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- <text id=93HT1008>
- <title>
- 52 Election: Truman Declines:Exit Smiling
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1952 Election
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- April 7, 1952
- THE PRESIDENCY
- Exit Smiling
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> He never looked better. Tanned and grinning, Harry Truman
- let his eyes twinkle over two acres of fund-bearing Democrats, a
- crop to rejoice the heart of a onetime Missouri farm boy, who by
- loyal association with the Democratic Party had attained the most
- powerful office in the world.
- </p>
- <p> The party had proclaimed itself as the champion of the
- common man, the little fellow, the ill-fed. Five times the nation
- had responded by giving the Democrats the presidency. Now they
- faced a sixth test, which promised to be the sternest of all.
- Girding for the battle, 6,000 Democratic leaders assembled in
- Washington and paid half a million dollars to 1) consume pink
- grapefruit, celery & olives, filet mignon, baked potatoes, string
- beans, domestic Burgundy and ice cream molded in the form of a
- donkey, 2) honor Jefferson and Jackson, and 3) hear what their
- leader, Harry Truman, the improbably successful man with the
- common touch, had to say about the party's future.
- </p>
- <p> Formula for '52. It was bright, he said. He told them the
- party could win the sixth election--and if they would believe
- this from any man they would believe it from Harry Truman, who had
- stumped the experts by fighting his way out of a corner in 1948.
- In one of the best-written and best-delivered political speeches
- he ever made, Truman laid down the formula for victory in 1952.
- </p>
- <p> The formula was a tried if not a true one. Just as a
- generation of Republicans through the 1870s, '80s and '90s "waved
- the bloody shirt" and ran for office against Jefferson Davis, so
- a generation of Democrats through the 1930s and '40s have waved
- the Great Depression and run for office against Warren Harding,
- Andrew Mellon and Herbert Hoover. The Democrats' story was that
- they killed the dragon in 1932 (although it was so long adying
- that some economic pathologists say it really expired of
- arteriosclerosis and Pearl Harbor). The Democrats had been paid
- four times over for their feat, and the Amalgamated Dragonkillers
- (C.I.O.) could ask no more.
- </p>
- <p> But Truman could and he earnestly urged the Democrats to
- stick to their story. Again, he told the Democratic version of
- the 1920s when the Republicans "spent all their time trying to
- help the rich get richer." There are still Republicans today who
- think the same way, he said, "This is the dinosaur school of
- Republican strategy. They want to take us back to prehistoric
- times...(But this) would only get the dinosaur vote--and
- there aren't many dinosaurs left."
- </p>
- <p> Well-Worked Vein. Republicans, said Truman, "will try to
- make people believe that everything the Government has done for
- the country is socialism...Here you are, with your new car,
- and your home, and better opportunities for the kids, and a
- television set--just surrounded by socialism!"
- </p>
- <p> As to foreign policy, some Republicans want "to pull out of
- Korea, and to abandon Europe and to let the United Nations go to
- smash." Other Republicans want to begin dropping atomic bombs.
- The Democrats, on the other hand, are against Communism and in
- favor of peace.
- </p>
- <p> On another pressing issue, he also took the
- counteroffensive: "I stand for honest government," he said. He
- recalled Republican scandals of the 1920s and added that these
- were "no worse--no more immoral--than the tax laws of Andrew
- Mellon or the attempt to sell Muscle Shoals to private interests."
- </p>
- <p> As Truman went on in this well-worked vein, his fellow
- Democrats beamed upon him. Many of the 6,000 came to the dinner
- convinced that Harry Truman was not their best possible candidate
- for 1952. But doubts must have been raised in some minds by his
- mastery of the formula, by his confidence, and above all by the
- way he convinces those who hear him that he is pouring out his
- whole mind, a plain man saying what he thinks. Not even Roosevelt
- had this ability in the degree Truman has it. Well the 6,000 have
- known (since 1948) what a priceless political asset it is.
- </p>
- <p> Summing up, Truman said: "Whoever the Democratic nominee for
- President may be this year, he will have this record to run on."
- At that moment, in that hall, the thought that Harry Truman
- should be the nominee sprang out of all that Truman had said and
- the way he said it.
- </p>
- <p> Historic Decision. With scarcely a pause for breath, Harry
- Truman shattered the thought. He turned from his typed script and
- read hurriedly from a sheet on which he had written with a pen a
- historic paragraph.
- </p>
- <p> "I shall not be a candidate for re-election."
- </p>
- <p> Smiles died and stillness fell on the hall. He went on:
- </p>
- <p> "I have served my country long and, I think, efficiently and
- honestly. I shall not accept a renomination. I do not feel it is
- my duty to spend another four years in the White House."
- </p>
- <p> A women's voice shrilled: "Oh, my God!" there were cries of
- "No, no" all over the hall, then a single loud voice, "Oh, NO,"
- as if a performer on a high wire had stepped into space.
- </p>
- <p> Truman raced tonelessly through the concluding sentences of
- his prepared speech, snapped shut the leather notebook with his
- script and stepped back from the lectern. He came forward again
- when photographers summoned him and smiled, a little tightly. He
- turned to Bess Truman, who had risen, and drew her into range of
- the television cameras. His smile broadened, and he backed away
- again and, parting a curtain, left.
- </p>
- <p> Reporters ran after him. "Is that decision subject to any
- change?"
- </p>
- <p> "None whatsoever," he said, snapping his head forward
- vigorously. His eyes sparkled and he seemed to be bubbling with
- good humor and, perhaps, relief.
- </p>
- <p> Bess Truman came up and was about to get in their limousine
- when a reporter asked: "Are you happy over that decision?" the
- reporter and all Washington knew the answer to that. She has
- borne stoically the very unwelcome burdens of her husband's
- position, and she has dreaded the possibility that he would run
- again. Bess Truman's reply to the question was in line with the
- self-effacing role she has played so well in the White House.
- </p>
- <p> "Of course." she answered, "anything he says goes."
- </p>
- <p> What Motive? Truman's decision was the best-kept Washington
- political secret in years. Its origins went back to April 12,
- 1950, the anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt's death, when Truman
- sat alone at his White House desk and wrote out a private
- memorandum. The gist of it was that he would not run for the
- presidency again. He first planned to announce his decision on
- April 12 of this year, then advanced the date to the Jefferson-
- Jackson dinner. A few hours before the banquet, he told Mrs.
- Truman, called Margaret in Portland, Ore. and told her, and he
- told Democratic National Chairman Frank McKinney at a reception
- just before going in to dinner. Of the 6,000, not more than ten
- knew what was coming.
- </p>
- <p> Why did he decide not to run? Truman's friends say that the
- simplest answer is the true one: he and his wife want to spend
- the rest of their lives in more peace and quiet than the White
- House can offer. This answer is certainly no pretense--but it
- may not be the whole truth.
- </p>
- <p> Truman could have announced his decision months ago. He went
- to great pains to keep his choice open. What was he waiting for?
- One possibility was some relaxation of international tension. but
- less than a fortnight before, he had heatedly denied McKinney's
- report that his decision depended on war or peace in Korea.
- Another possibility is that he was awaiting the emergence of a
- successor on whom his party can agree. Though none has clearly
- emerged, Truman apparently felt that the hopefuls now in the
- field augur well for the party.
- </p>
- <p> A Long Way. There have been two recent developments--
- one Democratic, one Republican--that may have influenced his
- timing and perhaps even his decision not to run. In the
- Democratic camp, the strong Southern support behind Georgia's
- Senator Richard Russell brought home the threat of a defection in
- the South, whose leaders are bitterly hostile to Truman; another
- Truman candidacy might have split the party that Truman loves.
- Meanwhile, his defeat by Kefauver in the New Hampshire preference
- primary emphasized that he was not the unanimous choice of
- Northern Democrats.
- </p>
- <p> The Republican development is the recent rise of General
- Eisenhower's chance to get the nomination. Truman might have made
- a lot of personal sacrifices if he thought them necessary to keep
- Senator Taft from the presidency. He has reasons for not wanting
- to run against Ike: 1) he likes Ike personally; 2) it may be that
- not even Truman's superb confidence is equal to the belief that
- he can beat Eisenhower. Why should he risk splitting his party in
- a losing fight?
- </p>
- <p> So he bowed out, smiling. Six years, eleven months and 17
- days before his announcement, Truman, overwhelmed by humility,
- had acceded to the presidency. Of that moment, he said: "Did you
- ever have a bull or a load of hay fall on you? If you have, you
- know how I felt last night."
- </p>
- <p> The loads of hay had continued to fall. The Communization of
- Western Europe had been narrowly averted. The Middle East had
- drifted into confusion and enmity toward the West. China had gone
- Communist and the Korean war had followed. Congress set itself
- against Truman. Inflation pressed on. Taxes rose and deficits
- returned. Scandals beset the Administration of an honest man who
- was all too loyal to his political friends.
- </p>
- <p> Yet Truman stood up under successive blows. When cornered by
- disaster, as in the European crises or the Red attack on South
- Korea, he reacted out of deeply rooted American principles. The
- Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the decision to defend South
- Korea are examples of the healthy Truman reflex. If any problem
- was close enough, desperate enough and clear enough, he knew what
- to do. He did not posses and he did not develop the ability to
- look ahead, to avoid the crises, to build.
- </p>
- <p> In his speech last week, he said that he was proud that he
- had come "from precinct worker to President." It was a long way-
- and Americans can be proud of Harry Truman's journey. In his term
- of office, however, the responsibilities of the U.S. presidency
- came a long way, too. It is no shame to Harry Truman that he
- could not keep pace with the awful responsibilities of his job.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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