Transcript: Chapter 25

NARRATOR: On September 17, Truman set out on what would become one of the most famous campaigns in American history.

ROBERT DONOVAN: He was saying good-bye to everybody and so forth and Alben Barkley, a very good-hearted man, came up and said, "Give 'em hell, Harry!" And Truman said something. "I'll give 'em hell. I'll give 'em hell, Alben." We had nothing to write about. The train's starting out on a Sunday afternoon, so everyone's writing about "give 'em hell".

NARRATOR: From then on, "Give 'em Hell Harry" would become Harry Truman's battle cry. During the next six weeks, Truman would travel 22,000 miles -- criss-crossing the country three times. The issues, he said, were simple. The Republicans wanted to turn back the clock, destroy Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Truman was going to stop them.

TRUMAN, ARCHIVAL SOUND ON FILM: "If you give the Republicans complete control of this government, you might just as well turn it over to the special interests and we'll start on a boom and bust cycle and try to go through just what we did in the twenties. And end up with a crash which in the long run will do nobody any good but the Communists."

NARRATOR: Truman kept up a grueling pace, giving no quarter to his opponents. When the Progressive party candidate Henry Wallace argued for co-operation with the Soviet Union, Truman attacked Wallace as a Communist pawn.

When the segregationist "Dixiecrat" party nominated Strom Thurmond, Truman desegregated the armed forces, winning the votes of black Americans, and changing the American military forever.

VERNON JARRETT: The armed forces, the seat of segregation, the seat of racism, and to have him issue that order, for whatever reason, was a great leap forward in history.

NARRATOR: Campaigning as if he had already won, Tom Dewey took no risks, offered no surprises.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: His whole campaign was being run according to what the polls were telling him to do. Don't rock the boat. Don't say anything to antagonize anyone. Don't say anything controversial, just be calm smooth, speak in platitudes ...

DEWEY, ARCHIVAL SOUND ON FILM: "We believe in honesty, loyalty, fair play, concern for our neighbors, the innate ability of men to achieve. These convictions arched over by our faith in God, are the inner meaning of the American way of life."

ROBERT DONOVAN: He didn't seem to have much empathy, if that's the word. You wouldn't cuddle up to Tom Dewey.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: The Dewey campaign was very efficient; it was very carefully orchestrated. The official drink on board the Dewey train was the martini. The card game was bridge. On the Truman train, things were quite different. The drink of the hour was nearly always bourbon, and the card game was poker.

Truman kept that train really moving ... And he traveled and traveled and traveled. But he seemed to draw energy from it. He loved it. And as he progressed, he got better. And the more he traveled, the more the crowds turned out, and the larger the crowds were.

MARIAN NORBY, White House Staff Member: Every town we'd pulled into had a high school band that played "The Missouri Waltz" before this president spoke. And everybody got so sick of that.

ROBERT DONOVAN: Always there was a Missouri Waltz. (sings Waltz briefly) And Truman, I'm told, hated the Missouri Waltz and everywhere he had the Missouri Waltz!

VICTOR REUTHER: Harry was a damned good campaigner. He loved to get out and mix with people and he knew how to talk their language. You know, he was no high-falutin' guy. He could be understood by every factory worker, every coal miner, every textile worker, every housewife.

TRUMAN, ARCHIVAL SOUND ON FILM: "I've been in politics a long time and it makes no difference what they say about you if it isn't so. If they can prove it on you, you're in a bad fix indeed."

ROBERT DONOVAN: He understood people. He especially understood people of his area, the Midwest, the farmers.

TRUMAN, ARCHIVAL SOUND ON FILM: "Vote for your farms. Vote for the standard of living that you won under a Democratic administration. Get out there on Election day and vote for your future."

ROBERT DONOVAN: You know, I covered every inch of the Truman whistle-stop campaign. I was in every farm yard and main street and the rest of it. And I'd see these big crowds and I'd think, "Well, Dewey has bigger crowds," whatever I felt, I thought Dewey was going to win. I didn't know anyone who thought otherwise, anybody.

NARRATOR: As the campaign drew to a close, the New York Times was predicting Dewey would run away with the election. The Gallup Poll was so certain of the outcome, it stopped polling before the end of October.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: The night of the election, the head of the Secret Service went to New York to be with Mr. Dewey, because he clearly was going to be the next president. And it just looked like a sure thing. And, (laughs) the only one who didn't think it was a sure thing was Harry Truman.

NARRATOR: One evening, three or four days before the election, an anxious Bess Truman went quietly to see her husband's aide Clark Clifford.

CLARK CLIFFORD: And she said, "Clark, do you think Harry really believes that he can win?" And I said, "He gives every assurance of it, Mrs. Truman." She says, "Well, he keeps saying he's going to win." "Well," I said, "that's the way he feels." I said, "He's going to feel that way right up to the end." "But," she said, "it's so hard to find anybody else who thinks that he can win." I think she felt that he did not have any chance of winning.

NARRATOR: On election night, to escape reporters, Truman checked into a hotel in Excelsior Springs, just outside of Independence. He had a ham and cheese sandwich, a glass of buttermilk and went to sleep.

When he woke up, he learned he had pulled off the greatest upset in the history of American politics. Not one pollster or radio commentator or newspaper columnist had got it right. No one had dared predict a Truman victory.

DEWEY, ARCHIVAL SOUND ON FILM: "I've sent the following wire to President Truman. My heartiest congratulations to you on your election and every good wish for a successful administration. I urge all Americans to unite behind you."

VICTOR REUTHER: Truman came through as a feisty fighter, and we loved that you know. The labor movement came around to admire Truman. We knew that on basic issues he would stand with the people, including working people against special interests. And that he was concerned and determined to help carry through the legacy of FDR.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: We'll never know how many people voted for him because, even though they thought he was going to lose, they liked him.

Certainly, a very great many people said later, "I voted for Harry Truman, even though I was sure he was going to lose, because I liked him." It was the high point of his political life. He had made all the smarties look foolish.

TRUMAN AT A VICTORY DINNER AFTER ELECTION, ARCHIVAL SOUND ON FILM: "I am most happy -- most happy to have together all the September Democrats, and the October Democrats, and the Monday Democrats, and the Tuesday Democrats, and the Wednesday Democrats."

ROBERT DONOVAN: He got a tremendous welcome when he came back to Washington, just tremendous. One of the biggest turnouts the town had seen. He just glowed with it. But, boy, he came to a tough second term. That's a tough second term.

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