Harry S. Truman: Inaugural Address

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Truman’s Inaugural Address highlights his decision to avoid contentious domestic issues and instead concentrate on foreign affairs. He had faced a close reelection campaign in 1948. At the Democratic National Convention, southern delegates had walked out in protest over Truman’s civil rights policies, forming a third party—the Dixiecrats—championed by South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond. The Democratic Party was split by Thurmond’s Dixiecrats and a left-wing grouping, the Progressive Party, led by Henry Wallace. Many pundits predicted that Republican Thomas E. Dewey would defeat Truman. However, Truman ran a spirited campaign and won with 49.6 percent of the vote to Dewey's 45.1 percent, while Thurmond and Wallace each received 2.4 percent of the vote. In preparing for the Inaugural Address, Truman and his advisers hoped to unify the country by emphasizing the consensus that existed on foreign policy. The resultant speech was a mixture of broad ideological themes and an overview of specific policy efforts.

The president begins by discussing U.S. global leadership. Truman argues that other nations looked to the United States for leadership because the nation had been founded on principles of freedom, equality, and opportunity. However, the United States was opposed by a system that was its direct opposite, Communism. He describes Communism as a “false philosophy” that promised equality and freedom but provided only “deceit and mockery, poverty and tyranny.”

Truman discusses four major policy areas for his administration over the next four years. First, he notes that the United States would endeavor to strengthen the United Nations and increase the capabilities of that world body. Second, Truman tells Americans that his administration would continue to support “world economic recovery,” which included the Marshall Plan as well as efforts to remove trade barriers around the globe. Third, the United States would endeavor to develop a system of collective defense agreements to deter aggression and contain Soviet expansion. He mentions efforts to form an alliance in the Atlantic region (which would culminate in the creation of NATO, the first permanent peacetime military alliance in U.S. history) and the 1947 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, also known as the Rio Treaty. Fourth and finally, Truman calls for a new antipoverty program to share technological assistance and enhance both industrial and agricultural protection among less-developed countries. Truman declares that “old imperialism—exploitation for foreign profit—has no place in our plans”; instead, the United States sought to enhance the economic capabilities of other countries to help humanity, deter Communism, and bolster trade and investment opportunities for Americans.

While the first three of Truman's four policy recommendations were well established, the fourth point on technical assistance was a new concept initially developed by Benjamin H. Hardy, a press officer in the State Department who had argued strongly for its inclusion in the address. The initiative would become the Point Four Program (a reference to the Inaugural Address). Congress approved the Point Four Program in 1950 and authorized $35 million to provide technical aid to such countries as Brazil, Indonesia, and Iran. The program was the forerunner of the Peace Corps.