/// HISTORY G.I. BILL OF RIGHTS
G.I. Joe U.S. Senator introduced legislation that changed America
BY SUZANNE G. JAMESON
Left: Mac and the "Big Four." Above: Arizona Gov. Dan Garvey, Bess and Harry Truman, and Mac aboard the 1948 presidential "whistlestop" campaign trail.
Ernest W. McFarland introducing the amendment to the G.I. Bill that included the educational and loan provisions while addressing the U.S. Senate on January 28, 1944. “Many have given the best years of their lives. They have left good homes to fight beasts on the other side of the world under the most trying conditions. Their mental and physical strength has been taxed to the uttermost. We cannot expect them to just return and take up where they left off – whether it was at work or at school.”
Left: Mac scraped by as a farmer in Arizona before he got his law degree. Above: Mac speaks with soldiers.
ACCOMPLISHED PEOPLE WHO HAVE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF THE G.I. BILL PRESIDENTS: George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford SENATORS: Bob Dole, Daniel Inouye, George McGovern, John Warner
discharge from their services.” The G.I. Bill of Rights, signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 22, 1944, is now seen by historians as a congressional landmark and the beginning of the prosperous middle class that has distinguished America since World War II. McFarland, as author of the sections on education and business and home loans, refused to compromise on those provisions. The Veteran’s Administration was responsible for carrying out the provisions of the new bill. Educators and the VA predicted only 7%, a few hundred thousand of the 16 million eligible, would take advantage of the G.I. Bill’s educational benefits. Recognizing a good thing when they saw, and surprising everyone, about 7.8 million, almost 50% of those eligible, flooded colleges, universities, high schools and trade schools. Higher education was finally not just a privilege of wealthy Americans. The bill made education available to the common man. Some hail the bill today as the most successful piece of social legislation ever written. According to a 2015 article by American Radioworks, “The G.I. Bill increased the country’s intellectual capital exponentially. The Bill funded the educations of 22,000 dentists, 67,000 doctors, 91,000 scientists, 238,000 teachers, 240,000 accountants and 450,000 engineers, as well as three Supreme Court Justices, three presidents, a dozen senators, 14 Nobel Prize winners and two dozen Pulitzer Prize winners.” Millions of returning veterans also took advantage of the G.I. Bill’s home loan program. From 1944 to 1952, the VA backed an estimated 2.4 million loans. While other members of Congress played significant roles in securing the G.I. Bill’s passage, at the end of his Senate service in 1953, Mac was recognized by his fellow senators as the “Father of the G.I. Bill.” In Arizona politics, McFarland was a triple threat — U.S. Senate majority leader, Arizona governor and chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. He was the founder of KTVK, Phoenix’s fourth TV station, and was instrumental in developing a sustainable water system in Arizona through the Central Arizona Project. Throughout his life, he considered himself just a public servant.
Upon graduation, he set up a law practice in Florence, eventually becoming a rural judge. After tragically losing his first wife and three young children to the complications of childbirth and illness, he eventually remarried and decided to go after a new challenge: the U.S. Senate. After defeating incumbent Henry Ashhurst, the freshman senator from Arizona arrived in Washington in 1941. When the U.S. entered World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Mac knew the first duty of Congress was to win the war — and then bring home the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines serving overseas. He also knew bringing them back to the U.S. was not enough. The reintegration of millions of servicemembers into American life would be the most difficult task of all. Mac’s generation had seen returning World War I veterans selling apples on street corners to make ends meet, standing in soup lines and protesting on the Wash- ington Mall lawn to demand their promised service bonuses. On August 13, 1943, he was the featured speaker of the opening session of the Ari- zona American League’s 25th annual con- vention where he argued a three-point plan with bonuses, educational assistance, and home and business loans. Mac saw the obligation to return World War II vets as more than just survival. “There were things that needed to be done so that our government and our economy would remain strong, and the returning veterans would have a strong economy and a proper place in society upon their
SUPREME COURT JUSTICES: William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Byron White
S EVENTY-NINE YEARS AFTER IT WAS FIRST PASSED June 22, 1944, the G.I. Bill of Rights, first braded the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, still impacts the lives of millions of veterans. What few know is that one of its greatest champions was a new senator from Arizona, Ernest W. McFarland. Born on a farm in Earlsboro, Okla., McFarland was known throughout his life as simply “Mac.” Mac enlisted in the U.S. Navy at the outbreak of World War I but developed a near-fatal lung infection during basic training at Great Lakes Naval Station outside of Chicago. He would spend 316 of his 416 days in the service in sickbay at the U.S. Naval Hospital. Barely alive, he received no veterans’ benefits and a total of $14.50 in pay. Advised by doctors to relocate to Arizona to recover, Mac arrived in the desert Southwest with only $10 in his pocket. Working as a bank clerk, farmer and teacher, he eventually obtained a law degree from Stanford University. He would have preferred to attend the highly rated University of Arizona law school, but tuition was $30. Stanford at the time was free.
“The postwar [WWII] G.I. Bill of Rights – and the enthusiastic
response to it on the part of America's veterans – signaled the shift to the knowledge society. Future historians may consider it the most important event of the twentieth century. We are clearly in the midst of this transformation; indeed, if history is any guide, it will not be completed until 2010 or 2020. But already it has changed the political, economic and moral landscape of the world.” PETER DRUCKER THE FATHER OF MODERN BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
CELEBRITIES: Clint Eastwood, Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Gene Hackman, George C. Scott, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Duvall, Rod Steiger, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Walter Matthau
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AMERICAN VETERANS Summer 2024
Summer 2024 AMERICAN VETERANS
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