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

2. 1947: A Year of Decisions

32 w 2. 1947: A Year of Decisions National Battle Lines Drawn A case can be made that Democrats and Republicans alike were caught flat-footed at the end of World War II. Democrats, who had no better ideas than New Deal retreads, held fast to prewar concepts. Republicans, who prospered politically during the war, assumed that their anti–New Deal position and their policies of no foreign entanglements and less regulation would continue to attract voters. Slowly in 1946, the public desire for a new, fresh life became evident.1 This resulted in anger toward the same faces of elected officials and the same public policies, which offered little hope for change. Officials could see the signs but seemed paralyzed as to what should change. Meanwhile, the realities of unrest were plentiful: labor strikes, wage and price controls, unemployment, hesitation from clueless politicians, and a worsening postwar foreign environment. It did not help that the federal government appeared unable to produce meaningful laws. The new face in the White House, Harry S. Truman, seemed to prefer old Roosevelt programs designed to help the needy and to expand government involvement in the lives of citizens, but those had little traction with a Republican-dominated Congress. When President Truman tried his ideas, they gathered no momentum. This season of unrest might have been little more than a mild rumble, a reaction to war’s end, or a temporary case of nerves. As the symptoms persisted, however, political people saw the need to react. That is what N a t i o n a l B a t t l e L i n e s D r a w n 33 made 1947 so important in the political outcomes of 1948 and well beyond. Political parties were in a race to see which could shed the doldrums and appeal to a demanding electorate. Nothing changed overnight, but people of vision made significant moves, new faces came forward, and old campaign slogans were dropped. The baby boom that fueled an exploding economy began in 1946. This created a growing housing market. Marriages postponed during the war increased almost immediately, creating demands for goods to set up housekeeping to an extent never imagined or seen by a generation burdened with the Depression and world war. Government response to the challenges carried into the 1950s and 1960s, making the nation unmatched as to economic growth. In 1947, changes were just beginning. Neither party did especially well in reading the public mind after the 1946 midterm elections, in which Republicans made major gains in Congress . Democrats, blistered at the polls, went into a funk. Republicans thought the vote was confirmation of their approach to less government and regulation. The public, the parties would learn the hard way, wanted more than the same old arguments and quarrels, especially in Illinois. The Truman presidency had nowhere to go but up after the midterm elections of 1946. The Democratic Party hit rock bottom, and the president was part of the problem. Truman seemed ill at ease and appeared weak in the lingering shadow of FDR’s overpowering persona, and the public sensed the condition. After four years of war, citizens wanted a new life to begin, but the federal government struggled. Unhappy union members took to the picket lines, and Congress thwarted every presidential initiative. Adding to Truman’s dilemma toward the end of 1946 was his confrontation with Henry Wallace, secretary of commerce and Roosevelt’s vice president from 1941 to 1945. Wallace was the last thread holding the extreme liberal element to the rest of the Democratic Party. As 1946 developed, tensions between Russia and the United States increased, and the Truman administration developed a hard line toward the nation’s adversary. Wallace feared that such a stance could lead to World War III, and he pleaded for a softer approach to relations with Russia. Although Wallace did everything he could behind the scenes to derail Truman’s approach to Russia, the president gave him the benefit of the doubt. That tolerance held until September, when Wallace made a speech before thousands at New York’s Madison Square Garden. He expressed 1 9 4 7 : A Y e a r o f D e c i s i o n s 34 disagreements with the administration’s policy, saying, among other things, “The tougher we get, the tougher Russians will get.”2 That was...