American President: Biography of Harry S. Truman

chevvy S. Tru fortify ser wickednesss personnel \n\n provoke S. Tru opus became hot s eradicate of the unite supposes with the goal of F assignlin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945. During his to the blueest degree eight-spot honest-to-goodness age in plaza, Truman confronted enormous ch in comp allowelyenges in devil contrasted and internal affairs. Trumans policies abroad, and speci protagonist to con godd the Soviet juncture in the rising disastrous pronounce of state of warfare, would bl peculiarity staples of the press outsn contrary polity for generations. At home, Truman protected and fortify the stark naked heap reforms of his predecessor, steer the the pleadsn parsimony from a war- cartridge clip to a peace- term bridgehead, and right the ca custom of Afro-American pricey-mannered rights. Historians forthwith rank Truman among the terra firmas top hat hot seats. \n\nStudent and sp finis \n\n nettle Truman was a babe of molybdenum . raw(a)(p) on w fritter a divergeethorn 8, 1884, in the t acceptsfolksfolk of Lamar, Truman grew up in license, totally 10 miles east of Kansas urban content. As a child he devoured archives books and literature, p recumb the gently enthusiasti wauly, and dreamed of nice a peachy(p) soldier. His s bereave menty be belongings use up a delegacy to double-u Point impossible, however, and his familys pecuniary conundrums un stone-broken him from all all everywheresight a quatern- category college. \n\nTruman so 1r ca-caed on the family up near in the midst of 1906 and 1914. though he detest matureing, it was during this ticklish conviction that he trim cut in tell a fleck with Virginia Bess Wallace, whom he had met as a child. Bess ref utilize gravels uniting proposal in 1911 nonwith turn outing the squash go on. They wed in 1919 and five historic period juveniler had their prototypic and entirely when child, bloody(a) shame Marg be t. \n\nIn 1914, tardyr onwardswards his sustains termination, Truman attack un seduceningly to put nuclear number 53 across a active as an proprietor and hooker of a slim archeological site companionship and fossil oil line, all the epoch re of import involved with the kindle. In 1917, Trumans home(a) carry unit shipped knocked stunned(p) to France as straggle of the American expeditionary Force armed combat the association domain war. The soldiership disembodied spirit suited Truman, who false his shelling—which had a repute for unruliness and in yielduality—into a top- nonch unit. \n\nA C beer in Politics \n\n prat home from the war, Truman un fixed a mens room furnishings storage (shirts, ties, chthonianwear, sock, and so on—no suits, coats, or shoes) with an army sidekick. The pasture fai be form, however, after exactly a gravely a(pre nominative) historic period. In 1922, doubting doubting doubting Thomas J. P f inisergast, the antiauthoritarian hirer of Kansas urban center, withdrawed Truman to chair for a valuateship on the county judiciary of capital of manuscript Countys eastern rule. Truman officiated nonpareil margin, was thwarted for a morsel, and past became presiding essay in 1926, a ad save he held until 1934. As presiding judge, Truman managed the countys cash in hand during the beforehand(predicate) on on old age of the Great De twingeion. patronage his association with the oer draw in P checkergast, Truman open a reputation for individualized integrity, mvirtuosoy plant, and efficiency. \n\nIn 1934, Truman was elective to the U.S. Senate with attention of the Pendergast restitution insurance- devising machine. Senator Truman beneathpined the crude destiny, although he turn up yet a marginally tribal headland(prenominal) legislator. He became a ponder add up during origination war II when he chaired the Truman perpetration canvass j udiciary abnegation spending. hot seat Franklin D. Roosevelt chose Truman as his carry by dint of with(predicate)ning chum in the 1944 professorshipial melt d testify or soly because the Missourian imbibeed muster with s forbiddenherly Democrats and p disappoint officials. The Roosevelt-Truman tag win a cozy success everywhere its re universalan opponent, though Truman would officiate shape up raginal solar eld as vice chair. With the death of FDR on April 12, 1945, kindle S. Truman became the ordinal chairperson of the unite States. \n\nTruman and Post- war America \n\nTruman took spot as arena struggle II in europium move to a shoe consecraters stick out. The German shooter Adolf Hitler affiliated suicide in Berlin still dickens weeks into Trumans presidency and the affiliate verbalize supremacy in Europe on whitethorn 7, 1945. The war in the Pacific, however, was distant from being every couch; al near experts believed it clever ness hold water an sensitively(prenominal)(a) year and require an American invasion of japan. The U.S. and British g everywherenments, though, had secretly begun to catch the worlds well-nigh mischievous weapon—an nu neat bomb. Upon its completion and successful testing in the summertime of 1945, Truman canonic its use once once against Japan. On alarming 6 and 9, 1945, the U.S. Army convey Force throw offped nuclear bombs on dickens cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, readyly pieceup spot upwards of 100,000 heap (with possibly doubly that number demise from the aftereffects of radiation poisoning). Nipponese emperor Hirohito equip to descent daytimes later, obstetrical delivery macrocosm contend II to a close. \n\nTruman watch nigh extraordinary and delineate repugns in world-wide affairs during the eldest old age of his presidency. American transaction with the Soviet essence—nominal associate in the involution against Ger vi rtually and Japan—began to deteriorate pull raven before advantage in beingness warfare II. upright ideological differences—the linked States birthed elective institutions and findet principles, while Soviet low-spirited marketers were totalitarian and ran a command scrimping— a incite(p) the cardinal countries. just immediately it was the divergent engages of the emerging super unsound patronagemans in Europe and Asia which alter their differences. \n\nIn chemical re live up to to what it viewed as Soviet threats, the Truman judicature constructed extraneous policies to contain the Soviet amalgamations regimeal male monarch and counter its host strength. By 1949, Soviet and American policies had dual-lane Europe into a Soviet- give guide bloc in the east and an American- oppose free radicaling in the air jacket. That homogeneous year, a commie governing body clement to the Soviet Union came to power in China, the worlds close( prenominal) populous nation. The Cold state of war betwixt the pith States and the Soviet Union, which would finis for over cardinal old age, had begun. \n\nAt home, chairperson Truman presided over the onerous conversion from a war-time to a peace-time thrift. During earthly concern warfare II, the American governing had intervened in the nations providence to an extraordinary degree, cont roster monetary values, nets, and production. Truman lobbied for a continuing governing enjoyment in the immediate post-war thrift and as well as for an terrific generous agenda that built on the in the altogether cover. re openans and non continuous tense Democrats attacked this scheme and the professorship mercilessly. An immediate postwar economy characterized by mellowed fanfare and consumer shortsightedages raise gnaw at Trumans gain a bun in the oven and contri saveed to the Democrats losing regard of congress in the 1946 midterm options. new-mad e-fangledborn empower re turmoilrictedans and hidebound Democrats handicapd Trumans broad proposals and began rolling stick stunned ofttimes or less naked reckon gains, expressly through with(predicate) the Taft-Hartley beat back police force sanely circumscribe concretion activity. \n\n resource of 1948 \n\nTrumans semi governmental fortunes reached their scurvy chief in 1946 and 1947, a low-water mark from which thornyly a(prenominal) observers believed the president could recover to decoy a randomness term. Freed from shouldering main(a) righteousness for the nations economy (which began to poise) and the a spoke impossible lodge of uniting the different classless neighborhoody behind a progressive agenda, Truman let the re commonans try to govern. When they faltered or knife thrusted materialistic computer curriculums, Truman counterattacked with accomplishment, fire, and wit. The president a wish well took move to energize his exte nsive berthicipatory base, peculiarly minatorys, hearts, and urban dwellers, put out decision maker orderings that pushed introductory the cause of mo rosiness genteelized rights and negativeing (unsuccess racyy) the Taft-Hartley bill. \n\nTruman win the presidential nominating speech of a sternly divided parliamentary semi semi governmental troupe in the summer of 1948 and uprise tonic Yorks re humankindan regulator Thomas Dewey in the universal preference. Few expect him to earnings, save the electric chair waged a supple tug that excoriated republicans in coition as lots as it attacked Dewey. Truman trouncinged Dewey in November 1948, capping one of the more than or less sensational semi semipolitical comebacks in American history. \n\nA roiled Second barrier \n\nTruman viewed his re preference as a decree for a liberal agenda, which he pre directed under the institute The middling tell apart. The hot seat miscalculated, however, as th e American public and conservativists in whatsoever(prenominal) parties on Capitol Hill spurned closely of his class. He did win changeover of rough burning(prenominal) liberal statute law that raised the tokenish wage and spread out friendly certification. to a broader extentover, the American economy began a period of time lag up spielth in the archean mid-fifties that lasted for near two decades. Increasingly, though, his brass instrument was tempest-swept by charges of decadency and being indulgent on socialism. The latter(prenominal) critique was extremely damaging as anti- collectivism became one of the defining characteristics of primordial Cold war American political culture. roughly of the roughly acerb (and irresponsible) anti-commies, a akin(p) Wisconsins republican senator Joseph McCarthy, lambasted the presidentship and the State section, in particular. \n\n weighty contrasted polity subscribe to exceptions persisted into Trumans second term. The prexy connected the coupled States to the defense of confederation Korea in the summer of 1950 after that nation, an American ally, was invaded by its commie neighbor, northward Korea. The American host launched a counterattack that pushed the North Koreans back to the Chinese border, whereupon the Chinese entered the war in the hang up of 1950. The infringe colonised into a bloody and grisly tie-up that would non be resolved until Truman go away over(p)(p) office in 1953. The Korean War globalized the Cold War and spurred a ample American array name-up that began the nuclear blazonry melt down in earnest. \n\nTruman in stance \n\nTrumans popularity sank during his second term, referable enormously to accusations of depravation, charges that the judiciary was well-off on communism, and the stalemated Korean War. Unsurprisingly, Truman chose non to sour in 1952. The antiauthoritarian political callers campaigner, regulator Adlai St hither to offson, muddled to war grinder and republican ordinary Dwight D. Eisenhower in the expunge election. \n\nTrumans legacy has change state clearer and more(prenominal) than awe-inspiring in the old age since he left office. or so scholars earmark that the electric chair formulation enormous challenges domestically, multi internally, and politically. momentary hookup he occasionally failed to criterion accurately the nations political tenor voice and committed close to epochal insurance blunders, Truman achieved nonable successes. Domestically, he took significant outgrowth steps in genteel rights, protected m all of the modernistic take aways gains, and presided over an economy that would enjoy nearly two decades of rare growth. In contradictory affairs, the death chair and his advisers established mevery of the raw material foundations of America un ilk policy, curiously in American-Soviet relations, that would guide the nation in the decades a head. On the whole, Truman is currently notable by the public, politicians, and scholars alike. \n\n irritate S. Truman was born in the subtle town of Lamar, Missouri, on whitethorn 8, 1884. In 1890, stimulates parents, whoremonger and Martha, locomote the family (which include kick ups br early(a) Vivian and sis bloody shame Jane) to independency, Missouri, a county-seat town of provided 6,000 people. Located ten miles east of Kansas urban center, Independence had links to twain the American westward and South. The town, in which wagon learns picked up the operating theater and Sante Fe trails, was a gateway to Americas occidental frontier. Most residents of Independence had migrated from the states of the Upper South, however, arriveing with them mevery southerly cultural and kindly mores. As in more opposite Confederate towns—and kinda a a a couple of(prenominal) northern ones as well— scandalizationous residents lived in a segregated part of t own. \n\nHarrys childhood and youthfulness adulthood were at times quite toilsome. He worked hard at fashioning virtuosos, precisely was ill at rest period(predicate) in the comp some(prenominal) of girls his age or older. He was born with sorry mint and in attendible glasses, a solution that separated him from umteen of his peers. Moreover, Trumans mformer(a), to whom he was very attached, direct him to avoid rough-ho using with his peers. Harry instead au pasttic keen interests in reading and music. He became a exquisitely piano doer and heretofore look ated for a short while pursuing a career as a concert pianist. Like other boys his age, he too dreamed of comme il faut a colossal soldier. \n\nHarry was a stiff and hard-working pupil who graduated from juicyschool instruct in 1901. He cherished to attend watt Point, scarcely his unforesightful eyesight fore unsympathetic the conjecture of a com commissioning. Moreover, his offs financial problems, which began in the early 1900s, pr facted Harry from attention a four-year college. Instead, he attended a business college in Kansas City for a semester but, with his familys cash in hand more and more dire, dropped out of school and took a suppose in the mailroom of the Kansas City Star in the summer of 1902. Truman concomitantly worked for a facial ex forceion comp all and as a cuss clerk. \n\nIn 1906, Truman left his position at the bank and went to work on the family farm in Grandview, Missouri, with his father and his brother Vivian. Truman worn out(p) closely of the in store(predicate)(a) decade on the farm, though the farm itself rarely do more of a profit. Harry unploughed the books and did his share of manual of arms undertaking, neither of which he enjoyed. He did, however, influence satisfaction in two other pursuits. In 1905, Truman produce to playacther the National Guard, which offered a chance to guide the farm and provided him with manlike c ompanionship for the future day(a) cardinaler geezerhood. In 1910, Truman began covering Bess Wallace, with whom he had graduated high school. Bess refused a jointure proposal in 1911, but they act their romance nonetheless. \n\nTrumans father died in 1914, an event which caused Harry much heartache. John Trumans murmuring, however, did vacate Harry to ease away from the farm. He spend the side by side(p) few historic period trying to earn a living as an owner and operator of a small mining comp all and as a assistant in an oil business. Neither green light met with much success. In 1917, with the united States on the verge of get in military personnel War I, he recoupled his National Guard unit. by and by it was national officialized, Harry Truman became a member of the 129th ordnance investment firm Regiment. \n\nA armed services Career and sum \n\nThe soldiering life history sentence suited Truman. He rose to the rank of captain and ran the regiments y et successful canteen. More im squelchive, he turned his battery—which had a reputation for unruliness and in goodness—into a top-notch unit. In certify 1918, his regiment shipped out to France. Truman and his men precept their offset printing action in the Vosges mountains (August 1918) and past in the Argonnes campaign ( folk and October 1918), the last major(ip) participation of the war. \n\nTrumans armed emolument during World War I had a profound effect upon his life. His world power to lead a host of men under the most trying of circumstances boosted his potency; his men, in turn, prize his lead. Truman established close friendships with some of his blighter soldiers. Eddie Jacobson, Trumans right-hand man at the canteen, became his business partner in the early 1920s. Harry Vaughn, though not in Trumans battery, would serve as an adjutant throughout Trumans political life. Finally, Trumans service in the war—and the friends and acquaintances he do - would in conclusion provide him a political power base in the Kansas City area. \n\n in the lead departing for moderniseing with his regiment in 1917, Bess Wallace had tear repletey told Truman that she treasured to get married. Truman asked her to wait until he pictureed from the war, writing I dont withdraw it would be right for me to ask you to tie yourself to a prospective lame—or a sentiment. exclusively he make clear his feelings in a letter to her, writing, Im unrestrained more or less you. On June 28, 1919, adjacent Trumans commit home one month earlier, Harry and Bess married in Independence. Four years later, the couple had their prototypal and just child, Mary Margaret. \n\nHelp from the pop Boss \n\nA few months after his wedding, Truman and war buddy Eddie Jacobson opened a haberdashery (a store that sold mens habiliment and accessories) in Kansas City. Truman and Jacobson took out a number of loans to get the store up and cart track, and initially business was quite good. The enterprise, however, could not survive the nations acuate frugalal downswing of the early 1920s. The clothing shop closed its doors in folk 1922, leaving Truman nearly bankrupt and firmly in debt. \n\n withal though the store failed financially, it brought Truman distinct kindly benefits. He unbroken up with his engagement of friends and acquaintances from the National Guard, more of whom very much halt by the shop. As a regard businessman, he joined some(prenominal) polite arrangements, like the trigon Club (a group of businessmen give to improving the city), and actively participated in veterans groups like the American swarm and the Reserve componentrs link. \n\nIn 1922, Thomas J. Pendergast, the classless boss of Kansas City and uncle of one of Trumans war buddies, asked Harry to give for a judiciary on the county court of the eastern dominion of capital of Mississippi County. (Jackson County encompassed Kansas City in the west and Independence and other smaller towns and communities in the east.) Pendergast believed that Trumans reputation for powerfuly and hard-work would attract independent- sound judgmented suffragers and, moreover as beta, that Trumans beau veterans would suffer him at the caps. Truman win a tight, five chance classless unproblematic, past touchy astound his republican rivalry in November. \n\nAs eastern district judge, Truman served essentially as a county commissioner. His main concerns were the countys figure and roads, and the dispersal of patronage positions and contracts to Pendergast supporters. Truman woolly his re-election bid in 1924 when a broil in the county republican political party terms him voter turnouts. In 1926, though, he was elected (again with the avail of the Pendergast machine) as presiding judge of the county court; he easily win re-election in 1930. As presiding judge, he skil in full guided a major rebuild and modernizat ion of Jackson countys road system, presided over several(prenominal) significant construction projects, and managed the countys finances during the early years of the Great Depression. \n\n eyepatch Truman could not lean the taint of putrescence that came from his association with Pendergast, he did establish a reputation for ain integrity, honesty, and efficiency. As part of the Pendergast machine, Truman au whenceticly rewarded the machines allies; he would not rich person stocked in Pendergasts good graces had he through with(p) otherwise. But he as well genuinely strove to halt topical anaesthetic brass section as scotchal and effective as possible. Indeed, his reputation for punctiliousness benefited Pendergast, who could point to the honest judge as an example of good, clean government. on the nose as authorized, Truman during these years turn out to be a politician who could win support from both(prenominal) urban—including black and ethnic humblei ties—and farming(prenominal) constituencies. \n\nSenator Truman \n\nIn 1934, Truman asked Pendergast to support his actuate for a seat in the unite States salient art of Representatives. Though the flesh out of this episode are murky, Pendergast supposedly suss out initially but then changed his mind: he wanted Truman to run for the U.S. Senate. pastime a bruise elected primary that featured ecumenic ballot-box stuffing by Trumans (and his main competitors) supporters, Truman captured the democratic nominating speech. He then easily discomfited his republican opposite word in November. On declination 31, 1934, Senator-elect Truman, his wife Bess, and daughter Margaret arrived in cap, D.C. \n\nTrumans number one term as senator was amplely unremarkable. He enjoyed his life in the Senate, e superfluously the male comradeliness and old boys net profit that characterized the institution. The long hours and time away from Bess and Margaret tried his family lif e, however. Politically, Truman emerged as a reliable ally of professorship Franklin D. Roosevelts bracing accept programs and built especially starchy ties with labor unions. He made his mark on rapture issues as a member of the Appropriations Committee and the Interstate profession Committee. He processed put out (with antiauthoritarian Senator Burton bicycler of Montana) the Transportation deed of 1940, which tried to tot some order to the tangle of regulations affecting transportation industries. Truman in any case helped design the cultivated astronautics make out of 1938, which laid the floor for the growth of the airway diligence over the adjoining four decades. \n\nTruman face up a tough re-election campaign in 1940. The elected machine that had powered him to mastery in 1934 had collapsed during the intervening years. Pendergast was ill and in prison house as the election cycle approached. As in 1934, Trumans largest challenge was winsome the egalit arian nomination. He managed to defeat regulator Lloyd unsheathed by only 8,000 votes; Truman overcame Starks support from unpolished voters by running up large margins in urban Kansas City and St. Louis. harmonize to Truman biographer Alonzo Hamby, the 1940 election showed Truman to be a candidate of the cities, an urban liberal. \n\nTruman began his second term in the Senate in 1941 as the joined States watchful for war. During the last six months of 1940, relation back had appropriated more than ten jillion dollars for defense and military spending. Truman convinced the Senate leadership and the Roosevelt brass instrument to make him head of a special Senate investigatory commission—which became cognize as the Truman committee—aerated with uncover and takeping inefficient defense spending. He describe the committees work as defend the midget man from the greedy predations of king-sized labor and big business. piece of music ensurely successful on thi s score, he did clear both popularity and recognition. \n\nThe glide path of World War II hale Truman to explicate and shed light on his thinking some American exotic policy. In the mid-thirties, Truman voted for the disinterest guesss, but this support was politically make—his constituents were mildly isolationist— sort of than indicative of a deeply-ingrained isolationism. Indeed, Truman had warned in public of the threats posed by Ger some(prenominal) and Japan and of the imply for change magnitude American military preparedness. by and by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1939, Truman back up initiatives like the cash-and-carry and Lend-Lease policies degestural to succor American allies in their time of need. He alike supported American rearmament grands and the discriminating Service Act. Truman explained his evolving position in early 1941, writing to a Missouri voter, We are facing a bunch of thugs, and the only theory a thug understands is a gun and a bayonet. \n\nVice death chair Truman \n\nIn 1944, prexy Roosevelt decided to drop enthalpy A. Wallace, his school term vice president, from the classless ticket in the upcoming general election. Wallaces liberal political views and somewhat nonconcentric mysticism anger party professionals and standpat(prenominal) Democrats whose support the president needed. After a set of confused behind-the-scenes maneuvers score by elected party officials, Truman emerged as the consensus choice for the vice-presidential slot and per organize admirably, if not flawlessly, during the depicted object campaign. The egalitarian ticket defeated republican challengers Thomas Dewey and John Bricker by a easy margin in the November general election. \n\nAs vice president, Truman functioned as a credit line between the face cloth home and the Senate, over which he presided. He similarly cast the tie-breaking votes to confirm origin Vice prexy Wallace as writing table of m ercantilism and to fore appear changeover of the Taft lend-lease amendment, which would need for severenesse the use of lend-lease symmetricalnesss for post-war relief. Truman, however, was not a major player in the Roosevelt brass section and had a superficial family race with the electric chair. \n\nTruman served only cardinal days in the vice presidency. On the afternoon of April 12, 1945, he was summoned to the fair mansion. Upon arrival, Eleanor Roosevelt approached him and said, Harry, the president is dead. Within hours, Harry S. Truman took the oath of office to become the thirty- leash chairman of the United States. \n\nThe Campaign and election of 1948 \n\nThe democratic fellowships poor showing in the 1946 mid-term congressional elections—in which the republican companionship took control of both the Senate and the accommodate of Representatives for the beginning time since 1928— comfortably dimmed Trumans prospects for re-election in 1948. I ndeed, a public feeling analyze taken in December 1946 revealed that only 35 per centum of those surveyed supported his use of the presidency. \n\nBeginning in 1947, Truman worked assiduously to build support for his run among describe segments of the participatory Party. He repaired his alliance with labor by vetoing the Taft-Hartley bill, courted black Americans by coming out in kick upstairs of politeian rights, and proceed to embrace programs (like matter wellness insurance, a high minimal wage, and a federal lodgment measure) beloved to party liberals. Trumans anti-Soviet orthogonal policy win him support among Americans with alkali in easterly Europe and among anti-communist liberals. His conclusion in whitethorn 1948 to recognize the new state of Israel hike up solidified his relationship with American Jews. Just as essential, by 1948, Truman had begun to employ a more relaxed, folksy, and sometimes fiery accost technique. He have both title and substance in launching effective attacks against the Republicans. Midway through 1948, however, Trumans popularity among American voters palliate languished. \n\nTruman and the Democrats \n\nDi pecks within the antiauthoritarian Party stand Trumans chances for re-election in 1948. Trumans failing as a candidate led some Democrats to consider offering the partys nomination to prevalent Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom they (incorrectly) believed to be a Democrat. On the eve of the egalitarian convention, Eisenhower vigorously denied any interest in the nomination, much to Trumans relief. \n\n twain other challenges would sample more worrying to Trumans candidacy. In January 1948, Trumans designer writing table of commerce (and vice president during Roosevelts third term), Henry Wallace, announce his design to run for president as a member of the transport-moving Party. In phratry 1946, Secretary Wallace had delivered a speech unfavourable of the administrations increasin gly inflexible remote policy towards the Soviet Union. Truman asked for Wallaces resignation, which he real. As a third-party candidate, Wallace, who for many years had been darling of the left wing of the democratic Party, menace to rob Truman of the progressive vote. \n\nTruman besides confront the prospect of losing the votes of the conservative, gray wing of the pop Party, which threatened to catch over the chairs public embrace of black well-behaved rights. He expectd he could keep Confederateers in the Party by make his support for elegant rights more rhetorical than substantive, a strategy similar to that use by professorship Roosevelt. At the democratic National conventionality in July 1948, however, Trumans approach collapsed after pro-civil rights Democrats—led by Minnesotas Hubert Humphrey and anti-communist liberals from the organization Americans for republican performance (ADA)—won a strong civil rights plank for the partys platform. \ n\nTruman was instinctive to accept the plank, safekeeping out entrust that southerners would appease in the party. He was rail at; the entire Mississippi missionary work and fractional of the Alabama delegation walked out of the convention. The southerners that remained did so only to vote against Trumans nomination. By the end of July, southern Democrats had formed the States Rights Party ( in like manner cognise as the Dixiecrats). It nominate regulator J. Strom Thurmond (SC) and Governor Fielding Wright (MS) for President and vice president. \n\nTruman easily won the nomination at the Democratic National concourse in July, choosing liberal Kentucky senator Alben Barkley—after self-governing Court justness William O. Douglas turned down the vice presidential slot—as his running mate. In a fiery speech pass judgment the nomination, Truman state Senator Barkley and I will win this election and make these Republicans like it—dont you impede that! Tru man then played his trump card: he announced his plan to call the Republican-led intercourse back into school term to pass his legislative program—an invitation to refute charges that it was a rotter sex act. Of course, Truman did not expect the Republicans to pass his program, nor should they have done so. But Trumans challenge did energize his confederate Democrats, putting the Republicans on the defensive and play up Trumans campaign strategy—to run against the Republican telling. \n\nThe Republican oppositeness \n\nThe Republicans in 1948 nominal newfound York governor Thomas Dewey for President and California governor Earl Warren for vice president. It was a strong ticket. Dewey had run in 1944 against FDR and lost a close race; he remained young, popular, and progressive. powerfully anti-communist, he was an internationalistic in foreign affairs. On domestic issues, Dewey was a moderate critic of the saucily mint candy, which he dislike more for its o ffice than its ends. His main drawback was an aloof, icy, and debonaire epitomelity; Alice Roosevelt Longworth described him as the dwarfish man on the wedding cake. In spite of this defect, Republicans looked forward to the 1948 campaign, pointing to the GOPs victories in 1946 and Deweys solid record. \n\nTruman versus Dewey \n\nTruman brought the Republican-controlled 80th coition back to cap in late July and presented it with his list of want principle. Congress met for two weeks, failed to pass any of Trumans proposals, and adjourned. Truman could now point to yet another(prenominal) example of the do-nothing Republican Congress and warn the electorate that a Republican presidential supremacy would ask only further neglect to the issues he believed important. On civil rights, Truman issued decision maker director orders desegregating the military and ending inequality in the civil service. No yearlong beholden to southern Democrats (who supported Strom Thurmonds Dix iecrat candidacy), Truman could in the long run issue these long-promised initiatives that doubtlessly delighted blacks and liberals, two important segments of the Democratic Party. \n\nTruman began the presidential campaign in earnest with a Labor mean solar day speech to a large union push in Detroit. He stumped energetically throughout the fall, do several train tours across the coarse. These slicks allowed him to take his case for re-election to voters in what leading Republican Senator Robert Taft had earlier derided as whistle hang on speeches delivered from the rear of the presidential train. The longest trip was fifteen days, cover 8,300 miles, and took Truman from Pennsylvania to California. \n\nTrumans whistle-stops were a faction of great political sympathies and great theatre. He shake hands with voters, signed autographs, and made wise-cracks near his opponents. With some travesty and much fervor, he attacked the Republican Congress, warned that a Republica ns White House would tump over the young mussiness, and reminded voters that the Democrats had saved the artless from the feeling. Truman similarly bespoke his depicted object to his sense of hearing; sodbusters in Iowa, for example, perceive the President claim, This Republican Congress has already stuck a fork in the farmers back. \n\nDewey embarked on several train trips of his own, discourseing to large crowds. Unlike Truman, however, he campaigned much more cautiously. For starters, the canvass indicated that he held a comfortable lead over Truman. Moreover, Dewey believed that his earlier run for the presidency, against Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, had suffered from his agonistic style and attacks on the incumbent. He resolved in 1948, then, to speak mostly in generalities and to refrain from using invective. enchantment he appeared presidential during the campaign, Deweys placid campaign speeches only reinforced his pantywaist moving picture among much of the electorate. Nonetheless, the concluding pre-election Gallup poll—taken in mid-October—became public the day before the election itself, giving Dewey a solid lead of 49.5 per centum to Trumans 44.5 portion of the total vote. \n\nThe election of 1948 \n\nOn election day, November 2, Truman, along with Bess and Margaret, voted in their hometown of Independence, Missouri. Truman had lunch with several old friends and repaired entirely to a local hotel to await the go pasts. At midnight, Truman heard NBC declare that while he was ahead by more than one gazillion votes, Dewey was good-tempered expected to win. At four in the morning, his secret service agents woke him and told him to turn on the radio: he was ahead by two million votes—and would bind the lead. With victory in hand, Truman went to Kansas City, where he awaited Deweys concession, which came by mid-morning. devil days after the election, as the Trumans returned to Washington via St. Louis, g ive notice (of)ers snapped the most famous moving picture of Trumans career: an image of the President holding aloft a copy of the shekels Tribune with the publicize Dewey Defeats Truman. \n\nTruman had bedevil the pundits. He won 49.5 percent of the vote to Deweys 45.1 percent; 303 electoral college votes to 189 for Dewey. Thurmond and Wallace trailed miserably, each with 2.4 percent of the vote, although Thurmond took four southern states and their 39 electoral votes. Trumans victory came about because he won the support of most of Roosevelts invigorated Deal league: labor, Blacks, Jews, farmers from the midwest, and a number of southern states. Trumans victory, however, was far from overwhelming. He barely won California, Illinois, and Ohio, and lost the Democratic strongholds Pennsylvania, stark naked York, Michigan, and impudently Jersey. In fact, more Americans voted for other candidates than voted for him—far from the popular mandatary Truman would have liked. \n\nWith the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, Vice President Harry S. Truman delusive the Oval perspective. He surely knew he faced a ticklish set of challenges in the immediate future: overseeing the final defeats of Germany and Japan; managing the U.S. manipulation in post-war international relations; supervise the American economys transition from a war-time to a peace-time footing; and reserveing the concord of a excitable and powerful Democratic Party. \n\nBut perhaps Trumans most frighten away task was describeing his esteemed predecessor, who had remade American governance, the Democratic Party, and the office of the presidency during his unprecedented twelve years in office. Roosevelts tooshie would be difficult for Truman—or any Democrat, for that matter—to escape. Truman, moreover, lacked Roosevelts stature, charisma, and public- talk skills. \n\nThe new President did have other qualities that recommended him for the job. T he public relate well to Truman, thinking him hard-working and honest. Truman excessively seemed to relish making politically difficult decisions. Finally, Trumans experiences in Missouri politics—and especially his two electoral victories that brought him to the Senate— present a deft brain of the various groups that made the political ism of liberalism and the Democratic Party the reigning institutions in American political life. \n\nOrganizing the White House \n\nTruman asked FDRs cabinet to remain in place as he settled into the presidency. even the new President had little trustfulness in this group; by the bound of 1946, he had replaced many of those officials with men of his own choosing. Trumans appointees, however, were largely unnoticeable and contributed little to his presidency. Most notably, Attorney customary J. Howard McGrath became the center of a putrefaction scandal which cut into Trumans popularity. \n\nTruman in any case inherited Roosevel ts mental faculty of presidential advisers. By the mid-1940s, the Presidents supply include administrative assistants, appointments and press secretaries, and wayings to the President. It in addition include the Bureau of the Budget, one time a part of the Treasury department but, owing to the executive director Reorganization Act of 1939, now housed in the Executive Office of the President. The overbold Deal and the war years highlighted the increasingly important and powerful graphic symbol that a Presidents faculty played in policymaking. Several well-known members of FDRs team—like Harry Hopkins and press secretary Steve early on—did not join the Truman administration (though Hopkins answered Trumans call to service on a few occasions). some other Roosevelt supplyers, like special counsel Sam Rosenman and calculate director Harold Smith, go along to serve in their positions for a short time. \n\nTruman, of course, placed his own trusted confidantes i n constitute staff positions. Old friend Charles Ross —a highly respected Washington reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch—came on as press secretary and Senate adjutant bird Matthew Connelly became the Presidents appointments secretary. The two most involved staffers in the Truman administration, however, were Clark Clifford and John stigmaworker. Clifford, the more important of the two, well-advised the President on political and foreign policy issues, replace Rosenman as special counsel to the President in January 1946. Steelman became the assistant to the President in December 1946, a position from which he oversaw boundless administrative tasks that were indispensable in the White House. Truman, though, upkeepful of losing control over the policy process, acted largely as his own chief of staff, meeting with aide-de-camps, assignment tasks, and defining his administrations agenda. \n\nDuring the Truman years, the Presidents staff act to grow in size. On the domestic side, the most important supplement was the Council of scotch Advisers (CEA). The meshing Act of 1946 created the CEA to help the President formulate sparing policy; liberal Democrats in Congress particularly wanted the CEA to be a bring through for progressives and liberal New Dealers. Truman instead staffed the CEA with a mix of conservatives and liberals, although the liberal Leon Keyserling ran the CEA after November 1949 and worked nearly with Truman. More importantly, Truman handle the CEA as a set of presidential advisers, rather than as an independent body, and made sure that it remained under his control. \n\nLeading America after Depression, New Deal, and World War \n\nTruman took office just as World War II entered its final stages. With Japans surrender in August 1945, he now led a nation that, for the get-go time in nearly two decades, was not wracked by the traumas of frugal depression or world war. Trumans chief task, then, was to lay out to A mericans his vision for the countrys future. devil related issues—the future of New Deal liberalism and the reconversion of the American economy from a war-time to a peace-time footing—topped his agenda. \n\nAs conceived and implemented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisers, New Deal liberalism committed the federal government to managing the nations economy and to guarding the wellbeing of needy Americans. Truman would have to decide whether to maintain, advance, or retreat from these radical premises. During the war, for instance, the Roosevelt administration had pitch the economy to meet the nations war needs, implementing charge and wage controls, confine and allocating resources, and setting production targets for American industry. In short, the federal government regulated the American economy to an unprecedented degree. With the wars end, Truman needed to orient the nations financial system towards consumer production and clarify the governme nts future role in the economy. \n\nIn September 1945, Truman presented to Congress a elongated and rambling pirate flag point bunchage that nonetheless act to set the post-war political and frugal agenda. Truman called for new public whole shebang programs, legislating guaranteeing full booking, a high tokenish wage, citation of the honest conflict Practices Committee (or FEPC, a war-time agency that monitored discrepancy against African Americans in hiring practices of government agencies and defense industries), a big Social security department System, and a national health insurance system. Taken together, these requests demonstrated an interest in maintaining and building upon the New Deal. On reconversion, Truman pushed for quick de mobilization of the military—a political necessity as the troops and their families clamored for a hasty return to civil life—and the fly-by-night concomitant of governmental economic controls. \n\nTrumans program we nt nowhere. While he won passage of a full employment bill—the utilisation Act of 1946—the measure had no teeth. Republicans and conservative southern Democrats in Congress were dead-set against many of the other proposed reforms, including an reference book of FEPC, national health insurance, and a higher(prenominal) borderline wage. The public, moreover, divided over the prospects of an magnified social eudaimonia state and go along government hinderance in the economy; liberal Democrats and key constituents of the Democratic Party supported them, but many other Americans did not. \n\nReconversion stuttered and stalled—and Truman received the blame. In trueness, rapid reconversion would have been difficult for any President, due to the classification and challenge of its objectives: subjoind production of consumer goods, full employment, higher wages, lower reasoned injurys, and peace between labor unions and industrial trouble. \n\nIronically, a key Democratic constituency—labor—gave Truman the most headaches. In August 1945, Truman announced that he would maintain footing controls but that unions could pursue higher wages. Beginning in late 1945 and abiding throughout 1946, a wave of strikes hit the sword, coal, auto, and railroad industries, drain key sectors of the American economy and curb bit production of certain consumer goods. Truman remained steadfast in the face of labors demands. To end the strikes and restore industrial peace, he recommended haughty mediation and arbitration, warned that the U.S. government would draft undisaerated railroad workers, and even took a union—the United exploit Workers—to court. The unions backed down and returned to work, for the most part with healthy gains. But by victorious such a hard line, Truman had handicap his relationship with an important element of the party coalition. \n\nTrumans other chief economic problem was the time it took to modify from military to civilian production. Consumer goods in high demand were wearisome to appear on the nations shelves and in its showrooms, thwarting Americans who desperately wanted to purchase items they had forsaken during the war. hurt controls proved a particularly burry problem. When Congress carry on the Office of hurt Administration but stripped it of all its power, Truman delivered a virulent veto. As controls began to dethaw in mid-1946, termss smack upward; the rise in the price of totality—which duple over a two-week period in the summer—received the most attention. In response, the government reinstituted price controls, angering means producers who then withheld meat from the market. A New York button(a) News headline read, PRICES SOAR, BUYERS SORE, STEERS JUMP oer THE MOON. \n\nThe combination of high prices and scarcity fire consumers and voters, who often unholy the President. One muliebrity wrote Truman specifically with the meat problem in mind, asking him, How about some meat? By September of 1946, Trumans popularity rating had drop down to 32 percent. umpteen Americans, including the Presidents supposed Democratic allies, wondered if Truman could effectively lead the nation. In the congressional mid-term elections of 1946, Republicans highlighted the problems of reconversion with slogans like Had abundant and To Err is Truman, winning control of both the House and Senate. The future of Trumans presidency looked bleak as the 1948 presidential election loomed on the horizon. \n\nRepublicans in Congress \n\nIronically, Trumans legislative predicament actually sparked his political comeback. With Congress in the hands of Republicans—rather than members of his own party who were lukewarm (at trounce) to his proposals—Truman could let GOP leaders try to master the dispute task of governance. Truman also could define himself in enemy to Republican initiatives and wage a rhetorical war against the Rep ublican Party. \n\nTruman use this strategy in several ways. In his January 1947 State of the Union address, he place the need for lawmaking to solve the unconquerable problems of labor unrest and strikes. He offered no solution of his own, however, proposing only a temporary commission to study the issue and a declaration that he would sign no bill fight organised labor. \n\nRepublicans in Congress took up Trumans challenge and passed the Taft-Hartley bill, which limited the power of labor unions by contain union companionship in politics, by approving state right to work laws, and by allowing the President to block strikes through a judicially mandataryd eighty day cooling-off period. Truman vetoed Taft-Hartley in June 1947, declaring that it would take fundamental rights away from our working people. Congress overrode the veto; Truman, in turn, vowed to carry out the laws provisions and he even utilize several of them—including the court injunction—to bring an end to some strikes. Nevertheless, in oppose Taft-Hartley, Truman recaptured the support of organize labor. \n\nInflation go along to be a problem in 1947 and 1948 as well, although prices did not rise as steeply as they had in 1946. nutrient prices, in particular, continued to soar. Truman suggested a return to price controls, albeit with the knowledge that congressional Republicans would recant such a measure—which they did. Republicans passed legislation mandating economic controls and rationing, which Truman signed, though he declared these bills pitifully inadequate. Democrats made hay with Republican senator Robert Tafts suggestion that Americans eat up less meat, and eat less extravagantly, which they conflated to eat on less. Truman had managed to make pompousness a Republican problem. \n\nFinally, in 1947, Truman reaffirmed his support for liberal initiatives like housing for the poor and federal care for education. He vetoed Republican tax bills perceiv e as raiseing the rich and rejected a Republican fret to raise tariffs on imported wool, a measure he deemed isolationist. These positions, combined with his veto of Taft-Hartley and his sympathy toward price controls, situated Truman as the chief withstander of the New Deal against Republican encroachments. \n\nTruman also took a stand in 1947 on civil rights. His unfortunate 1945 proposal to flow FEPC was, in part, an effort to court black voters so important to the Democratic Party. In the summer of 1947, Truman became the root President to address the National Association for the Advancement of dismal People (NAACP), to whom he declared his squarely support of African-American civil rights. discourse to a crowd of 10,000, Truman declared that The only limit to an Americans act should be his ability, his industry, and his character. A few months later, his blue-ribbon(prenominal) civil rights commission—which he had appointive in the aftermath of the failure to extend FEPC—produced a report titled, To Secure These Rights, a detailed and unashamed brief for civil rights legislation. \n\nTruman proceeded cautiously on this front, however. In early 1948, he sent his civil rights proposals to Congress, but did little to press out their passage. He also announced that he would issue executive orders—in the future—to desegregate the armed forces and to prohibit inconsistency in the civil service. By early 1948, therefore, his support for civil rights was more rhetorical than substantive. \n\nNonetheless, as he pursued this strategy with increasing skill throughout the year, Truman stood self-collected to win Democratic votes. In his 1948 State of the Union address, Truman again called for civil rights legislation, national health insurance, a housing program, and a higher minimum wage. On a cross-country train tour in early 1948—dubbed a whistle stop tour by Republican Senator Robert Taft—Truman industrious a n ew extemporaneous speaking style. Audiences warmed to this new public persona: the plain-spoken, hard-fighting Harry Truman from Missouri. Still, most political observers—and many Democrats—thought Truman would not win re-election in 1948. \n\nAfter a rousing Democratic National group in which he claimed the nomination of a divided party—southerners had bolted in favor of segregationist Dixiecrat Senator Strom Thurmond (SC) and some progressives had supported Trumans causality commerce secretary Henry Wallace - the President turned his attention to the Presidential campaign. He continued to run against the Republican Congress, even call it into a special session to enact legislation. Truman also embraced more fully the cause of black civil rights by issuing executive orders desegregating the military and outlawing variety in the civil service. He won an upset victory that fall over his Republican opponent, Governor Thomas Dewey of New York. (For more details, s ee Campaigns and Elections.) \n\nFair Deal \n\nBuoyed by his stunning victory, Truman announced an intriguing agenda in early 1949, which he called the Fair Deal. It was a collection of policies and programs much desired by liberals in the Democratic Party: economic controls, repeal of Taft-Hartley, an adjoin in the minimum wage, elaborateness of the Social trade protection program, a housing bill, national health insurance, phylogenesis projects modeled on the New Deals Tennessee vale Authority, liberalized in-migration laws, and enterprising civil rights legislation for African-Americans. \n\nConservatives in the Republican and Democratic parties had little use for Trumans Fair Deal, however. National health insurance and repeal of Taft-Hartley went nowhere in Congress. Southern Democrats filibustered any attempt to push forward civil rights legislation. And Trumans agricultural program, the Brannan Plan, intentional to aid the family farmer by providing income support, fl oundered; it was replaced by a program that continued price supports. Congress did O.K. parts of the Fair Deal, however; Truman won passage of a moderately effective public housing and slum-clearance bill in 1949, an increase in the minimum wage that same year, and a significant expansion of Social Security in 1950. \n\nClearly, Truman had miscalculated in reading his electoral victory as a mandate to enact a liberal political, social, and economic agenda. Just as important, Truman regarded the Fair Deal as an prospect to refashion the Democratic party into an alliance of urban dwellers, small farmers, labor, and African-Americans. Absent from this proposed coalition were white conservative southern Democrats. Moreover, public opinion polls showed that most Americans wanted Truman to protect the New Deal, not hit the roof it. Likewise, Truman underestimated congressional opposition to a larger social benefit state—opposition strengthened by the publics lack of support for the Truman agenda. Whatever transport remained for the Fair Deal was lost, after the summer of 1950, amidst preoccupations with the Korean War. \n\n scotch Growth \n\nAs Truman fought for the Fair Deal in 1949, he also battled a fairly tough economic slowdown. both unemployment and ostentation rose during the first six months of that year, heightening vexations that the nations post-war economic boom was over. Trumans economic policy seek to balance the federal budget through a combination of high taxes and limited spending; any budget wasted would be apply to the national debt. As the economy stalled, Truman in mid-1949 abandoned his hope for a equilibrize budget and gave some tax breaks to businesses. The economy responded by perking up in 1950. Trumans actions signaled that his primary concern was the precaution of healthy economic growth, viewing ever-larger budget deficits as temporary expedients. It was a policy that succeeding administrations would follow repeatedly. \n\nThe Korean War, which began in June 1950, also change the American economy. Truman and his advisers believed that American involvement in the war required economic mobilization at home. With the World War II experience in their minds—and uncertain whether the Korean War was merely the opening round of a long-run and larger conflict - U.S. officials hoped that government preventive would keep unemployment and ostentation under control, stabilize wages and prices, and increase military-related industrial production. In December 1950, Truman won congressional passage of the Defense achievement Act and issued an executive order creating the Office of Defense Mobilization. sanely surprisingly, mobilization proceeded with few hitches: unemployment stayed low; inflation remained in check, albeit for a sharp, one-time surge in the last one-half of 1950; the hording of consumer goods subsided quickly; and military production increased. Nevertheless, many Americans complaine d about the governments disturbance in the economy, especially its controls on credit. \n\nEconomic mobilization for the war effort did serve, though, as the setting for one of Trumans most stunning rebukes. By the end of 1951, the nations steel industry faced a possible shut-down as labor and focusing could not agree on a new contract. disposal mediation during the first several months of 1952 failed to end the stalemate. Throughout the ordeal, Trumans objectives were to forestall a strike, maintain steel production, and stay on good terms with labor, an important Democratic constituency. In April, with no agreement in sight, Truman used his presidential power to seize the steel industry; for the time being, it would be administered and overseen by the federal government. The seized steel companies took Truman to court to turn his action. In June 1952, the sovereign Court declared the seizure unconstitutional by a 6-3 vote. Private management of the companies resumed, followe d by a 53-day strike and a new contract, relations Truman another political set-back. \n\nAnticommunism and Senator McCarthy \n\nOpposition to collectivist political radicalism and the fear of subversion have long and intertwined histories in American politics and culture. As tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union intensify in 1945, fear of—and opposition to—communism became a substitution part of American politics and culture. Politicians and the public seemed especially have-to doe with that American communists or foreign agents cogency infiltrate the American government. \n\nIn November 1946, Truman created a temporary committal security program for the federal government to uncover security risks, i.e. communists. Five months later, Truman issued an executive order making the program permanent. Other government bodies also tried to stymie the alleged subversive threat of communism. The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), soone r formed in 1938 with a mandate to investigate Nazi propaganda, launched an probe of Hollywood screenwriters and directors in 1947. \n\nTwo spectacular sight cases intensified concerns over communism. In 1948, Whitaker Chambers, a former Communist and current editor of Time magazine, charge former Roosevelt aide and State plane section official Alger razz of being a Soviet spot; HUAC investigated these charges, complete with dramatic testimony from snicker and Chambers. Less than a month after shuttlecock was convicted of bearing false witness in January 1950, the British government arrested Klaus Fuchs, a German émigré scientist who had worked on the Manhattan Project that authentic the atomic bomb. Fuchs was supercharged with and then convicted of passing along fission bomb secrets to the Soviets with the help of American citizens David Greenglass and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg; he served nine-spot years of a fourteen-year sentence in the British pena l system. The U.S. government penalise the Rosenbergs in 1953. The Hiss and Fuchs revelations were all the more shocking because the Soviets had successfully tested an atomic bomb in August 1949—years before most experts believed they would have the ability to do so. \n\n thus far though the Truman administration supported several programs designed to root out communists and subversives from the American government, impetuous anti-communists in both the Republican and Democratic parties hammer away at the threat of communist subversion and accuse the administration of failing to protect the United States. Easily the most fabulous growth of the issue came from Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who in the days after the Fuchs arrest charged that the State Department was riddled with communist agents. McCarthys fantastic allegations, the specifics of which he changed in subsequent appearances, electrified American politics by calling into question the loyalties of official s who conducted the nations relations with the Soviets. McCarthys charges also insinuated that Trumans verity program had failed miserably. McCarthy spent the rest of the Truman administration, as well as the first years of the Eisenhower administration, on a quest to get out communists in the State Department and the U.S. Army. \n\nTruman did his best to calm the hysteria, which, by the spring of 1950, had been dubbed McCarthyism. The President stated publicly that There was not a mavin word of truth in what the Senator said. Senate Democrats organized a special subcommittee to investigate McCarthys claims in the hope of proving them baseless. Their actions were to no avail as McCarthy—with the tacit support of most Republicans in Congress—continued to make his bold charges and attack Truman administration officials. Military engagement in Korea and the defeats the United States suffered there only strengthened McCarthys hand. \n\nMcCarthy was the most vocal congres sional proponent of the deprivation Scare, but he was far from its most effective legislator. That celebrate fell to Senator Patrick McCarran, a Democrat from Nevada, with whom Truman divided a correlative dislike, owing to a Senate dispute from the late 1930s over the Civil Aeronautics Act. In 1950, McCarran guided the Internal Security Act, which placed severe restrictions on the political activities of communists in the United States, through Congress. Truman vetoed the bill, claiming that it violate civil liberties; Congress easily overrode the veto, however. Two years later, Truman vetoed—on the same grounds—a McCarran-sponsored immigration bill close the political activities of modern immigrants to the United States. Congress again broken Trumans veto. \n\nTruman could do little, it seemed, to curb the excesses of the most ardent anticommunists. The political damage was immense as McCarthy, McCarran, and others charged the administration with being soft on communism. Against the scope of the Korean War, Moscows training of an atomic bomb, the fall of China to the Communists, and parole reports of subversion and espionage, the soft on communism charge resonated with a jittery American public. \n\nAccusations of Corruption \n\nAccusations of corruptness had dogged Truman since his earlier days in politics—a charge that was hardly surprising stipulation his association with the Pendergast machine. During his presidency, the corruption charges proliferated, in part because they were effective political weapons for Trumans opponents. But these charges also resonated because some members of the administration did participate in ethically obscure, if not culpable, activities. \n\nTrumans military aide, Harry Vaughan, a long-time associate of the President since World War I, was often at the center of these allegations. Vaughan clearly want government favors for friends and businessmen; he even accepted septenary freezers from a n associate, one of which he gave to Bess Truman. (The freezers, however, were defective, and Besss freezer broke after a few months.) In 1950, Democratic senator J. William Fulbright (D-AR) headed an investigation into Vaughans activities, finding Vaughn punishable of only minor ethical and legal breaches. \n\nFulbrights investigation also focused on influence-peddling in the federal government, especially in the Reconstruction pay Corporation, a New Deal-era agency charged with providing government loans to seek businesses. The Senator bring out a web of refutable loans and kickbacks arranged by federal bureaucrats and mystical businessmen. Only a few of these questionable or illegal activities involved Truman administration officials directly; much of the corruption, rather, seemed a natural outgrowth of government-business relations in the 1930s and 1940s carried on by members of both major parties. \n\nIn any event, Republicans had a field day. They crowed that Vaughans sh enanigans and the murky dealings uncovered by Fulbright were examples of the mess in Washington. Trumans critics overstate the extent of the wrong-doing and corruption, and pointed, though without much of a case, to the Presidents role in the scandals. Throughout the firestorm, Truman stood stoutly by his old friend, dismissing all of the allegations. While the President might have proved his loyalty, he also appeared to condone Vaughans activities. And by the time Truman moved to clean up the RFC in early 1951 in the heat of Fulbrights charges, his actions were overshadowed by other events. \n\nThat year, investigations revealed the existence of estimable criminality by high-level officials in the Internal gross Service and the levy Division of the arbitrator Department. Truman and many in the administration infernal Attorney public J. Howard McGrath, who had proven to be more connected than competent as head of the umpire Department. Truman gave McGrath one last opportu nity to tally the wrong-doers. McGrath botched this mission so badly that Truman demanded his resignation in March 1952. The bad publicity and further taint of corruption did nothing to help Trumans public standing, although McGraths successor, throng McGranery, did effectively address the scandals. \n\nThe Decision not to Run in 1952 \n\nTruman had written in private as early as 1950—and had hinted to back up beginning in 1951—that he would not run again for the presidency. Most scholars agree that the Korean War, battles over economic mobilization, McCarthyism, and the allegations of corruption in his administration sapped his will to run for a third term. Public opinion polls, however unreliable, showed that Truman faced an uphill battle to win re-election. \n\nTruman kept his own counsel throughout 1950 and 1951. He maneuvered behind the scenes to enter his successor, focusing first on primary(prenominal) Justice of the despotic Court Fred Vinson and then on Ge neral Dwight D. Eisenhower. Both men refused his entreaties, with Eisenhower announcing, in January 1952, that he was a Republican. Truman next turned to Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson, who expressed interest but refused to commit. Finally, Truman stated publicly on March 29 that he would not be a candidate for President, declaring, I have served my country long, and I think efficiently and honestly. \n\nGovernor Stevenson won the Democratic nomination at the partys convention in July, only to face the formidable Eisenhower in the general election. Truman campaigned hard for Stevenson, attacking the Republicans and Eisenhower with much of the same craze he had displayed in 1948.