Independence Day

The little old voter fooled everybody. The experts thought they had him analyzed, charted, taped and ready for delivery. One pollster loftily dismissed him two months ago and would not even take another look. But the independent voter apparently wasn't telling anybody anything. This week he went to the polls and cast his secret ballot. In Illinois, a victorious Democratic candidate for the Senate, Paul Douglas, declared: "This is ... a people's victory." He was right. The little old independent voter was the hero of Election Day. There was only one thing to his discredit and that was his casualness. On the basis of the vote cast --percentage-wise the lowest in 32 years --U.S. voters did not seem to care much about the election.

Why had the voters chosen Harry Truman and given the Democrats sweeping control of both the Senate and the House? For a number of reasons, not the least of which was little old Harry Truman.

Singlehanded.ThePresident had fought a singlehanded fight without parallel in U.S. history. He did it all himself, after Democratic liberal and labor leaders had tried their best to depose him, after the Democratic machine politicians had glumly written him off at Philadelphia. The press had been overwhelmingly against him.

But he had plugged and pounded his way across the country--traveling 31,-500 miles, making 350 speeches, shouting out some 560,000 words. He had a kind of self-induced fervor which roused the admiring cry of "Pour it on, Harry!" from many an American voter. He had continued to fight right up to the last night. On election eve, while Tom Dewey piously urged everyone to get out and vote, Harry Truman had broken all the rules of proper election-eve conduct by urging the people to get out and vote for Democrats. His last words, which sounded to the experts like a last gasp, were: "Why, it can't be anything but a victory."

Good Show. What else was in the mind of the independent voter, who had kicked over all the predictions--including last-minute gambling odds of 18-1?

It was said of him that he would respond sensibly to Tom Dewey's lofty speeches. Apparently he had been just as bored as he had looked, and not a little annoyed by Dewey's calm assumption that the result was in the bag. It was said of 'him that he only went in droves to hear Harry Truman because Harry Truman put on a good show. But politics is a show. Harry Truman, with his mistakes and his impulses and his earnestness, had turned out to be an interesting personality. He had often ranted like a demagogue. He had promised and threatened almost everything. Labor, while making little noise in the campaign, had taken to heart Harry Truman's promise to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act, and had delivered at the polls. Harry Truman had promised the farmers full economic support. And the farmers, reversing the tradition that they vote Republican when they are prosperous, had voted for him.

Swing from Right. Obviously the little old voter liked Democrats better than Republicans. Harry Truman had made his campaign on the record of the "worst Congress in history." Whether or not he accepted that indictment completely, the voter was ready to accept it in part. The Republican-controlled 80th Congress represented a kind of conservatism which he decided he was against.

He did not swing violently left. Henry Wallace had tried to lead him that way and he had brushed Wallace off with in difference, even with contempt. But it was clear now that Republican conservatism had reached its peak in 1946. The voter had spoken--when he was good & ready--with a flat and incontrovertible voice. The voice announced a new chapter in U.S. politics. Harry Truman was now the absolute boss of a resurgent Democratic Party. Republicans might not be able to stand it. But the Republic could.

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