Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

mahatmakanejeeves

(57,283 posts)
Thu Nov 5, 2020, 10:48 AM Nov 2020

On November 3, 1948, Dewey Defeated Truman.

Claim by Chicago Tribune that Thomas Dewey had defeated Harry Truman was today 1948:



Beschloss says the incident happened on November 4. The election was on November 2. The headline was printed on November 3. The picture was taken on November 5. Pick a day you like.

Dewey Defeats Truman - Wikipedia



President Truman holding the infamous issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune

"Dewey Defeats Truman" was an incorrect banner headline on the front page of the Chicago Daily Tribune (later Chicago Tribune) on November 3, 1948, the day after incumbent United States president Harry S. Truman, won an upset victory over Republican challenger and New York governor Thomas E. Dewey, in the 1948 presidential election. It was famously held up by Truman at a public appearance following his successful election, smiling triumphantly at the error.

Background

The erroneous headline of the Chicago Daily Tribune became ill-famed after a jubilant Truman was photographed holding a copy of the paper during a stop at St. Louis Union Station while returning by train from his home in Independence, Missouri, to Washington, D.C. The Tribune, which had once referred to Democratic candidate Truman as a "nincompoop", was a famously Republican-leaning paper. In a retrospective article some 60 years later about the newspaper's most famous and embarrassing headline, the Tribune wrote that Truman "had as low an opinion of the Tribune as it did of him".

For about a year prior to the 1948 election, the printers who operated the linotype machines at the Chicago Tribune and other Chicago papers had been on strike, in protest of the Taft–Hartley Act. Around the same time, the Tribune had switched to a method by which copy for the paper was composed on typewriters, photographed, and then engraved onto the printing plates. This process required the paper to go to press several hours earlier than usual.

{snip}

Aftermath

Two days later, when Truman was passing through St. Louis on the way to Washington, he stepped to the rear platform of his train car, the Ferdinand Magellan, and was handed a copy of the Tribune early edition.

{snip}
Latest Discussions»General Discussion»On November 3, 1948, Dewe...