President Truman's Visit to Tiny Dexter, Iowa"”And How It Helped Him Win Reelection

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Tackle these situations in stride and you of course be annoyed when an unplanned expense comes up but not let it be something that slows me down right as I did with repairing my credit you know hiring somebody to do credit repair for me that was a gift that I gave myself that allowed me to then you know get my first apartment. Like a good neighbor State Farm is there State Farm proud sponsor of Michael Tura podcast network. And we return to our American stories and up next a story about when our 33rd president made an all-important visit to a small town in Iowa. Here's our own Monty Montgomery with a story. Dexter Iowa is a small town with a lot of heart and even though its population has never exceeded a thousand people there's a lot of history there and it was also once the presidential campaign stopped.

Here's Rod Stanley with more on that. September 1948 President Truman came to Dexter Iowa for the national plowing match. It was a big deal the national plowing match was a big big deal. But what exactly is a plowing match?

Roughly put it's a competition to see who's the best farmer. They judged him on I mean they judged him on different things they brought their tractors and their plows and there were judges that judged how well you plowed the field how straight it was how open it was they had some other like conservation like making a pond they made a pond on my uncle's farm they blew up they're using dynamite and they blew up land they made a waterway to drain water off and stuff. This was a statewide thing so it was a national thing too so there you had lots of people coming in from like there's an there was an airport south of Dexter southwest of Dexter in that day like 120 airplanes landed and brought bringing people in.

They estimated the crowd between 75 and 100,000. But how did President Truman even get involved in this whole thing? It boils down to the drive of a radio personality Truman's opponent and like a lot of things in politics poll numbers.

The guy he was running against was a fellow by the name of Thomas Dewey from New York and Thomas Dewey was so far ahead in the polls her plan back famous WHO foreign personality was in charge of organizing this whole thing and her plan back called or went and talked to Thomas Dewey and asked him do you want to be the headliner out here in Dexter and talk to these people and Dewey said in so many words I'm pretty doing pretty well in the polls I don't think I need to come out to Iowa and to talk to these people. So her plan back then called up and scheduled a meeting with with Truman and normally they're on a limited time basis when they when they talk to the president so on but they they they made an appointment they talked to Truman and actually went over the time limit because Truman liked talking. I mean Truman was a he was he was one of those guys that like to talk to and he was he was a former farmer too. I mean as far as he was a farm in occupation before he got into politics and he said well boys he said I would really like to come out and to do that but he says I don't think the Secret Service will allow me to do what I want to do and that's to go out and mingle and talk to people and and so on and so when her plan back left that meeting he thought well gosh I don't think I don't think Truman's going to come either and so it kind of sat that way until like three weeks before the event and the White House calls her plan back up and says Truman's coming. That threw a whole big wrench because they had to make sure that you know the security had to be better and there's a lot of things they had to do to prepare for the president. Truman started over in eastern Iowa in Davenport on the Rock Island Railroad line the one that runs through Dexter and goes across the state and he gave a speech there early in the morning then he gave a speech at Oxford Iowa I believe then a speech in Grinnell and a speech in Des Moines.

Never in the world were the farmers of any republic or any kingdom or any other country as prosperous as the farmers of the United States and if they don't do their duty by the Democratic Party they're the most ungrateful people in the world. Those were just preliminaries and he actually I believe picked up his wife Bess and his daughter Margaret in Des Moines and they rode the train out to Dexter the band Dexter band was there to meet Truman I believe they played the Missouri waltz for him when they when he arrived at the depot in Dexter they had brought his Cadillac his robin egg blue Cadillac out according to my uncle Dean Stiles about three days before and everybody was wondering what the heck was that was going on bringing that blue Cadillac out here and eventually they figured it out that it was the president and he was going to be stopping and and going out to the plowing match but he he was concerned still concerned about the Secret Service blocking his style but he came anyway. The people said that we're sitting with Truman when Truman saw the crowd when Truman saw how big the crowd was he said his he had a smile from ear to ear he was just loving it he was saying this is this is going to give me an opportunity to really to get my cam I'm so far behind it can't hurt it's going to give me a chance to to hammer home my points. The majority of these farmers that attended were of the Republican persuasion but he got thirteen ovations that day and he really hammered on the Republicans the do the do nothings he called them the do nothing Congress. It was his first major campaign speech of the nineteen forty eight election he used this type of campaign the whistle stop using the train traveling around stop and talk in small towns to people to actually turn the tide it's interesting when Thomas Dewey found out a hundred people hundred thousand people showed up in Dexter Iowa he got a little nervous and he actually got the Republicans in Iowa to have a campaign thing for him in Des Moines and they actually got like fifteen thousand people to hear Thomas Dewey give a speech which it which is a pretty good crowd but nothing like Truman. But anyway when Truman was here he ate lunch we have stuff in the museum the tablecloth actually that that was on the table that he ate off of but anyway he ate lunch out there had fried chicken dinner mashed potatoes and corn and relish tray and all apple pie or had different kinds of pie and then he went out on a he went out on a wagon to look at some of the projects the conservation projects that they were doing that day it wasn't only a plowing contest but there was some like they were making a pond and they were making waterways and they were doing some other stuff conservation things that out there on that in that area as well but anyway he went out and and he was on the back of a hay wagon and of course the Secret Service was with him and they were they were cruising along and the Secret Service looked around Truman wasn't on the wagon anymore and he had jumped off the wagon and he was heading down to where they were making this pond and we called it Walker's pond back when I was growing up it was on Howard Walker's property it was Piper property back then but anyway so those people that were on the bulldozers had actually been told by the Secret Service earlier that if Truman came down there to turn off the bulldozers and you know just sit on the bulldozers and so if the president comes over and wants to ask you questions and and that kind of thing and and so that's what they did they saw they saw this guy coming down they figured it was Truman or some of them recognized him so they just turned their bulldozers off and Truman got down there and was just chatting with him like you know like you normally chat with people and he said well why'd you turn off your bulldozers for I mean you guys got work to do and he said well we were told by the Secret Service to to do that and Truman said well he says the next time they ask you to do that you tell those SOBs that you aren't going to do that you just keep right on working you know he got everybody got a big laugh out of that and of course the Secret Service gets down there and puts him back on the wagon and away they go but that was Truman and but he he did get to talk to some of the people out there but like I said this this was a huge boost to his his it turned the tide as far as his his election and he was really the only one in the articles I read he was the only one even his wife had given up he was so far behind that he was going to lose and he she said we even need to start packing things up to get back to Missouri and and live in Independence where our house there and Truman said ah he doesn't want to give up yet and he election came in November and he was listening to it and he was holding his own and in it and and Dewey wasn't blowing him away and he goes to bed thinking that probably the next morning that you know that maybe I won't be president but he he was kind of had a quiet confidence he thought he thought he was going to win and the next morning the results are are rolling in and Truman's winning and he's going to he's going to end up winning the election and it was a huge huge upset I mean there was no way that he was supposed to win but they say that win all started right here in the one horse town of Dexter Iowa in 19 September of 48. The story of Dexter and Harry Truman's campaign victory here on Our American Stories. Roku has what you need to make your college home away from home feel more like your own. Make your dorm the place to be with Roku TV or bring a Roku streaming stick to easily access all your favorite free and premium content like I heart radio stream your favorite playlist with the Roku vibe setting smart light strips to sync your music to millions of colors and make your dorm feel more like you make your dorm the place to be with Roku TV streaming players and smart lights head to Roku.com or your favorite retailer to deck out your dorm. 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