President Truman Re-Elected – Two Civil Liberties Actions Play Major Role
President Harry Truman was surprisingly re-elected as president on this day, with two civil liberties actions by him playing a major role in the outcome.
Most political observers had predicted that Republican Tom Dewey would defeat Truman in the 1948 election. As a result, many Republican voters became over-confident and did not vote.
Contributing to Truman’s victory, he skillfully acted on two issues that blunted Republican criticisms of his administration. Republicans had been criticizing Truman for being “soft” on Communism. Truman scored a surprise upset with two calculated actions in the summer of 1948, each of which had major civil liberties impact.
First, on July 20, 1948 Truman’s Justice Department indicted the top leaders of the Communist Party under the Smith Act (passed on June 29, 1940) which outlawed advocating the violent overthrow of the government. This step, along with Truman’s Loyalty Program, announced on March 21, 1947, helped deflect the Republican criticisms that he was soft on Communism.
Second, a week later on July 26, 1948 Truman desegregated the armed forces with Executive Order 9981, ending racial discrimination. Congress, dominated by southern members in key positions, had refused to act on civil rights, so Truman acted through presidential initiative. This step, the first significant civil rights action by a U.S. president helped to ensure strong support from African-American voters in the big cities outside the south.
Both of these actions quickly followed the Democratic Party Convention where the Democrats adopted a strong civil rights plank for the first time on July 14, 1948. Support from African-American voters helped to offset the expected loss of traditionally Democratic voters in southeastern states.
In terms of civil liberties, one of Truman’s two actions was very good and the other very bad. Desegregating the armed forces was a historic step forward in terms of racial justice. It helped establish Truman as the first civil rights president in American history.
The arrest and conviction of the Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act, however, was a major step backward for freedom of speech under the First Amendment. The government’s case against the party leaders was weak in some important respects. The prosecution relied heavily on Marxist rhetoric used by the defendant rather than illegal actions. Additionally, some of the activities cited fell outside the time frame of the indictment. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction in Dennis v. United States, on June 4, 1951.
Read: Robert Dallek, Harry S. Truman (2008)
Read: Steven F. Lawson, To Secure These Rights: The Report of Harry S Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights (2004)
Learn more: Michael Gardner, Harry Truman and Civil Rights: Moral Courage and Political Risks (2002)
Read about the 1948 election: Harold I. Gullan, The Upset That Wasn’t: Harry S. Truman and the Crucial Election of 1948 (1998)