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Migrants: Disease in the Body Politic

Gary Alan Fine and Bill Ellis

in The Global Grapevine: Why Rumors of Terrorism, Immigration, and Trade Matter

Contemporary immigrants who enter the United States to work or settle are assumed to bring with them habits of crime, laziness, and lack of hygiene. This chapter puts these modern rumor cycles into ... More

Contemporary immigrants who enter the United States to work or settle are assumed to bring with them habits of crime, laziness, and lack of hygiene. This chapter puts these modern rumor cycles into historical perspective by examining ways in which these beliefs are based on earlier stereotypes generated by previous immigration waves. They often blamed foreigners for introducing diseases such as leprosy and typhoid fever to the country, just as Mexicans were blamed for the new swine flu epidemic. The literal illness, then as now, symbolized a more subtle threat to the body politic: a new population marked by immorality, sexual promiscuity, and political disloyalty. Particularly, foreigners serve as scapegoats after catastrophes such as fires or floods. Rumor contributed to the creation of an increasingly restrictive immigration policy in the United States, and continues to generate an atmosphere of distrust against newcomers.Less

The Loyalty Investigations of Mary Dublin Keyserling and Leon Keyserling

Landon R. Y. Storrs

in The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left

This chapter focuses on Mary Dublin Keyserling and Leon Keyserling, who were particularly prominent targets for the anticommunist right from 1940 through the mid-1960s. His first claim to fame was ... More

This chapter focuses on Mary Dublin Keyserling and Leon Keyserling, who were particularly prominent targets for the anticommunist right from 1940 through the mid-1960s. His first claim to fame was drafting the National Labor Relations Act, and her career began as a consumer activist, so they aptly represent the movements whose successes mobilized anticommunist crusaders. The Keyserlings were “purchasing-power progressives” who argued that raising working-class living standards was essential for a healthy economy and a healthy democracy. They both experienced long, bruising loyalty investigations and resigned in 1953 during the transition to the Eisenhower administration. Leon reemerged as an economic adviser to the Democratic National Committee and the AFL-CIO in the late 1950s and then as an ally of the centrist Democrat Hubert Humphrey. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Mary head of the U.S. Women's Bureau, over the objections of congressional conservatives who revived the old disloyalty allegations.Less

Secrets and Self-Reinvention: The Making of Cold War Liberalism

Landon R. Y. Storrs

in The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left

This chapter explores the disloyalty allegations against the Keyserlings. Over the long course of their loyalty investigations, the Keyserlings portrayed themselves as having been political centrists ... More

This chapter explores the disloyalty allegations against the Keyserlings. Over the long course of their loyalty investigations, the Keyserlings portrayed themselves as having been political centrists during the 1930s, when in fact they had been decidedly on the left. The Keyserlings are remembered as loyal Johnson Democrats who favored Cold War military spending, backed U.S. policy in Vietnam, and argued that poverty could be eliminated through economic growth rather than redistribution. Before coming under investigation, however, they were socialists. Faced with a relentless stream of disloyalty allegations that began in the 1940s and climaxed in 1952, they were forced to modify their political rhetoric and moderate their policy proposals. They also denied they ever had held leftist views. Conservatives may have lost the battle to exclude the Keyserlings from public influence, but by narrowing the range of permissible debate, they won the war.Less

Loyalty Investigations and the “End of Reform”

Landon R. Y. Storrs

in The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left

This chapter examines the connection between disloyalty charges and the shift toward the political center, or out of government service, by many public officials, which has been difficult to discern ... More

This chapter examines the connection between disloyalty charges and the shift toward the political center, or out of government service, by many public officials, which has been difficult to discern because of the silence that loyalty defendants maintained, even many years later. As they organized papers, gave interviews, and drafted memoirs, they typically avoided disclosing that they had been investigated and downplayed the leftism that had put them in the line of fire. Leon and Mary Dublin Keyserling were not the only former loyalty defendants to offer accounts that were distorted by an accumulation of omissions; they are not to blame for trying to protect themselves and their associates from further persecution. In addition to impeding progressive reform, policymakers' traumatic encounters with the federal employee loyalty program impoverished the primary sources on which scholars have relied to understand mid-twentieth-century American politics.Less

An American Thinker on the Wa: Professor Royce

Josiah Royce

in Race Questions, Provincialism, and Other American Problems: Expanded Edition

This chapter, a brief letter written in 1915 after the sinking of the Lusitania, presents Royce's first response to the war and to his loss of faith in Germany. For ... More

This chapter, a brief letter written in 1915 after the sinking of the Lusitania, presents Royce's first response to the war and to his loss of faith in Germany. For Royce, the role of a philosopher in the division of loyal labor was to encourage reflection and to give people an opportunity to make up their own minds on key issues. The chapter holds that when an alternative becomes disloyal to loyalty, it becomes an enemy of mankind and neutrality is not an option. The blow to Royce's faith in German culture must have been severe, but his reaction reinforced the “philosophy about life” he still actively developed. His commitment as a philosopher remained to making things clear and directing people toward reflection precisely by rejecting the model offered by Germany's imperial designs. Royce concludes his letter with an illustration of the imperatives of “loyalty to loyalty”.Less

The Auld Enemy in the New Scotland

Asifa Hussain and William L. Miller

in Anglo-Scottish Relations, from 1900 to Devolution and Beyond

This chapter reports considerable experience of harassment in Scotland. But those involved rate the conflict between themselves and Scots as far less serious than the sectarian conflict between ... More

This chapter reports considerable experience of harassment in Scotland. But those involved rate the conflict between themselves and Scots as far less serious than the sectarian conflict between Protestant and Catholic Scots has been rated. Devolution and nationalism challenge the identities of the English in a unique way. Their own criteria of English identity for national identity prevent them from identifying with Scotland. They are indeed willing ‘to adopt the culture’ but (psychologically) unable to ‘join the nation’. The real reason why Scottish perceptions of English disloyalty do not indicate an immediate crisis is the absence of a sufficiently acute conflict. There is a self-conscious perception amongst English immigrants that while they might have some conflict with majority Scots, other conflicts have been worse. English immigrants cope with the problem of identity by describing themselves as ‘British’ rather than ‘English’.Less

Disloyalty

STUART P GREEN

in Lying, Cheating, and Stealing: A Moral Theory of White-Collar Crime

The significance of the norm against disloyalty (and the closely related concept of breach of trust) to our understanding of white-collar crime has been both over- and underestimated in the scholarly ... More

The significance of the norm against disloyalty (and the closely related concept of breach of trust) to our understanding of white-collar crime has been both over- and underestimated in the scholarly literature. On one hand, there are writers, such as Susan Shapiro, who have argued that violation of trust is the defining characteristic of white-collar crime. On the other hand, there are scholars such as John Coffee who have expressed considerable skepticism about the role that breach of trust should play in the criminal law. A more accurate assessment would arrive at a conclusion somewhere between these extremes. While the concept of disloyalty does play a significant role in defining certain key criminal offenses, such as bribery, treason, some acts of insider trading, and some frauds, it has little to do with many other core white collar offenses. This chapter explains the meaning of disloyalty, and foreshadows some of the ways that it plays a role in defining white-collar crime.Less

Civil War Confiscation in the Reconstruction Supreme Court

in The Limits of Sovereignty: Property Confiscation in the Union and the Confederacy during the Civil War

Confiscation lived on as an important issue for decades after the Civil War and was not entirely put to rest until the twentieth century. Once it ceased to be politically viable, it did not simply ... More

Confiscation lived on as an important issue for decades after the Civil War and was not entirely put to rest until the twentieth century. Once it ceased to be politically viable, it did not simply vanish. Instead, confiscation remained a fixture in American property law for fifty years. It presented the Supreme Court with a number of important legal and constitutional issues that served as vehicles for the elaboration of property ideology steeped in a conception of the natural rights of individuals. Was permanent, uncompensated property confiscation for disloyalty a legitimate power of Congress? Did a presidential pardon mandate the return of confiscated property? Who had title to confiscated land and how should it be treated in the marketplace? What was the legal and constitutional status of the Confederate Sequestration Act and property seized under the act? The answers to these questions had profound implications both for property law and for alternative conceptions of property that fought for dominance after the Civil War.Less

Loyalty and Betrayal

Judith N. Shklar

Samantha Ashenden and Andreas Hess (eds)

in On Political Obligation

In this chapter Shklar discusses modern forms of loyalty and disloyalty, particularly as they occur in the context of social groups and entities such as clan, nation, race, and class. She draws on ... More

In this chapter Shklar discusses modern forms of loyalty and disloyalty, particularly as they occur in the context of social groups and entities such as clan, nation, race, and class. She draws on the example of the United States to illustrate the complications that have arisen for this new political society whose population is mainly made up of immigrants.Less

Gibraltar Crumbles

Berry Craig

in Kentucky Confederates: Secession, Civil War, and the Jackson Purchase

January 1, 1862, marked less than a happy New Year for most of Paducah's citizenry. The Yankees had been in their midst for almost five months. It seemed less and less likely that the Rebels would ... More

January 1, 1862, marked less than a happy New Year for most of Paducah's citizenry. The Yankees had been in their midst for almost five months. It seemed less and less likely that the Rebels would rescue them from the “abolitionist invaders.” Yet it soon went from bad to worse for the secessionist majority in the Purchase—and minority in the rest of the Kentucky. Confederate sympathizers were branded as disloyal by their own state government and denied the vote, jailed, or otherwise punished. Even so, most Purchase secessionists remained resolutely Rebel, smuggling supplies to the Confederates, spying for the southern side, and still hoping for the return of the army in gray.Less

From Neutrality to Collaboration

John Boje

in An Imperfect Occupation: Enduring the South African War

This chapter examines how the Boers went from neutrality to collaboration with the British during the South African War. It considers the many gradations in the process of alienation from the ... More

This chapter examines how the Boers went from neutrality to collaboration with the British during the South African War. It considers the many gradations in the process of alienation from the national cause as well as the essential unity of the phenomenon. Before discussing gradations of culpability, the chapter looks at some general issues relating to economic considerations, pan-republican nationalism, and level of commitment that underlay the phenomenon of collaboration in all its forms. It then describes manifestations of Boer disloyalty: evading combat, opting out of the war, the “objective collaboration” of working with the new authorities, participation in the peace movement, providing intelligence, service with the British Army, and service under arms.Less

Disloyalty

Mathew A. Foust

in Loyalty to Loyalty: Josiah Royce and the Genuine Moral Life

Having focused in previous chapters on the nature of loyalty, this chapter discusses the nature of disloyalty. Such a discussion is prompted by the introduction of the notion of the “loyal traitor” ... More

Having focused in previous chapters on the nature of loyalty, this chapter discusses the nature of disloyalty. Such a discussion is prompted by the introduction of the notion of the “loyal traitor” in the previous chapter. The viability of at once being loyal and disloyal suggests the insufficiency of a pat conception of disloyalty as the antonym of loyalty. In addition to proposing necessary and sufficient conditions for an act to be characterized as one of disloyalty, the account of disloyalty articulated in this chapter includes phenomenological descriptions of disloyalty as experienced by both the betrayer and the betrayed. These descriptions more clearly illustrate what occurs when disloyalty is afoot and highlight the need for betrayer and betrayed to confront disloyalty as a problematic situation to be dealt with, and if possible, overcome. The chapter then argues for the mutual value of atonement, for betrayer and betrayed, in the wake of disloyalty. At the same time, a description is given of the conditions under which it is appropriate to forgo atonement and detach oneself from a cause maligned by disloyalty.Less

The Hope of the Nation

Zachery A. Fry

in A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac

This chapter discusses the rage militaire that spurred citizens to enlist in the Union Army, as well as the image of General George B. McClellan's within that patriotism. It details early attempts to ... More

This chapter discusses the rage militaire that spurred citizens to enlist in the Union Army, as well as the image of General George B. McClellan's within that patriotism. It details early attempts to root out disloyalty in the officer corps and lays out the consequences of the army's first significant campaign on the Virginia Peninsula. Saddled with ill health and frustrated by defeat, the Army of the Potomac by mid-1862 struggled to rationalize its predicament, and many ended up blaming the broad class of "politicians" at home for meddling. Among the army's most politically aware officers and men, opinions differed sharply over whether McClellan was victim or villain, with some pro-Republican men arguing that "hard war" and emancipation would be necessary.Less

Copperheads and Half-Loyal Regular Officers

Zachery A. Fry

in A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac

This chapter addresses the political controversies that continued to swirl around General Meade in early 1864. His summons before the Congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War opened ... More

This chapter addresses the political controversies that continued to swirl around General Meade in early 1864. His summons before the Congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War opened the political rift within the high command. In the army's lower ranks, however, the principal issue was that of reenlistment and army reorganization, and this chapter dissects the results of an army-wide debate over whether to sign up again for the duration of the war or return home. Political considerations took a backseat in the debate. Those who did not reenlist included men from both Republican and Democratic political persuasions. The chapter also discusses efforts by junior officers, some of whom had left the army, to malign the high command and tie it to notions of Democratic disloyalty in the pages of exposé books and opinion pieces.Less

Sedition

Timothy Zick

in The First Amendment in the Trump Era

This chapter examines the concept of “sedition” and efforts to suppress dissent and disloyalty. President Adams used the Sedition Act of 1798 to prosecute and jail his critics and political ... More

This chapter examines the concept of “sedition” and efforts to suppress dissent and disloyalty. President Adams used the Sedition Act of 1798 to prosecute and jail his critics and political opponents. That episode ultimately revealed the “central meaning of the First Amendment”—that Americans must be free to criticize their public officials, even if that criticism is often caustic and unpleasant. Federal and state officials have not proposed reviving the crime of seditious libel. However, several critics of the Trump administration have come under fire and suffered tangible consequences for openly criticizing the president and the Trump administration. As in prior eras, recent efforts to punish sedition and disloyalty pose serious threats to democratic self-government and political discourse.Less

Netherworld of War: Civilians, Soldiers, and the Dominion of War

Christopher Phillips

in The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border

The prolonged presence of military forces, federal and Confederate, in all of the middle border states from 1861 to 1862 had profound societal effects. In the region’s slave states, armies and state ... More

The prolonged presence of military forces, federal and Confederate, in all of the middle border states from 1861 to 1862 had profound societal effects. In the region’s slave states, armies and state militia implemented military occupations to control a divided and often hostile civilian population, subverting civil liberties at the local and state levels as part of a broader strategy to maintain order, determine loyalty and disloyalty, and obtain resources to prosecute the war. In the mesh of conflicting stances and allegiances, military presence hastened communities’ realignments by loyal and disloyal constituencies. In turn, these residents divided into “communities of allegiance” of discrete loyal and dissenting networks.Less

Neighborhood

John Kleinig

in On Loyalty and Loyalties: The Contours of a Problematic Virtue

The differences among loyalty's conceptual neighbors—faithfulness, fidelity, allegiance, steadfastness, constancy, devotion, solidarity, and integrity—are traced. Also wayward loyalties: disloyalty ... More

The differences among loyalty's conceptual neighbors—faithfulness, fidelity, allegiance, steadfastness, constancy, devotion, solidarity, and integrity—are traced. Also wayward loyalties: disloyalty and betrayal. Some links to neighborhood values—trust and trustworthiness—are spelled out, as well as some of loyalty's larger social presumptions.Less