The Nation Chooses Its President

The nation elects its president in the 20th century. On January 20th 19th 65 the nation will inaugurate the thirty sixth president of United States Lyndon B. Johnson. This is the fourth in a series of six programs doing the political campaigns of the past 64 years. This program deals with the campaigns of 1952 and 1956. It was 1952 Harry S. Truman was president of the United States during his administration United States troops became involved in a police action in Korea. Truman recalled General Douglas MacArthur when the general of the Army and the commander in chief disagreed on the way to conduct the battle. MacArthur denied any political implications or political aspirations. I do not intend to run

and I have never in a political life. One by one the issues were building for the election to come in November 1952. President Truman is the clever politician ever to occupy the White House and he is also the worst president ever to occupy it. That was Harold Stassen the Republican appraisal of Truman a self-appraisal now from the president as he decided not to run in 1952. Together nation everything now was a cemetery. And who would succeed Truman. General Dwight Eisenhower was in Europe on another defense mission

and his old friend Winston Churchill gave his measure of the man who was known as Ike. A lot of admiration. And we begin to hear more and more about the governor of Illinois. I found his letter honorable. You should marry Franklin and you should run for the presidential nomination. Adley Stevenson said he was reluctant to seek the office but Senator Taft of Ohio is working hard to get it. When an organized themselves as bells for Bob.

And Senator Taft was convinced that. When the Republican Party the pre-convention campaign was as intense as the one to come in the fall no release was found until a certain moment of the convention in Chicago July one thousand fifty two. The TV audience quickly sensed that all was not well with the Puerto Rican delegation. Request any

member on the demo. Thanks to my Salina Romani of Puerto Rico and on the serious business at hand carried forward in the Republic.

It is with the president of the United States the name David and the convention quickly made its choice. And in his moment of triumph General Eisenhower paid a visit to Senator Taft who'd lost a long hard fight. The senator from Ohio showed his mettle before a battery of photographers and reporters and a general nomination. I'm glad that I will do everything possible in the campaign of the curate and his administration. I game over here to play call of friendship on a very great American

is when your don't cooperate. Now during the campaign and afterward it absolutely essential to the extent of the Republican Party in the election and the attainment of progress. The Republican ticket then Eisenhower and Nixon and for the Democrats go seat 20. Well the senator from Tennessee was facing his moment of defeat. He liked to have to fight a hard fight for his party's nomination but they had named another. His face was flushed his eyes seemed Nixon and stare. This was defeat. I first want to express my appreciation. It became quite apparent at the end of the second ballot it become apparent

that the Democrats had nominated the man who didn't want it. But now that he'd want to win we want with all my heart and my home and the Democratic ticket was Stevenson and Sparkman when the campaign began the first order of business of course for any campaigner is to send his personal affairs in order a man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog and believe it or not. The day before we left in this campaign trip we got a message from the Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for you know what it was. It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas black and white spotted. And I just want to say this right now that regardless of what they say about it we're going to keep the Republican. Vice presidential candidate Senator Richard Nixon but now to the main event

Adley Stevenson brought a rare touch of humor to political campaigning. Brazil is 42 and celebrated at that time. Frank now Secretary of the Navy he made a much better speech than I will today. And I know because I wrote a letter from a California lady to my parents when they lived here 50 years ago. She writes that after Grover Cleveland was nominated for the presidency in 1892 and my grandfather was nominated for vice president named her to keep Cleveland and grammar grammar he writes me I couldn't stand the excitement of the campaign and

before the election. Need to be on a very old cat. The Republicans made an issue of this approach to the very serious business of politics. It would be very very fine if one could command new and amusing language. When I do bring you a chuckle. Frankly I have no intention of trying to do so. You know even if you know having a few I have tried to talk about public question this rodent has let me through some 20. But strangely enough my friend this road has been lonely because I never meet anybody coming the other way.

An American does twiddle his thumbs while his garden is wrecked by a crowd of vandals and his house invaded by a gang or robbers going into action. When the same sort of thing happens to his country an American goes into action by getting into politics. I'm in politics just that way and I can't someone say it was an intellectual and Stevenson's appeal so they claimed was to eggheads. I know that now and then but I am talking over the heads of the people. Limiting mistake to appeals to intelligence and reason instead of emotion and prejudice. Then I believe in the job I have to say and will say again and again that there is only one issue in this campaign that is done in Washington. Neither political party has a monopoly on virtue.

I taxes high prices communism in government the American people wanted action sent Eisenhower. They want this nation its policies and its secrets safeguarded against traitors and spies. They don't want to be told any longer that ready. I read herring. That is what the American people want. Now about your questions regarding communism especially communists in government these motile and cannot be permitted to get close to the blood streams of America particularly its government. Each candidate claimed the other was a captive. Eisenhower of Taft Stevenson of Truman. Why my distinguished opponent is using every trick in the book to get a book on the president as great director Bernard comp.. The boy started Gen.. This must be the first time the bandwidth degraded to be termed victory.

Poor old I been taken in to camp here. They say they were mistaken about me. They sure are. Perhaps the biggest issue of all to the American people was the Korean War. Said Eisenhower. I will go to Korea. The American people want something done about this. They want to be absolutely sure that everything is being done for American boys under fire in Korea. They want to know that the best minds in America are doing everything possible to bring an honorable end to the war. Everyone wants to end the war and to bring the boys home. The question is not that the question is Adley Stevenson carried the heritage of the New Deal. The record of his party he spoke of his philosophy and his words sometimes brought back memories of the 1930s.

We have already come so far that we can never return to the time when in the present mountains of wheat there was little grain in the splendid American dream seemed and and the splendid promise to night were in the mouths of the people. America has been rocked in America. We are made a humane revolution. Many have more brain. If you do not have less cake and wine and Howard spoke with the greatest emotion when he contemplated the faith of free men in the role of America in the world at large the challenge the opportunities. This is not in the fiction of the abstract common man but in the wondrous Banken that every man is an uncommon man. The fate of all the humblest of all aware that dark skinned beggar in the dirty on

the blank faced German boy scalping going to ruin. Now I'm going to employ an adult to make the hunchback before stumbling through the religious double all of them for me in there for Sons of God and honor brothers of all me. United in his brain no power however mad however menace can prevail I soberly believe and then the like I say to myself if I have kept faith with myself during this campaign then i going away to morrow and the day after and all the days after that in good temper. And in sober this is no ordinary moment in the history of long march from darkness toward light again and again we find that we need

to evoke the memory of a great moment of going to the Normandy beaches of London Moscow. And there would be more names to come in the years a hand the nation went to the polls and made its choice 1952 election saw a record number of 61 million voters go to the polls Governor Stevenson gathered the highest number of votes for the Democratic Party since FDR landslide victory in one thousand thirty six by General Eisenhower was victorious by a plurality of six and one half million votes. The Republican Party had returned to power for the first time in 20 years. You're

going to be leader of the people and the world. And later in the evening in Springfield Illinois when the decision was clear it was time for a last word and a final ordeal. Someone asked me as I came in and out on the street how I felt and I was reminded of a story that a fellow townsman of ours used to tell Abraham Lincoln how he felt once asked in an election. He said he felt like a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. When he was too old to cry but it hurts too much to laugh. Then the following telegram to generalize and the comment

on that people have made their choice and I congratulate you that you may be the servant and guardian of peace and make the day of trouble. A door of hope is my earnest prayer. Best wishes Adley Stevenson. I reply to that telegram as follows. I thank you for your courteous and generous recognizing the intensity of the difficulties that lie ahead. It is clearly necessary that men and women of goodwill of both parties forget the political strife through which we have passed and devote themselves to the single purpose of a better future. This I believe they will do. Signed with my name and now my friend. It's been a long and sometimes hard road but it's been great to me to be able to work with you all of us for a common cause.

The new president had gone to Korea hostilities ceased and the country began to settle down under the new Republican administration. The challenges for the presidency in 1056 were the same as in one thousand fifty two. Eisenhower versus Stevenson and once again the voters gave the nod to the incumbent president. President Eisenhower had been swept into his second term with the biggest popular vote margin since the 936 Roosevelt landslide. Only 80 people were present when Dwight David Eisenhower was sworn in for his second term. But that was January 20th a Sunday and a three minute ceremony in the East Room of the mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue was strictly a private affair. The big public ceremony came the next day. The band played Ruffles and Flourishes and hail to the Chief as the president arrived on the Capitol steps. With millions of Americans looking on the president walk to the front of the platform.

He was sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren. Then came the parade. Three quarters of a million people watching this parade spectacle followed later in the fourth president to visit it all for a grand event. Finally tonight at almost one

o'clock in the morning the president's comment was it's been a long long day. The big question was the president's health standing watching a second inaugural parade. President Eisenhower caught a cold which stayed with him for weeks and weeks. He couldn't shake his bad cough. And the president's condition became once again a matter of concern for the American people. On the 25th of November President Eisenhower drove out to a cold windy welcoming ceremony for Morocco's King Mohammed the 5th at Washington's National Airport. That evening the White House announced that the president would not attend the state banquet being held for King Muhammad that he was suffering from a chill. It wasn't until nearly a whole day had passed that the acting new secretary and Wheaton called a suspicious news correspondents to a meeting. THE PRESIDENT You know the president on a small branch on the left side of the White House would go no further in its definition of this third major

presidential illness in three years and a medical diagnosis and inclusion of a small branch of the middle cerebral artery practically everyone else however immediately recognized that President Eisenhower had suffered a mild stroke. Vice President Richard Nixon had not seen President Eisenhower during the first day following his stroke but the next day he did visit the president and had this to say with the I've heard word now of a bear with a tall metal operable rubber rubber. The vice president was then asked whether the president might resign by personally with the president to resign. He will recover and that he will. But with ability but probably bothered the fact that the president seemed to be recovering nicely from his mild stroke Oliver did not silence the questions about his

resignation and it followed a heart attack in 1055 an operation for early itis in 1056. There was also the question of a presidential incapacity. The Constitution does not say who decides when a president is disabled after having given the matter of presidential incapacity some thought. President Eisenhower told reporters at a news conference in April. There could be a case where a man had a stroke. Those from which they recovered but he wouldn't be able to say I am incapable of that. But now the vice president as we know the president will have the constitution the Bible goes up to describe it but he'd already been reluctant to do it because he said. I will be back at the end or do I become president for the whole time or am I acting. So we have a vice president. I deserve a break time or longer. He goes to camp later before then to say Yes that's right.

Well the world watched with please surprise President Eisenhower demonstrated a rapid recovery. During President Eisenhower second administration the Congress was controlled by the Democrats the president lent his prestige to the battle to win the Congress away from the Democrats. He flew to Chicago on the fifth anniversary of his Ignagni aeration to make a campaign speech and address piped to 44 Republican dinners around the country don't pay any attention to the president. Those people who can claim that America is America is weak when America is strong and will grow ever stronger as long as there is any danger of attack upon us or upon our ally. The Democrats open their congressional campaign a little later and former President Truman in the same Windy City four months after Eisenhower set the tone for his party.

Reporters are making a mess of things in Washington. What was disturbing about a bird is too late. All the pollsters and experts agreed it looked like a Democratic year. Six Republican senators an astonishing number decided not to run again. And many other Republicans seemed in danger of losing. So the president again took to the hustings and this time in a speech in Los Angeles he spoke as he never a done before. These dial liberals are the ones who were blocking government in the United States. It is beginning to spread their radical in blue and say we are waging this campaign in that fight. We must be together 100 percent of our Republican economic. The Republican political battle goes on. The charge that the Democrats were led by radicals hurt and the Democratic National Chairman Paul

Butler The next day complained that the Republicans were using smear tactics. It seems to me that in this year we find the campaign getting louder and uglier to the point where it is time to call home the presidential use of the word radicals to describe the Democrats backfired in Vice President Nixon one of the hardest working and most vitriolic of the Republican campaigners. A week later felt it necessary to explain since so many people in this country can do just what liberal means. It seems to me that the radical and conservative more accurately describes the basics but that I have tried to point out. Then the speechmaking was over it was time for the voters in the solitude of the voting booth to make the choice and they chose the Democrats. It was a landslide when the final count was in the new Senate had 62 Democrats and only 34 Republicans on the House side it was two hundred eighty one Democrats to 154 Republicans the biggest Democratic victory in 20 years. The president was at a loss to explain when he

faced the reporters after Election Day. I do not see where there is anything that people consciously want the administration to new Definitely. And if I am wrong I'd like to know what it is but I am trying to keep the physical soundness of this country and to try to keep the economy on a good level and to work for peace now they want to do anything else I don't know exactly what. I am. Honored. This has been the fourth in a series of six programs reviewing the presidential campaigns of the 20th century. This program dealt with the elections of 1952 in

1956 our next program will review the campaign of 1960 material for this series was taken from I can hear it now produced by Edward R. Murrow. Mr. President FDR to Eisenhower by James Fleming. If I'm elected by the big news of 57 and 58 produced by Walter Cronkite a time to keep by John Holden and politics USA produced by CBS we should also like to acknowledge special assistance in the preparation of the series by ABC and NBC News. The nation elects its president in the 20th century was edited and produced by Thomas Keller Jr. from the studios of WSU Wyoming University of Iowa campus of the national educational radio network. This is the national educational radio network.