Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America's Soul

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Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America's Soul Page 46

by A. J. Baime


  “everyone was talking, yelling”: Ibid.

  “All I can say . . . is that”: Ibid.

  “I cried and I prayed for”: “Home Town Turns Out for Truman Victory Celebration,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 4, 1948.

  “Four more years”: Ibid.

  “It’s something like the night”: “Common Man Dazed by Election,” New York Times, November 4, 1948.

  “It was the most exhilarating”: Oral History Interview with Harold I. McGrath (transcript), 1970, Oral History Interviews, Truman archives, p. 98.

  “It was not my victory”: “Home Town Turns Out for Truman Victory Celebration,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 4, 1948.

  “Can we regard the pictures as”: Dialogue from “Text of Press Conference by Governor Thomas E. Dewey, November 3, 1948, at the Hotel Roosevelt, New York City,” Thomas E. Dewey Papers, Series 2, Box 117.

  33. “Dewey Defeats Truman”

  “We, and the rest of”: “He Asked for a Miracle and, Lo, He Got It,” Denver Post, November 3, 1948.

  “President Truman’s victory in his”: “Truman Aimed at Voters’ Hearts, Dewey at Heads, Roberts Explains,” Boston Daily Globe, November 5, 1948.

  “We were wrong, all of”: “Washington Calling: Truman’s Sweep,” Washington Post, November 5, 1948.

  “Miracle Man”: Newsweek, November 8, 1948.

  “the greatest photograph ever”: “Behind the Picture: ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ and the Politics of Memory,” Time, May 4, 2014.

  “the biggest, most enthusiastic”: McCullough, Truman, p. 723.

  WELCOME HOME: James K. Libbey, Dear Alben: Mr. Barkley of Kentucky (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2009), p. 98.

  “I will never forget that ride”: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman, p. 43.

  “I’m afraid you’re going”: Robert Klara, The Hidden White House: Harry Truman and the Reconstruction of America’s Most Famous Residence (New York: Thomas Dunne, 2013), p. 72.

  “Doesn’t that beat hell!”: Ibid., pp. 72–73.

  “We have special cause to be”: Provisional Government of Israel (Weizmann) to Truman, November 5, 1948, Research Files, Recognition of the State of Israel, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/correspondence-between-eliahu-epstein-chaim-weizmann-and-harry-s-truman?documentid=NA&pagenumber=4.

  “most aggressive program”: U.S. Department of State, Moscow to Secretary of State, November 13, 1948, Clark Clifford papers, Box 21, Truman archives.

  “papers of all political persuasions”: U.S. Department of State, Paris to Secretary of State, November 5, 1948, Clark Clifford papers, Box 22, Truman archives.

  “The world looks hopefully to”: U.S. Department of State, Nanking to Secretary of State, November 5, 1948, Clark Clifford papers, Box 22, Truman archives.

  “opinion frequently expressed even”: U.S. Department of State, Lisbon to Secretary of State, November 5, 1948, Clark Clifford papers, Box 22, Truman archives.

  “I think the future historians”: Alf M. Landon to Thomas E. Dewey, November 19, 1948, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, Series 10, Box 24.

  “Aunt Marsh and I want you”: Aunt Marsh and Uncle Peter to Tom and Frances Dewey, November 4, 1948, ibid., Series 10, Box 44.

  “I have been like many other”: Thomas W. Pierce to Dorothy Bell Rakoff, November 8, 1948, ibid., Series 10, Box 44.

  “It was not an ‘election’ but a ‘revolution’”: Harold L. Ickes to Judge William J. Campbell, November 5, 1948, Campaign Collection, Box 1, Truman archives.

  “We should have known he couldn’t”: “Thomas E. Dewey,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 18, 1971.

  “My own opinion”: Joe Martin, My First Fifty Years in Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960), p. 169.

  “the most interesting candidate”: Frank Gannon, “Minnesota’s Boy Wonder Was RN’s Pick for POTUS,” September 2, 2008, Richard Nixon Foundation, https://www.nixonfoundation.org/2008/09/minnesotas-boy-wonder-was-rns-pick-for-potus/.

  “The short answer on the election”: Thomas Dewey to Geo. I. Thomas, December 15, 1948, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, Series 10, Box 44.

  “The farmers switched in the mid-West”: Thomas Dewey to Joseph Robinson, January 13, 1949, ibid., Series 10, Box 38.

  “It had been taken for granted”: “The Farmers Wanted to Know,” Atlanta Constitution, November 8, 1948.

  “Labor did it”: Robert H. Ferrell, Harry S. Truman: A Life (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), p. 282.

  “some light reading on your”: Philleo Nash to Harry Truman, November 6, 1948, 1948 Election Campaign Collection, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/philleo-nash-harry-s-truman.

  “the greatest diplomatic crisis”: Robert A. Divine, Foreign Policy and U.S. Presidential Elections, 1940–1948 (New York: New Viewpoints, 1974), p. 266.

  “It always galls me to think”: Abels, Out of the Jaws of Victory, p. 139.

  “It is almost impossible to put”: “Taft Makes Comment,” New York Times, November 4, 1948.

  “The Republican Party is split”: “GOP Is Split ‘Wide Open,’ Dewey Says,” Washington Post, February 9, 1949.

  “Which voters stayed home?”: “Gallup Sees Close Election A ‘Nightmare,’” Washington Post, November 4, 1948.

  “I could not have been more”: “Election Prophets Ponder in Dismay,” New York Times, November 4, 1948.

  “It’s open season on the pollsters”: Broadcast of Edward R. Murrow, November 5, 1948, in In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938–1961, edited by Edward Bliss Jr. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), p. 138.

  “You’ve got to give the little man”: Arthur H. Vandenberg Jr., ed., The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952), p. 460.

  Epilogue

  “I whole-heartedly agree with”: Thomas E. Dewey to Harry S. Truman, June 27, 1950, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, Series 10, Box 44.

  “heart-felt gratification that no harm”: Thomas E. Dewey to Harry S. Truman, November 1, 1950, ibid., Series 10, Box 44.

  “I deliberately decided that I was”: “Hotel Confab Picks Dewey’s Veep,” Salt Lake City Tribune, April 6, 1952.

  “Today, I am convinced that”: “World Domination Now Russia’s Aim, Says Henry Wallace,” Boston Daily Globe, December 4, 1950.

  “utterly evil”: “Where I Was Wrong,” Los Angeles Times, September 7, 1952.

  “How could you have said”: Dialogue from Essie Mae Washington-Williams, with William Stadiem, Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond (New York: Regan Books, 2005), p. 145.

  “the largest crowd ever assembled”: “The President’s Party,” undated, President’s Permanent File, Box 4, Truman archives.

  “urgent appeal”: Chaim Weizmann (via Myra Phillips, the White House) to Clark Clifford, November 9, 1948, Clark Clifford papers, Box 14, Truman archives.

  “the communist forces in central”: V. K. Wellington Koo, Chinese Embassy, Washington, to the President of the United States, November 9, 1948, Clark Clifford papers, Box 2, Truman archives.

  “Don’t you wave to the S.O.B.”: Joseph Crespino, Strom Thurmond’s America (New York: Hill and Wang, 2012), p. 83.

  “enable every American to”: “Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union,” January 5, 1949, Sound Recordings, Truman archives, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/soundrecording-records/sr62-62-annual-message-congress-state-union-president-truman.

  “He [the president] . . . is”: Murrow, In Search of Light, p. 137.

  Index

  A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

  A

  Abt, John

  background/communism and, 87

  HUAC and, 199, 205

  Marion (sister), 87

  Wallace/presidential campaign and, 87, 93, 199, 205, 241, 242, 334

  Acheson, Dean, 34–35, 60, 61, 62

  Agg, T. R., Mrs.
, 231

  Aiken, Conrad, 296

  Air Force and reorganization, 75

  Albright, Robert, 235, 261

  Alexander, Perry, 182

  Allen, George, 92

  Allis, Barney, 331

  Allwright, Smith v. (1944), 192, 220

  Allwright, S. S., 192

  Alsop, Joseph, 237, 277

  Alsop, Joseph/Stewart, 51, 58, 86, 143, 235, 246, 275, 337

  American Anti-Communist Association, 79

  American Medical Association, 16

  Amsterdam News, 309, 310

  Arab-Israeli War (1948), 109, 210, 288, 353

  Arvey, Jacob (“Jake”), 142, 332

  Asapansa-Johnson, C., 310

  Associated Press, 41, 163, 216, 235, 307

  Atlanta Constitution, 42, 180, 221, 246, 315, 336

  atomic weapons/bombs

  Bikini Atoll test, 35–36

  description/future bombs and, 14

  detecting use (US) and, 154, 155–56n

  Lilienthal on, 154

  Operation Sandstone, 121, 154

  responsibility discussions, 154, 211, 223

  significance of, 5, 33

  Soviet using, 154, 154–55n

  US bombings of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, 5, 14, 15, 34

  as US secret/sharing with Soviets and, 13–15

  White House lunch/watching test, 34–35

  Auschwitz, 5–6

  Austin, Warren, 106

  Ayers, Eben, 12, 105, 146, 277, 324

  B

  Bacall, Lauren, 210, 251

  Balance, Elayne, 215

  Baldwin, Calvin Benham (“Beanie”)

  background/description, 88

  Wallace/presidential campaign and, 88, 118, 164, 206, 207, 241, 242

  Ball, Joseph H., 283

  Barkley, Alben

  at Democratic National Convention, 144, 146, 148

  vacation and, 353

  as VP candidate/election and, 144, 146, 224, 343, 354

  Barrows, Roberta, 12, 323

  Baruch, Bernard, 24, 64

  Batt, William (“Bill”), 176–77, 213, 226, 266

  Begin, Menachem, 21–22

  Behrens, Earl, 184

  Belgrano, F. N., 113

  Bell, David C., 148

  Bell, Elliott, 182

  Bell, Jack, 216, 235, 248, 307

  Bentley, Elizabeth, 197–99

  Berger, Meyer, 339

  Berlin. See Germany, Berlin

  Bernadotte, Folke/Plan, 210, 288, 301

  Biffle, Leslie, 211–12

  bikini bathing suit, 170

  Blaine, Anita McCormick, 165

  Blair House, 343

  Bloch, Charles J., 147

  Bogart, Humphrey, 55, 210

  Bohlen, Charles, 64

  Boring, Floyd, 227–28, 228n

  Boston Daily Globe, 263, 297, 298

  Bowles, Chester, 289

  Boyle, Bill, 332

  Boyle, Hal, 165

  Bradley, Omar, 104, 155

  Brandt, Raymond P., 307

  Bray, William, 225

  Bricker, John W., 329

  Bridges, Styles, 180

  Brigham, Helen, 283

  Britain postwar, 59–60

  British Mandate for Palestine, 22, 76, 105, 107, 108–9

  Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 17

  Brownell, Herbert, Jr.

  Dewey and, 49, 57, 58, 79–80, 82, 111, 112, 113, 115, 182, 186, 234, 326, 327, 330

  Republican National Committee/rebuilding party and, 57, 58, 80

  Republican National Convention/Dewey and, 133, 136, 137

  on Truman, 58

  Brown, Thomas W., 194

  Broyhill, J. E., 271

  Buchalter, Louis “Lepke,” 54

  Buchanan, Thomas, 172

  Buchenwald, 5–6, 191–92

  Burdick, Grace, 283

  Burke, Joseph, Mr./Mrs., 322

  Burton, John, 282

  Business Week, 171

  Butler, Carrie, 119

  Byrd, Harry, 73

  Byrnes, James, 37, 38–39

  C

  Canham, Erwin, 143

  Capote, Truman, 297

  Carr, Albert, 254

  Carroll, James J., 258

  Carter, Jimmy, 352

  Carter, John Franklin, 296, 312, 314

  Carter, Oliver J., 251, 252

  Central Intelligence Agency creation, 75

  Chambers, Whittaker

  background, 87, 199

  as former communist/spy, 87, 199

  Hiss/family and, 199, 203, 204

  HUAC/naming names, 199, 203, 222

  Chaplin, Charlie, 120

  Chapman, Oscar, 125, 171, 226, 229, 296

  Charleston News and Courier, 238

  Chiang Kai-shek, 344, 353

  Chicago Daily News, 119, 331

  Chicago Daily Tribune, 125, 134, 204, 293, 294, 337, 342

  Chicago Sun, 42

  Chicago Times, 313, 323

  Childs, Marquis, 31, 148, 226, 341

  China and communism, 155

  Christian Science Monitor, 48, 143

  Chrysler, Walter, 273

  Churchill, Winston

  Dewey and, 112, 181

  “Iron Curtain” speech, 35

  losing power (1945), 7

  Potsdam Conference and, 7

  Wallace and, 69–70

  civil rights

  DNC platform and, 178

  federal employment and, 179

  McGrath and, 101–2

  military desegregation, 178–80

  southern white Democrats reaction/revolt and, 72, 73, 100–102, 147–48, 149–50, 179–80

  State of the Union (1948) and, 99, 195

  Truman and, 72–73, 99, 100, 195, 286, 305, 308–11, 347

  Truman speech/Harlem, 308–11

  Civil Rights Act (1964), 352

  Civil War (US), 28, 179, 188–89

  Clark, Tom, 15, 20, 68, 171, 255

  Clay, Lucius, 102–3, 104–5, 141, 155

  Clayton, Earle S., 271

  Cleveland, Grover, 47

  Clifford, Clark

  background/description, 77, 174

  election day/night and, 325

  exhaustion/skin rash and tour, 247, 258

  Jewish homeland/Palestine and, 23, 77, 105, 106–8, 109, 289, 290–91

  Truman and, 23, 41, 59, 61, 75, 77, 95, 105, 106–8, 109, 126, 173, 174, 177, 178, 213, 214, 224, 226, 227, 247, 267, 270–71, 296, 299, 300, 336

  wife, 325

  See also “Politics of 1948, The” memo (Rowe)

  Clifford-Elsey Report, 61

  Cold War

  beginnings, 25

  Dewey on, 83, 296

  “Iron Curtain” speech, 35

  military action fears (1948), 105

  naming, 64

  Truman speech on (1948), 104

  in US following Hiss indictment, 353

  Wallace and, 86, 91, 93

  Washington elite and, 86

  See also Germany/Berlin

  comic book as Truman biography, 278

  Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), 232–33, 346

  communism

  arrests/Communist Party USA members, 162, 198

  China and, 155

  Isacson/passport and, 120

  “loyalty” board creation, 74–75

  National Security Council memo on, 203–4

  postwar expansion fears, 59–66

  spy scandal, Canada and, 75

  See also HUAC hearings; Red Scare; specific countries; specific groups/individuals

  Communist Party USA

  arrests of leaders and, 162, 198

  HUAC hearings and, 198

  Wallace group connections, 87, 88

  See also specific individuals

  Congress. See Eightieth Congress

  Connally, Tom, 74, 268–69

  Connelly, Matthew, 12, 171, 216, 254

  Coolidge, Calvin, 52, 80, 89, 145, 322

  C
rosby, Bing, 210

  Crouch, Jean, 188

  Currie, Lauchlin, 198, 200

  D

  Daily Express, 316

  Daniel, Clifton, 316

  Daniels, Jonathan, 255, 269

  Darwin, 170

  Dawson, Donald, 254–55, 302

  Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond (Washington-Williams), 352

  De Gasperi, Alcide, 112

  Democratic National Committee (1948 campaign), 175–77, 178

  Democratic National Convention (1944/Chicago), 36

  Democratic National Convention (1948)

  Liberty Bell/pigeons and, 150–51

  mood/conditions, 143, 146

  southern Democrats protests and, 147–48, 149–50

  television and, 143, 146, 148

  Truman acceptance speech, 148–50, 177

  Democratic Record (radio show), 278

  Dennis, Eugene, 88, 162, 198

  Dennison, Robert, 126

  Denver Post, 341

  Department of Defense reorganization, 75

  Depression, 8–9, 11, 52, 53–54, 169, 191, 232

  de Rochemont, Louis, 185

  Detroit News, 162

  “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline, 337, 342

  Dewey, Frances

  home (late 1920s/early 1930s), 52

  husband’s presidential campaign and, 183, 234, 238, 283, 293, 318, 333

 

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