3/31/10: The following update revision is the result of a collaboration with volksmarschall. The Democratic nomination, the fall campaign, and the final results were based on his ideas. I fully credit him for them.
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The Election of 1948
By 1948, signs had emerged that prosperity was returning to the United States. Production of consumer goods was growing, incomes were steadily going up, the postwar strikes which had consumed 1947 were finally disappearing, and veterans were flooding college classrooms at an unprecedented rate. In turn, these factors fueled the rebound of Dewey’s approval rating. It was against this backdrop that the President sought a second term. Naturally, he wanted to stay in office for another four years. However, there was also a psychological motive to hit the campaign trail again. In 1944, Dewey had originally been the G.O.P.’s Vice Presidential candidate until the sudden death of incumbent Wendell Willkie propelled the New York Governor into the top spot. Dewey’s “victory” over Democratic candidate Henry A. Wallace was in reality Willkie’s victory (Dewey would be the first to tell you that). The feeling of being an accidental President never escaped Dewey…even as he dealt with monumental challenges ranging from Yalta to preventing Communism from taking over Southern Europe. Now in 1948, the Gangbuster saw his opportunity to exorcise Willkie’s shadow and be elected in his own right.
Whenever the incumbent seeks another term in office, it is typically a foregone conclusion that they will be nominated by their respective party’s convention. Of course, it isn’t always a free ride. Sometimes, the President has a big bulls-eye on his back for those who want to unseat them. In 1936 for instance, Franklin D. Roosevelt had to deal with a spirited challenge by Louisiana Senator Huey Long before he was re-nominated by the Democratic Party. Twelve years later, Dewey faced not one but two major opponents on the road to the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Ohio Senator Robert Taft and former Postmaster General Harold Stassen of Minnesota.
Although both men knew their chances of unseating Dewey were slim at best, they nonetheless took him on in the 1948 primary season. They both centered their campaigns on a theme. Taft’s message was dull: Liberals are bad, Conservatives are good. Stassen, on the other hand, considered himself to be the true heir of Willkie’s legacy and vigorously championed that wherever he went – he would undoubtedly have worn a “W.W.W.D. – What Would Willkie Do?” bracelet if he could have found one. As for Dewey (to use a videogame analogy), he entered the primary season as Donkey Kong, determined to keep Mario (Stassen and Taft) away from Pauline (the Republican nomination).
Starting with the March 8th New Hampshire Republican Primary, the President went on the attack. He painted Taft as a right-wing Conservative out-of-touch with the mainstream. He reminded voters that
“the Senator from Ohio still stubbornly clings onto his isolationist beliefs – beliefs that were wrong in 1938 when the Nazi threat was building in Europe, and are still wrong a decade later with Europe and Asia cleaved by an iron curtain. We must stand up to Stalin, not look the other way and vainly pretend he isn’t there. In an age of robot bombs, airplanes that travel with the speed of sound, and atomic weapons, there is no such thing as isolation.”
As for Stassen (whose enthusiastic
“I am the next Willkie” campaign energized young people but didn’t sit well with those who would rather forget about the thirty-third President), the driving issue for him was domestic Communism. The former Postmaster General urged the outlawing of the Communist Party of the United States of America. On the campaign trail, Dewey ridiculed the idea, insisting that
“you can’t shoot an idea with a gun.”
Having been accused of making
“demagogic appeals”, Stassen struck back hard in Oregon by alleging that Dewey was soft on Communism. He criticized the Administration for
“moving painfully slow in defending this nation from Communist agents. Only history, I am afraid, will tell how much damage we have suffered as a result of the White House dragging its’ feet instead of actively hunting those who are giving Moscow the upper hand.”
In the final days of the Oregon campaign, Stassen stepped up his rigorous attacks and actually challenged Dewey to a debate. Not one to step down from a fight, the President accepted the challenge. The two men met on May 17th in Portland for the first-ever Presidential debate which was broadcasted nationwide over radio. Rather than have a studio audience, the debate was held in a quiet studio over a single issue: domestic Communism. Stassen went first, repeating his “soft on Communism” charge and demanding immediate approval of the Mundt-Nixon Act – which would have outlawed the CPUSA.
“Mr. President,” he asked bluntly,
“Why do you oppose such a ban? I want to know. America wants to know. Why do you coddle Communism with legality?”
Going second (a coin toss had determined the order), the President defended his handling of domestic Communism:
“There is no question that there are Communists here in our midst. The real question is, ‘What are we going to do about them?’ Some people jeer at the problem, calling it a ‘red herring’. Some people get panicky about it. I don’t belong to either of those groups. We must neither ignore the Communists nor outlaw them. If we ignore them, we give them the cloak of immunity that they want. If we outlaw them, we give them the martyrdom that they want even more.
Mr. Stassen’s suggestion that my Administration is somehow soft on Communism is both false and dangerous. Contrary to his misleading statements, we have been actively pursuing the Communists. We have been kept informed, and we have been keeping the American people informed, of where they are, who they are, and what they are up to.”
He went on to praise the
“fine, solid, good American job” that the House Un-American Activities Committee was doing in investigating suspected threats of Communist subversion in Hollywood and elsewhere. He also quoted Republican Representative Karl E. Mundt of South Dakota to portray Stassen as being in
“grievous error” in making his sweeping claims about Mundt’s bill. Dewey ended with words that would essentially win him the debate:
“I am unalterably, wholeheartedly, and unswervingly against any scheme to write laws outlawing people because of their religion, political, social, or economic ideas. I am against it because it is a violation of the Constitution of the United States and of the Bill of Rights, and clearly so. I am against it because it is immoral and nothing but totalitarianism itself. I am against it because I know from a great many years experience in the enforcement of the law that the proposal wouldn’t work, and instead it would rapidly advance the cause of Communism in the United States and all over the world.
Stripped to its naked essentials, this is nothing but the method of Hitler and Stalin. It is thought control, borrowed from the Japanese war leadership. It is an attempt to beat down ideas with a club. It is a surrender of everything we believe in.”
Victories in New Hampshire, Oregon, and elsewhere helped enable Dewey to crush his opponents and secure his first-ballot nomination in Philadelphia. All he had to do now was wait and see who the Democrats would throw at him. The answer would come in late June, when the Democratic National Convention convened in Philadelphia’s Municipal Auditorium.
Traditionally, the party out of power goes first when it is time to hold political conventions. For the Democrats, this became the second time since 1944 that they would nominate the opposition candidate. Their last convention had been such a disaster that the Three Stooges (the lineup now consisting of brothers Moe and Shemp Howard and their friend Larry Fine) used it as the basis for a political satire short film. On June 21st, the Democrats opened their thirtieth presidential nominating convention since 1832 – which saw the nomination of President Andrew Jackson of Tennessee for a second term. Television made its’ political debut in Municipal Auditorium, broadcasting the convention proceedings live into living rooms across the country for the first time (something we take for granted today). Whereas the Republicans had an incumbent President to nominate, the Democrats had four major candidates to choose from:
-Forceful former Indiana Governor Paul V. McNutt
-Conservative Senator Richard Russell, Jr. of Georgia
-Successful businessman W. Averell Harriman of New York
-Progressive Senate Minority Leader Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky
Of the four major candidates, Russell was seen as the likely front-runner. Representing Georgia in the Senate since 1933, Russell was a prominent Conservative with a strong faith in what he called the
“family farm”.
His record of supporting agricultural programs and rural electrification made him an attractive choice for the Farm vote. It didn’t hurt that he had also chiefly sponsored the 1946 National School Lunch Act, which created a program to provide low-cost or free school lunch meals to qualified students through subsidies to schools. Despite being a highly respected Senator and a skilled legislator, Russell’s candidacy did come with a drawback. Hailing from the Deep South, Russell was a white supremacist who had repeatedly filibustered civil rights legislation. In his eyes, civil rights laws
“are unconstitutional and unwise.”
Although Russell never justified using violence to defend segregation, he nonetheless opposed protecting African-Americans from lynching, disenfranchisement, and unequal legal treatment.
Why was an unapologetic racist the likely front-runner for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1948? In any other election, Russell’s racist beliefs would have been seen as deplorable – therefore making his candidacy untenable. However, 1948 wasn’t like any other election. The reasons included:
-The G.O.P. was set to nominate a Liberal; therefore, it didn’t make political sense for the Democrats to nominate a “me-too” candidate. Instead, they decided to pick a Conservative like Russell to be the Party’s standard-bearer in order to offer the American people a clear ideological choice about which direction to take the country over the next four years.
-The African-American vote, which had been a column of FDR’s New Deal coalition during the 1930s and early 1940s, had shifted back over to the Republican Party. Naturally favoring whichever Party could bring them results, Blacks were attracted by the efforts of the recent Republican Administrations to advance their cause. With African-Americans certain to be solid in their support for the Party of Lincoln in November, the Democrats generally believed they could write-off that particular bloc and focus intently on the Farm and Labor vote instead. In other words, if Blacks are going to vote for Dewey anyways, why worry about alienating them by nominating a segregationist like Russell?
-The Democrats had nothing to lose. With the White House and Congress firmly in Republican hands, they could afford to nominate a controversial candidate like Russell.
Russell’s front-runner status greatly alarmed Progressive delegates. The idea that the Democratic Party would turn her back on civil rights and embrace racial segregation and states’ rights instead was abhorrent to them. The news that the Party’s platform even lacked a civil rights plank spurred a group of fifty-two outraged Progressive delegates to vehemently fight back. Leading the rebellion was a thirty-seven-year-old Minnesotan named Hubert Humphrey. The Mayor of Minneapolis since July 1945, Humphrey was a hard-working anti-Communist committed to expanding civil rights, education, and Social Security. With his Party retreating from its’
“obligation to make sure that all Americans are treated equally and fairly”, Humphrey and his colleagues decided to publically air their opposition to both the absence of a civil rights plank and Russell in general. Addressing a suddenly-hushed Convention on behalf of the group, Humphrey aggressively argued in favor of adding a “minority plank” which would call for the Federal banning of lynching, ending legalized school segregation, and eliminating discrimination based on skin color. The ten-minutes-long speech would become one of the key moments of 1948 and thrust young Humphrey into the national spotlight:
“My friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are one-hundred-seventy-two years late. To those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights. People -- human beings -- this is the issue of the 20th Century. People of all kinds -- all sorts of people -- and these people are looking to America for leadership, and they’re looking to America for precept and example.
My good friends, my fellow Democrats, I ask you for a calm consideration of our historic opportunity. Let us do forget the evil passions and the blindness of the past. In these times of world economic, political, and spiritual -- above all spiritual crisis, we cannot and we must not turn from the path so plainly before us. That path has already leaded us through many valleys of the shadow of death. And now is the time to recall those who were left on that path of American freedom.
For all of us here, for the millions who have sent us, for the whole two billion members of the human family, our land is now, more than ever before, the last best hope on earth. And I know that we can, and I know that we shall begin here the fuller and richer realization of that hope, that promise of a land where all men are truly free and equal, and each man uses his freedom and equality wisely well.”
Despite his passionate speech, the minority plank failed to be adopted. Humphrey’s group reacted by walking out of the Convention in protest. Not content with merely exiting Municipal Auditorium, these delegates then formed the Progressive Party two days later. Unanimously nominating Humphrey for President and former California State Senator John Shelley for Vice President, this third party adopted their own platform advocating an end to segregation, granting full voting rights for Blacks, and creating universal government health insurance. They would be the alternative for Democrats who didn't want to vote for either Russell or Dewey.
The walk-out by Humphrey and others only delayed the eventuality. On the third ballot, the remaining delegates voted to nominate Russell as the Democratic Presidential candidate. All that remained was the question of who would serve as his running mate. Russell tapped a friend and colleague to fill the number two spot on the ticket: Senate Minority Whip Harry S. Truman of Missouri. Although Truman had no personal ambition to serve as Vice President, the highly-respected Senator had a few things going for him:
-Hailing from the Show-Me State, Truman represented the Midwest – thereby bringing a geographical balance to the ticket.
-A former farmer, Truman had great appeal towards the Farm vote. By having a man who understood and could relate to farmers on the ticket, the Democrats believed they could break the Republican hold over the Farm vote and make solid gains in the Midwest.
-A fiery fighter, Truman could be counted on to vigorously attack the Republicans on the campaign trail – particularly those serving in Congress.
-A Progressive, Truman could moderate the ticket ideologically-wise and hopefully offset Humphrey.
In a private meeting, Russell urged Truman to accept the running mate position.
“If nothing else,” he said,
“Run for the sake of the Party.”
With this appeal to party loyalty, Truman agreed to accept the offer. Without a roll call vote, the product of the Pendergast political machine was nominated by acclamation. With the Russell-Truman ticket now formed, the Convention concluded with the Georgia Senator’s acceptance speech. In it, the newly-minted standard-bearer of the Democratic Party staunchly defended states’ rights:
“To my mind, a primary test of good government involves an awareness of the importance of maintaining the balance between national and State legislative power intended by the framers of the Constitution.
Various pressure groups are constantly working in behalf of national legislation which violates the intended division of legislative functions between the National and State governments. As we have observed over the last quarter of a century, legislative encroachment by the National Congress is particularly aggressive in times of economic distress. Emergencies of a temporary nature have caused the States to permanently lose many powers that are properly theirs. The lessons of past experiences should be borne in mind today.
I am a disciple of the Jeffersonian school. The more that I study government; the more confirmed I become in the faith that the best and most economical government is that which is locally conceived and locally administered.
As a devout believer in the rights of the States and of local self-government, I have deplored and opposed the constant widening of national power in fields which properly belong to the States and their subdivisions.
The other constitutional doctrine that has become distorted is the doctrine of separation of powers. The Founding Fathers were determined to prevent the corrupting and tyrannous effects of undue concentration of power. They sought to safeguard against one big government. They were familiar with the axiom which history had proved before Lord Acton that ‘all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’”
Three weeks after the DNC, Municipal Auditorium witnessed the July 12th convening of the Republican National Convention. For the G.O.P., this was their twenty-fourth presidential nominating convention since 1856 – which saw the nomination of former California Senator John C. Fremont. They were clearly the party in power, controlling the White House (since 1941), the House of Representatives (since 1945), the Senate (since 1947), and a majority of state governorships. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans presented television viewers a convention built around party unity. Whereas the Democrats openly feuded, the Republicans operated in unison – ideological differences being pushed aside for the time being.
Inside Municipal Auditorium, the spotlight shined brightly on the leader of the United States and his second-in-command (like Willkie before him, Dewey treated his Vice President as an equal):
-President Thomas E. Dewey of New York
-Vice President John Bricker of Ohio
Speaker after speaker praised the two men for their leadership and accomplishments. Dewey’s name was in placed in nomination by Pennsylvania Senator Edward Martin – who was an old friend of his. Martin hailed Dewey as
“America’s greatest administrator” and noted
“He has been President since that snowy January day in 1945. Through all this time he has grown in the confidence of the nation. Today we have reason to be thankful that he started so young on the national scene, and that he has already led us in a great and thorough manner. He commands today a robust majority, ripened by years of high responsibility – still a young man in the prime of vitality – fit to continue leading a nation that is still young, still expanding, still going places.”
The President and his family watched Martin’s speech on television in their hotel suite. They then watched the balloting, which went off without a hitch. The Dewey-Bricker ticket was nominated on the first ballot to make the case before the nation to be allowed to continue on for another term. A few minutes later, Dewey and his wife were escorted to the Convention, where over thirteen-thousand people sat in anticipation of hearing the President address them. In his twenty-three-minutes-long acceptance speech, a cool and self-assured Dewey spoke of unity while touting his accomplishments and slamming the other parties. The speech set the mood for his upcoming re-election campaign: a battle-harden leader versus an unapologetic racist and an inexperienced idealist:
“The next Presidential term will see the completion of the first half of the Twentieth Century. So far it has been a century of amazing progress and of terrible tragedy. We have seen the world transformed. We have seen mankind's age-long struggle against nature crowned by extraordinary success.
Yet our triumphs have been darkened by bitter defeats in the equally ancient struggle of men to live together in peace, security, and understanding. For this age of progress, this Twentieth Century, has been dominated by two terrible world wars and, between the wars, the worst economic depression in the history of mankind.
The period that is drawing to a close has been one of scientific achievement. The era that is opening before us must be a period of human and spiritual achievement.
We propose, in this Convention, and as a Party, and as a Government, to continue to carry forward the great technological gains of our age. We shall harness the unimaginable possibilities of atomic energy, to bring men and women a larger, fuller life. There is something more important than all this, however. With all the energy, intelligence, and determination which mortal heart and mind can summon to the task, we must maintain a just and lasting peace in the world, and of securing to our own and other like-minded people the blessings of freedom and of individual opportunity.
To me, to be an American in this hour is to dedicate one's life to the freedom of men. As long as the world is half free and half slave, we must peacefully labor to help men everywhere to achieve liberty.
We have declared our goal to be a strong and free America in a free world of free men—free to speak their own minds, free to develop new ideas, free to publish whatever they believe, free to move from place to place, free to choose their occupations, free to enjoy and to save and to use the fruits of their labor, and free to worship God, each according to his own concept of His grace and His mercy.”
With the conventions over, the three major candidates hit the campaign trail. With the Democrats split in two, the Republicans generally felt they had little to fear. Their optimistic attitude was strengthened by a Newsweek article that predicted
“only a miracle or a series of political blunders not to be expected of a man of Dewey’s astuteness can deliver victory to either Russell or Humphrey.”
Reinforcing the belief of an assured victory in November was the presence of Dewey’s Vice President. A popular Conservative from the Midwest, Bricker had great appeal towards those two voting blocs – blocs that Russell would certainly reach for. These were the advantages the President possessed, among others. The general attitude early on in his campaign was
“What could possibly derail me?”
The answer came in early August, when the “soft on Communism” charge which Dewey thought he had laid to rest in his radio debate with Stassen came roaring back to life. Unexpectedly, it was neither Russell nor Humphrey who resurrected that demon but a fellow Republican. Unhappy with the slow, methodical approach the Justice Department was taking in rooting out Communists, California Representative Richard Nixon (the "Nixon" in the Mundt-Nixon Act) had taken matters into his own hands by launching an independent investigation. On August 4th, speaking to a roomful of reporters, the young Congressman announced he had uncovered a Communist spy operating freely within the State Department. With evidence provided to him by Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist and now senior editor of Time Magazine, Nixon accused fourteen-years-employee Alger Hiss of spying for Moscow.
The news rocked the country. Although Hiss denied the accusation, in a politically-charged year, it didn’t really matter. What did matter was the debate it stirred over national security. Nixon’s bombshell greatly undermined the President’s claim that his Administration was on top of the Communist-hunting situation. Having been caught completely off guard, Dewey furiously blamed Nixon for
“having put me in a damn spot.”
The
“damn spot” to him meant he now faced a lose-lose situation. Why didn’t the Dewey Administration know about Hiss? If they did know about Hiss, why didn’t they get rid of him? These lose-lose questions were ones Russell and Humphrey now exploited. Both men accused the incumbent of being soft on Communism, with Russell being the hardest-hitting:
“We have been assured and reassured that the current Administration has been actively pursuing the Communists. We have been told time and again that they knew ‘where they are, who they are, and what they are up to.’
If that is true, why did it take a Congressman to root out Mr. Hiss? Having had the weakness of their system exposed, the Administration has so-far been counterproductive in their response. Rather than use this opportunity to review their system and make the necessary changes, the Administration has done nothing but attack Congressman Nixon. They have used words like ‘reckless’ and ‘irresponsible’ to describe him.
This, of course, is reckless and irresponsible. Rather than attack the problem, they are attacking the man who exposed the problem. It is not the Congressman’s fault that this Administration has mishandled fighting the most serious internal threat facing our great nation. It is not the Congressman’s fault that the President, the Attorney General, and others are guilty of stumbling in their high duty of preserving, protecting, and defending the United States of America. It is solely the fault of the present Administration."
“The present Administration” was forced to sit up and take notice. Russell’s seizure of the domestic Communism issue ate into Dewey’s lead in the polls. Determined to regain the initiative and prevent any more nasty surprises, the President dropped his opposition to widespread loyalty checks. Shortly after Russell made his aforementioned speech, Dewey signed an executive order which established the Federal Employees Loyalty and Security Program. The purpose was to sweep through the Federal Government and root out potentially-harmful employees. Everyone was investigated and had to take a loyalty oath. Those found to have Communist ties or refused to take the oath were fired on the spot. Those who were fired would have absolutely no recourse, even as much as merely finding out who accused them of having Communist sympathies in the first place. This action, a result of political expediency, resulted in three million employees being investigated over a four-year period. Several thousand people lost their jobs – many of them innocent victims of the modern-day witch-hunt that the President had wanted to avoid. He regretted this
“example of pure paranoia” and blamed Nixon for it. Dewey never forgave him for throwing him under the bus; nor did Nixon ever apologize for it. To Nixon, it was all worth it. As a result of the Hiss scandal, he earned a national reputation as an ardent anti-Communist so dedicated to protecting the United States that he was willing to courageously stand up and question authority. He became a hero, especially among Conservatives. Telegrams flooded Nixon’s office, largely offering words of support.
The Alger Hiss episode provided the spark that jumpstarted the fall campaign. Russell and Truman took their case to the country, tearing into the G.O.P. at every stop. Their strategy was straightforward: attack, attack, attack…and attack some more. In particular, Truman’s aggressive and unrelenting partisanship earned him the nickname “Give Them Hell Harry”.
In Truman’s eyes, it wasn’t the President but the Republican majority in Congress which was the root of all evil. It was they who blocked proposals like increasing unemployment compensation and raising the minimum wage – progressive measures that Truman himself had voted for. The Vice Presidential candidate therefore focused his combative speeches on the
“do-nothing” record of his Republican Congressional colleagues. Speaking to a crowd in his native Missouri for instance, he forcefully urged them to vote for a Democratic majority in Congress:
“I sincerely hope that all of you will study the issues for what they are worth, and I sincerely hope that on Election Day you won't hesitate to go to the polls, because this Government of ours is made up of the people. Every one of you has a hand in this Government, and when you don't exercise that great privilege which our Forefathers sought to give you, you are shirking your duty, and then if the Government goes wrong, there is nobody to blame but you.
You know, in 1946 two-thirds of you stayed at home and you have got this Republican majority—I say, next to one, the worst majority the country has ever had for the welfare of the public.
If you will study the record, I am sure you will come to the same conclusion that I have, although you are not as close to those things as I am. But your interests are involved in the results of this—the action and no action of the Republicans.
All of you in this good town depend either on some job or on the soil, and if you do your interests have been vitally affected by the actions of this ‘do-nothing’ Republican majority.
Now you are going to have a chance to remedy that on November 2nd. You are going to have a chance to make the Democratic Party, which has always stood for you, the majority party in Congress. Just think of what we can accomplish!”
While his running mate was busy advocating a change in Congress, Russell went squarely after the President – starting with the domestic Communism issue of course. Next, he warned of the dangers of Big Government. The Senator argued that the best course the country could pursue would be a return to Conservative values and a smaller Federal Government. This had great appeal towards Conservative Republicans, who were weary of Dewey’s liberal approach to domestic and foreign issues. At the same time, Russell reminded the Labor voters that the Democratic Party stood on their side and pledged to make supporting their cause a chief cornerstone of his Presidency. On the foreign policy front, he was highly critical of Dewey for his handling of Asia. Russell, speaking in an uncompromising tone, slammed the Republican incumbent for allowing Emperor Hirohito to remain on the throne, untouched by the war crime trials that were holding former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and others accountable for their actions.
“The Emperor is just as guilty of waging a cruel and unjustified war against her neighbors as the Generals on the ground and the politicians in Tokyo,” he exclaimed,
“To show him leniency means that all those people, including our sons and husbands and fathers, who fought against Japanese tyranny and died in the process did so in vain. That is inexcusable!”
He also had sharp words for America’s relationship with Korea and Nationalist China. Russell found it
“disturbing” that the President had closely allied America with nations
“whose ‘Democratic’ governments are at best questionable.”
He pointed out that Korean President Syngman Rhee was running his country like a dictator, squashing the opposition through the brutal use of force. Russell expressed his disbelief that
“the United States, after sacrificing so much to liberate the Korean people, can look the other way as the Rhee government kills thousands of its’ own citizens.”
Then there was Nationalist China:
“In Chiang Kai-shek, we have another iron-fisted ruler. He is thoroughly corrupt; indeed, he is not fit to lead his people. Yet, as with the Korean government, this Administration shuns that aside and treats Kai-shek like he is the best man for the job. The Chinese people, who are suffering from high inflation and limited freedom, deserve better. They deserve the right to cast aside this rot and elect their own leaders. They do not deserve to be told that they have to accept the government this Administration imposed upon them and that they have no other choice on the matter.”
A prominent supporter of a strong national defense, Russell vowed to step up the containment policy against the Soviet Union. He would supplement financial support by increasing America’s military presence in Europe and Asia. He would also strengthen the United States military overall and increase defense spending to prepare the nation for the frightening prospect of the Cold War turning hot. In other words, Russell was a peace-through-strength candidate.
Over on the Republican side, the President knew that in order to win re-election, he needed every vote he could get. He had to not only defend his record but counterattack as well. The primary form of transportation for him would be the Ferdinand Magellan, the official private Pullman railroad car of the President of the United States. Eighty-three-feet-long, the comfortable, heavily-armored railroad car had been transporting the Head of State since 1942. All across the country, Dewey reminded audiences of what had been achieved so far and warned against
“changing horses in midstream.”
Among the achievements he touted:
-Establishing post-war peace through Yalta, Potsdam, and the United Nations.
-The joint-construction of the Saint Lawrence Seaway with Canada.
-Reforming the Federal tax system.
-Intervening decisively in last year’s coal and railroad strikes.
-His recent decision to prop up Southern Europe against Communist expansion.
He also targeted two specific voting blocs. To keep Humphrey away from the important African-American vote, Dewey told Blacks that the Republican Party was the best friend they ever had and would continue to be so. He boasted of his firm record on civil rights and went after
“those obstructionist Democrats who would lynch you in a heartbeat.”
Engaging in fear-mongering, Dewey painted a nightmare scenario of a President Russell rolling back hard-won civil rights progress and employing the overly-racist Ku Klux Klan to enforce his will.
“In your hands,” he warned,
“Lays the power to decide whether the next Presidential term will witness great progress or terrible tragedy.”
The other important voting bloc was the Farm vote. Although the Midwest had been solidly in G.O.P. hands since 1940, it couldn’t be taken for granted in 1948 since the Democratic, Republican, and Progressive Parties were all targeting the region. If Dewey could hold onto the American heartland, it would give him 155 electoral votes (leaving him to find at least 111 more in order to win). That made the Farm vote essential. Touring the vital region (sometimes alongside his regional coordinator there, Republican Representative Everett Dirksen of Illinois), the President's strategy was to reinforce farmers’ traditional Republican loyalty. He proudly reminded them that his Administration was the anti-Coolidge when it came to addressing their issues and meeting their needs. Whereas Silent Cal had spent his Presidency opposing government support for farmers, Dewey had done the exact opposite. Under his watch, Federal farm aide –
“so essential for the confidence of the farmer” – had been expanded. In early 1948, he had signed the Hope-Aiken Act into law, which strengthened the farm price support program by making it more flexible. Furthermore, one of the things Dewey planned to do in his second term was to increase Federal soil conservation funding. Time and again in his Midwestern speeches, he emphasized his pro-Farm policies.
In addition to the President conducting a vigorous campaign, the Vice President also worked hard to ensure victory in November. Although they had their ideological differences, the two men respected each other. Dewey treated his Vice President as an equal and made him his middle man in dealing with state governors. In turn, Bricker used his considerable charm to win support for the Administration. On the campaign trail, the Ohioan’s primary tasks were to mollify his fellow Conservatives – who were being tempted by Russell – and keep his native Midwest region in line. Bricker’s lackluster speeches were probably the most unexceptional of the entire campaign.
Time and again throughout American history, elections are decided – in part – by the state of the economy. A strong economy can help ensure victory (just ask Republican incumbent William McKinley in 1900); by vice-versa, a weak economy can doom a candidate to defeat (just ask Democratic incumbent Martin Van Buren in 1840). The economy in 1948 was booming, and the President made sure everyone knew that. Throughout the campaign, Dewey pointed out that under his leadership, profits were up, farmers were prospering, tax reform/cuts meant that people had more money in their pockets, the networking capital of corporations were approaching a new high (nearly sixty-four billion dollars), strikes were in decline, unemployment was nearing four percent, inflation was being contained, and production of consumer goods was at an all-time high. Dewey proudly declared that his fiscal responsibility was at the heart of the boom. He also restated his support for the surviving New Deal programs that were still going strong despite Conservative resentment:
“Such programs, like Social Security and unemployment insurance, cost little when compared with the gain in human happiness.”
Of course, there were also Humphrey and Shelley. Crusading across the country, the Progressives drew large crowds of ardent young liberals, blue-collar workers, women, and African-Americans. Calling the nomination of Russell
“a brutal stab in the back”, Humphrey urged his fellow Democrats to stand up for civil rights and vote Progressive. As for the Republicans, the Mayor of Minneapolis criticized the President for not doing enough to help Labor and promised to strengthen Union rights if elected. In response, Russell warned that if the Progressives won,
“they will destroy state rights and unconstitutionally expand the Federal Government into areas where it doesn’t belong. They will dismantle the balance of power between Washington and the forty-eight state capitals and will push the forty-eight individual stars on our flag into a one-star dictatorship.”
As Election Day neared, polls taken by George Gallup and others showed the race tightening. Although the President remained in front throughout the campaign, his lead was shrinking…partly as a result of Humphrey gaining momentum among like-minded voters. This greatly worried the Republicans. Russell by himself might not be able to win, but with the Progressive Party surging in strength, the White House was consumed by worse-case scenarios. If the third party took enough votes away, either the Democrats could squeak through a victory (266 electoral votes being the minimum amount needed) or the election could deadlock and get constitutionally thrown into the House of Representatives – where anything could happen. To combat the threat Humphrey posed, the President hammered away at him; mainly arguing that his lack of experience made his candidacy too risky to take a chance on. Curiously, against the advice of others, he didn’t make Humphrey’s age an issue (perhaps Dewey’s status as America’s youngest-elected President had something to do with it).
The three-way fight between Dewey, Russell, and Humphrey rolled through September and October. Finally, on November 2nd, the nation rendered her decision. Forty-nine million Americans went to the polls, including the three major candidates. Afterwards, Russell and Humphrey made their way to their homes in Georgia and Minnesota (respectively) and Dewey returned to the [Theodore] Roosevelt Hotel in New York City (the scene of his victory four years earlier) to await the election returns. Like every other American, the three men had a new way to follow the results as they came in from across the country. That night, the major news networks televised the returns for the first time (another 1948 debut that we take for granted today).
According to the final Gallup Poll, the President was a few points ahead of Russell with Humphrey not too far behind. The pollsters and experts generally predicted a close win for the Republican incumbent – a far cry from the assured victory declared in the aftermath of the summer conventions. The split within the Democratic Party turned out to be misleading. Rather than weaken the opposition, it gave Dewey two strong candidates to deal with. He couldn’t take victory for granted; instead, he had to work hard for it. Now, on Election Night, the President sat on his bed inside Suite 1527 (his exclusive hotel suite whenever he stayed in New York City), performing number-crunching with his yellow legal pad. The early returns coming out of the Northeast indicated the true scope of Humphrey’s strength. Democrats who couldn’t get past Russell’s blatant racism openly embraced the Progressive Party instead; the third party took Massachusetts and Rhode Island, along with second-place finishes in several states. Down South, the region lived up to its’ “solid” reputation. The Georgia Senator carried every Southern state except Delaware and Maryland (which both remained Republican – in the case of Delaware, the last time she went Democratic was 1912). For Dewey, the moment of truth came when results from the Midwest started to roll in. The future of his Presidency hinged on what happened in the American heartland. All three major parties had campaigned hard in this region, and the votes reflected that. To Republican relief, the Farm and African-American vote largely stuck with them; this greatly helped them keep most of the Midwest in their column, losing only three states. Russell captured Truman’s home state of Missouri while Humphrey won Wisconsin and his home state of Minnesota. Out West, the results were also mixed. Montana and Washington went Progressive, the Democrats took home three states, and the Republicans carried the rest (including the crucial state of California). After all was said and done, Dewey won re-election with 293 electoral votes – 183 going to Russell and 55 going to Humphrey. In the popular vote count, twenty-five million voters sent the President back to the White House for another four years. Russell, on the other hand, received seventeen million votes. Six million voters cast their ballots for Humphrey, giving the young man a respectable showing. Had the Democratic Party been unified, the outcome might have been closer. Russell ran a strong campaign, but the revolt by liberal Democrats greatly damaged him.
Dewey/Bricker (Republican/Red) – 293 Electoral Votes – 24 States Carried – 24,918,858 Popular Votes – 51.07% of Total Votes
Russell/Truman (Democratic/Blue) – 183 Electoral Votes – 18 States Carried – 17,473,053 Popular Votes – 35.80% of Total Votes
Humphrey/Shelley (Progressive/Green) – 55 Electoral Votes – 6 States Carried – 6,111,986 Popular Votes – 12.53% of Total Votes