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4 Repeal Taft-Hartley A Tale of Missed Opportunities The Great Political Upset Public opinion polls taken before the 1948 Democratic convention showed that Truman's approval rating among the American people had dropped from approximately 70 percent immediately after Roosevelt's death to an all-time low of 32 percent.! In 1946, for the first time since 1930, the nation had voted the Republican Party into control of both houses of Congress: 51 Republicans and 45 Democrats in the Senate, and 246 Republicans and 188 Democrats in the House. Jubilant Republicans had interpreted the election as a repudiation of New Deal liberalism.2 While the Republican Party appeared to be growing in strength, unity, and popUlarity, the Democratic Party was threatened with a disastrously divisive three-way split over civil rights, Henry Wallace's Progressive Party, and an Eisenhower-for-president boom within Democratic ranks. Truman was the first twentieth-century U.S. president to commit his administration to a program to eliminate racial discrimination. Every Democratic party platform since 1932 had expressed dedication to the constitutional ideal of civil rights, but as Truman noted in his memoirs, "what aroused many Southerners now was that I meant to put this pledge into practice." Truman's position on civil rights led to the formation of the States' Rights Democrats, or Dixiecrats , who selected South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond as their presidential candidate.3 Although Truman's progressive stance on civil rights ensured the Democrats the black vote in the 1948 presidential election, the loss of the former "Solid South" appeared to be the difference between victory and defeat in November. Defeat appeared certain when Henry Wallace, former secretary of agriculture and commerce and vice-president during Roosevelt's third term, led a second defection of normally Democratic voters. Wallace's Progressive Party called for a more conciliatory approach to relations with the Soviet Union and appealed to 42 Repeal Taft-Hartley 43 leftists and many liberals in the Democratic Party who disapproved of Truman's cold-war pronouncements and position: Alarmed by Truman's dismal prospects for reelection, a third defection developed into a movement to draft Eisenhower and dump Truman. The press characterized Truman as mediocre and ineffective with almost no chance of success in the campaign. Eisenhower, a hero to Americans because of his accomplishments in World War II, eventually declined to be a candidate.5 Truman found the Democratic Party "dispirited and dejected" when he appeared on July 15, 1948, to accept the nomination at the party's national convention in Philadelphia. He decided, however, to make a fight for it and fashioned a strategy of attacking the Republican-controlled 80th Congress and taking his message "directly to the people in all parts of the country."6 Truman electrified the convention by summoning the "do-nothing" Republican Congress back to Washington in a special session to give the Republicans an opportunity to enact much of what their own convention platform claimed they advocated. As Truman predicted, the special session produced nothing, adjourning after two fruitless weeks.7 Truman opened his presidential campaign with a Labor Day speech in Cadillac Square in Detroit, where, among other things, he called for repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act.B The president subsequently traveled about 31,700 miles and made exactly 356 speeches to "big crowds and small groups along the railroad junctions and stops from one end of the country to the other." The crowds, with shouts of "Give 'em hell, Harry," grew larger and larger and increased in enthusiasm , but the polls showed Republican candidate Thomas Dewey far ahead up to election day.9 The final tally, however, gave Truman 24,105,695 votes to Dewey's 21,969,170. Truman carried twenty-eight states and Dewey sixteen; Strom Thurmond, candidate of the States' Rights Democrats, took four southern states from Truman. As Truman recalled, "On arriving at the White House [after the election], I had a Cabinet meeting and a series of conferences to plan immediate repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, as promised in the campaign."JO A Mandate to Repeal Taft-Hartley: Political Rhetoric and Political Reality Leaders of organized labor asserted immediately that Truman's election was a mandate to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act. Repeal had priority over other matters, they claimed, because Truman's victory was due in great part to labor's political strength.11 Labor's contention appeared to receive the affirmation of the Truman administration when Secretary of Labor Maurice...

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