"You said it! Four men running, and not one winner I can see. Lord and butler, spare me that cold cut Tom Dewey and his toothbrush moustache."
"You may not be spared. The newspapers say it's already over. With the Democrats split three ways, Dewey's just waiting to be confirmed. The editorial this morning said Truman's cabinet should resign now and get out of the way."
"It can't be. Dewey doesn't even look like a proper Republican. He looks like a magazine salesman."
"Some salesman, he's not even campaigning. 'America the Beautiful' is not exactly a platform. I suppose he doesn't want to lower himself to Truman's level, it would show lack of confidence."
Tommy put his face in his hands. "Not Tom Dewey the toothbrush moustache! Please not that mug in all the photos for the next four years."
"Would you rather look at Strom Thurmond for four years?"
"What a drizzle bag."
A stout woman in a scant bandeau and espadrilles minced across the terrace. In Mexico she would have been a beauty of a certain type, but not here, I gathered. Tommy's eyes tracked her too dramatically, like Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush.
"Maybe Scarlett O'Hara will come out and stump for Strom," I suggested. "And Rhett Butler, whistling Dixiecrat to call out the segregationists."
Tom looked up, eyes wide. "Now that is a campaign image. You've got the gift! And on the other team, Henry Wallace as the Pied Piper, with the liberals skipping off behind him."
"Poor Truman, he's got nobody left. I read he's asked a dozen men to run as his vice president, and they all turned him down. Do you think that's true?"
"He can't get reelected, why should they waste the time?"
A young couple slid into the next table, inciting Tom to announce: "Hardware and headlights, call the nabs." The fellow was an Adonis, more or less Tommy in a younger model. The girl wore a tennis dress and diamond bracelets.
"My stenographer went out to see Truman at his whistle stop here, just a couple of weeks ago. She's League of Women Voters. So there's one he can count on."
"Oh, gee. Little man with high voice makes barnyard jokes from back of train."
"She said he turned out quite a crowd."
"Natch. The first thing he's accomplished in the last two years."
"That's not fair. The Republicans kill every one of his bills in Congress. They can't be bothered with the minimum wage or housing starts, they're all crowding into the communism hearings to see Alger Hiss charged with espionage."
Tommy vamped a few bars of "I'm Just Wild About Harry," with jazz hands.
"It's true, Tommy. If you read something besides the Echo, you'd know that."
"Fine, down with it. Harry Truman gets two votes."
"I don't vote. I never have."
"Really? Conk me. I had you down for a Henry Wallace type. The rise of the common man and all that. All the reviewers say so."
"Politics in this country are never quite what they seem. I don't quite feel...what? Entitled."
He looked genuinely amazed. "Entitled. Cat, this is America, they let anybody vote. Crooks, wigs, even cookies like us. Dogs and cats, probably. Don't take Fido to the polls, he might cancel you out."
"Well, that's the thing, it's all too much. Too fast. I need to brood on things."
He cocked his head in a sympathetic pout. "Sad stranger in the happy land."
The New York Times, September 26, 1948
Truman Is Linked by Scott to Reds
Special to The New York Times
BOSTON, MASS., SEPT. 25--Hugh D. Scott Jr., chairman of the Republican National Committee, told Massachusetts Republicans today that the Communist party endorsed Mr. Truman for Vice President in 1944, with the result that the President now shows "indifference to Communist penetration at home." Delivering the keynote address at the party's state convention, Mr. Scott assailed the President's reference to spy investigations as a "red herring" and said the explanation for this attitude could be found in history.
"The New York Daily Worker, the official Communist organ in the United States, endorsed Mr. Truman cordially in the issue of Aug. 12, 1944," he said. "The endorsement was signed by Eugene Dennis, secretary of the Communist party, who recently was cited for contempt of the House of Representatives for refusing to testify concerning his subversive activities in this country."
Mr. Scott quoted Mr. Dennis as writing, in connection with the Democratic Party's 1944 candidates: "It is a ticket representative not only of the Democratic Party but of important and wider sections of the camp of national unity."
Another link between the President and The Daily Worker was claimed by Mr. Scott. This is a letter written on Senate stationery and signed by Harry S. Truman, August 14, 1944. This communication to Samuel Barron, public relations director of The Daily Worker, expresses thanks for the copy of an article that appeared in the paper.
Calling for an all-out drive on subversives in Government, Mr. Scott said: "Once the Dewey-Warren administration takes over we will see the greatest housecleaning in Washington since St. Patrick cleaned the snakes out of Ireland."
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. was chairman of the convention, which adopted a platform making no mention of controversial state referenda on birth control and labor unions.
November 1
This strange day. Early snow, and a visit from the FBI.
The snow fell in huge, leisurely flakes, piling itself carefully on everything, even twigs and telephone wires. Putting white caps on the hydrants, covering the mud puddles and buckled sidewalks. A Benediction for the Day of the Dead. Or perhaps last rites, this weary world with all its faults consenting to lie down with a sigh and be covered up with a sheet. "Holy is the day"--I had just thought those words when he came tramping tiredly up the walk, leaving behind a trail, the impressions of his leather shoes. At the curb he'd hesitated, turning this way and that before coming up my walk. It looked like an Arthur Murray dance diagram.
Myers is the name. I made sure to get it this time, Melvin C. Myers, special agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Not the same man who was here before, right away I knew it was a different voice. This Myers is a man of rank, evidently, but he seemed almost apologetic. Too old for a fight, sorry that life has come to this.
I could hardly let him stand out there getting a snowdrift on his hat. I had a fire on the hearth and coffee made, prepared for a solitary day. Mrs. Brown is kept home by the weather, her bus line canceled. So I brought Myers his coffee on the sofa and poked up the fire, to all appearances entertaining a guest. We joked about the elections coming up, how Truman will soon be looking for a new job. Three magazines lay on the coffee table, the week's editions I'd purchased from the newsstand, all of them with President Dewey on their covers, his bold new plan for the nation outlined inside. Chisme and Chispa weren't fooled by the friendly patter, they rose from their pool of warmth by the hearth, hissed inaudibly, and slunk away. I should have done the same.
He believes I have a very large problem, does Mr. Myers. Things really do not look good regarding my position with the State Department. I'm about to be in the same boat with Truman, he said. Hunting a new job.
"Oh, well, it's too bad. A lot of it going around." I decided to play it contrite, to satisfy this fellow. No need to tell him I hadn't worked for the State Department in years, and had no intention of ever doing so again.
"Except for us gumshoes," he said with a chuckle. "Our job security is A-okay."
"I've heard that. Snakes out of Ireland, and so forth."
He was eager to show me his portfolio of evidence against me, and I was curious, especially about the photograph. Harrison Shepherd and wife, Communist party meeting 1930. It was a puzzling disappointment, not one thing in the picture I could recognize. No person I'd ever known, no place I had been.
"Is this the noose around my neck? I can't even guess which one of those men is supposed to be me. I was fourteen that year, living in Mexico." I handed back the photograph, and he took a grea
t deal of care to put it inside a folder and settle it in the correct compartment of his briefcase.
Then said, "That photograph is a piece of garbage. I realize that."
The man was so shabby and earnest, I almost hated to let him down. Probably people habitually responded this way--shop clerks slipped back his change, the butcher put an extra ounce of chuck on the scales. Probably I'd let him in the door because of some vague sense he was a man of Artie's ilk. A short, bald, gentile Arthur Gold. A widower, judging from his clothes, and the long, scant hair combed over his bald head, no one to tell him that was a bad idea. He had none of Artie's cleverness but seemed to carry the same torch. Searching for an honest man and fed up with the whole shmear.
"I know that you were in Mexico," he said. "We have this information. You worked for a painter in Mexico City, a very well-known Red. I can't recall his name, but it's in the files. I came here today to question you about this. In all of this mess, this kind of weather, in North Carolina. I don't even have chains on the tires." He sighed.
"To question me about working for a painter in Mexico?"
"That's about the extent of it. You could deny it, most of them deny. To begin with. But I'll be honest with you, it doesn't usually help."
"Why would I deny it?"
"This information alone is reason for dismissing you from your government post. That's what happens now, if you choose not to deny the associations. In time there may be more. I think you're probably going to get a McFarland letter."
"Who is McFarland?"
"McFarland is nobody. But this letter is bad news, it would contain the actual charges. The higher-ups have intimated they are accumulating some pretty shocking evidence against you."
"I see. Who is supplying this shocking evidence?"
"Mr. Shepherd, be reasonable. You know we can't tell you that. If we allowed all the accused to confront their accusers, we would have no informants left. It would infringe on our ability to investigate."
"Your ability to investigate. That's the important thing."
"Correct. In this day and age, we have a duty to protect the citizen. It's a precarious business. People have no idea, they should be very grateful. You should be grateful, Mr. Shepherd."
"It's a difficult point you make, Mr. Myers. I felt pretty cozy here today, before you came knocking." I got up to put more wood on the fire, a piece of cedar shingle that sent a little shower of sparks onto the floor. I dusted up the ash, no harm done. But I seemed to have gotten up the dander of Myers, as far as it went.
"The mental world of the Communist is secretive," he said. "The Soviet Fatherland has to be preserved at any cost, and its enemies confounded." He seemed to be quoting a handbook, speaking in the general direction of the bookcase. Maybe he was trying to read titles: Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Dreiser, the suspect will alphabetize his books at any cost. Mrs. Brown, largely to blame.
"I wouldn't know," I said. I stayed where I was, feet to the fire. This was some sort of Jacson Mornard who'd arrived at my door, hat in hand, blade beneath the coat. I had let him in, brought the coffee. As Lev always said, you won't see it coming.
He shifted himself around to face me. "The thinking of the Communist is that no one who opposes him can possibly have any merit whatsoever. It's a psychological illness. The Communist cannot adjust himself to logic."
"That's a point of view. But I was thinking of what you said about confronting my accuser. I thought the Constitution gave me the right to know the charges against me. And who was bringing them."
Myers drained his coffee cup and leaned forward with a little grunt to set the cup on the table. We were nearly finished, I could tell.
"Whenever I hear this kind of thing," he said, "a person speaking about constitutional rights, free speech, and so forth, I think, 'How can he be such a sap? Now I can be sure that man is a Red.' A word to the wise, Mr. Shepherd. We just do not hear a real American speaking in that manner."
November 2
Mrs. Brown left early to go to the polls. She says the Elementary down the block would be my voting place, if I could be troubled to use it. I have promised her I'll get my voting card before the next go-round. Meanwhile the neighborhood children are having the day off, out fighting their snow wars, building forts and goggle-eyed men. The one in the next yard looks like Agent Myers, rotund and slump-shouldered, a potato for his nose, peering at my window wearing the old fedora I gave Romulus.
November 3
She came in at nine with the mail and daily papers, all claiming Dewey had won the presidency, in the largest typeface imaginable. Poor Tommy: that toothbrush moustache does loom large, above the fold. But Mrs. Brown's eyes were ablaze. She did a little dance stomping the snow off her boots in the doorway, unwinding her scarf. I haven't seen such fire in her since Mexico.
"You look like you've had the canary for breakfast."
"Here it is, Mr. Shepherd. Dewey hasn't won it. Turn on the radio."
At first the news was about airlifts into Berlin, those desperate people now six months under siege. The American flyers are getting in more food than ever, thousands of tons, and now also coal so the Berliners won't freeze. The interview was an air force man who said next month they plan to drop candy and toys from the planes, with little parachutes. "Those German kiddies will have Santa Claus, whether Joe Stalin wants them to or not," he vowed.
"Mr. Shepherd, how be ye?" she asked suddenly. I must have looked unwell.
I blew my nose to preserve dignity. I'd been close to tears, for the most ridiculous reason. "I was thinking of my old boss, Lev Trotsky," I confessed. "He would have loved that report. The triumph of compassion over Stalin's iron fist. The people prevail, with candy and parachutes."
"It's our boys helping them do it," she said, and I said yes, it is, and wanted to dance with Mrs. Brown, stomp my feet at the doorsill. My country 'tis of thee.
At half past, the election news came back. Truman had been awakened and rolled out of bed in Missouri, informed he might not be on vacation yet. He didn't stay up last night to listen to the returns; the Democratic campaign had not rented a suite or organized any party for that. They saw no need. While Dewey's men popped the champagne in New York, Harry put on his pajamas, ate a ham sandwich, and went to bed early.
Now the race was neck and neck, with many states still counting. By mid-morning it was Harry ahead by a nose. We didn't move from the radio.
Shortly before noon they called it. Harry Truman won.
"Oh, Mr. Shepherd, it's a day to remember. Those news men could not make a thing true just by saying so. It's only living makes life."
I knew what she meant. The cold spell on us is deep, but however bitter the day might appear, winter will pass. I made a fire for us in the living room. A neighbor across the way has torn down his old carriage house and piled the scrap wood by the street.
Mrs. Brown rolled up the Washington Post like a log and waved it high, her eyes alight with mischief. "Here's something to fuel the flames," she suggested. Before long we'd cast in every one, the magazines too, warming our hands over those trumpeting false prophecies. The magazines with color in them curled in a blue-green blaze. By afternoon the house was so warm Mrs. Brown took off her gloves.
"You can't give up," she kept repeating. "You think you know it's all hopeless but you do not, Mr. Shepherd. You know not."
December 10
The United Nations have adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was all on the radio today, and even the howlers achieved a tone of deference. Eighteen articles, establishing every person on earth to be born free and equal, endowed with conscience to act toward every other in a spirit of brotherhood. Maybe Mrs. Brown is right, and we know not where a little raft of hope could carry us. Article 18 states: All persons have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief.
Mr. Harrison W. Shepherd
30 Montford Ave.
Asheville, North Carolina
Date: December 13, 1948
Dear Mr. Shepherd,
The evidence indicates that at certain times since 1930 you have been a close associate of Mr. Deigo Riveira a person or persons who displayed active and sympathetic interest in the Communist Party. We also have evidence that your name has appeared in Life Magazine, Look Magazine, Echo, Star Week, New York Post, Kingsport News, New York Times, Weekly Review, Chicago Times Book Review, Washington Post, National Review, Kansas City Star, Memphis Star, Raleigh Spectator, Library Review, The Daily Worker, Hollywood Week, Asheville Trumpet making statements to the effect that you believe in the overthrow of the United States government.
The foregoing information indicates that you have been and are a member, close affiliate, or sympathetic associate of the Communist Party, and are therefore permanently dismissed from active employment by the federal government. All pension monies and any portion of salaries unpaid as yet, if any, are hereby claimed as property of the U.S. government.
Sincerely,
J. EDGAR HOOVER, DIRECTOR
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
The Raleigh Spectator, December 16, 1948
Communist Writer Fired for Misdeeds
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON, D.C.--Writer Harrison Shepherd, nationally known author of books on the topic of Mexico, was fired this week from federal employment for reasons of un-Americanism. The Asheville man had worked for the Department of State since 1943. His role there remains unclear, but Melvin C. Myers, chief investigator on the case, confirmed it could well have given access to sensitive information. The misdeeds came to light through the massive loyalty investigation of federal employees initiated last year, which has so far identified hundreds of cases of un-Americanism but no espionage. Myers cited this as proof the campaign is working to drive out potential spies that may be hidden in government ranks.
December 18
They seem so thrilled to pounce, these press men. Not before, when I was nobody of consequence, only now. Mrs. Brown says envy plays into it. "There are some who'd hardly lift a finger for kindness, but they would haul up a load of rock to dump on some soul they think's been too lucky. They take it as duty, to equal out life's misery."