The Pittsburgh Press (November 1, 1944)
Roosevelt maps driving finish
‘Bareknuckle’ speech expected Saturday
Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt today mapped strategy for 3 driving finish against Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican candidate, in the closing rounds of the 1944 presidential campaign.
Mr. Roosevelt planned to devote most of the day to finishing the radio address he makes from Washington tomorrow night. He also delivers four speeches Saturday in a brief tour of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and several impromptu talks on Monday in a tour of his home territory in the Hudson Valley.
The White House said today that his speech tomorrow night will take 15 minutes, It will be part of a half-hour program sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, over the NBC network from 9:00 to 9:30 p.m. EWT.
The President’s Saturday night speech in Fenway Park, Boston, is expected to be a bareknuckle blast at Mr. Dewey in keeping with Mr. Roosevelt’s custom of saving his heaviest ammunition for the closing days of a campaign.
Mr. Roosevelt’s advisers were increasingly confident of his victory, largely because of the reception given him in visits to New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois. They felt that Mr. Roosevelt would carry New York and Pennsylvania and that with these states in the fourth-term column, a Dewey victory would be virtually impossible.