How Truman airlifted himself to an unlikely victory.
As the 2024 election is just a day away, I thought we could visit a presidential election as close and unpredictable as this year’s: The election of 1948 between Truman and Dewey where so many of the great chasms we see today in politics originated as small fissures.
President Harry Truman could sit back on election night, November 2,1948 and say he did absolutely everything he could to win. He had been on an exhausting cross country tour by train using every stop as an opportunity to speak and connect with the electorate. However, as the evening wore on, it was still quite unclear who the winner was or even if Truman had a chance at winning. What was clear was that the election of 1948 set the tone for the two massive, fast-approaching 20th century struggles; an external Cold War between the US and USSR and an internal fight over civil rights.
The presidential election of 1948 pitted the Democratic candidate Harry S. Truman of Missouri against the republican nominee, Thomas Dewey of New York.
Heading into the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Truman was not favored in the polls – he was not one to shy away from ruffling any feathers or addressing changes that he thought important, especially in the civil rights arena. The polls were so bleak for him that he was facing some of the same choices President Biden faced in 2024 with his party rebelling against him. Democrat political bosses from Chicago to New Jersey were picking their own candidates to run for the White House.
In 1947 Truman himself secretly floated the idea to Dwight Eisenhower of running for president on the Democrat ticket. Not as a running mate but as the candidate. Truman was totally willing to step aside and step down, something we all saw Joe Biden was forced to do from within his own party. Eisenhower was also offered the candidacy by other democrat leaders but he declined all offers. Biden saw the same writing on the wall, albeit for different reasons. His age and cognitive ability decline was put on full display during the debate with Trump.
Vying for the Democratic nomination Truman had to contend with a slew of challengers. Among them was Harold Byrd, Senator from West Virginia. Henry Wallace of Iowa, a progressive who thought Truman was taking us down the road to WW III, led a splinter pacifist ticket, although one must wonder if he had a bone to pick. He was Roosevelt’s veep from 41-45, before being jettisoned in favor of another mid western guy in Truman. I’m sure in his mind he should have been president after Franklin kicked it in April of 1945. The party was also facing opposition from Strom Thurmond of South Carolina in favor of the status quo with regard to segregation laws.
Truman received the Democratic party nomination for president along with his VP choice, Sen Alben Barkley of Kentucky. Rallying behind South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, 35 delegates from southern States walked out of the convention due to the strong civil rights plank the party grew to under Truman’s leadership. The walk out lead to the splinter breakaway party known as the Dixie-crats. Truman didn’t back away from civil rights, instead, he leaned in by signing Executive Order 9981 to provide equal treatment of African Americans in the military service and the federal government.
During his convention acceptance speech, Truman opened with an overly domestic tone, touting how nationally wages had risen and how he had been the great protector of labor. Then he pivoted to foreign policy wins such as his tough stance against the Soviets – in particular their interference with Greece and Turkey – which would later come to be known as the Truman Doctrine. He could also stand by his defense of Europe by not allowing Germans in West Berlin, surrounded by a deadly ring of Soviet T-34 tanks, to starve to death by ordering what would be known as the Berlin Airlift. The US along with the UK would deliver over two million tons of supplies with 270,000 flights, saving the city from starvation. In April, 1948 he’d signed the Foreign Assistance Act which enabled the European Recovery Program, in effect, the Marshall Plan to rebuild a devastated Europe. He provided de facto recognition of the state of Israel, one of the first countries to do so. And he’d signed the Displaced Persons Act that allowed over a quarter of a million displaced peoples across Europe entry into the United States. This allowed for a new generation of people, who still three years after the war were without homes in Europe, a new chance at a better life.
On the Republican side, it appeared early on in the primary that Thomas Dewey, the Attorney General of the State of New York, had a serious challenger in two men. The first, General Douglas MacArthur, was heavily backed by William Randolph Hearst, and he had a name to carry the day. However, he was still in charge of occupied Japan at the time and was indisposed. A surprise candidate arose in Harold Stassen, Governor of Minnesota who took on Dewey in the first radio broadcast candidate debate in American election history. It carried on TV as well, but there were only just over a quarter of a million households that had TVs at the time, so the public would have to listen for the victor and many believed it was Dewey. At the Republican National Convention, Dewey won with most of the delegates and he chose future Chief Justice from California, Earl Warren as his running mate.
Dewey’s strategy was simple and direct, with little speeches or fanfare. He figured the election was his to lose, according to all the polls, if they were to be believed, and that’s how he ran. He basically played the game not to lose. Whereas on the other side, Truman played the game to darn well win.
Harry Truman took a train on an almost 22,000 mile odyssey making 275 speeches speaking at every stop to crowds from the caboose. He was energetic, combative, and he drew the crowds, ushering in half a million throughout stops in Michigan. According to David McCullough’s bio on Truman a cool million showed up in a New York City ticker tape parade, right in Dewey’s backyard. The only people, apparently, who weren’t showing up at Truman’s events were the press, who continued to write about Dewey and promote his large lead in the polls. They just weren’t reporting on Truman’s tour Americana. If any election in history teaches us the polls can’t be trusted, it’s this one.
Truman won with 49% of the vote, receiving over 24 million popular votes, carrying 28 states with an electoral vote of 303 to Dewey’s 189, who carried 16 states, and Strom Thurmond’s 39, with four states. (Wanna guess which 4?) Plus Truman gained one of the most famous photo-ops in election history when he held up the Chicago Tribune front page headline declaring Dewey the victor.
Following this victory, Harry Truman went on to establish America’s leading role in the world to defend democracy and combat the Soviet Union and its allies at every turn. The USSR would become nuclear capable the next year, Mao’s communist forces would overrun China and in 1950 the Korean War started. Truman was fully capable of taking on these challenges and had already proven so before. American voters proved fully capable of making the right choice in ’48. I believe they’re capable of making the right choice again in ’24.