Word: civilizing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...will the 20th century be remembered? Yes, for democracy. And yes, for civil rights...
...conviction that a democratic government had a responsibility to help Americans in distress--not as a matter of charity but as a matter of social duty--provided a moral compass to guide both his words and his actions. Believing there had never been a time other than the Civil War when democratic institutions had been in such jeopardy, Roosevelt fashioned a New Deal, which fundamentally altered the relationship of the government to its people, rearranged the balance of power between capital and labor and made the industrial system more humane...
...struggles of the following day. Every evening he held a cocktail hour where the rule was that nothing could be said of politics or war; instead the conversation was deliberately turned to gossip, funny stories or reminiscences. Only Eleanor was allowed to bring up serious subjects, to talk of civil rights or slum clearance. Roosevelt spent untold hours sorting his stamp collection, playing poker with his Cabinet members, watching mystery movies. Only when Eleanor chose the movies did he agree to sit through serious pictures--The Grapes of Wrath or a documentary on civil rights...
...business must not be forged at the expense of labor. It was Eleanor who insisted that America could not fight racism abroad while tolerating it at home. It was Eleanor who championed the movement of women into the work force during the war. Many joined her in these efforts--civil rights leaders, labor leaders, liberal spokesmen. But her passionate voice in the highest councils of decision was always influential and often decisive...
...court-packing scheme and an unsuccessful attempt to purge his opponents in the 1938 by-elections. One must also concede the failures of vision that led to the forcible relocation of Japanese Americans, which deprived tens of thousands of men, women and children of Japanese descent of their fundamental civil liberties, and the devastating failure to bring more Jewish refugees into America before Hitler finally closed the doors to emigration...