Wending his way through Upper Midwest on Labor Day 1948, Truman spoke to a crowd that filled the streets in Grand Rapids, Michigan (Associated Press).
The battle begins: Truman blasts away, Dewey sends a surrogate and a pollster says it’s over
In the mid-20th century, Democratic presidential candidates liked to start their campaigns in September with a Labor Day speech in Detroit. So it was that 60 years ago President Harry S. Truman kicked off his uphill battle for re-election before a crowd estimated at 125,000 in the Motor City’s Cadillac Square. The speech was part of a quick train-and-automobile jaunt by Truman into the heart of the industrial Midwest. In it, the president set the fighting tone that he would use the rest of the 1948 campaign.
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE STAR'S ARCHIVES
The President heads off to save his job
Starts Vote Bid
Published Sept. 6, 1948
With President Truman, Sept. 5 - A happy, confident Harry Truman set out for the political wars tonight to begin the greatest effort of his life.
HST to workers: Who's your friend?
Swats G.O.P. on Labor
Published Sept. 6, 1948
Detroit, Sept. 6 - President Truman today kicked off his campaign for election to the White House in his own right with a rousing call to labor not to betray its own interests by electing reactionaries to lead the nation.
Large crowds along the way
Asks a Big Vote: In Michigan Appearance, Truman Expresses the Strategy of the Campaign
Published Sept. 7, 1948
With Truman in Michigan, Sept. 6 - President Harry S. Truman, initiating the drive which he confidently predicts will keep him in the White House, today displayed his homey Missouri charm to more than 600,000 persons in industrial Michigan.
Feeling buoyant
Truman Hope Up
Published Sept. 8, 1948
Washington, Sept. 7 - President Truman returned to the White House today from a whirlwind Labor day campaign tour, confident he had set the stage that would result in victory in November.
A stand-in for Dewey strikes back
As Inept Leader
Published Sept. 8, 1948
Detroit, Sept. 7 - President Truman was tabbed by Harold E. Stassen tonight as a “complaining” failure who has resorted to “demagogic appeals” in a bid for election.
The Star weighs in
Editorial: The Truman Record
Published Sept. 9, 1948
In his reply to the President’s Labor day speeches Harold E. Stassen has submitted a devastating analysis of the entire Truman record in office. The Stassen account may be allowed to stand as presented. The bald fact of it is that with given exceptions Mr. Truman has demonstrated his incapacity for service as President of the United States. After more than three years in the office it has been proved that he is simply not a big enough man for the job.
Pollster: It's all over
A Dewey “Cinch”
Published Sept. 9, 1948
Opponents of public opinion surveying often question the social value or desirability of predicting presidential elections. This happens to be a year in which I very largely agree with them. I agree with them because of my own belief, drawn from the statistics so far gathered, that Thomas E. Dewey is almost as good as elected to the presidency of the United States…
Kansas City Star, Sept. 9, 1948. Almost eight weeks before the election, Elmo Roper pronounced the matter closed.
FIND OUT MORE
A multitude of information about the campaign of 1948 – and the rest of the life and times of Harry S. Truman – is available at the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum in Independence, Missouri. Its website is a good place to start:
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/
The Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University has an overview of the campaign at
http://www.eagleton.rutgers.edu/e-gov/e-politicalarchive-1948election.htm
Another overview is at
history.com
Among books about Harry Truman, the best known is David McCullough’s Pulitzer prize-winning Truman, published in 1993.
Many other authors have examined the man, and the Truman Library website contains a list of
some of their books.
