Dewey Defeats Truman Read Online Free

was
Raintree County
he’d really been after. He was already two hundred pages into it, certain he would find the passage—the key, or at least the clue—that told you why the author, just thirty-three, had decided, right after his book came out, to kill himself.
    B Y NINE-THIRTY IT WAS ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTING , AND Anne wished that were over, too. Senator Taft had conceded hours ago, and Stassen and Vandenberg (a truer favorite son of Michigan than Dewey, if truth were told) had both given up. Dewey had had his third-ballot victory and was now on his way to the convention arena, all of which the loudspeakerson the steps of City Hall, broadcasting NBC radio’s live coverage from Philadelphia, had made deafeningly clear. The crowd of several hundred Owossoans filling the rows of picnic tables at the intersection of Main and Water Streets was in a good, partisan humor, though there were exceptions, like Jack Riley on Anne’s right, who had exchanged barely a word with Peter Cox, on her left. They’d long since gone through their seventy-five-cent allotment of beer and ham sandwiches, and Anne was depending on the Fellers—Peter’s boss, Harold, and his wife Carol—to keep things civil until the governor could make his acceptance speech.
    “You know,” said Harold Feller, “I can remember the day in 1924 they laid the cornerstone for that building. I was twenty-three. I still think it’s a handsome pile, don’t you, Anne?” He pointed to City Hall behind him. Anne smiled and nodded. She liked his blend of pride and self-deprecation. He and his wife had a nice commonsensical ease to them. They were the local gentry, which meant more than it would have in Darien, where everyone was gentry more or less, but there was nothing puffed-up about them. Peter Cox was lucky to have found such a man, even if Harold Feller’s law office were no more than a rest stop on his way to the governor’s mansion or wherever else Peter was certain the road would lead.
    “I call it the Greco-Wolverine style,” said Carol Feller, a pretty brunette, a little Myrna Loy–ish, who was laughing at herself for making this joke, which she’d clearly been making for years, about City Hall’s combination of classical columns and simple yellow bricks.
    “Nothing wrong with little stretches toward grandeur,” said her husband. “And speaking of those, Anne, have youever seen the Dewey birthplace? Look down a block. See the appliance store? The apartment above it is where he actually came into the world. The big place on Oliver came later. By the way, where is Mama Dewey tonight? Does anyone know?”
    “At
home
,” grumped Horace Sinclair, who had taken a seat beside Carol Feller, after she’d spotted him puffing through the crowd on his walking stick and insisted he join them. “Where
I
ought to be.”
    “Oh, stick around, Colonel. We need you for some historical perspective,” implored Peter, with a politician’s flattery: the “colonel” was a nice touch, Anne thought.
    “You mean I’m an old crock,” said Horace Sinclair. “And so I am. And I can give you a little perspective on the young Tom Dewey, for what it’s worth. Not a particularly pleasant boy. A bit too much confidence and a bit too quick with his fists—don’t let that dainty little mustache fool you. A fast-buck operator, too. Used to charge his mother a quarter to mow her lawn.”
    The Fellers laughed, and said, more or less together: “Billy.”
    “Who’s Billy?” asked Peter.
    “Our daughter’s ardent suitor,” Carol explained. “I’m sure you’ll see him before the evening is over, selling souvenirs or peanuts.”
    “Or campaign buttons for our next President,” said Peter, who reached around Anne—managing to brush her back on the way—and clapped Jack Riley on the shoulder. “Cheer up, Jack. You’ve still got Harry for another six months. And it could have been worse. We could have nominated Taft.”
    “What makes you so sure I’m for