They presented a revolutionary working-class alternative to the campaigns of the Republican Party, which ran Thomas Dewey, and the Democrats, who put forward incumbent Harry Truman, the eventual winner. Strom Thurmond of the segregationist States’ Rights Democratic Party and Henry Wallace of the Progressive Party were among the other candidates.

Dobbs delivered at least five nationwide speeches over NBC, ABC, CBS, and the Mutual Broadcasting System. The first was broadcast on May 15 under the title, "End Capitalism to Stop War." The candidate declared, "There can be no effective struggle against war unless it is directed towards the elimination of the war-breeding capitalist system."

Two weeks later Dobbs spoke over ABC radio on "Capital and Labor in 1948." He described the ruling-class offensive against the labor movement, exemplified by the growing use of the Taft-Hartley "Slave Labor" Act. Taft-Hartley, still in use today, authorized the federal government to end strikes through court orders. (Truman had vetoed the bill as a demagogic sop to ensure backing by the labor officialdom in the 1948 election. Then, after the act was passed over his veto, Truman invoked it repeatedly against union struggles).

Despite the employers’ attacks, Dobbs explained, the working class has shown it has the capacity to fight. He pointed to the example of the "Bring the Troops Home" movement organized by U.S. troops at the end of World War II, which helped force the U.S. government to retreat from its plans to invade China and crush the Chinese revolution.

The networks also covered the July Socialist Workers Party (SWP) national convention, broadcasting speeches by Dobbs, Carlson, and SWP National Secretary James P. Cannon in six 15-minute slots.

"We stand for full social, political and economic equality for the Negro people and all other minority groups," said Grace Carlson in her speech accepting the vice-presidential nomination. "We are fighting to put an end to the whole shameful system of Jim Crow--to abolish the poll tax; to end discrimination in employment and housing; to put a stop to police brutality and outlaw lynching.

"We are enlisted in the war against Jim Crow for the duration," she said. The speech was aired nationally over ABC.

"Working people need to build their own political party, armed with a program to serve the class interests of the men and women who toil," Dobbs said in a convention speech entitled, "For a Workers and Farmers Government."  
 
Washington steps up witch-hunt
Through the months of the 1948 campaign the government stepped up its anticommunist witch-hunt. The SWP was included on a list of "subversive" organizations. In a speech aired over a Philadelphia radio station, Dobbs demanded the government end the blacklisting of organizations and denounced the arrest and indictment of 12 leaders of the Communist Party under the Smith "Gag" Act.

On another occasion Dobbs debated Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas, opposing his stance of support for the U.S. ruling class’s aggression in World War II--one of 15 radio forums in which he debated candidates from the Socialist Party and the Socialist Labor Party.

The campaign had a big impact at a time when the U.S. government was pressing hard to weaken the unions and undercut workers’ rights, and preparing to step up its military aggression abroad. During that year, the United Mine Workers refused to bow to a government order to end a strike.

Following Dobbs’s May 15 speech announcing his campaign, letters from listeners across the country poured into the Militant requesting copies of the speech and information about the campaign.

The socialist candidates addressed workers at every stop of their campaign tours. Carlson spoke to more than 200 members of the United Auto Workers at a union meeting of Ford workers in Detroit. Dobbs returned to Minneapolis to speak to leaders of Teamsters Local 544--Dobbs had been a central leader of hard-fought battles and organizing drives led by that Teamsters local in the 1930s.

When workers at a Westinghouse plant in Philadelphia staged a sit-down strike over the firing of two union militants--deemed "poor security risks" by the Navy--Carlson and Dobbs both visited them.

The presidential candidate addressed the striking workers at the factory gates. Campaign manager George Clarke described the scene in an October issue of the Militant. Like Carlson’s visit, he wrote, "It was another rip-roaring meeting.... More than a thousand were listening in the street, sitting on the steps leading up to the plant, and leaning out of the window."
 
 
Related articles:
Socialists defend right to campaign in elections
No ‘equal time’ in coverage of working-class campaigns  
 
 
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