Book, and history programs. Stay up toate on all the election coverage. Cspans radio app means you always have cspan on the go. Up next on history bookshelf, David Pietrusza discussed his book 1948, Harry Trumans improbable victory and the year that transformed america scliebing the Political Climate surrounding the election and the main players in the campaign. This was recorded at the Clifton Park Halfmoon Library in clifton, new york. Its about an hour, 10 minutes. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the clifton parkhalfmoon public library. Were very pleased to have David Pietrusza here to talk about his new book 1948 the year that transformed america. David is the author of a number of books. Hes been here in the past to talk about his book about arnold rothstein, 1960, lbj versus jfk versus nixon. The homespun wit and wisdom of calvin coolidge, and ted williams, my life in pictures. Hes also written and produced a documentary, local heroes, baseball in Capital District dimes. Reviewed for his harry truman book talk about how lively it is, illuminating portraits of four candidates and the even handed appraisal of truman is especially compelling. The journey that he takes to get us to election day is one that he has definitively become the best at leading. In his past, his work has been compared to theodore whites classic the making of the president series. After three straight home runs, i think pietrusza is the undisputed champion of chronicling americans president ial campaigns. He holds a masterscome pain from the university of albany and has served on the city council in amsterdam, new york, and is the recipient of the 2011 excellence in letters and arts awards at the university at albany. In addition to doing president ial biographies and elections. Hes also a member of sabca. The baseball historian organization. He is a casey winning judge and jury and an edgar Award Finalist for his book on arnold rothstein. Ladies and gentlemen, David Pietrusza. Thank you, natalie. And its great to be back here again. And the question that people always ask me about my books is, why did you write this book . And americans claim to hate politics. But we love elections. We love sports. My sports background, your sports background. The whole country is crazy about it. We love the competition. We love the 162game series and things going down to the seventh game of the world series. We love masarosky skitting the home run and bill buckner and mookie wilson. 1948 is one of those masarosskymookiebill buckner elections. This is when the underdog comes back and pulled it out when everyone has written them off. Thats Harry Trumans improbable victory. Thats the year that was. Thats the election that was. The great iconic comeback. The great surprise. The great surprise, one the pundits are proven so spectacularly wrong. Thats another thing we love. We love to be smarter than all the guys you see on tv and writing the newspaper columns. And harry truman, who was just an ordinary harry, the only the only president of the 20th century who hadnt gone to college. Hes a high school graduate. Not the only one since. Not the last one. The only one in the 20th century. You have to go back to andrew johnson, to abraham lincoln, to find such a common man. And not just a common man, but a fellow whos been a failure at business. His famed haberdashery shop in Downtown Kansas City that goes bust and hes left to pay off those debts for 20 years and he pays them all off. He wont declare bankruptcy. He has a standard of honor and he will pay all its debts. He also has a standard of honor which marks him in his earlier political career, where he is the product, and hes known for really most of his active political career as being the product of one of americas most spectacularly corrupt political machines. This is something that, like al smith in 1928, is never really able to transend. Hes a product of tameny, and he gets whooped by Herbert Hoover for that and a number of other reasons. Harry truman is the product of this pendergast machine in kansas city. Hes the head of the county government for them. They steal millions and millions of dollars. Harry truman never takes a dime. He has a link to what goes on in some cases. He has to get things done. He would sit down. He would sit down and pour out his soul in private letters which he never sent to anyone. He would hole up in this hotel and write out these letters which were found decades after his death, as he would wrestle with these questions. Am i a Public Servant or am i a crook . Am i doing the right thing . Hes conflicted by this, but he stays in this machine, and he eventually determines to get out of local government. He wants to be a congressman. But hes such a pupal, such a nobody, even at that time, that its like, no, harry, you cant be a congressman. Can i be can i be abogoverno . No, you cant be governor. When the machine cant find anyone to run for the United States senate in 1934 okay. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. So, the machine cant find anyone to run for senate, United States senate, in 1934. You think they could. Its going to be a big democratic year. Harry pulls it off, but he goes into the senate again. Hes like a nobody. A nobody. And then disaster strikes. 1939. Boss pendergast on good friday goes to the federal pen for corruption. And people say, well, thats the end of harry truman now. Whos going to want him . Whos going to want this pendergast puppet still to remain in the United States senate . His mentor is finished, and so is he. Faces a threeway primary. And wins. He goes to all the small towns and courthouses and masonic temples and every other place he knows in missouri. And wows them. Pulls it off. And thats a valuable lesson when it comes to 1948. And the Democratic Party is split once again. But he still, hes back in the senate. Who is he . Hes given an assignment. Look into all these military bases, defense contracting things were doing to win the war against hitler. Are we getting a bang for the buck . Are we spending our money wisely . Harry truman goes around, gets in his car, really no staff, no expense. Delivers a remarkable report that, no, were not. Were wasting a hell of a lot of money while our boys are fighting and dying in europe and north africa and in the south pacific. And we have to stop it. Heres how. People say, gee whiz, he did that intelligently, honestly, in a nonpartisan manner. Maybe theres something to this harry truman guy. Which takes us to 1944. Franklin roosevelt is looking for a fourth term. The war is still on. And in 1940, he had dumped his Vice President , john nance gardener, who had grown a bit too conservative for the new deal. And he puts in henry a. Wallace, his secretary of the agriculture, who is a very leftwing kind of newage kind of guy for back then. And he forces wallace on the ticket in 1940. The Democratic Party does not really want him. And in 1944, roosevelt is getting the word back. You keep this guy on the ticket, he could cost you a million votes. Roosevelt is a great politician. He knows what this means. And he says, i forced Henry Wallace on the party once. I cant do it twice. I cant do it twice. Hes got to go. Not in so many words. Not in so many words, but he eventually slits wallaces throat. Who does he replace him with . The guy you replace him with is a guy whos not too southern, not too northern, not too conservative, not too liberal. Respect eed by the unions but n really in the pocket of the unions. Thats harry truman. He fits in all the slots. They put him on the ticket in 1944. And by april 1945, Franklin Roosevelt is dead. And harry truman goes to the white house and says to eleanor roosevelt, can i pray for you . And she says, no. We need to pray for you. Because you are the fellow who is in trouble now. He starts off very popular. The war is won. The atomic bombs are dropped on japan. Theres vjday. America is at peace finally. And harry truman reaches a popularity level of 87 . That goes downhill real fast. And people, some of that is beyond his control, but there are reasons why his popularity drops. Hes not Franklin Roosevelt. Right now, all the republicans are saying, who is the next reagan . Boy, we miss reagan a lot. And back then, it was, by god. By god, how we miss fdr among the democrats. And harry truman was no fdr. So theres a longing for the lost leader there. And also, hes prone to certain gaffes. His appointments are not always the strongest. Theres talk of the missouri gang, as there was an ohio gang with warren harding, of people, sort of hangerson, small timers who are put into positions way above their abilities. You see the old new dealers being shoved out of the cabinet, not just Henry Wallace, who is fired by harry truman for being a prostalinist, really, giving speeches against the truman foreign policy, but you also have where with harry truman, the country turns against the party and the leader which brings us into war. If you dont believe me, ask either bush. Ask lyndon johnson. Woodrow wilson after world war i. What happens to the Democratic Party. What happens to winston churchill, a pretty good war leader in 1945. Hes out the door. So this is a normal thing. The readjustment means a lot of things get thrown out, including parties in power. Republicans take the house and the senate in 1946. Theyre on a roll. Harry truman keeps going up and down in the popularity. By the spring of 1948, hes down in the low 30s in terms of popularity. And its not only a republican democrat thing going on here. The Democratic Party is splitting three ways. Not just two ways, not just youve got some sort of, oh, carter Teddy Kennedy thing going on. Not a George Bush Pat Buchanan thing going on. But its being split, the left, the center, and the right. On the right, you have the southern segregationist democrats. Franklin roosevelt had talked a good game with black civil rights, but he really hadnt done anything. Remember, that the army, the navy in world war ii are still segregated. Theres no move to desegregate anything in the country. Harry truman proposes a big Civil Rights Program at the beginning of 1948. The southern democrats are simply aghast by this, and beyond that, they feel personally betrayed because they had thought of harry truman as one of their own. His mother had been in an internment camp run by the union during the civil war. Confederate sympathizers. And if you look at harrys statements and you look at his private correspondence, hes not exactly a bleeding heart liberal on the topic. But he puts this forward, and the southerners are aghast. They Start Talking about a strategy in which they will punish harry truman. They will punish the Democratic Party. They will make the Democratic Party come to its senses on civil rights and states rights and all of these things. And they will do this by putting the election into the Electoral College and brokering a deal. And one of the people involved in that is a young man, a young governor of South Carolina named jay strahm thurman, decorated war veteran, former judge, and considered at the time to be kind of a progressive liberal new deal kind of democrat. The new face of the south. Except that once he gets caught up in this, when the South Carolina legislators and such Start Talking against the truman Civil Rights Program, he joins with the dixiecrats largely centered in mississippi and alabama in going to these regional meetings to say what can we do about harry truman . Now, the irony of this, and the irony of this when thurman starts being carried away by this, talking about how the federal governments bayonets will not force black people into our swimming pools, into our homes, into our schools, is the irony is that jay strahm thermman has a black illegitimate daughter. Thats one wing of the Democratic Party in 1948. The other wing, which seems actually to be more troublesome to harry truman, is the Henry Wallace wing. And that is the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party, beyond the new dealers, beyond the eleanor roosevelts, beyond the Hubert Humphreys. Which is in many cases communist dominated. Communist party United States of america. Not just leftwing, not just radical whatever, but actual party members. And as Wallace Wallace has a problem in that hes been cast aside not once but twice. And both times involving harry truman. You would not be human unless you were bitter about this. And you have this bitter former Vice President of the United States with leftwing proclivities anyway, and now hes got two reasons, two reasons to be against harry truman personally. And he is talked into not a primary challenge against truman but a thirdparty challenge. Whats their strategy . Again, whats their strategy . Since the strategy is being dictated from the extreme left wingers, from the people being controlled by really moscow, when you get down to it, its got to be that theyre again trying to not win an election but to send a message to truman. And say, look, you change your foreign policy, Democratic Party. You change your foreign policy, harry truman, because we will punish you, and we will give the election to the republicans. And then well go back to the way it was under Franklin Roosevelt, with a guy we can deal with. In 1944, the communist party of the United States had actually endorsed Franklin Roosevelt, did gnaw run a candidate. Kind of one Big Happy Family at one point. So truman is being squeezed on the left and on the right. Hes in trouble. And how can he hold together a coalition which will have another electoral votes to win if the south is going to be stolen away from him by the dixiecrats and where does Henry Wallace hold his strength . Not all over the country, but in big states like new york, in new york city, in southern california, in illinois. Where he can be the balance of power in those states and tip states which a democrat should win into the republican column. So the republican column. Whos the republican going to be . Same answer at some point as we have now. Looking forward to 2012. A very crowded, confused field. Typical. Typical when you have a president , an inkcumbent who is vulnerable. When the opportunity is there, a lot of opposition candidates come out. And the four frontrunners that year, governor thomas e. Dewey of new york, new york is the big kahuna. 45 electoral votes. You take that, you have a big leg up on the presidency. Harold e. Stasen, former governor of minnesota, now a punch line in american political history because he ran and lost so many times and ran and lost so many times with absolutely no chance of success. Robert a. Taft. Senator from ohio, leader of the congressional republicans, de facto. Mr. Republican, mr mr. Conservative, but as they say, dull as paint. Not charismatic. And the fourth is not even in the country. General of the army douglas macarthur, in tokyo, running the former i guess still present empire of japan. And a popular guy. But can he pull it off from far away . He doesnt. Hes entered in the wisconsin primary. He should win that. He doesnt. He stumbles. Hes out fairly quickly. There arent a lot of primaries that year. Theres a New Hampshire primary. Theres always the New Hampshire primary. There is the wisconsin primary, which macarthur should win and doesnt. He loses it to harold stasen, which elevates stasen. Stasen is an outsider. Hes a boy wonder. In 1938, he had been elected governor of minnesota. He was the youngest governor of any state ever, and then he quits. Hes reelected saying if you reelect me, im going to quit in four months and go into the navy. Hes so popular, hes still elected. Imagine being elected with a platform like that. He comes out, hes an internationalist. You got the debates still going on. Internationalism versus isolationism. Stasen is on the extreme end of the republican internationalist brigade at that point. Hes feisty. Hes a real outsider. He wins in wisconsin. He wins in nebraska. And hes poised to take the frontrunner status away from thomas e. Dewey as the campaign heads into oregon. Notice, i have only named four states. These are the four important primaries. Most of these are still being done in Party Conventions which means in the back room, either in places like albany or columbus or wherever, or when you get to the convention. Now, oregon is where we see something happening which is being repeated again this year. Debates. Were debating, were debating, were debating. You see Newt Gingrich at every stop saying, i want a lincolndouglas style debate on one topic, just me and this other guy in the room, and it doesnt matter who the guy is or who the gal is or what the topic is. Hes calling for that sort of debate. What he should be calling on historically because hes a great historian is a stasendewey mode