Dewey Defeats Truman

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Truman with the famous edition of the Chicago Tribune

"Dewey Defeats Truman" (German: Dewey defeats Truman ) was a false headline on the cover of the first printed copies of the Chicago Tribune on November 3, 1948 . President Harry S. Truman , whose defeat to his Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey was expected in the US presidential election , won that election. Only a few hundred copies of the newspaper had been made public before the Tribune published a second edition in which no winner was named. The headline is a cautionary note to journalists about the dangers of breaking news first, without realizing its accuracy. President Truman has been photographed at St. Louis Union Station , among others , holding up a copy of his early political obituary with amusement.

The report by reporter Arthur Sears Henning went on to say that the Republican Party had won a majority in the House and Senate . Henning wrote that Dewey and Warren won a landslide victory in yesterday's presidential election. The first results show the Republican doubles pretty clearly ahead of Truman and Barkley in the western and southern states , adding that there were indications that the full results would show that Dewey won the presidency by an overwhelming majority of the electorate. It then found that Truman won over Dewey by 303: 189 electors and the Democrats regained control of both houses of Congress after the lost 1946 congressional elections.

Years later, the editors of the Tribune took the embarrassment with humor. When the duck celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1973, the newspaper planned to present Truman with a plaque replicating the false headline. However, Truman died on December 26, 1972 before the gift could be presented to him.

The Tribune wasn't the only newspaper to come up with the hoax. The Daily Journal of Commerce had eight articles in its November 3rd issue analyzing what changes President Dewey's election victory would bring. The headline, printed across five columns, read “Dewey Victory Seen as Mandate to Open New Era of Government-Business Harmony, Public Confidence” (German: “Dewey's victory is seen as a mandate to open a new era of harmony between government and business. " ).

Reception in popular culture

The subject has been taken up in various works of popular culture. On the cover of the album Permanent Waves by the Canadian rock group Rush, for example, there is a copy of the Tribune with the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman" on the left edge of the picture, but the headline had to be deleted because the Chicago Tribune did not agree. In the television series The Simpsons , the incident is alluded to in two different episodes. Once Homer Simpson bet on Dewey's victory while watching a documentary on the History Channel , and another time Martin Prince held a newspaper with the headline "Simpson Defeats Prince" after winning the election as class president. The satire America (The Book) toyed with the idea that the Chicago Tribune did not withdraw its hoax, but wrote articles about Dewey's presidency for another four years, and in a novel with an alternative historical background by Harry Turtledove the Tribune published the headline “ La Follette Beats Dewey ”.

In episode 12 of the eighth season of the American animated series Family Guy , a montage of the original photo with the headline "Stewie defeats Truman" is faded in, while the protagonist Stewie is thinking about running for the presidential election again after his previous first defeat.

Remarks

  1. ^ "Chicago Tribune's headline draws laugh from Barkley," The Zanesville Signal , Nov. 3, 1948, p. 1.
  2. ^ "Dewey and Warren won a sweeping victory in the presidential election yesterday. The early returns showed the Republican ticket leading Truman and Barkley pretty consistently in the western and southern states ... indications were that the complete returns would disclose that Dewey won the presidency by an overwhelming majority of the electoral vote. "
  3. ↑ DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN , Chicago Tribune November 3, 1948
  4. ↑ "Years mellowed Breach Between Paper Truman," The San Antonio Light , December 27, 1972, p. 11
  5. ↑ The JoC: 175 Years of Change ( Memento of the original from July 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.joc.com

Web links

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