Harry Truman by Margaret Truman Read Free Book Online Page A

planning.
    Candidates these days send swarms of advance men into every city before they arrive. They are equipped with lavish amounts of money and every known publicity device. In 1948, Oscar Chapman was trying to do it all alone. It was simply too much for one man to handle, especially when he was getting no cooperation from the local Democratic organization. Dad decided to call for reinforcements. In the middle of the night, he ordered Matt Connelly, his appointments secretary and one of the shrewdest politicians aboard the train, to find someone fast. In a few days, we would be in Texas - where the local Democratic organization was even more unsympathetic than they were in California.
    An hour later, Don Dawson, a big, handsome ex-army air force officer who had recently joined the White House staff, was jolted out of bed by a phone call from Matt. He was told to get on a plane immediately and head for Texas. It was a very good choice. Don had just the right combination of energy and daring to pull things together down there. As Dad had foreseen, the party regulars were sitting on their hands. But Don quickly put together a team of Truman loyalists, including Sam Rayburn’s brother, the brother of Attorney General Tom Clark, and two old friends of Dad’s, publicist Bill Kittrell and businessman Harry Seay. They began working on each town and city on our schedule. “We knew who the right people were in each community, and we just called them on the telephone and literally told them what to do,” Don said. “We told them when the train would arrive and how to get the people down there.”
    While this vital groundwork was being laid, Don was confronted with a major decision. Where was the President going to speak in Dallas? The local Texas Democrats thought he should speak right in the railroad station. “They didn’t want to take the chance of going into a big stadium or a ball park,” Don says. “They didn’t think they could produce the crowd.” Don took one look at the station area and decided it was hopeless. Swallowing hard, he informed the local Democrats that the President would speak in the Rebel Stadium. This was a big ball park on the outskirts of the city. Grimly Don and his team tackled the job. “We got loudspeaker trucks at work, and we got the schools to let the pupils out,” he said.
    Most important, he called in black leaders and told them that their people would be welcome at the stadium, and there would be no segregation. Don knew Dad would give him complete support on this decision, but it was very daring in Texas in 1948.
    That is the behind-the-scenes story of how Dad spoke to the first integrated rally in the South. Proudly - and a little ruefully - Don Dawson recalls, “It worked so smoothly that the black newspaper reporters who were on the train didn’t even notice it. We had to go to them later and tell them all about it so that they would print it.” The meeting in Dallas was a tremendous success. Rebel Stadium was packed, and the crowd roared their approval of the tongue-lashing Dad gave the Eightieth Congress.
    We followed the same integration policy all the way across Texas. In Waco, there was a tense moment when he shook hands with a black woman, and the crowd booed. But my father refused to back down and boldly told them that black citizens had the same rights as white Americans. “In some towns,” Don Dawson says, “they didn’t even want the black voters to come down to the train. We just told them they were going to come. The President wanted them there.”
    In San Antonio, a different kind of confrontation took place. People wanted to know what Dad was going to do about the Russian threat. He proceeded to give them what I consider his greatest foreign policy speech. It was completely off the cuff, completely impromptu, and completely candid. He told them what the Russians had already done - all the agreements they had broken - all the details of their arrogant thrust for