The brutal war had ended violently but it had ended. POWs and service personnel were coming home from overseas. A wave of euphoria pervaded the nation. All was right with the world. Truman's popularity rating was high. This period of bliss was short-lived. There were shortages of all sorts--food, clothing, and household appliances. The public wanted them and it wanted them immediately, apparently not understanding that a switch from wartime to peacetime production couldn't be accomplished overnight. There was general unrest and grumbling. There were strikes, the most important of which, a railway strike had lasted for a month when Truman settled it by threatening to draft the workers into the armed forces. This drastic action incurred the wrath and enmity of labor leaders.
We lived in a very pro GOP area. When we went to the polls to vote in the primary election of 1948, as registered Democrats we were greeted politely but not warmly by the women at the desk. There was much unease at the time about the Red Menace. My husband, noting the suspicious looks cast at us, said with a barely concealed grin, "Ladies, I am not now and never have been, a member of the Communist party".
At the Democratic convention of 1948, Truman as the incumbent and therefore in the catbird seat was the chosen nominee of most delegates but not of the huge southern bloc. They walked out of the convention hall en masse. The President had ended discrimination in the armed forces and opposed states rights. The formerly Democratic South deserted and the Dixiecrat party came into being. Senator Strom Thurmond was their choice for president.
The GOP was somewhat at a loss for a candidate who could win. They wooed General Dwight Eisenhower, the hero of the European war theater but he refused to commit himself. The Democrats had wanted him too in place of the now unpopular Truman. No one knew his exact political views and he wasn't telling. The GOP ended up by selecting Thos E. Dewey again over Douglas MacArthur, Harold Stassen, and Robert Taft. The party seemed unenthusiastic about their candidate. He was rather stiff and precise in manner--almost a stick figure and was more than once referred to as "the little man on the wedding cake".
Working against him, Truman took off on his famed "whistle stop" campaign, traveling by train thousands of miles across the country. Unlike Dewey, he came through as a real person, a human being to whom his listeners could relate. It was noted that there were shouts of "Give 'em hell, Harry!". This was encouraging but still it looked as if Dewey had the presidency in the bag. In that long ago time election results were not known until the next day. When word came that Truman was still president, I was almost incredulous but immensely pleased. In the local papers was a photo of him, chuckling over a Chicago Tribune headline that proclaimed Dewey had won.
Truman's new term was as rocky as the previous one. The Marshall Plan, created by his administration was working well and Europe was being put back together again. The plan was also holding off the aggressive Stalin to some extent. Then North Korea invaded the south and the U.S. was in the Korean War. General MacArthur was supreme commander of the American and NATO forces. After almost two years, it seemed as if the conflict could be ended as Truman hoped. The general however, wasn't ready to stop. He wanted to push further. Truman fired him. I applauded this action. MacArthur was a brave man and a good soldier but I thought him a terrible show-off who constantly posed for pictures with his cap debonairly tilted.
He was a national hero however and more than two thirds of the country were on his side. Truman grew more and more unpopular. To add to his troubles, the fear of communism which seems inbred in the average American, was being fanned by a young congressman from California. There were cells everywhere and the country must be wary. Richard Milhouse Nixon had made his first notable appearance upon the political stage.