BW - EP132—005: Mutual Mystery Shows Of The 1940s—1948 Halloween News With Arthur Bario

Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

The 1948 DNC convened in July with President Truman’s approval rating as low as 32%. Northern Democrats pushed for a strong civil rights platform, which the President was in favor of. Conservative southern Dems were opposed. Moderates feared voter alienation. When the convention adopted the civil rights plank in a close vote, Southern Dems walked out and split off, nominating Strom Thurmond for President. They became known as Dixiecrats, hoping to force a contingency in the House of Representatives, extracting concessions from either Truman or Republican nominee Thomas Dewey. The post-war strikes didn’t end. On October 26th the Radio Writers Guild struck for fair wages and for RWG guideline adherence by ad agencies. Their focus was the coming new medium: Television. Negotiations would continue into 1949. On Halloween 1948, the Presidential election was on everyone’s mind. The night before, Thomas Dewey ended his campaign at Madison Square Garden. He’d run against FDR in 1944, losing, but received 46% of the popular vote. After President Roosevelt passed away, there were many who felt Dewey made a better post-war choice than Harry Truman. In the 1946 New York Gubernatorial election, Dewey won by nearly 700,000 votes, the most in New York history to that point. Tuesday, November 2nd was the 41st U.S. presidential election in history. Truman was a massive underdog with South Carolina’s Governor Strom Thurmond opposing on the Dixiecrat ticket, and another FDR VP, Henry Wallace as the Progressive Party nominee. Meanwhile in the Middle East, The Arab-Israeli war raged on. Fighting started the previous November. It ramped after Palestine was officially dissolved, and Israel declared Independence on May 14th. Count Bernadotte of Visborg was assassinated in September by four members of Lehi, a Jewish Zionist group. One of whom—Yitzhak Shamir would go on to be the Seventh Prime Minister of Israel. Operation Hiram ended on Halloween with Israeli forces claiming to have complete control of Galilee. The fighting would continue into 1949. The Cold War was growing, with Americans investigating potential communist cells within the government, fearing the world could split into two distinct groups: those who supported democracy, and those who supported totalitarianism.