Loss of land which limited opportunities for the unemployed. The Kansas City Library hosted this hourlong event. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Im the director of the library. It is a pleasure to welcome you here on the 125th anniversary of the birth of eisenhower. This program is part of an ongoing series about president eisenhower, and we look forward to doing more. The associate director youll hear from in a moment. This series is sponsored by the wt Kemper Foundation at commerce bank. And was the idea of my cousin. Julie, you can tell from her last name, married a frenchman. As a german family, this was difficult to take. But she is here tonight. We have welcomed her back into the family after that. Tonight, you will hear from tim reeves, the director of the Eisenhower Library about Dwight Eisenhower and the frontier. As he will point out, Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1891. When Frederick Jackson turner said in his famous thesis, essay. He said the frontier closed. Therefore, america changed because the frontier had made america. He talked about the west. The west, of course is where the frontier was. I want to say tonight this is really about the midwest. Frederick jackson was from wisconsin in the midwest. Our first version of the frontier thesis was downgraded was dumbraided in kansas city by a man who worked with thomas hart benton, who himself invented the thesis of manifest destiny. He was when the leaders of kansas city, one of the people one of the people who helped create the move to put the bridge over the Missouri River which created kansas city. He also helped found oregon. He took the oregon trail and was the first governor appointed by lincoln of colorado. But he wrote books about this thesis. Westward, the path of empire. In his thesis he said there is a temperate zone of the world and empire is moving constantly from the east to the west. From china to the European Countries to america, and eventually will stop. His thesis was that it will stop in centropolis. His view was that it was actually right here in sugarcreek. That civilization would basically headquarter itself for all time in sugarcreek. But he missed it by a few miles. It is right here in kansas city, but he was close. And we know this because if you think about the american century, which we hope will go on to the american millennium, there are certain president s of the United States responsible for that. Of course, harry truman, born in independence. Dwight eisenhower. He grew up in abilene kansas. Ronald reagan, dixon, illinois. The dark suburbs of the midwest in arkansas, bill clinton. Barack obama, we frequently talk about hawaii, we talk indonesia, a lot of kenya. A lot of places, but lets face it, he grew up in kansas. If you think about that and triangulate all of that, basically you triangulate all those president s who had been important to create in the american century, basically it is right here. So it is really a midwestern thesis. The frontier stopped right here. I was looking for evidence of this thesis in eisenhowers diaries and i could not find it. I did find this. The great line in the frontier thesis is that the expansion of the frontier leads to the growth of independence in america. And independence of american character. I did find this in the eisenhower diaries. During world war ii, he is beginning to plan for the invasion for american troops going to the middle east and europe. His father dies. He was buried today, it says. He was a just man, well educated, a thinker. He was under monster to, quiet. He was uncomplaining in the face of adversity. His finest monument was his reputation. His sterling insistence on the immediate payment of all debt earned for him a reputation that profited all of us boys. Because of it, all Central Kansas helped me secure an appointment to west point in 1911. I am proud that he was my father. It seems to me that lesson of Dwight Eisenhower on the kansas frontier is about character. Tonight, we have a man of sterling character at the Eisenhower Library. It is surprising that tim is here tonight because, beside his archival activities, his writing about American History and teaching history lessons for historians, he is also known and has received awards for his involvement in baseball history. He is received awards for his society of baseball research. He has written a book on the kansas city monarchs. It is a little bit of a surprise that he is here tonight while the playoffs are going on. But anyway, tim reeves is a great historian and archivist. And a man of sterling character and it is an honor to have him here tonight. [applause] thank you, bradley. I want to thank the Kemper Foundation, the Eisenhower Foundation and the Kansas City Public Library for coming up with this idea to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of Dwight Eisenhower. Here we are at the end of that program trail. It is fitting that it takes us to the american frontier where this year marks not only the 125th birthday of eisenhower, it is also the year that the u. S. Census bureau declared that the american frontier was close. In the event was actually related. Eisenhowers understanding of the frontier demise shaped his ideas on the proper role of government as a result. The primary evidence for this claim is not found in the books that crosby mentioned a few years ago but rather at the library and easy him and letters between the former president of United States and fivestar general, and a military comrade. Ike and chin, as the men were known, met in panama during one of the most formative periods of eisenhowers life. He was assigned the infantry but grade brigade. Graduate school, as i described graduate school, as ike described it, in military affairs and the humanities. Ike had really slackened under the rote memorization of west point memorization. Discussing the finer points of these works with the general around campfires at night, as well as with fellow officers like bradford chenowith. He would march through a series of brilliant assignments with the secretary of war and the army chief of staff climaxing as the supreme allied Commander AlliedExpeditionary Force in the second world war. In short this graduate school that ike went through in panama put him on his historic trajectory to the white house. A 1954 letter in his president ial term offered him a chance to relive the very fine and heated debates jihad shared some 30 years earlier. Bradford g chenowith was a very intelligent if somewhat mercury somewhat precurial man who had spent most of the world war and a japanese prisoner of war camp after his request to continue to fight was denied. He left the army after the war where classroom encounters with liberal professors home to self described radical republican beliefs, which he now aimed at his old friend the president. He deviated from eisenhowers moderate policies. He still wanted to express his quote and admiration to stand up to pressures that would crush many men. Ike acknowledged his note with a short one of his own. But on Second Thought decided to rekindle their conversation with a moderate rejoinder. Eisenhower had promoted the middle way as he characterized his ideas on government. Eisenhower, after leaving the white house would write an occasional article for Readers Digest magazine. In his last article was on the middle wave. His middle way speeches and articles consistently promoted a bright line between concentrations of unbridled private power on one side of the road and unlimited state power on the other. In fact, eisenhower viewed the long march of American History as they struggle to stay that middle course. Abraham lincoln and theodore were men of the middle pointing to lincolns homestead act ntrs Corporate Trust busting. To chenowith, ike explained how the constitution was nothing else so much as an effort to find a middle way between the political extremists of that time. On one side were the individualists and a degree of personal freedom at the other extreme or the great believers and centralized government. Those who mistrusted the decisions reached by popular majorities. Majorities. Ike noted the same split in contemporary politics there were those who wanted the federal government to control every phase of our individual lives versus those who wanted to eliminate everything the federal government has ever done that qualifies as social advance. Eisenhowers plan to expand Social Security to 10. 5 million new workers was wending its way through congress. The issue was probably the impetus was probably the issue was probably the impetus for chenowiths spiny letter to his friend. Ike moved to his defense. It seems to me, he said, no greater intelligence is required in order to discern the practical as a key necessity of establishing some kind of security in a specialized and highly industrialized age. At one time such security was provided by the existence of free land and a great mass of untouched and soluble Natural Resources. These are no longer to be had for the asking. Ikes letters to chenowith make similar references he had made elsewhere but his defense of Natural Resources was something new. It revealed the middle way political debt to a string of political thought not constantly associated. The extinction of the frontier and the necessity for federal welfare programs. The census bureaus pronouncement of the frontier extension had gathered little notice outside specialist circles. Offering a range of talks from popular uprisings in the middle ages, to early lead mining. Preceded turners own lecture on the history. Although conference observers noted or reported little of his talks in the reviews at the time, his frontier thesis would dominate the interpretation of American History for more than a generation and continues to be a matter of debate for this day. His frontier thesis concluded, the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of american settlement westward, explain American Development. It accounted for a distinctive American Society and quality that was democratically egalitarian and ruggedly individualistic, according to turner. The prevailing theory was the germ theory. That it had started in germany and migrated to north america. Turner would have none of that. He said american democracy was a uniquely American Development and was part of this frontier experience. Free land was the most significant. So long as it exists, a livelihood exists and economic power secures political power. In other words, the closing of the frontier meant much more than the end of a major chapter in u. S. History. Economic freedom, Economic Security and Political Freedoms must be built on a new foundation. It would be the state. That is the government. It really refers to the wideranging Reform Efforts at work in the late 19th and early 20th century. Brought by industrialization, urbanization, and immigration through government action. That is a very simple fight version of progressivism. The closing simplified version of progressivism. The closing of the frontier signified the complexity of this new age. In 1910, turner reported how the president finds itself engaged in the task of readjusting the old ideals to new conditions and is turning increasingly to government to preserve traditional democracy. It is not surprising that socialism shows know where the cans as elections continue. The popular choice of senators, initiatives, referendums and recall is spreading. It exhibits these tendencies in the most market degree. Their efforts to find substitutes for that former safeguard of democracy and disappearing free land. A relevant aside, a substitute for the disappearing free land by eisenhowers aside. David eisenhower who ran for school board on the socialist party ticket in 1903, losing badly. He won Something Like 27 votes that year. It tickles me when they refer to his conventional midwestern upbringing. His father was a socialist Party Candidate for local office and his mother was a very vocal pacifist. I dont think that is traditional republican by most definitions. An important coralary was the belief that this free land of the frontier would provide a safety valve of economic release, eastern factory workers and thrown from their jobs by recession or depression. It was created by the state, unemployed by the industrial economy. Throughout the academic start in chicago, the frontier thesis had advanced through the early 20th century. The thesis won wide circulation by a combination of academic and popular hesitations by graduate students. He wrote encyclopedia entries, essays in popular magazines. Turner was a very gifted speaker and went on an ambitious speaking tour. And the university of kansas. Future president Woodrow Wilson who had been turners fellow graduate student and also eagerly helped spread the idea. The frontier thesis was so widely known by the 1930s, which was a key time in eisenhowers life, that the first public bibliography, published in the early 1930s, since turner gave his famous talk in paper almost 100 books or articles had been written about that thesis. By 1985, the bibliography had grown to 250 pages. Turners fame grew so great that his thesis became so prevalent that like the words of sigmund freud, the significance of the frontier in American History wasnt read some much as it was held at cocktail parties. Nowhere was the air thicker than among the early new deal. Most importantly with professor Turner Harvard student. His september 23 address on popular or progressive government to the Commonwealth Club in san francisco. With the country deep in the great depression, roosevelt laid out his understanding of the nations predicament, and its solution. A glance at the situation today, fdr said, inequality as we knew it no longer exists. The industrial plant is built. The last frontier has been reached and there is practically no more free land. There is no safety valve in the form of a western prairie. Our task now is not discovery or exploitation of Natural Resources. It is the soberer, leicester less dramatic business of administering resources already at hand. The day of and lightened administration has come. The enlightened administration according to fdr would be the new deal. Government reforms and programs that would transform the relationship between the citizen state and the state and the economy. The new deal is still with us. Social security. Tennessee valley authority. Among many of the new deals living legacies. The National Recovery administration, or nra, was the most ambitious attempt at post frontier enlightenment. The nra was established to revitalize industry and trade, grow employment, and improve Labor Conditions with fair competition to govern industries and trades. Or, the nra directors plainer words, the nra was a safety valve. This deserves a little more explanation. The new deal explains that the nra functioned and introduces an important second part. Not only did the free land absorb redundant labor and new immigrants. It wouldnt provide what the former historian described as a natural adjustment to the competitive excesses and the masters of finance who roamed and exploited the west at will. The west is big enough to absorb it all. New settlers and enterprise. Now that it is gone, a politically controlled adjustment must take place. He said, the politically controlled adjustment was the nra. In other words, the frontier had been a natural regulator of government and employment. Now we need a manmade political regulator, hence the nra. Conservatives, predominantly the republicans, rejected the nra, along with almost every new deal program. President hoover rejected the commonwealth speech as a philosophy of stagnation and despair. Once out of office, he continued once out of office, he continued the battle. His criticism hoover and his fellow conservatives, believed the new deal concept of the frontier was too small. There was a whole new world waiting to be conquered. Fast confidence of thought, research, industry, human relations. More full of comfort than the boundless west, hoover wrote in 1934, that they can be conquered and applied to Human Service with free enterprise. Freemen pioneer and achieve in these regions. Regimented men march restlessly without confidence and hope. That is where the argument act 20 years later by bradford chynoweth. He replied to the president s equivalent of free land with security, true, ike, the frontier closed the very year you and i were born. But free land it was never. The pioneer had to secure their land. The frontiers of life are infinite. We will never reach and its what the new frontiers if we throttle industry and put a straitjacket on pioneer types. Ike admitted he might have misused the word security. He explained, that land did not necessarily mean security of body, but it did constitute a reserve of hope. Eisenhower said no political without political of their own, can suddenly find himself in a poverty system. It has crated social problems that cannot possibly be met it has created social problems that cannot possibly be met. As circumstances change, so must any government if it is to prove durable. Chenoweth agree that it is created social problems that need a new approach, but why jump to the