when the order was mentioned at all, it was usually carried without
comment, and the few columnists who treated the subject did so with
some caution. Arthur Krock's "Reform Attempts Aid Southern Extremists"
in the New York _Times_, for example, lauded the President's civil
rights initiatives but warned that any attempt to force social
integration would only strengthen demagogues at the expense of
moderate politicians.[13-5]

[Footnote 13-4: Chicago _Defender_, August 21, 1948.]

[Footnote 13-5: New York _Times_, September 12, 1948.]

If the President's wooing of the black voter was good election
politics, his executive order was also a successful practical response
to the threat of civil disobedience and the failure of the Secretary
of Defense to strive actively for racial equality throughout the
services. Declaring the President's action a substantial gain, A.
Philip Randolph canceled the call for a boycott of the draft, leaving
only a small number of diehards to continue the now insignificant
effort. The black leaders who had participated in Secretary
Forrestal's National Defense Conference gave the President their full
support, and Donald S. Dawson, administrative assistant to the
President, was able to assure Truman that the black press, now
completely behind the committee on equal treatment and opportunity,
had abandoned its vigorous campaign against the Army's racial
policy.[13-6]

[Footnote 13-6: Memo, Donald Dawson for President, 9
Sep 48, Nash Collection, Truman Library; Memo,
SecDef for [Clark] Clifford, 2 Aug 48, and Ltr,
Bayard Rustin of the Campaign to Resist Military
Segregation to James V. Forrestal, 20 Aug 48; both
in D54-1-14, SecDef files. It should be noted that
Dawson's claim that the black press universally
supported the executive order has not been accepted
by all commentators; see McCoy and Ruetten, _Quest
and Response_, p. 130.]

Ironically, the most celebrated pronouncement on segregation at (p. 317)
the moment of the Truman order came not from publicists or politicians
but from the Army's new Chief of Staff, General Omar N. Bradley.[13-7]
Speaking to a group of instructors at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and unaware
of the President's order and the presence of the press