Kruse - One nation under God : how corporate America invented Christian America

PRAISE FOR ONE NATION UNDER GOD

Certain to be controversial, One Nation Under God persuasively reveals how business opponents of the New Deal joined forces with crusading ministers to place religious piety at the core of the American story. The books redolent account of this underestimated mid-century point of inflection compels a reassessment of how and when the United States came to be regarded as a consecrated Christian nation.

Ira Katznelson, author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time

Kevin M. Kruses startling One Nation Under God reveals the extraordinary Cold War politics that put under God in Americas Pledge of Allegiance, In God We Trust on U.S. stamps, and Cecil B. DeMilles The Ten Commandments on Hollywoods biggest movie list. The political warriors for a Christian America made the Puritans look like pikers, and Kruse dissects their successes and foibles with grace, glowing research, and more than a little humor. A compelling read!

Jon Butler, Professor Emeritus of American Studies, History, and Religious Studies at Yale University

In this brilliant and iconoclastic book, Kevin M. Kruse shows how an unholy alliance of greedy businessmen, venal clergy, and conservative politicians exploited American spirituality for partisan gain. Kruses research is extraordinary, his prose vivid, his argument profound. One Nation Under God is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding contemporary culture in the United States.

Ari Kelman, author of the Bancroft Prizewinning A Misplaced Massacre

ONE NATION UNDER GOD

Copyright 2015 by Kevin M. Kruse

Published by Basic Books

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10107.

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Designed by Brent Wilcox

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kruse, Kevin Michael, 1972-

One nation under God : how corporate America invented Christian America / Kevin M. Kruse.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-465-04064-3 (ebook) 1. Christianity and politicsUnited StatesHistory20th century. 2. Church and stateUnited StatesHistory20th century. 3. New Deal, 19331939Public opinion. 4. CorporationsPolitical activityUnited StatesHistory20th century. 5. ConservatismUnited StatesHistory20th century. 6. Political cultureUnited StatesHistory20th century. 7. Social conflictUnited StatesHistory20th century. 8. United StatesReligion20th century. 9. United StatesPolitics and government19331945. 10. United StatesPolitics and government19451989. I. Title.

BR517.K78 2015

322.10973dc23

2014035883

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Maggie and Sam

CONTENTS

T HE INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT DWIGHT D. Eisenhower was much more than a political ceremony. It was, in many ways, a religious consecration.

Though such a characterization might startle us today, the voters who elected Eisenhower twice by overwhelming margins would not have been surprised. In his acceptance speech at the 1952 Republican National Convention, he promised that the coming campaign would be a great crusade for freedom. As he traveled across America that summer, Eisenhower met often with Reverend Billy Graham, his close friend, to receive spiritual guidance and recommendations for passages of Scripture to use in his speeches. Indeed, the Republican nominee talked so much about spirituality on the stump that legendary New York Times reporter Scotty Reston likened his campaign to William Jennings Bryans old invasion of the Bible Belt during the Chautauqua circuit days. On election day, Americans answered his call. Eisenhower won 55 percent of the popular vote and a staggering 442-to-89 margin in the Electoral College. Reflecting on the returns, Eisenhower saw nothing less than a mandate for a national religious revival. I think one of the reasons I was elected was to help lead this country spiritually, he confided to Graham. We need a spiritual renewal.

The inaugural ceremonies on January 20, 1953, set the tone for the new administration. Some of Eisenhowers supporters tried to get Congress to designate it a National Day of Prayer, but even without such an official blessing, the day still had all the markings of one. In the past, incoming presidents had attended religious services on the morning of their inauguration, but usually discreetly. Before Harry Trumans inauguration in 1949, for instance, the president, his family, and a few cabinet officials

Public prayer highlighted the official inaugural festivities as well. Chief Justice Fred Vinson, on hand to deliver the oath of office, welcomed the religious emphasis. When he had risen to the high court a few years earlier, the Kentucky Democrat had taken part in a consecration ceremony sponsored by a new prayer breakfast group in the Senate. There, before a gathering of more than two dozen senators and the attorney general, the chief justice of the United States testified about the importance of the Bible being the Book of all the people and how the whole superstructure of government and jurisprudence is built upon it. Now Vinson would watch Eisenhower do the same. As the chief justice delivered the oath, the new chief executives left hand rested not on one Bible but on two, each opened to a selection suggested by Graham. A black leather-bound family Bible was opened to 2 Chronicles 7:14, a passage Graham regularly cited to urge a national religious revival: If my people,

Immediately after his oath, in his first official words as president, Eisenhower asked the 125,000 Americans in attendanceand the estimated seventy million more watching live on televisionto bow their heads so that he might lead them in a little private prayer of my own he had composed that morning. Almighty God, Eisenhower began, as we stand here at this moment my future associates in the Executive branch of Government join me in beseeching that Thou will make full and complete our dedication to the service of the people in this throng, and their fellow citizens everywhere. The presidents prayer caused a minor sensationnot because of anything said in it but simply because it had been said. A half mile from the Capitol ceremonies, crowds on Pennsylvania Avenue listened to the prayer over portable speakers strewn along the streets. There was an electric something, an observer noted, that seemed to summon the waiting multitudes to their knees. The inaugural prayer was quickly reproduced in countless newspapers and magazines. An oilman from Shreveport, Louisiana, printed the prayer as a pamphlet, with the cover showing the smiling president on the left, the American flag on the right, and the cross directly above. At the bottom ran the oilmans own prayer: God Save Our President Who Saved Our Country and Our World!