We tend to forget what a crucial role railroads played in our society during the 20th century. It was the main source of transportation over long distances for passengers (or medium distances for commuters) and for freight and raw materials. Air travel was still considered a luxury and our highway system was still evolving.

In 1946 the country was crippled from a strike by Railroad workers. Essentially, the entire nation was stranded, and the strike quickly escalated to crisis stage where President Truman addressed the country to declare a national emergency in an effort to bring the warring parties back to the bargaining table.

On May 24th he made a radio address and on May 25th he addressed an emergency session of Congress.

Here is that May 24th address by President Truman from the White House as broadcast over all networks.

Ironically, the strike was settled the next day as Truman addressed Congress. But until then, it was a nail-biter.

It should be remembered that the concept of affordable Healthcare for everyone isn't a new concept. It's history goes back as far as 1909 as an idea hatched by Teddy Roosevelt. It was re-introduced during the FDR years, first as a possible adjunct to Social Security, but shelved temporarily, and was in the midst of being introduced again, when World War 2 broke out in December of 1941. It was again introduced by Harry Truman as a continuation of the legacy of FDR. It was bandied about during the Eisenhower years and it was again introduced in 1962 by President Kennedy.

Here is an address made by JFK at a rally in Madison Square Garden on May 20, 1960. Promoted as Medical Care for the Aged, Kennedy hoped for a plan that would insure decent medical care to those over the age of 65 and those who couldn't afford it. The bill was introduced and shelved, but was re-introduced and finally passed during the Johnson Administration in 1964 as a legacy to President Kennedy.

Here is that complete address.

(Henry Wallace in 1939 - before he was vice-President or Presidential candidate, had the unenviable task of Secretary of Agriculture)

Most everyone interested in Presidential campaigns past is familiar with Henry Wallace, who ran for President on the Progressive ticket in 1948. Prior to that he was a moderately familiar voice as vice-President to FDR in 1940. But in 1939 he was still Secretary of Agriculture, a post appointed by FDR in 1933. It was not a particularly popular place to be, with price controls on cotton and pork and forcing farmers to slaughter pigs and plow under cotton in order to keep prices up. Nonetheless, Wallace did the best with what was handed him and he implemented a number of New Deal programs during his tenure, including the AAA Farm Program and farm subsidies and emerged as one of the best Agriculture Secretaries the country ever had. Here is one of his rare appearances, addressing a Jefferson Day dinner on April 22, 1939.

Henry Wallace: “Problems of Agriculture are not insoluble as long as the machinery is available to farmers to enable them to cope with their problems. Advance indications are that participation in the AAA Farm Program this year will be the greatest it has ever been. Nearly six million farm families, eighty-five percent of all the farm families in the United States will cooperate in 1939 in this program of balanced farming and soil conservation. In the corn and wheat region, the striking increase in interest is evidenced by the fact from fifteen to twenty percent more farmers are taking part this year than last.”

Less than ten years later he would break with the Democratic Party of Harry Truman and forge his own bid for the Presidency. But that's another story.

A day full of strikes and strife.

April 9th 1947 began on an optimistic note as far as the striking Telephone Operators was concerned. A settlement was pending, but it still didn't mean a return to work, not for at least another 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the Coal Miners were gearing up and Mine owners were blaming John L. Lewis for the trouble, saying he would not allow miners back to work until all mines in the country passed safety checks.

In London, the Big Four Conference was being sped up with regards to settling the border question between Poland and Germany, with the Polish frontier under revision. Also in London was former vice-President Henry Wallace, on his way to a number of conferences. He held a press conference where he called for an American move to the Soviet Union as a way of avoiding World War 3. He also advocated a complete revision in Foreign Policy and a curb on Imperialist intentions on the parts of both the West and the Soviet Union.

In Greece, the Army was preparing a sweep of rebel positions. Some 160,000 troops were involved.

David Lilienthal was confirmed as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, ending an 11 week debate over the appointment.

President Truman was taking a wait-and-see approach with the Republican Majority 80th Congress.

Services for Henry Ford were slated for the following day (April 10th). And Frank Sinatra had a date in Court in Los Angeles over an alleged fist fight between him and an over-zealous reporter.

And that's how this day rolled - that, and a lot more via two broadcasts for this April 9th, 1947. The first from the NBC News Roundup and the second from NBC News Of The World Night Edition.

1952 was certainly an interesting election year. Since Harry Truman declined the run for a second term, it blew the playing field wide open for both Republicans and Democrats.

The radio documentary, first aired on June 2, 1952, the day before the California and South Dakota primaries.

What's curious about this primary, the last one until the respective Conventions, it features none of the eventual Presidential candidates on the ballot. The Republicans were voting for California Governor Earl Warren and the Democrats were voting either for Estes Kefauver or a ballot originally intended for Harry Truman. Eisenhower was late in declaring his intentions and there appears to be no word about Adlai Stevenson, both would eventually become their party's Presidential candidate. Which just goes to show you how much the election process has changed over the years.

This half hour broadcast analyzes the upcoming election and features a number of interviews with key members of both parties as well as how the individual voter feels.

There really are no parallels to draw between the '52 election and the '12 election. It seems as though the entire political process has become unrecognizable in the sixty years since.

And maybe that's the problem.

In 1952 the issues surrounding the Presidential election of that year were a bit different, only because we had the all-pervasive Cold War hanging over America's collective head.

But aside from that, not much has changed. In 1952 we were stuck in Korea, an undeclared war that, as of March 1952 had already claimed some 103,000 lives. A Foreign Policy that was woefully short-sighted. Corruption in Government, and an Internal Security System that many felt left us ripe for "enemy takeover".

In 1952 we were hot in the midst of a Cold War and everyone employed by the Government was under suspicion of taking orders from The Kremlin. It was disclosed that over 16,7000 Federal employees were under investigation by the FBI and the list of "undesirables" was growing.

And of course, the argument was this never would have happened if there was a Republican in the White House. All the country's ills were laid solidly at the foot of Harry Truman and his Commie invested Administration on Capitol Hil.

At least that's the way Republican Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois put it. Countering the partisan blast was and Oklahoma Senator Robert Kerr, a Democrat who casually reminded listeners that the Republicans were a notoriously backward thinking party and that their hearts were solidly in the 19th Century (some things never change).

The irony was that Everett Dirksen sought to paint the Republicans as a party of Peace, saying that in the previous 90 years (from 1952 which meant roughly 1870), not one single American had died as the result of war fought during a Republican Administration. Oh. Well, I guess the Spanish-American War of 1898 during Republican William McKinley's tenure wasn't actually a war and the sea battle in Manila Bay which lead to U.S. control over the Philippines had nothing to do with war either. Or the land-grab wars involving all the tribes of our indigenous folk during Republican Ulysses S. Grant's Administration in the 1870's wasn't really considered anything remotely war-like. No. Those must've been peace missions gone awry.

At any rate - the arguments are the same and on this episode of American Forum Of The Air, which was broadcast on March 3, 1952, it makes it abundantly clear Politics and the two party system don't really veer much off course, no matter what. We just don't have Joe Stalin and the Kremlin to deal with anymore - they've been traded in for the Taliban and airport security.

The faces and names change. The rhetoric may be a bit more off-the-wall now than it was in 1952, but then consider what people were used to then and it may be the insanity is the same then as it ever was.

That's what politics and looked and sounded like in 1952.

(Truman - fear was gripping the country and some people liked it that way)

There's a curious comparison to be made with our current state of smear, fear and hate politics and what was going during the Truman Administration. Only then it was under the guise of the Red Scare. Now, it's just partisanship, race baiting, fear, innuendo and character assassination because it can be gotten away with.

But in 1951 the air was pretty thick with paranoia and the McCarthy's of Washington were shot gunning hate at every opportunity. So much so, that President Truman had a few words to say about it at an American Legion building dedication on August 14, 1951.

Pres. Truman: “Character assassination is their stock and trade. Guilt by association is their motto. They have created such a wave of fear and uncertainty that their attacks upon our liberties goes almost unchallenged. Many people are growing frightened – and frightened people don’t protest. Stop and think. Stop and think where this is leading us.”

Funny - he could have said that about an hour ago.

(HR - 2893 - everybody agreed on it . . . well, mostly)

With World War 2 over, the focus was now on domestic issues. The Truman Administration sought to expand on Social Security, update it from its beginnings in 1935. America had changed in ten years and Social Security needed to keep up with the change. Everyone agreed it was a good idea. But what Truman tried to do was finish what FDR had pledged to do - make a National Healthcare plan part of the Social Security system. And that's where things began to slide off the rails.

Paul Sifton (UAW): “The principle provisions of the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Bill is now being marked up by the House Ways and Means Committee, a call for the doubling of the benefits paid to aged persons or their survivors it also calls for bringing in some twenty million persons not now covered including the farmers and the hired farm hands, and by the way the news of the Grange’s attitude is great news, I may say, to the CIO and I’m sure to the AF of L that that oldest farm organization is now raising itself in support of this idea of systematic compulsory coverage in this program. In addition to that, it calls also for establishing temporary and permanent disability benefits as systematic coverage. If there is a justification and there certainly is for unemployment compensation and there is even more justification for disability benefits because it costs more to be idle and sick than it does just to be idle. And that is certainly long overdue.”

It's interesting that during the early incarnation of Social Security, farmers and farm hands weren't considered eligible (one wonders why) for Old Age and Survivors Insurance. Benjamin Kendrick from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was adamant that expanding Social Security was a good idea but any notion of having a National Health Plan meant disaster for the country.

In this segment of the radio series America United, Paul Sifton of the UAW, Representative Andrew Biemiller (D-Wisconsin), Lloyd Halvorsen of The Grange and Kendrik discuss the various aspect of the proposed expansion in 1946.

And sixty four years later . . . .

(Former President Harry Tuman - even out of the White House he was still fighting for Universal Healthcare)

Just how dedicated former President Harry Truman was to the cause of Health Care Reform in this country is easily evidenced by listening to address after address, each year from 1945 through to his last days as President, and beyond that - his message was the same; Health Care was imperative to the millions who couldn't afford it and the millions who were denied it.

This address, given at the annual convention of the American Public Health Association on November 7, 1955, brings that point home again, one more time.

Harry S. Truman: “Ten years ago almost to this very day, on November the 19th Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Five, I sent a special message on Health to the Congress of the United States. This message, I believe, was the first transmitted by a President dealing exclusively with the subject of health. I sent that message to Congress because this great nation was doing so little to safeguard its most precious asset, the health and well-being of its citizens.”

And each time the subject was brought up, a wave of "socialism" sprang up from the Big Insurance and Big Pharma sectors. Since 1945 the reasons not to reform Health Care were the same - the Insurance Industry had deep pockets and the ability to play fear and wage hysteria. And each time the reform was defeated.

And now . . .?

(1947 - People dressed differently back then, even to get a turkey)

Thanksgiving 1947 - two years after the end of World War 2 and a little over 2 years before the beginning of Korea - that mid point in history where the world is at an uneasy calm while pretending to be normal.

Morgan Beatty: “Around the world today, the news reflects a hard discipline upon the people. In London, the Council of Foreign Ministers tries desperately to achieve a basis for peace. But as they worked, these foreign ministers, their government spoke in alien terms, through news events that hardly seem accidental. In France, the Communist controlled Federation of Labor has called out a million and a quarter French workers out of her six million. And not a striking union among them will listen to government proposals to go back to work. The French government has, with dramatic suddenness pointed a finger at Moscow. Not with mere paper charges but by direct action. Nineteen Soviet citizens in France have been deported for taking too active a part in French internal affairs. Today the Soviet government, stung to the quick, demanded that the French government produce the missing nineteen without delay at the Soviet Embassy in Paris. Supposedly that’s quite impossible now, because the nineteen are believed to be in Berlin.”

Thanksgiving sixty-two years ago and the broadcast News Of The World with Morgan Beatty. The world was, for the most part, a different place.

Well, we don't get formal to buy a turkey anyway . . .