The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

by William I. Hitchcock

For a man who claimed to dislike politics as a profession, Eisenhower certainly leaned into campaigning. His speeches were combative, vague on policy proposals, and full of biting criticism of the Democrats. In Joliet, Illinois, on September 15 he reminded his audience, “We are waging a crusade, a crusade to get out of the governmental offices not only these people who are tempted by money but the people who have been venal enough and weak enough to embrace Communism and still have found their way into our government. Let’s get rid of them!” Journalist Marquis Childs observed that Ike enjoyed making these “blunt and even brutal denunciations of the Truman Administration that draw cheers from orthodox Republicans.”