After a short Labor Day foray into Michigan the first main trip began on September 18th and ended fifteen days later. He covered eighteen states, out to San Francisco by Chicago, Iowa and the mountain states, down to Los Angeles, through the sunbelt and back by St Louis. He worked himself very hard, starting at 5.45 a.m. on his first full day and making his last appearance at 8.10 p.m. On some days he made as many as sixteen speeches. ‘Truman was at his best,’ Irwin Ross wrote, ‘in his whistle-stop appearances.’ Mr Ross also gives us a succinct account of the shape of his speeches on such occasions:
‘Truman’s impromptu talks held to no set sequence, but they usually contained the same ingredients: a plug for the Democratic candidate for Congress or the Senate, a passing reference to the local college or baseball team (sometimes only the local weather was worthy of note), a brief exposition of some problem of local or national concern (housing, farm price supports, public power) which the Republicans had managed to muck up, and a plea for his audience to register and vote. The final turn in his routine was to introduce his wife and daughter. “And now I would like you to meet Mrs Truman,” he would say, at which point the blue velvet curtain behind him would part and the First Lady would appear to smile at the crowd. “And now my daughter Margaret,” or in southern states “Miss Margaret” … Crowds were large, curious, good-natured, but not especially enthusiastic.’17
Reporters who made the trip found it very difficult to estimate whether Truman was gaining votes. The crowds were certainly friendly, but were they convinced? What did they make of the contrast between the hyperbole of his language in denouncing the Republicans and the flat folksiness of his delivery? Did they find his appeals to them to keep him in the White House so that he might not suffer ‘from a housing shortage on January 20th, 1949’ as embarrassing as did most of the members of his staff? Did they find him lacking in dignity for a president or agreeably close to their interests and style? Would they rather have been listening to one of Dewey’s carefully prepared set-piece orations, dealing in sonorous depth with a single major topic? All of these questions remained unanswered when the train got back to Washington on October 2nd. But one thing was already certain. The election was probably lost, but the campaign was not a flop. Three million people had turned out to see him. They appeared to have enjoyed listening to him. He had enjoyed talking to them. There would be no problem of his maintaining his morale until November 2nd.
Truman next set out on his travels on October 6th. He then did a three-day tour of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and up-state New York. The crowds had become very big, and the President was reported as being in crackling form throughout. The limited importance of either of these considerations is however underlined by the fact that Truman succeeded in losing all four of the ‘Roosevelt’ states covered by this expedition.
On the last day of this trip the news of the aborted ‘Vinson mission’ to Moscow had broken. This was, to say the least, amateurishly handled. At the end of his transcontinental journey Truman was persuaded by two of his speech-writers that it would be good politics, and maybe good diplomacy too, to send the Chief Justice on a special peace mission to Stalin. It was a gesture rather than a negotiation which was planned, for it was never clear what Vinson was intended to say when he got to Moscow, and he had little foreign policy experience and no personal entrée to the Russians. However it could be argued that with tension high over Berlin and all the traditional channels of negotiation clogged, such a public display of America’s desire for a peaceful solution might remove some part of Russian suspicion.
Clearly however it required careful consideration with the Secretary of State. Marshall was in Paris where he had just agreed with the British and French foreign ministers that there was no point in further seeking direct negotiation with the Russians on Berlin, and that the three Western powers should rather jointly submit the issue to the Security Council. Marshall was therefore bound to be against the Vinson proposal. Truman however did not bother to discover this before he had, first, persuaded a reluctant Vinson that it was his duty to perform the mission, and, second, had told Charles Ross to negotiate with the broadcasting networks for a half hour of ‘non-political’ time for the evening of Tuesday, October 5th. Not unnaturally, in the middle of an election, they asked what the presidential speech was to be about. Ross told them ‘in confidence’.
It was only at this stage that Truman telephoned Marshall in Paris. Marshall spoke faithfully. At the end of the conversation Truman went back and told his disconcerted staff that, election or no election, the enterprise was off. This has sometimes been presented as the supreme example of Truman’s attachment to responsibility rather than votes in matters of foreign policy. Certainly it makes an interesting contrast with his dealings with Marshall over the recognition of Israel five months previously. But it could also be presented as an example of his ill-considered rashness when he was operating more or less on his own and before he was brought up against the likely consequences of his actions.