Dewey Defeats Truman… The Missouri Story

November 2nd, 1948: Missourian Harry S Truman defeats Thomas E. Dewey for the U.S. presidency.

We have all seen the iconic image of Harry S Truman holding up the Chicago Tribune newspaper with the erroneous headline. But do you know all of the Missouri history surrounding the days leading up to the iconic image of Truman holding the paper?

The History of the 1948 Election:

It was perhaps the most famous election-day gaffe in history, made famous in Missouri. Early polls were not looking good for the Missouri President as he was running for his “first elected term” in the White House. Truman was Vice President when he replaced President Franklin Delano Roosevelt after his death in April of 1945 and some in his own party didn’t want him to run for President at all.

Truman had been trailing Thomas Dewey in nearly every poll. Reporters covering Truman’s campaign say that he remained confident and some of them thought he was delusional. Early exit polls confirmed what most people thought… Truman was going to lose badly.

Election Night:

Millions of Americans went to bed on election night thinking Dewey would be the next president. Truman remained confident in victory as he left Independence to spend the night at The Elms Hotel in Excelsior Springs. Just before 9:00pm, he ate a ham sandwich and drank a glass of milk, told staffers to wake him up if anything happened, and then he went to bed. A Secret Service agent woke Truman around 4:00am to tell him that he had, in fact, won the election.

The Next Morning:

Hours later across the nation people began waking up to the news that Truman had pulled out the victory. By that time, the wheels of history were already turning. The Chicago Tribune had published an early edition of the paper with the headline “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.” Americans woke up to the newspaper with the incorrect information. By the time word began to spread about Truman’s upset victory more than 40,000 people in Truman’s hometown of Independence swarmed the streets to celebrate his victory. Truman went back to Kansas City that morning to await the concession speech by Dewey, which happened mid-Morning on November 3rd.

The Picture:

Now to that picture. Truman boarded a train in Kansas City and rolled across mid-Missouri on his way back to Washington DC on November 4th, 1948. He stopped in St. Louis to meet with fellow Democrats and supporters at St. Louis Union Station where he stepped onto the platform with Mayor Bernard Dickmann. Dickmann had also recently won his election and was the first Democrat to win the mayoral race in St. Louis in decades.

When the two stepped up to greet the cheering crowd, a staffer handed him the newspaper. Truman held it up for all to see and the images were snapped. And the rest is history.

Years later, the editors of the Chicago Tribune made him a plaque with the images of the newspaper engraved on it to honor the 25th anniversary of the historic moment. But Truman died before receiving it.