American Essence

‘The Man From Independence’ Made an Unpopular Decision

In this latest installment of When Character Counted, we look at Harry Truman’s presidential election campaign and his later clash with Douglas MacArthur.
‘The Man From Independence’ Made an Unpopular Decision
President Harry Truman shakes hands with Gen. Douglas MacArthur at the Wake Island Conference, seven months before Truman relieved MacArthur from command. Public Domain
Jeff Minick
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In the fall of 1948, political pundits and voters largely agreed on one thing: Harry Truman had no chance of winning the presidency.

Though Vice President Truman had taken up the reins of the presidency after Franklin Roosevelt’s death and successfully overseen an end to the war with Japan, Americans in general were weary of the reforms of the New Deal era and ready to move in a different direction. Even many Democrats believed Truman incapable of defeating the Republicans. In vain, they tried first to recruit Dwight Eisenhower and then Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas to run on the Democrat ticket, but in the end it was Truman against New York’s Republican Governor, Thomas Dewey.

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.