Editor’s note: last in a series.
Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver garnered national attention with his willingness to take on the most powerful. He counted among his targets: organized crime with Tennessee’s own Boss Crump; the wealthiest entities “preying on the common man,” including the pharmaceutical industry and its alliance with the American Medical Association; the political leaders who chose to continue the disenfranchisement of the poorest with the poll tax; and those who sang the praises of veterans but voted against the GI Bill.
When Crump labeled Kefauver as nothing more than as a “furtive raccoon,” Kefauver donned a coonskin hat and announced that he was certainly not Crump’s “pet coon.” He was instead an independent elected official representing the people of his state and the nation.
President Harry S. Truman had been elevated to the presidency by the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt only 82 days after the latter’s fourth inauguration, reelected on his own merit in a somewhat surprising vote in 1948, and was considering a 1952 run. Under the terms of the recently passed 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Truman could stand for reelection for a second term, but would he?
A February 1952 Gallop poll showed President Truman with only a 36% preference by Democrats and Sen. Kefauver as a close party rival with the preference of independents.