TABLE TALK

Stoning the prophets

DENIS BROGAN

'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.' This, or something rather like it, is a famous dictum of Dr Kati Marx. But although this is undoubtedly true, history repeats itself in other ways. For example, as comedy; and that is what has happened in the last week. For the unexpected triumph that Mr Heath has brought off very vividly re- minded me of the unexpected triumph in 1948 of President Truman. Many of the phenomena are identical. There was a great deal of discontent with Mr Truman in the Democratic party. There was a great deal of contempt for him in the Republican party. There was a total disbelief in his capacity to win, manifested by the odds given against him. There was the almost unanimous dismissal of his chances manifested in the public prints. (I shared the views of some very eminent persons that Mr Truman couldn't possibly make it.) I was at both con- ventions, and I remember the desperate efforts of some Democrats, including friends of mine, to ditch Mr Truman and put in somebody—perhaps anybody—to make a last, probably futile, attempt to stop the inevitable triumph of the Republican nominee.

Even commentators whose hearts were in the right place were forced by their heads to write off Mr Truman's chances completely. For example, that remarkable newspaper man Dick Strout of the Christian Science Monitor (one of the few members of the staff of that great journal who was not a Scientist) told me as we were travelling the country together that his great dislike of Governor Dewey was leading him astray, for he was beginning to think that perhaps Truman had a chance; yet he knew that he had no chance. If Dick Strout had only followed his heart instead of his head, he would have been one of the few successful prophets of 1948.

I can remember my own failure as a pro- phet, although my prophecies were not very much attended to: I was covering the cam- paign of 1948 for the Observer and assum- ing, as nearly everybody else did, that the Republicans were bound to win, I had made inquiries and been given a fairly impressive guess as to the composition of Governor Dewey's cabinet. I had cabled this to Lon- don, and by the time it reached the Observer office, Mr Truman had been elected. I received a very kindly cable from David Astor thanking me for my interesting in- formation but ending, 'Please explain pro- phecy'.

More serious was the reaction on some friends of mine with whom I was staying in New York. My hostess was a most devoted Republican, daughter of a great banker and full of Yankee prejudice against Democrats, Catholics, and other lesser breeds without the law. This was before the days of television, and we went out once or twice to Times Square to look at the electric indicator running round the side of the New York Times building:. this indicator continued to report astonishing triumphs for the doomed President Truman. We returned to my friends' apartment, and my hostess burst into tears: it could not be true that after all these years of Democratic usurpation the Democrats were going to win again. I reassured her. After all, I had visited forty states. I had covered the campaign from both the Dewey train and the Truman train. If there was one thing I knew about, it was American politics and 'Harry can't win!' Her husband, who was reading a racing paper, looked up and said, l have never voted in my life, but I back horses, and I know a loser when I see one. Would you like to bet?' I said, 'Yes', and bet $10 on Governor Dewey : in doing this. I had in- nocently broken the law of the state of New York which forbids betting on elec- tions—and I also had laid my bet after I would have learned, if I had only gone around once more to Times Square to look at the indicator, that Mr Truman was already elected.

Displaying hubris, Governor Dewey had called for a victory press conference at the Hotel Roosevelt next morning. I went to it to hear what the President-Elect had to say, and by this time, of course, he was no longer President-Elect. (The moment of truth had come when the secret service men sent up from Washington to guard Governor Dewey were taken off in the middle of the night, since he was now merely Governor of New York.) At the Hotel Roosevelt I ran into Stanley Walker of the New York Herald Tribune who was the chief press officer of the Dewey campaign. He was still wearing the huge Dewey rosette, and he was also laughing. I asked him, 'How come?' He replied, 'There's nothing to laugh about. My man has been defeated, I have lost my job, my predictions have all proved to be foolish. But it was so damned funny that I can't help laughing.' I don't think that many Labour supporters on Friday morning of last week were so philosophical. And next day Gover- nor Dewey recovered a great deal of his credit with the press (which had not been very high) by looking at us and saying calmly, 'I hear you are just as surprised as I am'. It was a more dignified departure from the scene than the circumstances of the British political system let Mr Wilson make.

I think in both cases there was a good deal of pleasure over the sure thing coming unstuck. This, of course, does not apply to the really devoted partisans, but a great many tepid voters (or non-voters) were delighted that the prophets had all made fools of themselves. Elmo Roper had, in fact,

stopped polling three weeks before the 1948 election because the result was so obviously

in the bag. Dr Gallup kept on issuing more and more statistics to show how inevitable the Truman defeat was, and there were many minor prophets as well as major prophets to rule that the election was over.

'Stoning the prophets is ancient news', as Chesterton put it, and I suppose one of the most joyous entries into a capital ever made was made by President-Elect Truman and the new ,Vice-President, former Senator Barkley. The President stood up in the car taking him to the White House waving the Chicago Tribune with its great headline,

DEWEY ELECTED. One of the most

distinguished of Governor Dewey's press supporters, the late John O'Donnell of the New York Daily News, was driven almost round the bend trying to explain repeated prophecies of inevitable Republican triumph not only in the Daily News but on the air. I, after all, had only to explain away my faults as Observer correspondent. Wisely. I did not try. And since then I have never bet on an American election or prophesied results.

What went wrong with the prophets last week? I could explain what went wrong in 1948 because various statisticians explained to me later how they came to make such fools of themselves as they did. The dishonoured prophets of 1970 have not yet agreed on a general theory—in fact, some are now beginning to talk as though they hadn't done so badly after all. They were almost right. But a great many people almost right did not expect to be paid for it, as so many of the official prophets apparently still do. Osbert Lancaster got the flavour of 1948 rather better than he got the flavour of 1970 when he drew a great prognostigator sending his secretary out to buy a brand new crystal ball.

One desirable result of this election has been that we realise that the British elector is

not led astray or induced to vote with the tide or to abandon his hopes or fears for anything that the statisticians, psephologists, professors of political science, etc: choose to put into the public prints or to send over the air waves. In this case, democracy has triumphed, and the average man has shown up the alleged docility of the people. Chester- ton's poem about 'The People of England' is highly relevant : they showed their in- tellectual betters last week that they had not spoken yet.

There are drawbacks to this gratifying revolt of the masses. For it suggests an instability in British political institutions which for a long period of time might be a great nuisance. It also shows that you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. In this

sense, Mr Heath's triumph is a triumph for the common man. I hope that the new

government will remember that it was not a triumph merely of the astonishing strength of will and courage of Mr Heath, but of the great mass of the people who, faced with the 'inevitable' victory of Mr Wilson rather than of the Labour party, simply uttered the democratic `Sez you!'