Most Americans have seen the picture of President Harry S. Truman holding up a copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune with the headline 'Dewey Defeats Truman' on the day after the 1948 presidential election. Indeed, Truman had been declared all but politically dead due to a series of foreign policy crises and severe economic woes. Moreover, Thomas Dewey, the popular Governor of New York, had cultivated national esteem through his successful prosecutions of organized crime figures over the previous dozen years. Despite being given virtually no chance to win the election, Truman emerged victorious and proved the pundits and the headline writers of the Chicago Daily Tribune wrong..
While historians generally credit the 'plain-speaking' whistle-stop tour of the country by train as the primary reason behind Truman's unlikely comeback, his victory in November is also attributable to one of the greatest party nomination acceptance speeches in American history. By the time Truman had finished his twenty-two page typed address, the momentum had begun to swing from the Republican challenger to the fiery incumbent. In order to appreciate the brilliance of his rhetorical masterpiece, excerpts appear below followed by commentary with contextual analysis.
.
'Senator Barkley and I will win this election and make these Republicans like it - don't you forget that. We'll do that because they are wrong and we are right, and I will prove it to you in just a few minutes'
.
Alban Barkley, a 71 year-old Senator from Kentucky, had roused the dispirited delegates a few days earlier with an inspiring speech from the podium. For his moving contribution, delegates drafted him nominee for Vice-President. Truman, known for his 'Give 'em hell' direct style, wasted no time in boldly predicting victory against the odds and audaciously claiming that he would be able to successfully knock down the Republican platform by the end of his remarks. The crowd cheered on the underdog.
.
Truman then recounted the benefits of the New Deal for farmers and workers around the country. After citing a few statistics to demonstrate progress in agrarian output and wages since 1933, the President foreshadowed his strategy by placing the moniker 'the last, worst Congress' on Republican dominated Capitol Hill. Already, Truman had launched an effective defense of his presidency through nostalgia (mentioning Roosevelt and the New Deal) and redirecting blame for the national malaise on Congress.
.
'The US has to accept its full responsibility for leadership in international affairs. We have been the backers and the - the people who organized and started the UN first started under that great Democratic president, Woodrow Wilson, as the League of Nations. The League was sabotaged by Republicans in 1920.'
.
Truman was an internationalist, and this line was a shot aimed at the isolationist wing of the Republican party led by Senator Robert Taft. Similar to Franklin Roosevelt, Truman praised Woodrow Wilson's noble yet failed efforts to arrange a collective security agreement after WWI to forestall future conflicts. From the Democrats point of view, Henry Cabot Lodge and the other Republican Senators had acted reflexively and irresponsibly in failing to ratify the League. As a result, neither the League nor the United States had enough diplomatic leverage to halt the slide of Europe into WWII. Nearly 30 years later, Truman rejected an inward approach to world affairs and sought to make the US a force for peace in the world.
.
'We've removed trade barriers in the world, which is the best asset we can have for peace...We have started a foreign aid program, which means the recovery of Europe and China - and the - the Far East. We instituted the program for Greece and Turkey.'
.
By telegraphing his commitment to global free trade, Truman accomplished two important objectives. First, he allayed the fears of independent businessmen who remained somewhat apprehensive of post-New Deal government regulation. Secondly, his link between free trade and peace recalled the tragic consequences of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930 to his listeners. Despite pleas from more than 1,000 economists to not sign the measure, Republican President Herbert Hoover pushed through the legislation to protect American industry - and sparked a worldwide tariff war that plunged the globe further into the economic abyss. Truman wanted the public to remember the man and the party represented in the White House during the onset of the Great Depression. In regard to foreign aid, the public largely supported the Marshall Plan and shared Truman's view that economic aid would foster long-term social stability in Europe and around the world.
.
'It was said, when OPA (Office of Price Administration) died, that prices would adjust themselves for the benefit of the country. They have adjusted themselves alright. They've gone all the way off the chart in adjusting themselves, at the expense of the consumer...'
.
Truman was an apostle of free-trade, but he was wisely careful to issue a significant caveat. When trade resulted in unfair practices or price-gouging, the government had not only a right but a duty to step-in and rationalize producer-consumer exchanges. Three years after the end of WWII, America was reeling from high inflation in a quite similar fashion to the years following WWI. As the Republicans had clamored for an end to wage-price controls, Truman exploited their apparent policy blunder. Some Republicans privately agreed Truman. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon, a Republican member of the House in 1948, issued price-controls as president to check inflation and received popular support for his action.
.
Truman then proceeded to criticize the landmark Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. After two years of unrelenting strikes by labor, the new law effectively ended the 'closed-shop' - whereby all employees were required to join their respective union - and forbade unions from making political donations. While the American public regarded unions as positive force to check corporate abuse (i.e. low wages, poor working conditions etc.), people were becoming skeptical of union leadership and its often heavy-handed approach. In times of national crisis, Taft-Hartley gave the president the power to issue an injunction to break strikes. While Truman called for its repeal, he wisely did not linger on the subject. Americans had become weary of protracted disputes between labor and management.
.
'One of the greatest national needs: more and better schools. I urged Congress to provide $300 million to aid the states in meeting the present educational crisis. Congress did nothing about it.'
.
When American soldiers returned from duty in the Atlantic and the Pacific, they took advantage of the GI Bill, married, purchased homes in the suburbs and had children. As the baby-boom skyrocketed, classrooms became more crowded. The Republican Congress, controlled by fiscal-conservatives more concerned about balanced budgets than investing in infrastructure, seemed out of touch with the rapidly changing demographics. Truman unquestionably scored points with young American mothers with an appeal for more education dollars.
.
'Everybody knows that I recommended to the Congress the civil rights program. I did so because I believed it to be my duty under the Constitution...But they...Congress...failed to act.'
.
Earlier during the Convention, Hubert Humphrey electrified progressive Democrats with a call for a new commitment to civil rights at the podium. While Truman needed to reach out to the progressive wing, he could not afford to alienate Southern Democrats by fully trumpeting civil rights loudly. Although he desired more equality for blacks, he explained his policy as one of constitutional obligation rather than personal choice. By doing so, he was able to retain a great deal of support from the South. His language was a model of political expediency.
.
'I have discussed a number of these failures of the Republican 80th Congress, and every one of them is important...My duty as president requires that I use every means within my power to get the laws people need...I'm therefore calling Congress back into session on the 26th of July!...Now, what that worst 80th Congress does in this special session will be the test'
.
Truman closed with a political masterstroke. After painting the 80th 'Do-nothing' Congress as the sole impediment to peace and prosperity, Truman summoned them back to their House and Senate chambers for one last chance to pass legislation for better schools and more housing. Republican leaders must have been utterly shocked. They were certainly unprepared. Over the special session, the 'worst' 80th Congress failed to address a single pressing issue concerning the welfare of the country, and Truman could claim that the Republican Congress had indeed failed his 'test'.
.
Truman had brilliantly turned the tables. Due to his superlative nomination acceptance speech on 15 July 1948, a majority of Americans began to perceive Congress rather than the president as being ineffectual.
.
In the process, a hard political lesson was learned. A party that embraces obstructionism instead of a positive program for the future is doomed to minority status or extinction. Current leaders of all parties would be wise to remember Truman's 1948 speech and think twice before every 'No' vote.
.
J Roquen