1.
President of the United States
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The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation
2.
John F. Kennedy
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Kennedy was a member of the Democratic Party, and his New Frontier domestic program was largely enacted as a memorial to him after his death. Kennedy also established the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, Kennedys time in office was marked by high tensions with Communist states. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam by a factor of 18 over President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in Cuba, a failed attempt was made at the Bay of Pigs to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro in April 1961. He subsequently rejected plans by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to orchestrate false-flag attacks on American soil in order to gain approval for a war against Cuba. After military service in the United States Naval Reserve in World War II and he was elected subsequently to the U. S. Senate and served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated Vice President, and Republican presidential candidate, Richard Nixon in the 1960 U. S, at age 43, he became the youngest elected president and the second-youngest president. Kennedy was also the first person born in the 20th century to serve as president, to date, Kennedy has been the only Roman Catholic president and the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22,1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested that afternoon and determined to have fired the shots that hit the President from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald two days later in a jail corridor, then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded Kennedy after he died in the hospital. The FBI and the Warren Commission officially concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin, the majority of Americans alive at the time of the assassination, and continuing through 2013, believed that there was a conspiracy and that Oswald was not the only shooter. Since the 1960s, information concerning Kennedys private life has come to light, including his health problems, Kennedy continues to rank highly in historians polls of U. S. presidents and with the general public. His average approval rating of 70% is the highest of any president in Gallups history of systematically measuring job approval and his grandfathers P. J. Kennedy and Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald were both Massachusetts politicians. All four of his grandparents were the children of Irish immigrants, Kennedy had an elder brother, Joseph Jr. and seven younger siblings, Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert, Jean, and Ted. Kennedy lived in Brookline for ten years and attended the Edward Devotion School, the Noble and Greenough Lower School, and the Dexter School through 4th grade. In 1927, the Kennedy family moved to a stately twenty-room, Georgian-style mansion at 5040 Independence Avenue in the Hudson Hill neighborhood of Riverdale, Bronx and he attended the lower campus of Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys, from 5th to 7th grade. Two years later, the moved to 294 Pondfield Road in the New York City suburb of Bronxville, New York. The Kennedy family spent summers at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in September 1930, Kennedy—then 13 years old—attended the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. In late April 1931, he required an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from Canterbury, in September 1931, Kennedy attended Choate, a boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut, for 9th through 12th grade
3.
Executive order (United States)
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Executive orders are orders issued by United States Presidents and directed towards officers and agencies of the Federal government of the United States. Executive orders have the force of law, based on the authority derived from statute or the Constitution itself. The ability to such orders is also based on express or implied Acts of Congress that delegate to the President some degree of discretionary power. The United States Constitution does have a provision that explicitly permits the use of executive orders, the term executive power in Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution is not entirely clear. The term is mentioned as direction to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed and is part of Article II, Section 3, the consequence of failing to comply possibly being removal from office. The U. S. Specifically, such orders must be rooted in Article II of the US Constitution or enacted by the congress in statutes. Attempts to block such orders have been successful at times when such orders exceeded the authority of the president or could be handled through legislation. Other types of orders issued by the Executive are generally classified simply as administrative rather than executive orders. Initially they took no set form, consequently, such orders varied as to form and substance. The most famous executive order was by President Abraham Lincoln when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1,1863, Political scientist Brian R. Dirck states, The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order, itself a rather unusual thing in those days. Executive orders are simply presidential directives issued to agents of the department by its boss. Until the early 1900s, executive orders went mostly unannounced and undocumented and this changed when the Department of State instituted a numbering scheme in 1907, starting retroactively with United States Executive Order 1 issued on October 20,1862, by President Abraham Lincoln. President Trumans Executive Order 10340 in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer,343 US579 placed all steel mills in the country under federal control. This was found invalid because it attempted to make law, rather than clarify or act to further a law put forth by the Congress or the Constitution, Presidents since this decision have generally been careful to cite which specific laws they are acting under when issuing new executive orders. Wars have been fought upon executive order, including the 1999 Kosovo War during Bill Clintons second term in office, however, all such wars have had authorizing resolutions from Congress. President Truman issued 907 executive orders, with 1,081 orders by Theodore Roosevelt,1,203 orders by Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt has the distinction of making a record 3,522 executive orders. Prior to 1932, uncontested executive orders had determined such issues as national mourning on the death of a president, and the lowering of flags to half-staff. President Franklin Roosevelt issued the first of his 3,522 executive orders on March 6,1933, declaring a bank holiday, Executive Order 6102 forbade the hoarding of gold coin, bullion and gold certificates
4.
United States Secretary of the Treasury
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This position in the Federal Government of the United States is analogous to the Minister of Finance in many other countries. The Secretary of the Treasury is a member of the Presidents Cabinet, nominees for The Secretary of the Treasury undergo a confirmation hearing before the United States Senate Committee on Finance before being confirmed by the United States Senate. The Secretary of the Treasury is a member of the U. S. National Security Council. The Secretary along with the Treasurer must sign Federal Reserve notes before they can become legal tender, the Secretary also manages the United States Emergency Economic Stabilization fund. Most of the Departments law enforcement agencies such as the U. S. Customs Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, secret Service were reassigned to other Departments in 2003 in conjunction with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. The Secretary of the Treasury salary is $205,700 annually,2 Deputy Secretary of the Treasury M. Peter McPherson served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from August 17,1988, to September 15,1988. 4 Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Kenneth W. Dam served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from December 31,2002,5 Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert M. Kimmitt served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from June 30,2006, to July 9,2006. 7 Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Neal Wolin served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from January 25,2013, as of April 2017, there are eleven living former Secretaries of the Treasury, the oldest being George P. Shultz. The most recent Secretary of the Treasury to die was Lloyd M. Bentsen, United States Department of the Treasury
5.
Silver certificate (United States)
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Silver certificates are a type of representative money issued between 1878 and 1964 in the United States as part of its circulation of paper currency. They were produced in response to silver agitation by citizens who were angered by the Fourth Coinage Act, the certificates were initially redeemable for their face value of silver dollar coins and later in raw silver bullion. Since 1968 they have been only in Federal Reserve Notes and are thus obsolete. Large-size silver certificates were issued initially in denominations from $10 to $1,000 and in 1886 the $1, $2, in 1928, all United States bank notes were re-designed and the size reduced. The small-size silver certificate was issued in denominations of $1, $5. The complete type set below is part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonians National Museum of American History, the Coinage Act of 1873 intentionally omitted language authorizing the coinage of “standard” silver dollars and ended the bimetallic standard that had been created by Alexander Hamilton. By 1875 business interests invested in silver wanted the bimetallic standard restored, people began to refer to the passage of the Act as the Crime of 73. Further public agitation for silver use was driven by fear that there was not enough money in the community. Members of Congress claimed ignorance that the 1873 law would lead to the demonetization of silver, some blamed the passage of the Act on a number of external factors including a conspiracy involving foreign investors and government conspirators. In response, the Bland–Allison Act, as it came to be known, was passed by Congress on 28 February 1878, the first silver certificates were issued in denominations of $10 through $1,000. Reception by financial institutions was cautious, while more convenient and less bulky than dollar coins, the silver certificate was not accepted for all transactions. Congress used the National Banking Act of 12 July 1882 to clarify the legal status of silver certificates by clearly authorizing them to be included in the lawful reserves of national banks. A general appropriations act of 4 August 1886 authorized the issue of $1, $2, the introduction of low-denomination currency greatly increased circulation. Over the 12-year lifespan of the Bland–Allison Act, the United States government would receive a seigniorage amounting to roughly $68 million, Treasury Secretary Franklin MacVeagh appointed a committee to investigate possible advantages to issuing smaller sized United States banknotes. Due in part to the outbreak of World War I and the end of his appointed term, any recommendations may have stalled. On 20 August 1925, Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon appointed a committee and in May 1927 accepted their recommendations for the size reduction. On 10 July 1929 the new currency was issued. This required that the Treasury maintain stocks of dollars to back
6.
Agricultural Adjustment Act
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Its purpose was to reduce crop surplus and therefore effectively raise the value of crops. The money for these subsidies was generated through a tax on companies which processed farm products. The Act created a new agency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the Agriculture Marketing Act, which established the Federal Farm Board in 1929, was seen as a strong precursor to this act. The law, in its entirety, can be read here, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933, the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression. Farmers faced the most severe economic situation and lowest agricultural prices since the 1890s, overproduction and a shrinking international market had driven down agricultural prices. Soon after his inauguration, Roosevelt called the Hundred Days Congress into session to address the crumbling economy, from this Congress came the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to replace the Federal Farm Board. The Roosevelt Administration was tasked with decreasing agricultural surpluses, wheat, cotton, field corn, hogs, rice, tobacco, and milk and its products were designated as basic commodities in the original legislation. Subsequent amendments in 1934 and 1935 expanded the list of commodities to include rye, flax, barley, grain sorghum, cattle, peanuts, sugar beets, sugar cane. The Administration targeted these commodities for the reasons, Changes in the prices of these commodities had a strong effect on the prices of other important commodities. These commodities were running a surplus at the time. These items each required some amount of processing before they could be consumed by humans, Congress declared its intent, at the same time, to protect the consumers interest. For example, in an effort to reduce agricultural surpluses, the government paid farmers to reduce crop production, oranges were being soaked with kerosene to prevent their consumption and corn was being burned as fuel because it was so cheap. There were many people, however, as well as livestock in different places starving to death, farmers slaughtered livestock because feed prices were rising, and they could not afford to feed their own animals. Under the Agricultural Adjustment Act, plowing under of pigs was also common to prevent them reaching a reproductive age, in 1935, the income generated by farms was 50 percent higher than it was in 1932, which was partly due to farm programs such as the AAA. Tenant farming characterized the cotton and tobacco production in the post-Civil War South, as the agricultural economy plummeted in the early 1930s, all farmers were badly hurt but the tenant farmers and sharecroppers experienced the worst of it. To accomplish its goal of parity, the Act reduced crop production, the Act accomplished this by offering landowners acreage reduction contracts, by which they agreed not to grow cotton on a portion of their land. The farm wage workers who worked directly for the landowner suffered the greatest unemployment as a result of the Act, there are few people gullible enough to believe that the acreage devoted to cotton can be reduced one-third without an accompanying decrease in the laborers engaged in its production. Researchers concluded that the statistics after the Act took effect, indicate a consistent and widespread tendency for cotton croppers and, to a considerable extent, tenants to decrease in numbers between 1930 and 1935
7.
Gold Reserve Act
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The act also changed the nominal price of gold from $20.67 per troy ounce to $35. This price change incentivized foreign investors to export their gold to the United States, the increase in gold reserves due to the price change as well as the confiscation clause resulted in a large accumulation of gold in the Federal Reserve and U. S. Treasury. The increase in the money supply lowered real interest rates which increased investment in durable goods. A year earlier, in 1933, Executive Order 6102 had made it an offense for U. S. citizens to own or trade gold anywhere in the world, with exceptions for some jewelry. By 1975 Americans could again freely own and trade gold, the Gold Reserve Act authorized the Exchange Stabilization Fund to use such assets as were not needed for exchange market stabilization to deal in government securities. The United States was still suffering the effects of the 1929 stock market crash in 1934 when the Gold Reserve Act was enacted. President Roosevelt was challenged with decreasing unemployment, raising wages and increasing the money supply, the Gold Reserve Act, which banned the export of gold, restricted the ownership of gold and halted the convertibility of gold into paper money helped him overcome this obstacle. This act ratified the previous Executive Order 6102 which required almost all gold to be exchanged for paper currency, the Gold Reserve Act also revalued the price of gold to $35 per troy ounce. As a result, the Gold Reserve Act, an act of monetary policy, between 1933 and 1937 the GNP in the United States grew at an average rate of over 8 percent. This growth in output is due primarily to a growth in the money supply M1. Traditional beliefs about the recovery from the Great Depression hold that the growth was due to fiscal policy, Treasury holdings of gold in the US tripled from 6,358 in 1930 to 8,998 in 1935 then to 19,543 metric tonnes of fine gold by 1940. The revaluation of gold referenced was a policy decision made by the Roosevelt administration in order to devalue the dollar. The largest inflow of gold during this period was in response to the revaluation of gold. An increase in M1, which is a result of an inflow of gold, would also lower real interest rates, the international community during the depression began to shift much of its gold reserves to the United States. Foreign investors clamored over the $15 increase in value from $20.67 to $35 per troy ounce and this data shows two important aspects that involved gold in the early 20th century. The first was the expansion of gold as a currency across the globe. This data also demonstrates the rapid rise of gold reserves to the US, even in 1900 the U. S. only held 602 tonnes of gold in reserve. This was 61 tonnes less than Russia and only 57 tonnes more than France, over the next 20 years countries reserves grew as the amount of gold in the market increased and as normal trading occurred
8.
Associated Press
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The Associated Press is an American multinational nonprofit news agency headquartered in New York City that operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. The AP is owned by its contributing newspapers and radio and television stations in the United States, all of which stories to the AP. Most of the AP staff are members and are represented by the Newspaper Guild, which operates under the Communications Workers of America. As of 2007, news collected by the AP was published and republished by more than 1,700 newspapers, in addition to more than 5,000 television, the photograph library of the AP consists of over 10 million images. The AP operates 243 news bureaus in 120 countries and it also operates the AP Radio Network, which provides newscasts twice hourly for broadcast and satellite radio and television stations. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, as part of their cooperative agreement with the AP, most member news organizations grant automatic permission for the AP to distribute their local news reports. The AP employs the inverted pyramid formula for writing that enables the news outlets to edit a story to fit its available publication area without losing the storys essentials. Cutbacks at rival United Press International in 1993 left the AP as the United States primary news service, although UPI still produces and distributes stories and photos daily. Other English-language news services, such as the BBC, Reuters, some historians believe that the Tribune joined at this time, documents show it was a member in 1849. The New York Times became a member shortly after its founding in September 1851, initially known as the New York Associated Press, the organization faced competition from the Western Associated Press, which criticized its monopolistic news gathering and price setting practices. The revelations led to the demise of the NYAP and in December 1892, when the AP was founded, news became a salable commodity. The invention of the press allowed the New York Tribune in the 1870s to print 18,000 papers per hour. During the Civil War and Spanish–American War, there was a new incentive to print vivid, Melville Stone, who had founded the Chicago Daily News in 1875, served as AP General Manager from 1893 to 1921. He embraced the standards of accuracy, impartiality, and integrity, the cooperative grew rapidly under the leadership of Kent Cooper, who built up bureau staff in South America, Europe and, the Middle East. He introduced the telegraph typewriter or teletypewriter into newsrooms in 1914, in 1935, AP launched the Wirephoto network, which allowed transmission of news photographs over leased private telephone lines on the day they were taken. This gave AP a major advantage over other media outlets. While the first network was only between New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, eventually AP had its network across the whole United States, in 1945, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Associated Press v. The decision facilitated the growth of its main rival United Press International, AP entered the broadcast field in 1941 when it began distributing news to radio stations, it created its own radio network in 1974
9.
Harry S. Truman
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Harry S. Truman was an American politician who served as the 33rd President of the United States, assuming the office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the waning months of World War II. In domestic affairs, he was a moderate Democrat whose liberal proposals were a continuation of Franklin Roosevelts New Deal, but the conservative-dominated Congress blocked most of them. He also used weapons to end World War II, desegregated the U. S. armed forces, supported a newly independent Israel. Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, and spent most of his youth on his familys 600-acre farm near Independence, in the last months of World War I, he served in combat in France as an artillery officer with his National Guard unit. After the war, he owned a haberdashery in Kansas City, Missouri, and joined the Democratic Party. Truman was first elected to office as a county official in 1922. After serving as a United States Senator from Missouri and briefly as Vice President, he succeeded to the presidency on April 12,1945, upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Germany surrendered on Trumans 61st birthday, just a few weeks after he assumed the presidency, but the war with Imperial Japan raged on and was expected to last at least another year. Although this decision and the issues that arose as a result of it remain the subject of debate to this day. Truman presided over a surge in economic prosperity as America sought readjustment after long years of depression. His presidency was a point in foreign affairs, as the United States engaged in an internationalist foreign policy. Truman helped found the United Nations in 1945, issued the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to contain Communism and his political coalition was based on the white South, labor unions, farmers, ethnic groups, and traditional Democrats across the North. Truman was able to rally groups of supporters during the 1948 presidential election. The Soviet Union became an enemy in the Cold War, Truman oversaw the Berlin Airlift of 1948 and the creation of NATO in 1949, but was unable to stop Communists from taking over China. When communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, he sent U. S. troops, after initial successes in Korea, however, the UN forces were thrown back by Chinese intervention, and the conflict was stalemated throughout the final years of Trumans presidency. Scholars, starting in 1962, ranked Trumans presidency as near great, Harry S. Truman was born on May 8,1884, in Lamar, Missouri, the oldest child of John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen Young Truman. His parents chose the name Harry after his mothers brother, Harrison Harry Young, while the S did not stand for any one name, it was chosen as his middle initial to honor both of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. The initial has been written and printed followed by a period
10.
C. Douglas Dillon
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Clarence Douglas Dillon was an American diplomat and politician, who served as U. S. Ambassador to France and as the 57th Secretary of the Treasury. He was also a member of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dillon was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the son of American parents, Anne McEldin and financier Clarence Dillon. Although Dillon grew up as a patrician, his paternal grandfather, after leaving Poland, his grandfather settled in Texas after the American Civil War and married Dillons Swedish-American grandmother. Dillons father later changed his name to Dillon, his grandmothers maiden name. Dillons mother was descended from Grahams Lairds of Tamrawer Castle at Kilsyth, Stirling, Dillon began his education at Pine Lodge School in Lakehurst, Ocean County, New Jersey which he attended at the same time as the three Rockefeller brothers Nelson, Laurance, and John. He continued at Groton School in Massachusetts, then at Harvard University, A. B. magna cum laude 1931 in American history, Dillon earned a varsity letter for football his senior year. In 1938 be became Vice-President and Director of Dillon, Read & Co. a firm that bore his fathers name. After his World War II service on Guam, on Saipan, in 1946 he became chairman of Dillon, Read, by 1952 he had doubled the firms investments. Dillon had been active in Republican politics since 1934 and he worked for John Foster Dulles in Thomas E. Deweys 1948 presidential campaign. In 1951 he organized the New Jersey effort to secure the 1952 Republican nomination for Dwight D. Eisenhower and he was also a major contributor to Eisenhowers general election campaign in 1952. President Eisenhower appointed him United States Ambassador to France in 1953, following that appointment he became Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in 1958 before becoming Under Secretary of State the following year. In 1961, John F. Kennedy, appointed Republican, Dillon Treasury Secretary, Dillon remained Treasury Secretary under President Lyndon B. Johnson until 1965. Dillon was important in securing presidential power for reciprocal tariff reductions under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and he also played a role in crafting the Revenue Act of 1962, which established a 7 percent investment credit to spur industrial growth. He supervised revision of rules to benefit corporate investment. A close friend of John D. Rockefeller III, he was chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1972 to 1975 and he also served alongside John Rockefeller on the 1973 Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, and under Nelson Rockefeller in the Rockefeller Commission to investigate CIA activities. He had been president of Harvard Board of Overseers, chairman of the Brookings Institution, with his first wife, Dillon collected impressionist art. He was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum, serving as its President. He built up its Chinese galleries and served as a member of the Museums Centennial committee and he personally donated $20 million to the museum and led a fundraising campaign, which raised an additional $100 million
