Harry Truman (2 page)

But the Roosevelts had ignored that statement and continued to keep alive the Draft Eisenhower movement. Professional liberals under the banner of Americans for Democratic Action began picketing Eisenhower’s New York home with signs reading, “Ike You Favor the Draft, We Favor It For You.” Not even a public statement which Eisenhower made on July 5 declaring he would not accept nomination for any public office stilled these anti-Truman voices. John F. Bailey, the Democratic leader for Connecticut, suggested that the party should nominate Eisenhower anyway and run him for President even if he refused to campaign. Senator Claude Pepper of Florida went him one better and suggested that the party abandon the name Democratic and draft Ike as a nonpartisan candidate. “The Democratic Party’s rewards would lie in the tribute it would gain for its magnanimity in a time of crisis,” intoned Senator Pepper.

When Eisenhower remained unavailable, the ADA, led by Leon Henderson, attempted to switch its support to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. “The Democratic Party must choose Douglas or invite a disaster that will imperil the future of progressivism in America,” said Henderson.

Fortunately, not all the Democrats lost their heads. One of the best, David Lilienthal, former director of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a man with impeccable liberal credentials, wrote the following words in his diary around this time:

Watching this bizarre circus, I began to appreciate for the first time Dad’s dislike of what he calls “professional liberals.” On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, he had yielded to the pleas of the national chairman, J. Howard McGrath, who was trying to placate the liberals, and agreed to call Douglas and ask him if he would consider running on the ticket as vice president. Here, from Dad’s private papers, is a memorandum telling what he really thought about this idea:

Ironically, my father received unexpected - and completely unintentional - support from Strom Thurmond, the Dixiecrat candidate, around this time. Someone asked Thurmond why he had broken with the Democratic Party over the Truman civil rights program. Hadn’t President Roosevelt run on platforms with almost the same promises of justice and equal opportunity for America’s black citizens?

“I agree,” said Thurmond grimly, “but Truman really means it.”

The antics of the younger Roosevelts inspired Dad to make some interesting comments on party loyalty to his sister Mary. Dad mentioned an ex-governor and said:

As a result of this fratricidal feuding, the Democratic Convention opened in an atmosphere of appalling gloom. I think it will be clear from the following notes, written by my father on July 12, how badly the party needed his leadership:

Perhaps I should identify more completely some of this cast of characters. Tommy Corcoran, often known as “Tommy the Cork,” was an old Roosevelt brain truster. Burt Wheeler was Burton K. Wheeler, the Democratic isolationist senator from Montana. Alben Barkley was, at this time, the senator from Kentucky and the Democratic majority leader of the Senate. Leslie Biffle was the secretary of the Senate and one of Washington’s shrewdest politicians. It was a good index of how demoralized the Democrats had become, that someone as normally loyal and dependable as Biffle would try to double-cross the President of the United States.

The following day, my father was back at work, quietly taking control of the party:

Bob Hannegan, Ed Flynn, and Frank Walker were all former Democratic national chairmen. As Dad said, like most ex-office-holders, they had nothing to offer but criticism. Snyder is John Snyder, Dad’s Secretary of the Treasury, and one of his closest friends. Thanks to him and other Truman loyalists, my father knew exactly what was happening at the convention, from the inside.

On Wednesday, July 14, Dad continued making notes on the convention, as he saw it:

Philadelphia on that night of July 14 seemed to be wrapped in a huge suffocating blanket of heat and humidity. Mother and Dad and I were led to a small airless room beneath the platform, used as a dressing room when actors were performing at Convention Hall. We had to sit there for four long hours while the convention recovered from the civil rights wrangle and got down to the business of nominating my father for President and Alben Barkley for vice president.

Once Dad had deflated his presidential boomlet, Barkley had passed the word that he was available for the vice presidency. He had been doing this at nearly every convention since 1928, and now, at the age of seventy, he was rather touchy on the subject. “It will have to come quick,” he told his friends. “I don’t want it passed around so long it is like a cold biscuit.” Dad admired Alben’s abilities as a speaker and respected his long career in the Senate, where he had served as majority leader for both him and President Roosevelt. So he promptly passed the word that the senator had his support and telephoned him in Philadelphia. “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to run, Alben?” Dad said. “That’s all you had to do.”

Never have I seen so much smoke without a fire as I saw that humid night in Philadelphia. I thought sure I was going to expire. Oxygen was my only thought. Dad, apparently bothered neither by the heat nor the pollution, went right on politicking. He sat in a nearby room, greeting delegates, congressmen, senators, and assorted Democrats who streamed in to shake hands and assure him of their backing. He had a particularly pleasant visit with Senator Barkley.

Occasionally, in the rare moments when he was not being besieged by visitors, Dad stepped out on a little balcony and looked down on Philadelphia, where the nation’s political history began. He thought about the task to which he was committing himself, and about the wily, determined foe he was fighting - Joseph Stalin. My father felt we were very close to war with Russia. Even as we sat there, waiting for the Democrats to stop debating and orating, American planes were flying tons of food and clothing and other necessities of life into beleaguered Berlin. On June 24, 1948, the Russians had cut off all land access to Berlin, as part of an attempt to force the United States and our allies to withdraw from this symbolic city. On June 26, Dad ordered all the available planes in the European theater to begin a massive airlift of supplies. Twenty-five hundred tons of food and fuel were being flown into the city every day by 130 American planes. My father had made this decision against the advice of many of his closest aides and Cabinet members. “We will stay in Berlin,” he said.

Later Dad recalled that he also thought about some of the presidents to whom he felt close. One was John Tyler, to whom we are bound by blood as well as history. Dad’s grandfather, Anderson Shippe Truman, married a direct descendant of John Tyler’s brother. Tyler was the first vice president to become President on the death of the Chief Executive - in his case, William Henry Harrison. Daniel Webster, his Secretary of State, and Henry Clay, the leader of the Whig party in Congress, thought they were going to run the government, but they soon found out that Tyler was planning to be his own President. When Dad is willing to admit that he has a stubborn streak (which is seldom), he humorously attributes it to his Tyler blood.

Finally, at 1:45 a.m., my father was escorted to the convention floor. He had been officially nominated, beating Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, 947½ votes to 263. But the South was in such a truculent mood that Sam Rayburn, the chairman of the convention, and one of Dad’s staunchest friends, did not dare call for the usual extra round of voting to make the nomination unanimous. While the band played “Hail to the Chief,” Mrs. Emma Guffey Miller, sister of the senator from Pennsylvania, released a flock of doves from inside a floral liberty bell. She and her brother were part of the professional liberal bloc that was trying to convince the Democratic Party and the country that peace with Stalin could be won by appeasement. The doves were an incredible disaster. One almost perched on Sam Rayburn’s head as he was trying to introduce my father and Alben Barkley. Another blundered into an upper balcony and plunged to the floor, dead or unconscious. In the pandemonium, a reporter said he overheard a delegate from New York comparing Harry Truman to the dead pigeon.

Ignoring this idiocy, my father strode to the lectern and opened a small black loose-leaf book in which he carried the notes of his speech. He never looked more like a leader, as he waited for the soggy, weary crowd to settle down and listen to him. He was wearing a crisp white linen suit, and he exuded a vitality which practically no one else in that muggy cavern of a convention hall felt, at that moment. He knew they needed an injection of his vitality, and he gave it to them with his first sentence.

“Senator Barkley and I will win this election and make those Republicans like it - don’t you forget that.”

An incredible current of emotion surged through the crowd. People who thought they were too tired even to stand up again were on their feet, shouting their heads off.

For the next twenty minutes, he told them why he was going to win. He listed the failures of the Eightieth Congress and pointed out the tremendous gains that families and workers had made under the Democrats. It was one of the toughest, most aggressive speeches ever made by a presidential candidate. He brought the crowd to their feet again and again, roaring their approval.

But only Mother and I and a handful of White House aides were ready for the totally unexpected climax.

My father’s thirty-five years in politics and his constant study of American history had made clear to him the key to victory in any political campaign - take the offensive, not only in words but in action. As he put it later, “I . . . had made up my mind that I would spring my first big surprise of the campaign in that speech.