Truman and the “Turnip Day” Massacre

     Back in 1948 Harry Truman was matching wits with a GOP Congress determined to deep six every proposal offered by the president, including civil rights, education funding, the extension of Social Security, and, yes, health care reform.  The Republicans had the clever idea that if they caused government to look dysfunctional, they could blame Truman and win a victory at the polls.

     Despite their unwillingness to pass anything, Republicans boasted that if their party was in the White House they would correct all the problems facing the nation. Harry called their bluff during his speech to the Democratic National Convention.  The address was all the more memorable because it was delivered in a sweltering, non-air-conditioned hall at 1:45 a.m. to a dispirited convention that had been disrupted by a walk out of the Dixicrats and the quibbling of party progressives.

     Truman called for a two-week special session of Congress beginning on July 25 to handle the unfinished business that the Congress had refused to deal with before their summer adjournment.  The President explained that the session would begin on “what we in Missouri call Turnip Day, taken from the old Missouri saying, ‘on the twenty-fifth of July, sow your turnips, wet or dry.’”  Harry offered Republican lawmaker the chance to pass everything they were talking about on the stump.

     But Republicans that year were not interested in fixing what was wrong in the country, they wanted only one thing: Harry’s head.  Sen. Robert Taft (R-Ohio) declared defiantly, “We’re not going to give that fellow anything” and proceeded to block everything during the session, thus giving Truman the opportunity to run against the “Do-nothing Eightieth Congress.”

     Harry blistered the GOP that year, telling the voters: “Congress never did anything …but they tried to sabotage everything.  And if you people stay home this time like you did in 1946, you’ll get just what you deserve.”

     The 1948 Turnip Day Session showed the GOP foot-draggers in all their ugliness and today we are seeing the same destructive political display again.   I’m thinking this might be the Year of the Turnip for congressional Republicans.  They have denied, delayed, and divided the country with reckless abandon for far too long.

     If history repeats itself, as it oft times does, Republicans will most certainly face another astounding and much deserved whomping at the polls.

Image credit: Smithsonian Magazine