"Study of a Failure"

Never had the U.S. press been so wrong on the outcome of a national election. Partisanship was not the answer, though 65% of the press had supported Tom Dewey (see below). Many of the newspapers, columnists and newsmen who had supported President Truman had been just as wrong. The press had compiled an anthology of error that it should not forget. Some of the dreadful examples:

P: "Few voters believed that there would be any contest on Election Day ... When [Harry Truman] damned the 80th Congress and the Taft-Hartley law, nobody seemed really to care or to listen" (TIME, Nov. 1).

P: Caption on a full-page picture of Torn Dewey in LIFE, Nov. 1: THE NEXT PRESIDENT TRAVELS BY FERRY BOAT OVER THE BROAD WATERS OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY.

P: Headline in the Manchester Guardian on the election-eve dope story by U.S. Correspondent Alistair Cooke:

HARRY S. TRUMAN

A Study of a Failure

P: The Kiplinger Washington Letter for Oct. 30: "Dewey will be in for eight years, until '57 ... 32-page special report on 'What Dewey Will Do' has been prepared and will be mailed to you within a week, embodied in Kiplinger Magazine" This was followed by a full-page ad in TIME, after the election: "What will DEWEY do? Find out in the November issue of Kiplinger Magazine ... It will help you dispel the campaign fog."

P: Election-eve survey in Newsweek: "Dewey--375 to 390 electoral votes, Truman--100 to 125 electoral votes ... a Republican Senate ... a G.O.P. House ..."

P: David Lawrence's U.S. News & World Report, Nov. 5: "Dewey offers something new for the White House ..."

P: The Democratic Atlanta Constitution on election eve: "We think the Republican nominee is going to win."

P: Walter Lippmann (writing of the expected interregnum): "The course of events cannot be halted for three months until Mr. Dewey is inaugurated."

P: T.R.B.* in the New Republic, Nov. 8: "The G.O.P. victory in 1946 reduced the riddle of 1948 pretty largely to 'How much?' rather than 'By whom?' . . . Question asked -us most frequently is 'Does he know it?' referring to Truman's impending defeat; kind-hearted America felt grieved at what she was doing, like disappointing a child at Christmas: it must have made many Truman votes."

P: Richard H. Rovere, in the Oct. 9 New Yorker: "Traveling with [Truman], you get the feeling that the American people . . . would . . . give him just about anything he wants except the presidency."

P: Drew Pearson's day-after-election column: "I surveyed the close-knit group around Tom Dewey, who will take over the White House 79 days from now. Here is the line-up . . ."

P: The Alsops, same day: "The first postelection question is how the Government can get through the next ten weeks . . ."

P: Scripps-Howard's Fred Othman: "We're going to miss HP ole Harry . . ."

P: Broadway Columnist Danton Walker, on Election Day: "Dewey's first official act as President-elect will be to name a new Secretary of State . . ."

P: New Dealing Frank Kingdon in the New Dealing New York Post Home News: "People had decided last June that Truman was not big enough for the job."

P: The Christian Century, under the headline MR. DULLES SHOULD BE NAMED AT ONCE on Nov. 3: "The constitutional interregnum . . . cannot be avoided, but if the President-elect will name his Secretary of State immediately, the damage . .. will be held at a minimum." This week the Christian Century was still calling Dewey "the President-elect."

* Once identified by the editors as "Transit Rapid Brooklyn," but actually at present Richard Strout of the Christian Science Monitor.

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