Iowa Almanac
Iowa Almanac -- Wednesday, September 18, 2024
A president comes back to the heartland. More from the Iowa Almanac in a moment. Every detail matters when building a winning game plan. That's why the cyclones and Hawkeyes rely on better, cleaner now biodiesel to power their team buses on game day. Delivering success on the field, in the field, and in the environment. Make biodiesel part of your winning game plan by visiting iasoybeans.com. Biodiesel, grow it, request it, use it. This message brought to you by the Iowa Soybean Association and the Soybean Check-Off. I'll come back anytime you ask me, especially when I met by 10 acres of people, now you figure out how many that is. As it turns out, about 100,000 people filled the 10 acre area around the stage to hear President Harry S Truman on September 18, 1948. The scene was the annual national plowing matches held that year near Dexter, Iowa. Truman was in a tough election fight, and many presumed Republican Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York would win. Truman toured the country by train in a whistle stop campaign, taking on the Republican-led 80th Congress, which he dubbed the "Do Nothing" Congress. During his appearance in Iowa, the president took a jab at the opposition party. He first noted that times had changed greatly in agriculture from when he worked in the fields as a boy, now machines automatically did what a man and a horse used to do. I don't want to turn the clock back. I don't want to go back to that harsh and buggy idea, although some of our Republican friends do. In one of history's great political comebacks on November 2, Truman won election for a full term as president against three major challengers, including Iowa's Henry A. Wallace. Truman wound up carrying the state of Iowa in that 1948 election, no doubt in part due to when the president spoke to 100,000 people at the national plowing matches in Dexter on this state in 1948. And that's Iowa Almanac for September 18. There's more online at IowaAlmanac.com. Until tomorrow, I'm Jeff Stein.