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TLS as president, one page, 7 x 9, White House letterhead, January 7, 1948. Letter to Basil O’Connor, President of the American National Red Cross. In full: “I appreciated yours of December thirty-first with an invitation to appear at the American National Red Cross Convention to be held in San Francisco, California in June. I doubt the advisability of my appearance at that time—First, because the Congress no doubt will be winding up its business, and Second, because there are two political conventions in the immediate neighborhood of that date. I’ll be glad to talk with you about the situation sometime when you are down here.”
The conventions mentioned by Truman were the upcoming Republican and Democratic National conventions held in Philadelphia in the summer of 1948. Truman had shown strong support for the federal government’s involvement in civil rights, as evidenced by the speech he had given the year before, in front of the N.A.A.C.P. The result of this civil rights platform was that during the roll call of the convention, three dozen delegates stood up and walked off the convention floor in protest. The entire delegation from Mississippi, and half the Alabama delegation, just stood up and walked out. They were led by Strom Thurmond (at that time still a Democrat), and they went on to form the “States’ Rights Democratic Party” (better known by their nickname, the “Dixiecrats”) who convened their own convention in Alabama, and subsequently nominated Thurmond as their presidential nominee. Although Harry Truman was the sitting President of the United States, he was actually kept off the ballot in Alabama as a result of this defection. Newsweek magazine called the 1948 Democratic National Convention “the worst-managed, most dispirited convention in American history.” In fine condition, with a bit of trivial brushing to signature. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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