In his 1944 State of the Union address, FDR called for a second Bill of Rights, one that would guarantee all Americans access to education and jobs, adequate food and clothing, and decent housing and medical care. Like his Four Freedoms speech, this was a call to extend the New Deal by broadening the rights to individual security and welfare guaranteed by the government. The answer to his call, however, would have to wait for the war’s conclusion. Congress created new government benefits only for military veterans, known as GIs (short for “government issue”). The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (1944), an extraordinarily influential program popularly known as the “GI Bill of Rights,” provided education, job training, medical care, pensions, and mortgage loans for men and women who had served in the armed forces.

The president’s call for social legislation sought to reinvigorate the New Deal political coalition. In the election of 1944, Roosevelt again headed the Democratic ticket. But party leaders, aware of FDR’s health problems and fearing that Vice President Henry Wallace’s outspoken support for labor and civil rights would alienate moderate voters, dropped him from the ticket. In his place, they chose Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri, a straight-talking, no-nonsense politician with little national experience. The Republicans nominated Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York. Dewey, who accepted the general principles of welfare-state liberalism domestically and favored internationalism in foreign affairs, attracted some of Roosevelt’s supporters. But a majority of voters preferred political continuity, and Roosevelt was reelected with 53.5 percent of the nationwide vote. The Democratic coalition retained its hold on government power, and the era of Republican political dominance (1896–1932) slipped further into the past.