Iron Curtain Speech & Taft-Hartley Act

1. Iron Curtain Speech & Taft-Hartley Act Brenna Bobinski Erica Bauer

2. Iron Curtain Speech • Fulton, Missouri • March 5, 1946 • Other name, The Sinews of Peace • One of Churchill’s most famous post-war speeches • Churchill tried to persuade Truman to disregard the occupation zones arranged at the Quebec Conference in August of 1943 and to continue to hold firmly the Anglo-American positions in Yugoslavia, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Denmark • Changed the way the democratic west viewed the communist east • Many people considered this the beginning of the Cold War • Helped America-Effort to stop spread of communism • Hurt America- Led to Cold War

3. Taft-Hartley Act • 1947 • Banned the closed shop (in which non union workers could not be hired) but permitted a union shop (workers newly hired were required to join the union) unless banned by state law • Made unions liable for damages that resulted from jurisdictional disputes among themselves • Required union leaders to take a noncommunist oath • Slowed growth of organized labor • Shows conservative attitude-passed by republican controlled senate, conservatives against labor control • Truman vetoed, called it a slave-labor act, restored credit with labor • Bill passed over Truman’s veto by Republican controlled Congress