The Pittsburgh Press (October 27, 1944)
Truman attacks ‘isolationists’
Repeats his denial of Klan membership
En route to Cleveland, Ohio (UP) –
Senator Harry S. Truman, maintaining an unceasing attack on Republican “isolationist” Senators, headed today for Ohio where he expects to assail Senator Robert A. Taft’s record on foreign policy.
Mr. Truman, Democratic vice-presidential nominee, departed early today from Peoria, where he injected an attack on “isolationists” in his farm speech, He also denied charges in affidavits published in the Hearst newspapers yesterday that he was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Hearst papers hit
He said:
The isolationists are desperate to win the election.
The Hearst papers have even gone so far as to say that I’m a member of the Ku Klux Klan. That charge is a complete falsehood. I have never belonged to the Ku Klux Klan nor ever attended any of its meetings.
Mr. Truman plans to speak briefly from his special car this afternoon at Toledo, Ohio, and to address labor representatives at a dinner tonight. He speaks later tonight at Akron. His Akron address will be an attack on Taft’s record, which Mr. Truman called “mighty bad.”
In his farm speech, Mr. Truman defended the Roosevelt administration’s agricultural program and sought to allay any sentiment among farmers that labor has been favored by the administration.
Welfare linked
He said:
The farmer cannot sell his produce at good prices unless the workingman is getting good wages.
There is no use in the farmer raising hogs and cattle unless the workingman can afford to buy pork chops and beef steak for his family. The welfare of the farmer and the workingman go hand in hand.
Mr. Truman said the Democratic administration had brought jobs to working men, put a floor under farm prices, adjusted production of farm products to the market and expanded the market by increasing the buying power of labor.