March 28, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1948 President Harry Truman decided to attend a plowing match in the small town of Dexter, Iowa. It turned out to be an event that would help re-elect him to the Presidency.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories, and up next
the story about when our thirty third president made an
all important visit to a small town in Iowa. He's
our own Monty Montgomery with a story.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Dexter, Iowa is a small town with a lot of heart,
and even though its population has never exceeded a thousand people,
there's a lot of history. Barrow the Barrow Gang had
a famous shootout there. They hosted an amusement park at
one point, and it was also once a presidential campaign stop,
the presidential campaign stop for that election cycle. Here's Rod
(00:52):
Stanley with more on that.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
September nineteen forty eight, President Truman came to Dexter Island
for the National Plowing Match. And then it was a
big deal. The National Plowing Match was a big, big deal.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
But what exactly is a plowing match? Roughly put, it's
a competition to see who's the best farmer.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
They judged him on I mean they judged them on
different things. They brought their tractors and their plows, and
there were judges that judged how well you plowed the field,
how straight it was, how open it was, and they
had some other like conservation like making a pond. They
made a pond on my uncle's farm. They blew up
and they're using dynamite and they blew up land. They
(01:40):
made a waterway to drain water off and stuff. This
was a statewide thing, so it was a national thing too.
So there you had lots of people coming in from
like there was an airport south of Dexter, southwest of Dexter,
and that day like one hundred and twenty airplanes landed
and brought bringing people in. They estimated the crowd between
(02:02):
seventy five and one hundred thousand.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
But how did President Truman even get involved in this
whole thing. It boils down to the drive of a
radio personality, Truman's opponent, and like a lot of things
in politics, whole numbers.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
The guy he was running against was a fellow by
the name of Thomas Dewey from New York.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
And Thomas Dewey was so far ahead in the polls.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Her plan Beck, famous who farm personality, was in charge
of organizing this whole thing. And her Plan Beck called
or went and talked to Thomas Dewey and ask him,
do you want to be the headliner out here in
Dexter and talk to these people, and Dewey said, in
(02:47):
so many words, I'm pretty doing pretty well in the polls.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
I don't think I.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Need to come out to Iowa and to talk to
these people. So her plan Beck then called up and
scheduled a meeting with Truman. And normally they're on a
limited time basis when they when they talk to the
president so on. But they made an appointment they talked
to Truman and actually went over the time limit because
(03:14):
Truman liked talking.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
I mean, Truman was a he was one of those.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Guys that liked to talk to and he was a
former farmer too, I mean as far as he was
a farming occupation before he got into politics. And he said, well, boys,
he said, I would really like to come out and
to do that.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
But he says, I don't think the Secret.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Service will allow me to do what I want to do,
and that's to go out and mingle and talk to
people and so on. And so when her plan back
left that meeting, he thought, well, guysh I don't think
I don't think Truman's going to come either, And so
it kind of set that way until like three weeks
before the event, and the White House calls her plan
(03:55):
back up and says, Truman's coming.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Through a whole big ranch.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Because they had to make sure that, you know, the
security had to be better, and there's a lot of
things they had to do to prepare for the president.
Truman started over in eastern Iowa, in Davenport on.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
The Rock Island railroad line, the one that.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Runs through Dexter and goes across the state. And he
gave a speech there early in the morning, and then
he gave a speech at Oxford, Iowa, I believe, and
then a speech in Grenelle, and a speech in des Moines.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Never in the world were the farmers of any republic
or any kingdom or any other country as prosperous as
the farmers of.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
The United States.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Nf they don't do their duty by the Democratic Party,
they're the most ungrateful people in the world.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
But those were just preliminaries.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
And he actually I believe, picked up his wife Bess
and his daughter Margaret in des Moines and they rode
the train out to Dexter.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
The band Dexter Band was there to meet Truman. I believe.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
They played the Missouri Waltz for him when they when
he arrived at the Deepot in Dexter. They had brought
his cadillac, his Robin Egg blue Cadillac out according to
my uncle Dean Styles, about three days before, and everybody
was wondering what the heck was that was going on
bringing that blue cadillac out here. And eventually they figured
it out that it was the president and he was
(05:21):
going to be stopping and going out to the plowing match.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
But he he.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Was concerned, still concerned about the Secret Service blocking his style,
but he came anyway. The people said that we're sitting
with Truman. When Truman saw the crowd, When Truman saw
how big the crowd was, he said his he had
a smile from ear to ear.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
He was just loving it.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
He was saying, this is this is going to give
me an opportunity to really to get my camp. I'm
so far behind it can't hurt. It's going to give
me a chance to hammer home my points. The majority
of these farmers that attendant were of the Republican persuasion,
but he got thirteen ovations that day, and he really
(06:03):
hammered on the Republicans to do to do nothings. He
called them to do nothing, congers. It was his first
major campaign speech of the nineteen forty eight election. He
used this type of campaign, the whistle stop, using the
train traveling around, stop and talk in small towns to
(06:25):
people to actually turn the tide. It's interesting when Thomas
Dewey found out one hundred people, one hundred thousand people
showed up in Dexter, Iowa, he got a little nervous
and he actually got the Republicans in Iowa to have
a campaign thing for him in Des Moines and they
actually got like fifteen thousand people to hear Thomas Dewey
(06:49):
give a speech, which which was a pretty good crowd.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
But nothing like Truman. But anyway, when Truman was here,
he ate lunch.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
We have stuff in the museum the tablecloth actually that
that was on the table that he ate off of.
But anyway, he ate lunch out there. He had fried
chicken dinner, mashed potatoes and corn and relish tray and
all apple pie or they had different kinds of pie.
And then he went out on a He went out
on a wagon to look at some of the projects,
(07:19):
the conservation projects that they were.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Doing that day.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
It wasn't only a plowing contest. But there was some
like they were making a pond, and they were making waterways,
and they were doing some other stuff, a conservation things that.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Out there on that in that area as well.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
But anyway, that he went out and and he was
on the back of a hay wagon, and of course
the Secret Service was with him, and they were they
were cruising along, and the Secret Service looked around and
Truman wasn't on the wagon anymore, and he had jumped
off the wagon and he was heading down to where
they were making this pond. And we called it Walker's pond.
Back when I was growing up, I was on Howard
(07:55):
Walker's property. It was Piper property back and then. But anyway,
so those people that we're on the bulldozers had actually
been told by the Secret Service earlier that if Truman
came down there to turn off the bulldozers and you know,
just sit on the bulldozers and so if the President
comes over and wants to ask.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
You questions and that kind of thing, and so that's
what they did.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
They saw it, they saw this guy coming down, they
figured it was Truman or some of them recognized him.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
So they turned their bulldozers.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Off and Truman got down there was just chatting with him,
like you know, like you normally to chat with people.
And he said, well, why did you turn off your bulldozers?
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Four ye I mean, you guys got work to do.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And he said, well, we were told by the Secret
Service to do that. And Truman said, well, he says,
the next time they ask you to do that, you
tell those sobs that you aren't.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Going to do that, and you just keep right on working.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
You know, he got everybody got a big laugh out
of that. And of course the Secret Service gets down
there and puts him back on the wagon and away
they go. But that was Truman, but he did get
to talk to some of the people out there.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
But like I said, this.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Was a huge boost to his his It turned the
tide as far as his his election, and he was
really the only one in the articles I read, he
was the only one. Even his wife had given up.
He was so far behind that he's going to lose.
And she said we need to start packing things up
to get back to Missouri and and live in Independence.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Where our house there.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
And Truman's eyes, he doesn't want to give up yet
and he h election came in November and he was
listening to it, and he was holding his own and
in it, and and Dewey wasn't blowing him away. And
he goes to bed thinking that probably the next morning
that you know, that maybe I won't be president. But
he he was kind of had a quiet confidence. He
(09:37):
thought he thought he was going to win. And the
next morning the results are are rolling in and Truman's winning,
and he's gonna he's gonna end up winning the election.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
And it was a huge, huge upset. I mean, there
was no way that he was supposed to win.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
But they say that win all started right here in
the one horse town of Dexter, Iowa, and in September
forty eight.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And a great job is always on the production and
the storytelling by Monty Montgomery and a special thanks to
Rod Stanley of the Dexter Museum in Dexter, Iowa. Dexter
is a one light town and the small museum is
right off the main street running through it. If you're
in the neighborhood, I'll drop by and take a visit.
We love visiting these really small small towns and telling
(10:24):
stories about them. And the National Plowing Match of nineteen
forty eight helps propel Truman to victory, The story of
Dexter and Harry Truman's campaign victory. Here on our American Stories.
And we returned to our American stories, and up next
the story about when our thirty third president made an
all important visit to a small town in Iowa. He's
our own Monty Montgomery with a story.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Dexter, Iowa is a small town with a lot of heart,
and even though its population has never exceeded a thousand people,
there's a lot of history. Barrow the Barrow Gang had
a famous shootout there. They hosted an amusement park at
one point, and it was also once a presidential campaign stop,
the presidential campaign stop for that election cycle. Here's Rod
(00:52):
Stanley with more on that.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
September nineteen forty eight, President Truman came to Dexter Island
for the National Plowing Match. And then it was a
big deal. The National Plowing Match was a big, big deal.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
But what exactly is a plowing match? Roughly put, it's
a competition to see who's the best farmer.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
They judged him on I mean they judged them on
different things. They brought their tractors and their plows, and
there were judges that judged how well you plowed the field,
how straight it was, how open it was, and they
had some other like conservation like making a pond. They
made a pond on my uncle's farm. They blew up
and they're using dynamite and they blew up land. They
(01:40):
made a waterway to drain water off and stuff. This
was a statewide thing, so it was a national thing too.
So there you had lots of people coming in from
like there was an airport south of Dexter, southwest of Dexter,
and that day like one hundred and twenty airplanes landed
and brought bringing people in. They estimated the crowd between
(02:02):
seventy five and one hundred thousand.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
But how did President Truman even get involved in this
whole thing. It boils down to the drive of a
radio personality, Truman's opponent, and like a lot of things
in politics, whole numbers.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
The guy he was running against was a fellow by
the name of Thomas Dewey from New York.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
And Thomas Dewey was so far ahead in the polls.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Her plan Beck, famous who farm personality, was in charge
of organizing this whole thing. And her Plan Beck called
or went and talked to Thomas Dewey and ask him,
do you want to be the headliner out here in
Dexter and talk to these people, and Dewey said, in
(02:47):
so many words, I'm pretty doing pretty well in the polls.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
I don't think I.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Need to come out to Iowa and to talk to
these people. So her plan Beck then called up and
scheduled a meeting with Truman. And normally they're on a
limited time basis when they when they talk to the
president so on. But they made an appointment they talked
to Truman and actually went over the time limit because
(03:14):
Truman liked talking.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
I mean, Truman was a he was one of those.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Guys that liked to talk to and he was a
former farmer too, I mean as far as he was
a farming occupation before he got into politics. And he said, well, boys,
he said, I would really like to come out and
to do that.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
But he says, I don't think the Secret.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Service will allow me to do what I want to do,
and that's to go out and mingle and talk to
people and so on. And so when her plan back
left that meeting, he thought, well, guysh I don't think
I don't think Truman's going to come either, And so
it kind of set that way until like three weeks
before the event, and the White House calls her plan
(03:55):
back up and says, Truman's coming.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Through a whole big ranch.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Because they had to make sure that, you know, the
security had to be better, and there's a lot of
things they had to do to prepare for the president.
Truman started over in eastern Iowa, in Davenport on.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
The Rock Island railroad line, the one that.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Runs through Dexter and goes across the state. And he
gave a speech there early in the morning, and then
he gave a speech at Oxford, Iowa, I believe, and
then a speech in Grenelle, and a speech in des Moines.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Never in the world were the farmers of any republic
or any kingdom or any other country as prosperous as
the farmers of.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
The United States.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Nf they don't do their duty by the Democratic Party,
they're the most ungrateful people in the world.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
But those were just preliminaries.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
And he actually I believe, picked up his wife Bess
and his daughter Margaret in des Moines and they rode
the train out to Dexter.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
The band Dexter Band was there to meet Truman. I believe.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
They played the Missouri Waltz for him when they when
he arrived at the Deepot in Dexter. They had brought
his cadillac, his Robin Egg blue Cadillac out according to
my uncle Dean Styles, about three days before, and everybody
was wondering what the heck was that was going on
bringing that blue cadillac out here. And eventually they figured
it out that it was the president and he was
(05:21):
going to be stopping and going out to the plowing match.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
But he he.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Was concerned, still concerned about the Secret Service blocking his style,
but he came anyway. The people said that we're sitting
with Truman. When Truman saw the crowd, When Truman saw
how big the crowd was, he said his he had
a smile from ear to ear.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
He was just loving it.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
He was saying, this is this is going to give
me an opportunity to really to get my camp. I'm
so far behind it can't hurt. It's going to give
me a chance to hammer home my points. The majority
of these farmers that attendant were of the Republican persuasion,
but he got thirteen ovations that day, and he really
(06:03):
hammered on the Republicans to do to do nothings. He
called them to do nothing, congers. It was his first
major campaign speech of the nineteen forty eight election. He
used this type of campaign, the whistle stop, using the
train traveling around, stop and talk in small towns to
(06:25):
people to actually turn the tide. It's interesting when Thomas
Dewey found out one hundred people, one hundred thousand people
showed up in Dexter, Iowa, he got a little nervous
and he actually got the Republicans in Iowa to have
a campaign thing for him in Des Moines and they
actually got like fifteen thousand people to hear Thomas Dewey
(06:49):
give a speech, which which was a pretty good crowd.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
But nothing like Truman. But anyway, when Truman was here,
he ate lunch.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
We have stuff in the museum the tablecloth actually that
that was on the table that he ate off of.
But anyway, he ate lunch out there. He had fried
chicken dinner, mashed potatoes and corn and relish tray and
all apple pie or they had different kinds of pie.
And then he went out on a He went out
on a wagon to look at some of the projects,
(07:19):
the conservation projects that they were.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Doing that day.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
It wasn't only a plowing contest. But there was some
like they were making a pond, and they were making waterways,
and they were doing some other stuff, a conservation things that.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Out there on that in that area as well.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
But anyway, that he went out and and he was
on the back of a hay wagon, and of course
the Secret Service was with him, and they were they
were cruising along, and the Secret Service looked around and
Truman wasn't on the wagon anymore, and he had jumped
off the wagon and he was heading down to where
they were making this pond. And we called it Walker's pond.
Back when I was growing up, I was on Howard
(07:55):
Walker's property. It was Piper property back and then. But anyway,
so those people that we're on the bulldozers had actually
been told by the Secret Service earlier that if Truman
came down there to turn off the bulldozers and you know,
just sit on the bulldozers and so if the President
comes over and wants to ask.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
You questions and that kind of thing, and so that's
what they did.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
They saw it, they saw this guy coming down, they
figured it was Truman or some of them recognized him.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
So they turned their bulldozers.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Off and Truman got down there was just chatting with him,
like you know, like you normally to chat with people.
And he said, well, why did you turn off your bulldozers?
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Four ye I mean, you guys got work to do.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And he said, well, we were told by the Secret
Service to do that. And Truman said, well, he says,
the next time they ask you to do that, you
tell those sobs that you aren't.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Going to do that, and you just keep right on working.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
You know, he got everybody got a big laugh out
of that. And of course the Secret Service gets down
there and puts him back on the wagon and away
they go. But that was Truman, but he did get
to talk to some of the people out there.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
But like I said, this.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Was a huge boost to his his It turned the
tide as far as his his election, and he was
really the only one in the articles I read, he
was the only one. Even his wife had given up.
He was so far behind that he's going to lose.
And she said we need to start packing things up
to get back to Missouri and and live in Independence.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Where our house there.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
And Truman's eyes, he doesn't want to give up yet
and he h election came in November and he was
listening to it, and he was holding his own and
in it, and and Dewey wasn't blowing him away. And
he goes to bed thinking that probably the next morning
that you know, that maybe I won't be president. But
he he was kind of had a quiet confidence. He
(09:37):
thought he thought he was going to win. And the
next morning the results are are rolling in and Truman's winning,
and he's gonna he's gonna end up winning the election.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
And it was a huge, huge upset. I mean, there
was no way that he was supposed to win.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
But they say that win all started right here in
the one horse town of Dexter, Iowa, and in September
forty eight.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And a great job is always on the production and
the storytelling by Monty Montgomery and a special thanks to
Rod Stanley of the Dexter Museum in Dexter, Iowa. Dexter
is a one light town and the small museum is
right off the main street running through it. If you're
in the neighborhood, I'll drop by and take a visit.
We love visiting these really small small towns and telling
(10:24):
stories about them. And the National Plowing Match of nineteen
forty eight helps propel Truman to victory, The story of
Dexter and Harry Truman's campaign victory. Here on our American Stories.
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