1948 Quotes

“Truman makes friends without influencing people,' noted Arthur Schlesinger Jr. 'Dewey influences people without making friends.”
― David Pietrusza, 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America

“Losers break the rules. There's no point in obeying them because if you obey the unwritten rules of civility, you're going to lose anyway. So why not just do what you can?' - Zachary Karabell”
― David Pietrusza, 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America

“But even a wonderful soloist needs a song. Even a pitch-perfect voice needs a message.”
― David Pietrusza, 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America

“Every presidential nominee says his vice president will be given a serious, important role in his new administration. But it almost never materializes. A strong, totally self-centered politician like Tom Dewey sharing his hard-won power with a vice president? Don''t count on it.' - David Brinkley”
― David Pietrusza, 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America

“It came down to so many factors: an underdog who refused to surrender, a presumed victor who refused to fight, disgruntled Democrats - on the left and right - who, by deserting their party, merely strengthened it, and fearful Republican farmers, who in the end, proved more farmer than Republican.”
― David Pietrusza, 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America

“To Dewey, if brevity was the soul of wit, stagecraft was the very center of politics.”
― David Pietrusza, 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America

“Never far removed from the progressive consciousness was a question that was never easily answered: of what value was it to punish offending Democrats, if one merely replaced them with infinitely more retrograde Republicans?”
― David Pietrusza, 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America

“Yet Barkley drew back. Perhaps he, like Harry Truman, knew that the quiet power of incumbency easily overcomes the noise of crowds and bands.”
― David Pietrusza, 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America

“The right to resign is one of the cherished privileges of a free man; the willingness to resign, when principle and the public interest are served, is always present in the public-spirited and the self-respecting. They look upon resigning, not as a cowardice and quitting and a personal disaster, but as the ultimate guarantee of their useful influence and of their personal dignity. - Walter Lippmann”
― David Pietrusza, 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America

“Politics look very simple to the outsider whether he is a businessman or a soldier – it is only when you get into it that all the angles and hard work become apparent. James Forrestal”
― David Pietrusza, 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America

“Truman makes friends without influencing people. Dewey influences people without making friends. Arthur Schlesinger Jr.”
― David Pietrusza, 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America