Battleground 1948: Truman, Stevenson, Douglas, and the Most Surprising Election in Illinois History

Acknowledgments

xiii w Acknowledgments Hardly anyone who played a prominent role in the Illinois elections of 1948 is around to voice opinions and offer reflections. Fortunately, some wrote and spoke about their participation before historians took over. We have the autobiography of Paul Douglas, the oral history of Robert Howard, the unpublished memoir of Senator Scott W. Lucas, and lengthy books such as the biography of Adlai E. Stevenson. The papers and recollections of Douglas, Stevenson, Dwight Green, and Paul Powell and the library devoted to Harry S. Truman provided details and continuity . All were essential to this narrative, as were books that focused on specific individuals such as Chicago mayor Edward Kelly. There are a number of fragments concerning 1948 on the record but no narrative that ties everything together or goes deep into the details of the year of decision. This book is designed to complete the record. Generally speaking, those writing history avoid relying too heavily on newspaper accounts. In doing the job of writing the first draft of history, those in the press often make mistakes, misspell names, distort the actions of principals, and miss the nuances. Nonetheless, the importance of newspapers in covering politics and informing the public during the 1940s made a thorough analysis of print media necessary. It was essential to have more than one or two sources of news reporting in order to spot the errors and discover the missing parts. I relied on three Chicago newspapers—the Daily News, the Sun-Times, and the Tribune—for a variety of accounts of the same news stories and also on downstate papers such as the Peoria Journal, the Springfield State Journal, A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s xiv and the East St. Louis Journal. A thorough reading and understanding of reporters and editors of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was critical, considering the paper’s importance to the election outcome. The work of Taylor Pensoneau, former Post-Dispatch reporter and chronicler of the Shelton brothers and their gang activity, was extremely useful. Claire Fuller Martin, a researcher based in Springfield, and Amanda Bahr, formerly at the Louisa H. Bowen University Archives and Special Collections at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, contributed vital information. I leaned heavily on research conducted earlier for my books and history articles, which means I must again express appreciation for the talented and helpful employees at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. That is where many of the images for the book were found, thanks to the labors of Mary Michals and Roberta Fairburn. Other images appear due to the generosity of the Centralia Morning Sentinel, the U.S. Senate Historical Office, the Herrin City Library, and Gary Hacker of the Johnson County Genealogical and Historical Society. I have come to depend on my wife, Mary, who always gets a first and last look at my work, for her candid comments, understanding, and encouragement. I am thankful for experienced journalists and academicians who agreed to edit and to comment on the manuscript; they included D. G. Schumacher, Fletcher Farrar, and my good friend and coauthor of two books, Dr. David Kenney. Regardless of their fine work, I am responsible for the accuracy of the content. Finally, I continue to be thankful and impressed with Southern Illinois University Press’s devotion to publishing books on Illinois public affairs and with the work of its editor-in-chief, Karl Kageff. B a t t l e g r o u n d 19 4 8 ...