The Pittsburgh Press (October 30, 1944)
Roosevelt shows he is healthy
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Washington –
White House Secretary Stephen T. Early today threw cold water on reports that President Roosevelt would carry his campaign tour into Ohio and indicated that his already-scheduled Boston speech Saturday will be Mr. Roosevelt’s sole remaining major appearance before Election Day.
There had been reports that the President would make a speech at either Cleveland or Detroit this week. Mr. Early said a definite decision would be made within 24 hours, but that as of the moment, the President still planned to spend the week in Washington taking care of important work.
Mr. Early told reporters that the just-concluded weekend trip to Philadelphia and Chicago was so successful that Mr. Roosevelt’s advisers again have pressed him to make an Ohio swing, but that the President’s original position “still stands.”
To tour Hudson Valley
The President has no fixed campaign plans beyond the Boston speech and a tour of the Hudson River Valley near his Hyde Park home the day before election, with several impromptu speeches at nearby small towns winding up with a speech at 5:30 p.m. EWT in front of the new post office at Poughkeepsie, New York.
Democratic National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan meanwhile announced in New York that Mr. Roosevelt will make brief steps – “probably” with platform talks at each stop – at Bridgeport and Hartford, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, while en route to Boston Saturday.
Mr. Early said the President was “feeling fine” after his trip which ended last night and took him into seven pivotal states.
Designed largely to show the people the state of his health, the journey included two big night speeches in raw and windy weather, long, rainy hours in an open car parade, and several train-end speeches.
Looks pretty good
Political followers on the train and some who have been traveling independently now have the distinct impression that the President’s health is the top conversational issue of this campaign. That 1s what the question-askers want to know about, and it was “how he looks” that interested curb and train-side crowds the most. The customers on the whole seemed to think he looked pretty good.
The President’s train returned to Washington last night. He had made speeches in six states: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois and West Virginia. In Lima, Ohio, the train moved slowly past the station where a big crowd was massed. Mr. Roosevelt stood on the rear platform there and gave the assembled citizens his campaign salute.
Those states add up to 128 electoral votes. Massachusetts casts 16 in the Electoral College.
His advisers were fairly ecstatic over a train poll taken by CBS’s Don Pryor, among newspaper, radio and picture men aboard the special.
In brief, the poll showed that of 39 persons participating, 28 favored Mr. Roosevelt’s reelection and 11 favored Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Republican candidate. But what pleased the President’s party was that 37 of the participants thought the odds favored Mr. Roosevelt’s reelection, from even money on Governor Dewey to 5–1 on Mr. Roosevelt.
Bids for business support
The President climaxed this journey Saturday night before more than 110,000 persons in Soldier Field, Chicago. Other thousands were massed outside. He bid heavily for the business support which has been rallying around Governor Dewey by proposing post-war tax inducements to help private industry create 60 million jobs.
Mr. Roosevelt’s last public appearance of the weekend swing was made yesterday at Clarksburg, West Virginia, where he addressed a railroad station audience estimated at 16,000 on the advantages of reforestation. The President described the speech and the topic as my “Sunday sermon,” emphasizing that it was a comfort to be able to forget politics when Sunday came around.