March Premium Auction Ending April 3, 5 & 6
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/6/2021
In February of 1952, President Harry Truman’s approval rating was at a record low of 22%. Truman, hoping to gain reelection for a third term (he ascended to the Presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945) put his name on the New Hampshire Primary ballot at the urging of his assistants after failing to convince General Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower to run for the Democratic nomination who rebuked him for the Republican nomination. Truman was soundly defeated by Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee in the New Hampshire Primary and dropped out of the race, with Kefauver being named the running mate to Democratic Presidential hopeful Adlai Stevenson. The Stevenson-Kefauver ticket was defeated in the 1952 election by the Republican ticket of Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.
Presented here is a 7 ¼ x 10 ½ -inch typed letter on official Federal Reserve Bank Building letterhead addressed to a Fred J. “Fritz” Bowman signed by former President Harry S. Truman. Truman, once on cordial terms with Eisenhower, soured on the former General and then-current President after Eisenhower campaigned to fix the mistakes made by Truman. Truman takes a humorous and mocking tone in the letter, mocking Ike’s landslide victory by noting that wherever Eisenhower campaigned, the state went Democrat in other races during the election. Truman believed Ike’s victory to be highly editorialized when it presented a defeat for the Republican party as a whole. Truman went on to state to humorous effect that if that constituted a Republican victory “If that is an endorsement maybe I ought to learn how to play golf and become able to understand these things.” Truman ended the letter by hoping himself and Bowman could visit with each other and sent his regards to Bowman’s wife. Truman signed the typed letter with a steel-tip fountain pen in black ink. The letter features two fold creases and no evidence of toning, edging, or cornering. The signed typed letter comes with an LOA from JSA (BB68797) and an LOA from University Archives (68308).