Presidential Election 1948

As the first Presidential Election in Post World War II America was approaching, many bosses in the Democratic Party were not too happy with His Accidency; Harry S Truman.  While he received praise for dropping the Atomic Bomb in August 1945, ending war with the Japanese, Democrats in Congress; as most of them were southerners still bound by the traditions of the Old Confederacy just 80 short years earlier felt betrayed.  Truman had signed an executive order integrating the US Armed Forces.  The President went to speak with his fellow Democrats in his friend, Speaker Sam Rayburn's office to explain his decision.

President Truman seemed to qualify his reasoning by explaining that his family too had southern leanings and southern feelings.  He went on to explain that whatever his inclinations were as a native of the state of Missouri he knew as President that racism was an evil of the worst kind, and he was going to try and stop it.  This led many in that room to ask, why would a man as smart as Franklin Roosevelt pick a damned failed haberdasher to be his vice president.

Race was not the only boogie man haunting Harry Truman.  In the spring of 1946 the President tried to settle a railroad strike by asking Congress to authorize the President to draft into the army all workers who were on strike against their government.  When he made that statement, Less Biffle; the Secretary of the Senate walked up to the podium as the dais of the House of Representatives handing the President a note which read, "Word has just been received that the rail strike has been settled on terms proposed by the president."

The other domestic issue to haunt the president in 1946 was that of inflation.  After nearly four years of rationing and private industry churning out goods for the war effort; President Truman was trying to get the United States onto a peacetime footing.  The problem was that as our boys were coming home from Europe and the Pacific for the next year, demand was outpacing supply.  Truman was told that he should consult some economists to see what can be done to correct the issue of inflation.  Truman said that he didn't need some economic wizards to tell that the country was hurting, the government just needed to see how it was buying.  In Truman's opinion it was a case of not so much labor vs management, but the war rich union being against their government.  Hence the railroad strike of 1946.

So given the mess the United States was in economically and socially, the American people punished the accidental president by giving him a Republican controlled 80th Congress.  The two most famous freshmen members of the House of Representatives to be sworn in in 1947 were Representative John F. Kennedy, D-Massachusetts 11th District and Representative Richard M. Nixon, R-California 12th District.  Nixon would make a name for himself as an anti-Communist crusader trying to rid Communism from everything from Hollywood to the US government itself to keep from ruining the American way of life.

President Truman also took on the Soviet Union in 1947 by creating the Truman Doctrine to keep communism from spreading to the west, protecting both Greece and Turkey.  The other great program to stop communism was the Marshall Plan, named for General George C. Marshall.  For 365 days the Marshall Plan would feed the people of Berlin while trying to rise from the ashes of the Third Reich.  The Soviets did try to create a blockade to keep the United States from feeding the people of Berlin.  And then there was the internal fighting within the administration with Secretary Marshall being against the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine fearing that Stalin would use that issue to drive a wedge between Iran and the west, thus causing World War III.  The President would recognize the state of Israel in May 1948.

The 1948 would be a first in history, where many Americans thought that the Debates between Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960 were the first recorded debates; they would be wrong.  The first modern, recorded presidential debate was the Oregon Republican Primary Debate between Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York (and the 1944 Republican Nominee against Franklin Roosevelt) and Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota.  But that primary campaign and intraparty fighting was nothing compared to the Democratic Party.

As mentioned, civil rights was an issue within the Democratic Party of 1948 was at odds with that plank in their platform.  A relatively new comer to national Democratic Party politics; Mayor Hubert Humphrey on Minneapolis would give a speech at the Democratic National Convention on civil rights resulting in a walkout by white, southern Democrats.  Ironically, 20 years later, and as Vice President, Hubert Humphrey would be delivering a speech at Kent State University talking about civil rights, but in 1968 it would be black Kent State students who would walk out.

So, disgusted with the civil rights plank in the Democratic Party Platform:

"The Democratic Party is responsible for the great civil rights gains made in recent years in eliminating unfair and illegal discrimination based on race, creed or color,

The Democratic Party commits itself to continuing its efforts to eradicate all racial, religious and economic discrimination.

We again state our belief that racial and religious minorities must have the right to live, the right to work, the right to vote, the full and equal protection of the laws, on a basis of equality with all citizens as guaranteed by the Constitution.

We highly commend President Harry S. Truman for his courageous stand on the issue of civil rights."

The southern Democrats decided to form the Dixiecrats and nominated Governor Strom Thurmond as their nominee for president.

But the President did not just have a challenge from the right wing of the Democratic Party on civil rights issues but also on the left wing of the Democratic Party when the Progressive candidate; Truman's predecessor to the vice presidency in 1945; Henry Wallace was nominated as the Progressive Party's candidate.  The Democratic Party, and Harry Truman offered the nomination to General Dwight Eisenhower, but Ike declined citing that he was a soldier and not a politician.

After the conventions were over, the General Election season began.  Every "expert" in the media in 1948 predicted that Governor Dewey would defeat President Truman in a landslide.  Even the President's own mother-in-law went around telling people to vote for Tom Dewey.  Newsweek Magazine polled 50 writers and they all agreed that Dewey would win.  Harry Truman said of those writers that not one of those writers had sense to pound sand down a rat hole.

Governor Dewey, assured of a win said all that he had to do was not rock the boat.  He barely bothered to campaign.  But there were two people who honestly believed that Harry Truman be elected president in his own rite; Harry Truman himself and Less Biffle; the Secretary of the Senate.

How did Biffle know this?  He got an old spring wagon pulled by two mules, posing as a chicken peddler.  He would go around the country just talking with the people asking them what they thought of the President.  When Biffle came back to Washington he reported to the President that there was nothing to worry about, the common folks were for him.

As mentioned before, Governor Dewey barely bothered to campaign taking the media and the polls for granted.  President Truman thought differently and got on his campaign train known as the Ferdinand Magellan and took a train trip; known as a Whistle Stop Campaign across the United States.

Along the way, the leaders of the Democratic Party were reading the polls and had decided not to spend good money on a hopeless quest. The Party had stopped paying for the train. The engineer, remembering Truman wanting to break a railroad strike by drafting rail workers into the army refused to move on until he was paid upfront and in cash. The President met with the passengers in the passenger car pleading his case stating that he didn't care if they vote for Harry Truman or not. That was not the issue with him. To him, the issue was that the president can take his case to the people and let the people make a choice. He passed his hat to collect money to pay the engineer to which Truman's press secretary reminded the President that Roosevelt never had to beg like that.

So as the Ferdinand Magellan rolled into Small Town, USA, President Truman spoke to the people from the rear platform about the dismal record of the 80th Republican Congress. He spoke about what the 80th Republican Party had done to the people rather than what they did for the people. It was on this Whistle Stop Campaign where in Seattle a member of the crowd yelled out, "Give 'em hell, Harry!" The president responded by saying, "I don't give 'em hell. I tell the truth on 'em and they think it's hell."

In the end, despite the early printed headline by the Chicago Tribune declaring that Dewey had defeated Truman; President Harry Truman would be elected president in his own rite earning 303 Electoral Votes or 24,179,347 (49.6%) of the Popular Vote to Thomas E. Dewey's 189 Electoral Votes or 21,991,292 (45.1%) of the Popular Vote, and Strom Thurmond's 39 Electoral Votes or 1,175,930 (2.4 percent) of the Popular Vote.

This collection takes you back to that campaign where you get to travel with President Truman on the Ferdinand Magellan, pulling into the small towns and meeting his family along the way; ultimately leading him to the greatest political upset in American history until the Presidential Election of 2016 when Donald Trump defeated Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

See also:

• Presidential Election 1940
• Presidential Election 1944
• Presidential Election 1948
• Presidential Election 1952
• Presidential Election 1956
• Presidential Election 1960
• Presidential Election 1964
• Presidential Election 1968
• Presidential Election 1972
• Presidential Election 1976
• Presidential Election 1980
• Presidential Election 1984
• Presidential Election 1988
• Presidential Election 1992
• Presidential Election 1996
• Presidential Election 2000
• Presidential Election 2004
• Presidential Election 2008
• Presidential Election 2012
• Presidential Election 2016
• Presidential Election 2020