The 1946 elections didn't mean much to me since I was nineteen and I wasn't old enough to vote. I got back to the States from the Pacific in the fall of '45 and was transferred to Philadelphia. There had been a corrupt Republican city government in place there for about 60 years and listening to the natives complain probably warped my view of politics.
In 1948, at age twenty one, I voted for Harry Truman because he had been my Commander in Chief in the Marine Corps and thanks to the corrupt regime in Philly I thought all Republicans were crooks. That vote proved to be a big mistake. In 1950, I had converted a sixteen room double into four apartments and embarked on the course of a real estate entrepreneur.
On my twenty-third birthday, June 25, 1950, the Korean War erupted and I was recalled to active duty in the Marine Corps. To add insult to injury, while I was gone, Truman enacted rent controls and my apartments had to be sold to survive financially. Needless to say, I voted for Dwight David Eisenhower in 1952 and have leaned toward the Republican Party since that time.
I'm glad I wasn't old enough to vote at age nineteen because I didn't have the knowledge to vote intelligently. Now eighteen year olds are allowed to vote and it concerns me that most youngsters today are getting their political education from television Sitcoms, Comedy Central and Saturday Night Live.
God bless America!
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