A week before the Democratic Convention, party regulars and irregulars acted dubious about Truman's chances. S.J. Ray in the Kansas City Star, July 6, 1948.
THE '48 CAMPAIGN: WHEN HARRY TRUMAN STARTLED THE WORLD
A week before the Democratic Convention, party regulars and irregulars acted dubious about Truman's chances. S.J. Ray in the Kansas City Star, July 6, 1948.
A long struggle ahead for the man from Missouri
His prospects bleak and his own party in the doldrums, Harry S. Truman embarked on a campaign 60 years ago this summer that would make his name legend in American political history.
The plainspoken Missourian - who was swept into the vice presidency in 1944 as running
mate of the magnetic Franklin D. Roosevelt - became president when Roosevelt died in the
first year of his fourth term. Three years afterward, in 1948, any residual Roosevelt glow
had faded and Truman's honeymoon was over. With the country stuck in a Cold War, inflation
rampant and housing in short supply, Republicans had taken over Congress. They were eager
to regain the White House a dozen long years after their last president, Herbert Hoover,
left in the depths of the Great Depression.Liberals in Truman's own party found the Missourian a pale imitation of their hero, Roosevelt. Southern Democrats reeled at Truman's civil rights policies. His own party was fractured on the left and on the right.
If he lost the election, Truman would pack up and return home to Independence, Missouri. If he won, it would represent an astonishing upset.
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Listen to Truman's acceptance speech at the Truman Library website.
STARBEAMS
Amid writing news stories, The Star’s Bill Vaughan dispatched Convention Starbeams from Philadelphia.
Senator Barkley, who has served long and honorable years in Washington, deeply loves his native state, and running for vice-president on this ticket may be a good way to get back there.
Several demonstrators, who are pledged to go through fire and flood, over the highest mountains and through the deepest jungles for their beloved candidate, retreated to their hotel rooms yesterday afternoon when it started to sprinkle.
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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.
