The 1952 Presidential Election

by Gary A. Donaldson

GARY A. DONALDSON teaches at Xavier University in New Orleans, where he is Associate Professor of History.

146 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2014

About the author

A specialist in 20th century American history, Gary Donaldson is Keller Family Foundation Chair in American History at Xavier University of Louisiana.

Reviews

[Frank Duke · Rating 1 out of 5]

A badly written and poorly researched book filled with grammatical errors that would not have been passed in my college English classes. In addition, the author's political biases are readily apparent; on page 55 he dismisses Truman's support for civil rights in 1948 as "politically expedient," ignoring Truman's 1940 speech in which he said: “I believe in the brotherhood of man, not merely the brotherhood of white men, but the brotherhood of all men before law." Another example is on page 71 where the author states President Truman fired Douglas MacArthur because of a disagreement when the facts clearly show MacArthur was fired because he defied a direct, legal order in violation of Article 15 of the Code of Miliary Justice, which sets the penalty for such action as court martial and dishonorable discharge. The book is filled with inconsistencies. For example, on page 51, Donaldson writes "Outside of Tennessee, he {Senator Estes Kefauver} had very little name recognition" only to say on the following page that Kefauver "had a national household name." Both statements simply cannot be true as they contradict one another. Similarly, on page 62 Professor Donaldson writes that "throughout both his [1952 and 1956], he [Stevenson] was an outspoken supporter of the 1954 Brown decision"; how could anyone be a supporter in 1952 of a Supreme Court decision not issued until 1954? Perhaps most troubling are the blatant errors in the book (naming, on page 64, Mississippi Senator James Eastland as Strom Thurmand's running mate in 1948 when the actual man running with Thurmond's actual running mate was Mississippi Governor Fielding Wright). This book is a waste of time and paper.