The Home Stretch:
Chapter 10: Pages 240-243

As always, both candidates had ended their campaigns with predictions of victory. Truman's shrill insistence could be charitably attributed to exhaustion: he had put on an amazing show, traveling 21,928 miles and delivering 275 speeches. Even retrospectively, few members of his entourage have been willing to say that they thought he would win. Senator McGrath, whose post as national chairman compelled him to issue optimistic forecasts, said years later that he became confident of victory only in the latter part of October, because of the tremendous crowds which Truman was attracting. But such a sense of confidence was unusual. More typically, Clark Clifford had the impression that Truman was picking up strength in the final weekend that he might have a chance of winning if the campaign could last a fortnight longer.

The polls showed a narrowing of the gap, but still gave Dewey a long lead. On the eve of the election, Gallup credited Dewey with 49.5 percent of the vote to 44.5 percent for Truman; the Crossley poll gave Dewey 49.9 percent and Truman 44.8 (the remainder going to Thurmond and Wallace) Roper, it will be recalled, had announced on September 9 that he had stopped polling, because of the certainty of Dewey's victory. Journalistic impressions were in line with the polls. Newsweek periodically questioned fifty of the country's leading political reporters and found that all of them predicted Dewey's election. The final New York Times survey, published on October 31 and based on reports of correspondents in 48 states, credited Dewey with 345 electoral votes to 105 for Truman and 38 for Thurmond. Dewey was expected to carry 29 states; Truman, II; Thurmond, 4. Four states with 44 electoral votes were regarded as doubtful. The Senate outcome was seen as close, but the Times predicted that the Republicans would keep control of the House of Representatives.

On election day, Dewey awoke at 9:30 A.M. in his suite in New York's Roosevelt Hotel, had breakfast with Mrs. Dewey,and spent a leisurely morning. Around noon, to the accompaniment of police sirens and crowd cheers, his limousine drew up before a school building on East 51st Street where the Deweys were to vote. Office workers in a nearby skyscraper displayed signs reading, "Good luck, Mr. President." The demands of cameramen prolonged the voting process for half an hour; the Governor voted first, followed by his wife. He then linked his arm in hers and told the press, "Well, I know of two votes we got anyway." They returned to their car, drove north to Madison Avenue and 55th Street, where they unexpectedly got out to walk half a mile to their hotel. Followed by policemen and a small crowd, the Dewey stepped smartly down the avenue, the Governor doffing his hat to startled pedestrians and cabdrivers who yelled, "Good luck, Mr. Dewey."

After a light lunch, the Governor read the papers and chatted with staff members. That evening, as he had on the eve of every election in which he had run, Dewey dined at the home of his, friend Roger Straus; his wife, two sons and his mother, who had arrived from Owosso, accompanied him. As with a ceremonial state function, the menu was released to the press: consomme, roast duck, cauliflower, peas, fried apples, deep dish blueberry pie, coffee and milk.

While still at the Strauses', Dewey was surprised at the returns from the first New Hampshire towns to report: he was not doing as well as a Republican candidate might expect. Back at his hotel suite, with his family, Elliott Bell and Paul Lockwood at his side, Dewey sat with a scratch pad listening to the returns and reading wire service bulletins. Jim Hagerty told the press, "We may be out of the trenches by midnight," but long before that it was apparent that Dewey was in trouble. He was not pulling enough votes in the populous eastern states that came in first. In the New York returns, Hagerty always watched the upstate cities of Syracuse and Rome; Dewey was carrying them, but his margin was too slender for comfort. Not until after 1 A.M. was it certain that Dewey would take his home state, but by a margin of only about 60,000. In the Dewey suite, the atmosphere was tense and somber; the shock inhibited any memorable comments.

Down in the mezzanine ballroom, where campaign workers had gathered to follow the returns, swallow whiskey and cheer the victory, the festive air had dimmed by midnight. Herbert Brownell appeared at 11:30 P.M. and again at 1:45 AM., both times claiming victory, but by the latter hour the room was less than half full and it was difficult to raise a cheer. An hour or two later, it was apparent that the election hung on the returns from Ohio, Illinois, and California. At 4:20, after conferring with Dewey, Hagerty told reporters, "We're in there fighting. The returns are still coming in but it looks as if we won't know definitely until midmorning." At 4:55, he said, "We are not making any predictions or claims." Sometime after dawn, with the outcome still in doubt, the Governor went to bed.

Out in Independence, the Trumans voted at 10 A.M. in the town's Memorial Hall. To accommodate photographers, the President twice went through the ritual of marking and folding his ballot; all three Trumans then posed for a family picture. "It can't be anything but a victory," the President announced, but he later told reporters that he doubted that he would sit up for the returns. "I think I'll go to bed. I don't expect final results until tomorrow," he said.

At lunchtime he appeared at the Rockwood Country Club to attend a party given by the mayor of Independence, Roger T. Sermon. The guests were some thirty old friends, whom Truman regaled with reminiscences of his political career in Missouri. Later that afternoon he drove with two Secret Service men to the Elms Hotel in Excelsior Springs, some thirty miles from Kansas City. He had a Turkish bath, ate a sandwich and a glass of milk, and went to bed early in the evening. At midnight, he recalls in his memoirs, he woke up and listened to radio commentator H. V. Kaltenborn, who reported that Truman was 1,200,000 votes ahead but destined to lose. He went back to sleep. He was awake again at 4 A.M., at which point Kaltenborn had Truman 2,000,000 votes ahead but still a likely loser. (Several weeks later, Truman was to impersonate Kaltenborn's staccato commentary in an hilarious speech before the Electoral College dinner.) By 6 A.M., suspecting that Kaltenborn was wrong, Truman had motored to the Muehlebach Hotel in Kansas City and went up to the eleventh floor penthouse where his staff was installed. All night, newsmen had wondered where he had disappeared, but he was on hand, freshly barbered and turned out in a natty blue suit, when Dewey's concession came.

In New York, Dewey had awakened at 10:30 A.M. to discover that Truman had taken Ohio as well as Illinois and California. He conferred with his aides, and at 11:14 A.M.-four minutes after McGrath had issued a victory statement-he had a telegram on the wires to 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 in support of every effort to keep our nation strong and free and establish peace in the world."

At 1 P.M., Dewey met the press. He looked weary, but he managed an occasional smile and his voice had lost none of its resonance. "Anything I can tell anybody here that they don't already know?" he asked.

"What happened, Governor?"

"I was just as surprised as you are," he said, "and I gather that is shared by everybody in the room, as I read your stories before the election." He did not believe that there had been any error of strategy or tactics---"We waged a clean and constructive campaign and I have no regrets whatsoever." Further postmortems would have to await a closer study of the election returns. Would he consider running a third time? "No," said Dewey. And a moment later, "It has been grand fun, boys and girls. I enjoyed it immensely."

He was dignified and self-possessed to the end. That post-election press conference was perhaps Dewey's finest hour.

1. Charles G. Ross, "How Truman Did It, " Collier's , December 25, 1948


2. Interview with Mc Grath on November 16, 1965


3. Interview with Clifford on September 22, 1965


4. New York World Telegram, November 2, 1948


5. For Dewey's election day and night, New York Times and New York Herald-Tribune, November 3, 1948 and Time, November 8, 1948.


6. Interviews with Lockwood on November 9, 1965; with Bell on December 8, 1965, and with Hagerty on December 2, 1965


7. Washington Post, November 3, 1948


8. Truman, Memoirs, II 220-221


9. Time, November 8, 1948


10. Text of Dewey's press conference in Public Papers of Governor Thomas E. Dewey--1948 (Albany, N.Y., 1949) pp. 526--529