The Chicago Daily Tribune (November 7, 1944)
Jazz closes campaign
New York – (Nov. 6, special)
A strange medley of jazz, jingles, and wisecracks, interspersed with political potpourri put the finishing touches tonight on the New Deal’s fourth-term campaign.
For three-quarters of an hour over all major networks, writers, singers, comedians, politicians, and movie stars from Hollywood and New York followed each other in bewildering succession in the Democratic National Committee’s vaudeville jamboree.
After Frank Sinatra had spoken and others in the heterogeneous array of performers had done their bits, President Roosevelt came on in a serious mood.
Groucho Marx adlibs
Speakers included writer Quentin Reynolds, U.S. Ambassador to Russia W. Averell Harriman, Dorothy Parker, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. Groucho Marx adlibbed a few quips on behalf of the New Deal. So did Milton Berle. Several comedians recited bits of doggerel about Dewey and Hoover.
Chants of vote, vote, vote were heard at intervals during the program and an overlay of continuous jazz music made the words of some of the speakers almost indistinguishable. Voices came on the air said to represent typical farmers, union members, aircraft workers, and working girls.