debate. As the story of the G. I. Bill shows, these problems may not be resolved in a way we find personally satisfying, and the solutions we create may lead to unanticipated dilemmas. Yet we have to try — it is our duty.
Andrew Benedict-Nelson is a fellow with Leitner Public Affairs where, among other things, he edits the Chicago Wonk website. He will begin work on a Ph.D. in the history of medicine in the fall.
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