The Pittsburgh Press (October 18, 1944)
Truman claims Dewey is guilty of ‘chicanery’
Charges distortion of committee reports
With Senator Truman en route to Portland, Oregon (UP) –
Senator Harry S. Truman, Democratic vice-presidential nominee, charging Governor Thomas E. Dewey with “political chicanery,” today predicted that the Roosevelt-Truman ticket would carry huis home state of Missouri by 100,000 to 150,000 votes.
Mr. Truman said Mr. Dewey had “chosen to take sentences from committee reports and had construed honest criticism of mistakes as a statement that the President was inefficiently conducting the war.” The Republicans failed to quote a section saying “the greatest job of the war had been done on the home front,” he told San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club yesterday.
Mr. Truman said:
This is the most efficiently conducted war in the history of the world as far as the United States is concerned.
Hits ‘chicanery’
He added:
It is not within the limits of ethics when political chicanery is practiced by a candidate for the highest office in the land.
Mr. Truman told reporters that on the basis of registration figures, the Democratic ticket would carry California by a majority in the neighborhood of 400,000. He said he would give a measure of credit to Albert K. Chow, head of the Chinese Six Companies, if his election prediction is correct.
Mr. Chow told Mr. Truman that 80 percent of 2,000 Chinese-American votes cast in San Francisco would be for the Democratic ticket.
Promises aid to China
The vice-presidential nominee last night said he regretted that the United States had been unable to supply more munitions to the Chinese because of the demands in other theaters. Speaking on the Chinese Hour broadcast by a San Francisco radio station, he said the time is now here to furnish the Chinese theater with equipment because we have the Japanese on the run today as never before.
After addressing the Commonwealth Club and conferring with Democratic leaders in San Francisco, Mr. Truman was Mr. Chow’s guest at a Chinese dinner. The Democratic candidate was scheduled to arrive in Portland tonight when he will speak extemporaneously at a banquet in the Masonic Hall. With Senator M. C. Wallgren (D-WA), he will drive to Olympia and Tacoma, Washington, tomorrow. He will give two radio talks in Seattle tomorrow night.