Chapter:
The Mid-Term Elections of 1946 (4:47)
The Republicans gain majorities in both houses of Congress.
The Republicans gain majorities in both houses of Congress.
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Transcript: Chapter 20
NARRATOR: The strike was over. But Truman had paid a high price. His gut response had cost him the support of the unions he so desperately needed.
ALONZO HAMBY: The labor leaders, and the liberals in general, are shocked, horrified ... not without reason. And from this point on it is going to be very, very tough for Truman to drum up labor-liberal enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket in the '46 elections.
NARRATOR: The 1946 mid-term elections would be, for Truman, a disaster. Republicans blamed the president for America's problems, and most Americans seemed to agree. Truman's popularity plummeted.
ALONZO HAMBY: It seems to me that Truman really hits rock bottom in the 1946 campaign. For an awful lot of people, he's still very much in the shadow of FDR.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH: He wasn't coping very well and people were beginning to make fun of him. "To err is Truman." "I'm just mild about Harry."
ROBERT DONOVAN: There were periods there when Truman didn't look up to the job. The Republicans would say, yeah, he was a little man, who came out of nowhere, a haberdasher.
NARRATOR: There were shortages of practically everything -- bread, meat, housing. And inflation was threatening to undermine the economy -- prices had shot up six per cent in a single month.
NELSON LICHTENSTEIN, Historian: What this meant was that millions and millions of potential Democratic voters, people who had voted for Roosevelt, they said, "To heck with it ... they bungled it."
And the Republicans said, "Had enough?" That was their slogan. People agreed with them. Truman gets blamed. They stay home. The Republicans sweep to power.
NARRATOR: The Republicans won control of the Senate, the House of Representatives, even the state governorships.
NELSON LICHTENSTEIN: The elections of '46 were a Republican sweep, a huge turnaround and why? Not because everyone voted Republican, but because the Democrats, the New Dealers, the labor people, they stayed home.
NARRATOR: Discredited by his own party, voted down by the American people, Harry Truman, pundits were saying, was an embarrassment.
NARRATOR: The disastrous election over, Truman fled to his vacation hideaway on Florida's Key West.
"Dear Bess,
I'm seeing no outsiders. I don't give a damn how put out they get. I'm doing as I damn please for the next two years and to hell with all of them. The only regret I have is that you are not here ... You know I guess I'm a damn fool, but I'm happier when I can see you -- even when you give me hell I'd rather have you around than not."
Bess continued to spend as much time as she could in Independence. When asked how it felt to be First Lady, she replied, "So-so." She looked, her husband said approvingly, "exactly as a woman of her age should look."
When Bess and Harry Truman had first moved into the White House, Bess's mother Madge Wallace had moved in too. After more than a quarter of a century, she continued to call her son-in-law, "Mr. Truman."
REX SCOUTEN, Secret Service: She didn't care much for the president. She never did. That was I guess the thing that sticks out in my mind. She was a lovely lady, but she just never, never... we.... could never figure it out why she just didn't care for the president.
NORWOOD WILLIAMS, White House Butler: I think that she felt that Miss Bess was above him. Even though he was president, he was beneath Miss Bess. He was a failure in his haberdashery. She would tell you. Oh, she didn't mind telling you that even though he was the president of the United States, that she didn't care much for him or for his mother. I'm sorry, but that's the way it was.
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