United States Presidential Candidates 1948

"Equally manifest as a fundamental principle of a democratic society is political freedom of the individual. Our form of government is built on the premise that every citizen shall have the right to engage in political expression and association. This right was enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Exercise of these basic freedoms in America has traditionally been through the media of political associations. Any interference with the freedom of a party is simultaneously an interference with the freedom of its adherents. All political ideas cannot and should not be channeled into the programs of our two major parties. History has amply proved the virtue of political activity by minority, dissident groups, who innumerable times have been in the vanguard of democratic thought and whose programs were ultimately accepted. Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing mores is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness in our society."

"The censor's sword pierces deeply into the heart of free expression."

"Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world."

"If it is a mistake of the head and not the heart don't worry about it, that's the way we learn."

"We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

"In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics."

"The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government. And the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise. [...] Undoubtedly, the right of suffrage is a fundamental in a free and democratic society. Especially since the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights, any alleged infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized."

"If Nixon is not forced to turn over tapes of his conversations with the ring of men who were conversing on their violations of the law, then liberty will soon be dead in this nation. If Nixon gets away with that, then Nixon makes the law as he goes along — not the Congress nor the courts. The old Court you and I served so long will not be worthy of its traditions if Nixon can twist, turn and fashion the law as he sees fit."

"I always turn to the sports section first. The sports section records people's accomplishments; the front page nothing but man's failures."

"When history is written, he'll go down as one of the greatest Chief Justices the country has ever been blessed with. I think he is irreplaceable."

"The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior."

"I believe the preservation of our civil liberties to be the most fundamental and important of all our governmental problems, because it always has been with us and always will be with us and if we ever permit those liberties to be destroyed, there will be nothing left in our system worthy of preservation. They constitute the soul of democracy. I believe that there is grave danger in this country of losing our civil liberties as they have been lost in other countries. There are things transpiring in this country today that are definitely menacing our future; among which are the activities of Mayor Hague and other little Hagues throughout the country. These activities are so basically wrong and so menacing to our institutions that every citizen and particularly every public official should oppose them to the limit of their strength."

"The Brown case and the changes it brought causes many people to believe that it was the most important case of my tenure on the Court. That appraisal may be correct, but I have never thought so. It seemed to me that accolade should go to the case of Baker v. Carr (1962), which was the progenitor of the "one man, one vote" rule."

"The abhorrence of society to the use of involuntary confessions does not turn alone on their inherent untrustworthiness. It also turns on the deep-rooted feeling that the police must obey the law while enforcing the law; that, in the end, life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves."

"Citizenship is man's basic right, for it is nothing less than the right to have rights. Remove this priceless possession and there remains a stateless person, disgraced and degraded in the eyes of his countrymen. He has no lawful claim to protection from any nation, and no nation may assert rights on his behalf. His very existence is at the sufferance of the state within whose borders he happens to be. In this country, the expatriate would presumably enjoy, at most, only the limited rights and privileges of aliens, and, like the alien, he might even be subject to deportation, and thereby deprived of the right to assert any rights. This government was not established with power to decree this fate. The people who created this government endowed it with broad powers. They created a sovereign state with power to function as a sovereignty. But the citizens themselves are sovereign, and their citizenship is not subject to the general powers of their government. Whatever may be the scope of its powers to regulate the conduct and affairs of all persons within its jurisdiction, a government of the people cannot take away their citizenship simply because one branch of that government can be said to have a conceivably rational basis for wanting to do so."

"The biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made."

"The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident. No one should underestimate the vital role in a democracy that is played by those who guide and train our youth. To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation. No field of education is so thoroughly comprehended by man that new discoveries cannot yet be made. Particularly is that true in the social sciences, where few, if any, principles are accepted as absolutes. Scholarship cannot flourish in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise, our civilization will stagnate and die."

"A society, in the process of moving forward, often appears to be tearing itself apart. Certainly, an age of rapid change, such as ours, produces many paradoxes. But perhaps the most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism."

"To summarize, we hold that, when an individual is taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom by the authorities in any significant way and is subjected to questioning, the privilege against self-incrimination is jeopardized. Procedural safeguards must be employed to protect the privilege, and unless other fully effective means are adopted to notify the person of his right of silence and to assure that the exercise of the right will be scrupulously honored, the following measures are required. He must be warned prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that, if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires."

"Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed. The defendant may waive effectuation of these rights, provided the waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently. If, however, he indicates in any manner and at any stage of the process that he wishes to consult with an attorney before speaking there can be no questioning. Likewise, if the individual is alone and indicates in any manner that he does not wish to be interrogated, the police may not question him. The mere fact that he may have answered some questions or volunteered some statements on his own does not deprive him of the right of refrain from answering any further inquiries until he has consulted with an attorney and thereafter consents to be questioned."

"I am unalterably opposed to any species of vigilantes or to any other extra-legal means of a majority exercising its will over a minority … I believe that if majorities are entitled to have their civil rights protected they should be willing to fight for the same rights to minorities no matter how violently they disagree with their views. Further, I am convinced that this is the only way they can be preserved. I believe that the American concept of civil rights should include not only an observance of our Constitutional Bill of Rights, but also absence of arbitrary action by government in every field."

"The only reason that there has been no sabotage or espionage on the part of Japanese-Americans is that they are waiting for the right moment to strike."

"Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism."

"You sit up there, and you see the whole gamut of human nature. Even if the case being argued involves only a little fellow and $50, it involves justice. That's what is important."

"In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the State has undertaken to provide it, is a right that must be made available to all on equal terms."

"Like everyone else I was misled by the size and the enthusiasm of the crowds that Wallace was attracting across the country. In Los Angeles ten thousand Chicanos came to hear Wallace speak in Lincoln Park under the banner of "Amigos de Wallace," and twenty-five hundred blacks came to hear him speak in Watts. We filled Gilmore Stadium, with its 32,000 seats, on three occasions. Charlie Chaplin endorsed him; Katharine Hepburn spoke at the first of those Gilmore Stadium meetings and made a very powerful speech supporting Wallace and attacking red-baiting. The Students for Wallace movement was very strong at UCLA, and we recruited many young people into the Party as a result. In Berkeley, Wallace was banned from speaking on campus but managed to attract eight thousand students to hear him speak from a sidewalk adjoining the campus. In the California primaries in June, about a half million people cast ballots for candidates who had filed or cross-filed as Progressives, one fifth of the total primary vote. It was a very energizing campaign, and no one in the Party thought that Wallace could possibly end up with less than five million votes nationwide."

"What all this reminds us is that in order to defeat an enemy they routinely denounced as barbaric the Western powers had made common cause with an ally that was morally little better - but ultimately more effective at waging total war. 'The choice before human beings,' George Orwell observed in 1941, 'is not . . . between good and evil but between two evils. You can let the Nazis rule the world: that is evil; or you can overthrow them by war, which is also evil . . . Whichever you choose, you will not come out with clean hands.' Orwell's Animal Farm is nowadays revered as a critique of the Russian Revolution's descent into Stalinism; people forget that it was written during the Second World War and turned down by no fewer than four publishers (including T. S. Eliot, on behalf of Faber & Faber) for its anti-Soviet sentiments. Nothing better symbolized the blind eye that the Western powers now turned to Stalin's crimes than the American Vice-President Henry Wallace's visit to the Kolyma Gulag in May 1944. 'No other two countries are more alike than the Soviet Union and the United States,' he told his hosts. 'The vast expanses of your country, her virgin forests, wide rivers and large lakes, all kinds of climate - from tropical to polar - her inexhaustible wealth, [all] remind me of my homeland . . . Both the Russians and the Americans, in their different ways, are groping for a way of life that will enable the common man everywhere in the world to get the most good out of modern technology. There is nothing irreconcilable in our aims and purposes.' All were now totalitarians; in the words of Norman Mailer's general in The Naked and the Dead."

"In 1948 the two-party duopoly smeared and suppressed the pro-labor efforts by the Progressive Party and its presidential candidate, former Vice President (under Franklin Delano Roosevelt) Henry Wallace. This was followed by more onerous restrictions on state ballot access and exclusions of third parties, enacted by both the Republicans and Democrats, that further stunted competitive choices of candidates and agendas."

"the Progressive Party, with its extravagant claims, has, therefore, imposed on itself the considerable burden of proof. The only party within recent memory which made equally strident claims of fellowship were the Communists, who failed to survive this test; and the only politician of similar claims was, of course, Wallace's erstwhile master, Roosevelt, who did not after all, now that the magic of his voice is gone, succeed in raising the darker brother to the status of a citizen. This is the ancestry of the Wallace party, and it does not work wholly in its favor. It operates to give pause to even the most desperate and the most gullible."

"My first introduction to economics came by way of Professor B.H. Hibbard. I remember being asked in 1910, at the close of my college course, who had influenced me most, and I said Professor Hibbard. Later, of course, we came to disagree violently about the McNary-Haugen Bill and some other things; but I still think that Professor Hibbard is a very good teacher."

"The nature of the American consensus was redefined from the 1940s, with important political, social and intellectual effects. Left-wing ideas were castigated as was cultural relativism. Instead, there was pressure for support of a conservative view of American culture. The failed attempt by Henry Wallace, a New Dealer who had been Vice-President in 1941–5, to challenge Truman by running for President in 1948 as a candidate of the new Progressive Party, reflected not only the divisive impact of taking a relatively pro-Soviet foreign policy line, but also the popular preference of, and for, Truman. He had dismissed Wallace as Secretary of Commerce in 1946 for opposing American foreign policy as overly anti-Soviet."

"Instead, the main challenge to Truman’s decision to confront the Soviet Union came from the Left. And it was not much of a challenge. Roosevelt’s former secretary of agriculture, Henry Wallace—a Democratic Party grandee who regarded himself as a leader of the Left—decided to form a separate party for the presidential elections in 1948. “The bigger the peace vote in 1948,” Wallace said in declaring his candidacy, “the more definitely the world will know that the United States is not behind the bipartisan reactionary war policy which is dividing the world into two armed camps and making inevitable the day when American soldiers will be lying in their Arctic suits in the Russian snow.” Even though it was supported by some Democrats who felt that Truman was moving away from the legacies of the New Deal by breaking the wartime alliance with the USSR, Wallace’s campaign was undermined by his own haplessness as a candidate and the rather shrill US Communist Party support for his cause. To everyone’s surprise, Truman narrowly won the election against the Republican Thomas Dewey. Wallace’s Progressives scored 2.5 percent of the vote, less than Strom Thurmond’s Southern segregationists ticket."

"They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."

"If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."

"The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

"With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public."

"The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.."

"American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information... Fascism is a worldwide disease... greatest threat to the United States will come after the war... within the United States itself."

"If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. Most American fascists are enthusiastically supporting the war effort."

"In 1931 a new chief of staff, the charismatic Douglas MacArthur, began to shift War Department priorities toward modernizing and training only the most active portions of the Army of the United States. A controversial officer noted for his imperious treatment of existing Army plans and values, MacArthur directed the General Staff to focus on specific war plans or "probable conflicts" and to increase the president's ability to order a partial mobilization on a discretionary basis, meaning free of congressional interference. By 1934 the General Staff had consolidated the paper army active and reserve into a twenty-two division force, organized into four field armies, of regulars and National Guardsmen. Instead of emphasizing the organization of a mass army to protect the United States from invasion, MacArthur wanted the War Department's funds to go to an "Initial Protective Force" of 400,000 soldiers that could respond to a real crisis, especially a war with Japan. Continued by his successor, Malin Craig, MacArthur's approach- the Protective Mobilization Plan- included a series of six-year programs designed to modernize the regular Army and Guard. The latter force made steady progress in the interwar period, for in 1924 the federal government began to pay the Guardsmen for weekly drills. In 1933 additional legislation ensured that mobilized Guard units would not be broken up and required that Guard officers hold federal reserve commissions and meet regular Army standards in order to draw drill pay."

"We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war. A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concepts of war."

"Bitterly disappointed by his defeat at the hands of the Chinese, MacArthur pressured the administration to accept his own war aims. Marshaling heroic rhetoric- "There is no substitute for victory"- the general conducted a political campaign to open Communist China to direct attack by his own forces and the Chinese Nationalists. He continued to hint darkly about the use of nuclear weapons, an option Truman never seriously considered. Incident mounted after incident: Indiscreet press conferences, unauthorized contacts with Chiang Kai-shek, inappropriate challenges to the Communists, provocative correspondence with veterans' groups and Republican congressional leaders, dark hints of treason by the UN allies, especially Britain. With the full approval of Acheson, the new Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall, and the JCS, Truman finally relieved MacArthur and ordered him home in April 1951. Buoyed by his enthusiastic public reception and bathed in martyrdom, MacArthur took his case to Congress."

"Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliances, balances of power, Leagues of Nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blocks out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door."

"Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain with death — the seas bear only commerce — men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world lies quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way."

"History gives us ample precedence for making decisions at the speed of relevance. In 1941, General Douglas MacArthur was planning a landing in the Southwest Pacific. He wrote to Admiral William Halsey, in charge of the South Pacific, asking for a naval campaign to divert the Japanese forces. Only two days later, Halsey wrote back, pledging his support. There was no need for extended exchanges between staffs. The shared objective was to shatter the Japanese forces. All else was secondary. Two strong-willed commanders collaborated to unleash hell upon the enemy."

"In a memorable public address to both houses, he accused the administration of appeasement and defeatism before promising to fade away like an old soldier in a barracks ballad. Like most MacArthur predictions, the promise to disappear proved flawed, since the Senate held hearings on the war and defense policy. MacArthur produced harsh words and limited enlightenment but could not reverse the administration's policy of limiting the war. As JCS Chairman General of the Army Omar Bradley stated, MacArthur's wider war was "the wrong war, war at the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy." The concept that a theater commander could dictate global policy seemed to endanger the principle of civilian control as well as the professional stature of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Acutely aware that MacArthur's proposals endangered his rearmament program and the development of NATO, Truman summed up the issue: "General MacArthur was ready to risk general war. I was not." MacArthur faded away after a weak showing in the early presidential primaries of 1952. The war went on without him."

"MacArthur was imperialistic, almost self-godlike, and he always remained aloof from his soldiers. You were never going to see old Mac sitting in the damned mud, swatting flies and mosquitoes, eating rancid chow in a pouring tropical rain. Oh no. His ass was in a nice house or office with water buffalo steaks and red wine. I have to say that he was just about the only senior flag officer I can say that about, personal experience. All the others I have mentioned shared the misery, even Patton. He lived well per his rank, but he gave up his jeep to send wounded men back to an aid station in Sicily and walked on foot as the Germans shot at his men."

"The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his being. When he violates this sacred trust, he not only profanes his entire cult but threatens the very fabric of international society. The traditions of fighting men are long and honorable. They are based upon the noblest of human traits—sacrifice."

"In the early 1920s his chauffeur was driving him along the west bank of the Hudson when a man with a flashlight stepped into the road and waved them to a stop. Producing a pistol, he demanded the brigadier's wallet. "You don't get it as easy as that," MacArthur said. "I've got around forty dollars, but you'll have to whip me to get it. I'm coming out of this car, and I'll fight you for it." The thug threatened to kill him. MacArthur said, "Sure, you can shoot me, but if you do they'll run you down and fry you in the big house. Put down that gun, and I'll come out and fight you fair and square for my money. My name is MacArthur, and I live —" The man lowered his gun. He said, "My God, why didn't you tell me that in the first place? Why, I was in the Rainbow. I was a sergeant in Wild Bill Donovan's outfit. My God, General, I'm sorry. I apologize." MacArthur told his driver to proceed, and when he reached West Point he made no attempt to notify the police."

"We must not inadvertently slip into the same condition internally as the one which we fight externally. Like Abraham Lincoln, I am a firm believer in the people and, if given the truth, they can be depended on to meet any national crisis. The point is to bring before them the real facts."