The quest for the dream

the long version

"With authority, wit and the perspective of reason, the author [John P. Roche] documents the extraordinary advances since 1913 in the the attitudes of the law, the Federal government, and -- most vitally -- the public itself toward the rights and basic liberties of minority and nonconformist groups within the United States. He illustrates the revolution brought about by the urbanization of American society, the "Walpurgis Night" of World War I and its aftermath, and the new dawn of hope that rose with the New Deal. He describes the roles of the Anti-Defamation League, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, and the Supreme Court, among other groups, in advancing struggle against the Ku Klux Klan, the "Palmerites" and the "Yakoos," the entrenched trusts, the Huey Longs, and Father Coughlins, the white supremacists, the Bund, and MCCarthyism. On the debit side of the ledger, Mr. Roche deals frankly withe the hysterical evacuation and internment during World War II of West Coast Japanese Americans." -- Book Jacket.