The Pittsburgh Press (November 4, 1940)
HOME COUNTY DRIVE BEGUN BY ROOSEVELT
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President Aims at Fish in Campaign, Speaks to U.S. Tonight
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By T. F. Reynolds, United Press Staff Writer
Hyde Park, N.Y., Nov. 4 –
President Roosevelt campaigns today in his “home” counties of crucial New York State and tonight appeals to the nation by radio for “a vote of confidence” by giving him a third and final term.
All indications are for a close race in his home state which casts 47 votes in the Electoral College, and this afternoon and tonight he makes six speeches, five of them in the seats of his “home” counties which make up the Congressional district represented in the House by Hamilton Fish, Republican. They are normally Republican and Mr. Roosevelt never has carried them as a Presidential candidate.
Mr. Roosevelt will be one of the speakers on a two-hour nationwide broadcast between 10 p.m. and midnight which will be the final Democratic appeal for votes. He will speak at 11:10 p.m. from his mother’s home here in the presence of his family and of his staff.
Aims At Defeating Fish
His campaigning this afternoon will be ostensibly in the interest of the local Democratic ticket, directed particularly at defeating Representative Fish whose name has been used by Mr. Roosevelt in two of his major campaign speeches in the alliteration, “Martin, Barton, and Fish” as representative of the type of Republican opposition to his policies.
Mr. Fish’s candidacy for re-election is being opposed by some Republicans who object to his isolationism as the ranking Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mr. Roosevelt will make a three-minute speech in the lower square of Beacon, seat of the Putnam County, at 2:25 p.m. He crosses the Hudson by ferry to make a three-minute speech at Newburgh, seat of Orange County, at 2:50 p.m., then motors to Kingston, seat of Ulster County, which is not in Mr. Fish’s district, for a three-minute speech at 3:40 p.m.
Intends to Call Hull
Returning to the district, he speaks at Rhinebeck, in Dutchess, his native country, at 4:30 p.m., After dinner at Hyde Park House, he goes to Poughkeepsie, largest town in the district and the seat of Dutchess County, for a five-minute speech.
He will be accompanied for three of the speeches in Mr. Fish’s district, by Hardy Steeholm, the Democrat who is running against Mr. Fish.
Soon after he arrived today after an overnight train journey from Washington, Mr. Roosevelt scheduled a telephone conference with Secretary of State Cordell Hull on developments in the international situation. Mr. Roosevelt went to Washington from Cleveland, where he spoke Saturday night, to receive diplomatic reports
Reminiscent of campaign journeys of 1932 and 1936, Mr. Roosevelt had with him his secretary and trusted advisor, Marvin H. McIntyre.
Mr. McIntyre, recuperating from a serious illness, had been inactive for nearly two years and only recently returned to service. His journey here was the first he had made with the President in more than 20 months.