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His long ride through Ohio sparks 1948 upset of Dewey
By Mark J. Price
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Monday, Oct 06, 2008
Campaign aides urged the stubborn president not to waste time in the Buckeye State, where his opponent, New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, was favored to win the Nov. 2 election.
Truman went anyway.
On Oct. 11, 1948, he embarked on a 300-mile tour of Ohio aboard an 18-car special train. Truman, 64, delivered campaign speeches at 11 stops on a grueling, one-day excursion.
The first was in Cincinnati. The last was in Akron.
By the end of the night, Truman's
political fortunes had changed. A major speech in Akron helped revive a campaign that had languished in the polls.
When the train rolled into Ohio earlier that Monday, the worst fears of Truman's advisers were realized. Crowds were sparse and the weather was gloomy. As the presidential express traveled north, however, audiences grew larger.
Truman spoke in Cincinnati, Hamilton, Dayton, Sidney, Lima, Ottawa, Deshler, Fostoria, Willard and Rittman.
His major speech at 9 p.m. in the Akron Armory — carried live on WAKR radio and transmitted across Ohio — would mark the first time in the city's history that a sitting U.S. president made a formal campaign address here.
The Beacon Journal was less than enthusiastic about the high-profile visit in an editorial headlined ''Welcome, Mr. President.''
''Although many Akronites doubtless believe that the nation will best be served by new leadership, local sentiment is near unanimous that President Truman should be afforded the honors due him and that his address deserves respectful attention,'' the newspaper wrote.
Akron citizens were more exuberant than anticipated. Thousands were waiting at Union Station on East Market Street when the train arrived at 7:35 p.m.
A clamor arose when Truman, his wife, Bess, and daughter, Margaret, walked out to an observation platform. Police held back the crowd as a reception committee of 50 dignitaries shook hands with the president and presented bouquets to the first lady and daughter.
Among the greeters were P.W. Litchfield, chairman of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.; Harvey S. Firestone Jr., chairman of Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.; John L. Collyer, president of B.F. Goodrich Co.; William O'Neil, president of General Tire & Rubber Co.; Ray Block, president of Mohawk Rubber Co.; L.S. Buckmaster, president of the United Rubber Workers of America; and Akron Mayor Charles E. Slusser.
What happened next would never happen today. Truman was escorted to a motorcade where he sat in an open convertible and paraded through the streets of downtown Akron.
The president's spirits lifted when he saw the boisterous assembly on that chilly night. An estimated 60,000 people lined the sidewalks — four or five people deep — as the car rolled 8 mph from East Market Street to South Main Street to Buchtel Avenue to South High Street.
Wearing an overcoat, hat and gloves, the bespectacled president waved and smiled to the crowd while more than 100 police officers and deputies helped maintain order. Twenty Secret Service agents accompanied Truman on the trip. Some ran alongside the convertible.
Ohio National Guardsmen locked arms to hold back gawkers as Truman's car arrived at the armory just before 9 p.m. at Bowery and High streets. The 2,600-seat building was hot, stuffy and packed to the rafters with people who had waited for hours. Thousands more stood outside to listen to the speech over loudspeakers.
When Truman took the stage, the audience erupted in riotous applause. It had been a long day, but the president had one more speech in him. The Democrat's main topic — labor relations — was of keen interest in the heavily unionized Rubber City.
''Before I say anything else, I should like to thank you people of Akron and all the people of Ohio for your tremendous registration in this crucial election,'' he said. ''You have given the nation magnificent proof of your good citizenship. . . .
''I want to thank all of you — Democrats and Republicans, industrial workers and farmers, professional people and small businessmen. I want to thank you for your appreciation of the rights, duties and opportunities of American citizenship.''
He then began a 30-minute, spontaneous speech without the benefit of notes or cue cards. The audience broke into frequent applause as Truman spelled out his priorities: a higher minimum wage, broader Social Security, protection in old age, better medical care, better schools, better homes and ''a better life for the men and women who do the world's work.''
He spoke against the Taft-Hartley Act, which restricted the power of labor unions, and accused his Republican rival of trying to cut the New Deal social programs that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had created.
''The time has come for the working people of this nation to realize the grave danger that confronts them,'' Truman said. ''You will have to act — and act quickly — if you want to save the benefits of the New Deal.''
Truman concluded his speech with a list of key positions:
• ''I believe that we should increase the minimum wage from 40 cents an hour to at least 75 cents an hour.''
• ''I believe Social Security insurance should be extended to the large groups of people not now protected.''
• ''I believe that we should expand our facilities for looking after the nation's health.''
• ''I believe the federal government should provide aid to the states in meeting the educational needs of our children.''
In conclusion, he said: ''Our program is for the people. And that's why we're going to win.''
There probably wasn't a political pundit in the nation who believed Truman had a chance in the 1948 election, but the Akron audience went wild.
Truman left the stage to cheers and applause. He took the motorcade back to Union Depot, boarded the presidential train at 11 p.m. and rode to Indiana.
Seemingly overnight, Truman's campaign gained traction. The Ohio tour, Akron speech and radio broadcast resonated with voters. Meanwhile, Thomas Dewey took the state for granted and refused to campaign here.
Everybody was stunned — except maybe for Truman — when the presidential election Nov. 2 was too close to call. Despite the premature Chicago Tribune headline ''Dewey Defeats Truman,'' the president eked out a narrow victory. The popular vote in the 48 states was 24.1 million to 21.9 million, while the electoral vote was 303 to 189.
Truman beat Dewey in Ohio by a mere 7,000 votes.
In the 1993 Pulitzer-winning biography Truman, U.S. author David McCullough credits a president who dared to ''waste his time'' on a lost cause.
''Were one to pick a single representative day of all the many days in Harry Truman's drive for the presidency in 1948, a day that in spirit and content could serve as a classic passage in his whistle-stop odyssey, probably it would be Monday, October 11, when he barnstormed through central Ohio at the start of what was to prove a crucial swing into the Middle West,'' McCullough wrote.
Akron was the final stop on a day that made all the difference.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send e-mail to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
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