Kefauver

Kefauver lost, but his campaign was influential in starting the process of making primaries paramount in choosing presidents, leading journalist Theodore H. White to dub Kefauver "the godfather of the American presidential primary system."

Sen. Estes Kefauver challenged him in the New Hampshire primary that March and won—with 55 percent of the vote, over Truman’s 44.

In 1950, the former Dyer federal courthouse building, now in the hands of Miami Dade College, was the site of some of the historic congressional Kefauver hearings that exposed the extent of organized crime in the United States at the time, George said.

Back in the 1950s, there was the Kefauver Committee, which was a famous 13-, 14-city tour by Senator Estes Kefauver, and he went around and he interviewed a number of organized crime figures.

Truman announced on March 29, 1952, that he would not seek a second full term after losing in the New Hampshire primary to Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.