April 19, 1951: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur speaks before a Joint Session of the Congress of the United States.
Eight days earlier, President Harry S Truman had fired him as Supreme Commander of United Nations forces in the Korean War. MacArthur's offense: Insubordination. Truman had given him orders not to further engage the Chinese forces in Korea. MacArthur had sent a letter to Representative Joseph W. Martin of Massachusetts, the Republican Party's leader in the U.S. House of Representatives -- he had been Speaker in the 1947-48 session, and would be again in that of 1953-54 -- objecting to Truman's orders.
Had Martin not mentioned this letter to the media of the time, MacArthur probably would have gotten away with it. But Truman was incensed, and decided to give MacArthur, a 5-star General and perhaps the most popular living military man in America, a lesson that every American needs to learn: One of the guiding principles of the country is civilian control of the military.
But America did not accept this at first. MacArthur returned home, and was treated as a hero. The City of New York gave him the biggest ticker-tape parade in its history, breaking the record set for Charles Lindbergh in 1927, and lasting until the Mets won the 1969 World Series.
Martin talked his opposite number in the Democratic Party, Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas, into letting MacArthur speak before a Joint Session of Congress on April 19. There was nothing Truman could do: He did not control Congress, and had already sent Mac into forced retirement. (Mac shouldn't still have been on active duty, anyway: He was 71 years old.)
He reminisced about his time as a young soldier, and quoted "one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day, which proclaimed, most proudly, that 'Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.' And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty, as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good Bye."
For the record, the line is, "Old soldiers never die, they simply fade away."
MacArthur was more popular than ever, and people began to speculate that he would run for the Republican Party's nomination for President in 1952 -- and that he would win, easily.
He refused to campaign for that nomination, figuring he didn't need to work for it, because a popular groundswell would lead to his nomination. He was wrong: It was the man he had once called "the best clerk I ever had," Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was nominated due to a popular groundswell, the closest thing to a "draft" any Presidential candidate has ever had.
Truman could have run for what would have amounted to a 3rd term -- due to the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution having been ratified a few weeks earlier, he was the last President who could have done so -- but chose not to. He would have lost badly, as Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, who turned out to be the Democratic nominee, did.
MacArthur lived until 1964. By that point, Truman's reputation, in the dumps when he left office, had recovered. He lived until 1972.
*
April 19, 1951 was a Thursday. There were 4 baseball games played that day:
* A doubleheader was split at Braves Field in Boston. The New York Giants won the opener, 4-2. Jim Hearn outpitched Warren Spahn. The Boston Braves won the nightcap, 13-12. Earl Torgeson singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning. Willie Mays made his major league debut for the Giants, 36 days later.
* The Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Paul Minner pitched a 7-hit shutout.
* And the Chicago White Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 13-5 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.
Football was out of season. The NBA Finals were in progress, but did not play that night. The Rochester Royals went on to beat the New York Knicks in Game 7.
Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals was played at the Montreal Forum. Harry Watson scored at 5:15 of overtime, and the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2. Two days later, Bill Barilko's overtime goal gave the Leafs Game 5 and the Cup. This remains the only time that every game of the Stanley Cup Finals went to overtime.
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