roosevelt died in april 1945 and harry s. truman, a less liberal democrat became president and replaced most of roosevelt's top appointees. with the end of the war, unrest among organized labor led to many strikes in 1946 and the resulting disruptions helped the gop. with the blunders of the truman administration in 1945 and 1946, the slogans "had enough?" and "to err is truman" became republican rallying cries and the gop won control of congress for the first time since 1928, with joseph william martin, jr. as speaker of the house. the taft-hartley act of 1947 was designed to balance the rights of management and labor. it was the central issue of many elections in industrial states in the 1940s to 1950s, but the unions were never able to repeal it.