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Show Baukhage Finds Old Dates Of Interest in Year 1948 By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. WASHINGTON. New Year's day, according to an encyclopedia which I once remember consulting, is celebrated cele-brated in the western world by merrymaking and, theoretically theoret-ically at least, in the meeting of old friends. I remember when we took the Idea of New Year's "calU" seriously. That was back in western New York. I also remember later, when I was a student in Europe, three of us living in the same "pension" (a word which Americans abroad prefer to "boarding house"). We made our calls consecutively so that the one pair of gloves and one silk hat, which we possessed collectively, could serve for all. In that day and place both were essential. Today I have been meeting some1? old "dates of 1948." The first I have to record Is January Jan-uary 8 . . . "Baukhage talking . . . from the radio JSffK 1 gallery of the I ' I nouse of repre- " 1" J$ I sentatives a'11" '"'i it Si j having watched 'yi fthl the opening of the Sjtir I second session of ffflj f ' the historic 80th A congress." Note r the word "histor I lc."Noone guessed then tnat othcr adjectives applied j&sOfc. to that legislative l-tv& body were to help iimiminri cause one of the BAUKHAGE rea "upset" election victories of American history. On January 7 (my birthday) there was "a bright sun shining down on the Capitol but," I broadcast, broad-cast, "the shadows beneath It are deep and dark." On that day the President delivered de-livered his message and the next day the Associated Press aid: "Most of President Truman's Tru-man's 1948 legislative proposals, propos-als, particularly his tax reduction reduc-tion and anti-inflation plana appeared headed today for s congressional waste basket." How true that was and how It helped re-elect him. In his annual an-nual message he Is to present most of them again, more hopefully. hope-fully. January 12 was a cold day in New York which had Just emerged from a blizzard. I was there covering cov-ering the assembly of the United Nations and that day the Palestine commission was preparing its program pro-gram of partition which was to be completed with bayonets and hand-grenades. hand-grenades. , JANUARY 23. At 11:30 a. m. a message came over the news ticker, tick-er, and such a sigh of relief went up from the White House and from both Republican and Democratic headquarters that the trees on Connecticut Con-necticut avenue bent nearly double. dou-ble. "I am not available for and could not accept nomination to high political office." Signed General Dwight D. Eisenhower. JANUARY 30. Gandhi is dead. The priest and prophet of Indian independence was shot to death at his prayer meeting on the lawn of the estate where he lived. MARCH 9. Truman announces his cundidacy; MacArthur renounces re-nounces his. MARCH 10. Jan Masaryk is dead. Much died with that name. From the house radio gallery again on March 17 I report the re-enunciation re-enunciation by the President of what was then called the "Truman Doctrine." MARCH 19. Wallace attacks the President's foreign policy. It was no April Fool's day Jnke when the Russians stopped the trains In Berlin. The next day, April 2, our jounlrr move: Congress passes the European recovery program. pro-gram. The gaygreen of leaf and lawn on this 12th day of April are not enough to dispel Washington's concern con-cern over the revolution in Bogota. (Remember? A Communist-directed affair. Secretary of State Marshall was there.) At 10:30 In the morning of April 19. Justice T. Allen Goldsborouuh ruled John Lewis guilty of crim-x crim-x lnnl contempt. On April 27 come the rumors of war from Palestine. The Moscow newspopers of May II are bought out Ambassador Bedell Smith is conferring with Molotov. The birthday of a state, May It Israel Is born. Dewey wins the primary In Oregon Ore-gon on May 24. Later he won the state. A veteran steps down. Prime Minister Min-ister Smuts of South Africa if defeated de-feated on May 28. Oregon In the news again, tragically. trag-ically. The little town of Vanport it inundated. May 31. Tragedy for a neighbor state on June 10. Secretary of Labor Schwel-lenbach Schwel-lenbach of Washington state dies t the age of 53. Outdoors. Philadelphia was cloudy and gray on June 21. Inside Republican Repub-lican headquarters it was rowdy and gay. Dewey starts his shock and blitx tactics against the field. Correspondents Cor-respondents discuss the mystery of the vacant seats In the gallery. (Did this foreshadow the absence of the Dewey voters from the polls on election day?) The attractive Republican glamour lady, Dare Booth Luct, hurls her barbs In clever speech without revealing that she and her husband are going to plump for Vandenberg later. Television is most unkind to what should have been a most telegenic subject. JUNE 23. A heavy mist hung over the city of brotherly love on the day of the eonventlon's crucial session. I had left the hull at 4 o'clock that morning. We had witnessed a stirring and a pathetic scene when the blind veteran, Harlan Kelly, nominated nomi-nated General MacArthur In a clear, unhesitating voice which held In It the ring of a true devotee. Earlier, there had been the longest demonstration so far, for Taft. Stasscn'a had been the most vigorous. JUNE 24. I was looking over the public opinion polls and mentioned that qualities the voters said they would prefer in a presidential candidate can-didate were those of "the humanitarian, humani-tarian, the protector of the weak, the benevolent guardian of the children, chil-dren, of the common man." Perhaps Per-haps that was a better guide to what the choice was to be than the figures the pollsters provided us. It was late in the evening when candidate Dewey, accepting the nomination, raised his hand and swore that he had made no commitments com-mitments to any man. JUNE 20 The Berlin airlift, which with the Marshall plan achieved the two greatest victories In the cold war, begins. JULY 12. The othcr side: a lethargic le-thargic Democratic convention woke to life with a 28-minute demonstration dem-onstration for keynoter Barkley which "had more real feeling and spontaneity in It," I broadcost at the time, "than anything which even the super-confident Republicans Repub-licans produced. JULY 13. This was a day of the battle of the extremes against the middle. The Negro attacking the Dixiccrats; Southerners begging for a candidate acceptable to the South. So heated were the arguments on the floor that policemen walked into the aisles several times The Democrats' glamour girl had her chance, and Helen Gahagan Douglas, Doug-las, for some reason or other more telegenic than her Republican rival, emerged equally triumphant, forcn-sically. forcn-sically. JULY 14. The President finally is nominated and makes his acceptance accept-ance in the small hours, offering a sample of what was to come forth in the campaign. Many had already left the hall. He called for the special spe-cial turnip day session of congress. "I have run into perhaps four or five people," I commented next day. "who venture the assertion that perhaps he might still win." But everyone else laughs at the thought. The calling of the congress proved good strategy. Thousands of people braved Washington's heat of July 19 to line the long, slow march of the caisson bearing the General of tie Armies, John J. Fcrhlng, o his last rest In Arlington. On the afternoon of Friday, the 13th of August, as we were leaving the White House press and radio conference. Stephanove Kascnkina Jumped from the window of the Soviet consulate in New York City. She lived to become the symbol of the escape which so many human beings, suffocating behind the iron curtain, have sought before and since. AUGUST 18. The diamond's rough-diamond, rough-diamond, beloved Babe Ruth, dies. SEPTEMBER. 17. Tragic end of man who had lived and died for peace. Count Bornadotte. SEPTEMBER 20. A stormy ses-slun ses-slun of the United Nations begins. Its deliberations all but forgotten in the heat of the presidential campaign. cam-paign. NOVEMBER z. The election of a President who nobody believed when he went to bed that night or even In the early hours of the next day had won. NOVEMBER 3. A little before noon In a New York hotel Governor Gover-nor Dewey announced one of the greatest upsets in American political po-litical history when he conceded his defeat and congratulated "the champ." NOVEMBER II. A male heir-presumptive to the British throne Is born. DECEMBER 13. Baukhage returns re-turns from his vacation with lot of lies about the fish ht caught. I hope my readers will understand that the last hectic days of the year have been recorded In the dally press and are fresh In your memories. mem-ories. Hence 1 think they can be safely omitted. |