1944

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN & ELECTIONS

OVERVIEWS & CHRONOLOGIES: 1944

By Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS

OVERVIEW

Election Year: 1944

Election Day Date: November 7, 1944

Winning Ticket: Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Democratic 25,612,916 53.39% 432 81.4%

Losing Ticket(s):

• Thomas Dewey, John Bricker, Republican 22,017,929 45.89% 99 18.6%
• No Candidate-Texas Regulars 135,439 0.28% 0 0.0%
• Other (+) – – 210,779 0.44% 0 0.0%

Voter Turnout: 55.9%

Central Forums/Campaign Methods for Addressing Voters:

• Stumping, whistle-stop tour, radio addresses, personal appearances, speeches, pamphlets, ads, newspaper endorsements, editorials

Election Law/Campaign Finance Changes:

Incumbent President and Vice President on Election Day:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Henry A. Wallace, Democratic, 1933-1945

Population: 1944: 138,397,000

Nominal GDP (billions of dollars): $219.8 Real GDP (billions of 2005 dollars): $2,035.2 GDP Deflator (index 2005=100%) 10.80 Population (in thousands): 138,397
Nominal GDP per capita (current dollars): $1,588 Real GDP per capita (year 2005 dollars): $14,706

Number of Daily Newspapers: 1,878 (1940)

Average Daily Circulation: 41,132,000 (1940)

Households with: Radio: 28,048,000 (1940)

Method of Choosing Electors: Popular vote (mostly General Ticket/Winner Take All)

Method of Choosing Nominees:

• National party convention;
• Presidential preference primaries

Central Issues:

• Possible suspension of elections; first wartime presidential campaign since 1864;   Americans wondered if there should even be a campaign with the ongoing war
• Rumors Roosevelt would suspend elections “for the duration” of the war

Leading Candidates (Nomination/Primaries):

Democratic Party candidates:

• Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States from New York

Republican Party candidates:

• Riley A. Bender, Businessman (Illinois)
• Thomas E. Dewey, Governor of New York
• John W. Bricker, Governor of Ohio
• Everett Dirksen, U.S. Representative of Illinois
• General Douglas MacArthur, (Wisconsin)
• Harold Stassen, Former Governor of Minnesota
• Robert Taft, U.S. Senator (Ohio)
• Wendell Willkie, Businessman and 1940 nominee (New York)

Main Controversies (Nomination/Primaries):

• Democratic Party’s economic and social policies, Communists and being allies with Russia

Campaign Innovations (Nomination/Primaries):  

Major Personalities (Nomination/Primaries):

Henry Wallace; Nicholas Roerich; Douglas MacArthur

Turning Points (Nomination/Primaries):

Democratic Party:

• Roosevelt was renominated easily despite growing concern/opposition to his economic and social policies among conservatives in the party and especially in the South.

Republican Party:

• Supporters wanted General Douglas MacArthur to run for the nomination, however, he was leading the Allied forces in the Pacific and could not actively campaign.
• Thomas Dewey wanted the nomination, however, when was elected Governor of New York in 1942, he promised to serve his entire four-year term. He could not actively campaign, or announce his intentions for the Republican nomination; However, his name was on write-ins in state primaries contests, and, Republican state conventions pledged delegates to vote for him at the convention.
• Wisconsin primary: Thomas Dewey: 14 delegates; Harold Stassen: 4 delegates; General Douglas MacArthur: 3 delegates.
• Dewey emerged as the frontrunner.
• Wendall Willkie did not win a single delegate in the Wisconsin primary and subsequently withdrew from the race.

Primaries Quotations:

• “Well, you see, you have come to the wrong place, because — gosh, all these people haven’t read the Constitution. Unfortunately, I have.” Franklin Roosevelt answering a reporter that there will be elections in 1944 despite the war
• “I don’t know whether you are going to support me or not, and I don’t give a damn. You’re a bunch of political liabilities, anyway.” Wendell Willkie

Primaries:

• Democratic 14 36.7% delegates
• Republican 13 38.7% delegates

Primaries Results:

Democratic Party: Jul 01, 1944

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt(I): 1,566,218, 79.24%
• Joseph T. Ferguson: 164,915, 8.34%
• Harry Flood Byrd, Sr.: 109,000, 5.51%
• Claude R. Linger: 59,282, 3.00%
• Unpledged: 57,299, 2.90%

Republican Party: Jul 01, 1944

• Douglas MacArthur: 662,127, 28.94%
• Earl Warren: 594,439, 25.99%
• John W. Bricker: 366,444, 16.02%
• Thomas Edmund Dewey: 278,727, 12.18%
• W. Chapman Revercomb: 91,602, 4.00%
• Unpledged: 87,834, 3.84%
• Harold Edward Stassen: 67,508, 2.95%
• Riley A. Bender: 37,575, 1.64%
• Charles A. Christopherson: 33,497, 1.46%
• Wendell Lewis Willkie: 27,097, 1.18%

Conventions (Dates & Locations):

• Democratic National Convention: July 19-21, 1944, Chicago Stadium; Chicago, Samuel D. Jackson (Indiana), 1^st ballot, Franklin D. Roosevelt, (New York), Harry S. Truman (Missouri)
• Republican National Convention: June 26-28, 1944, Chicago Stadium; Chicago, 1^st ballot, Thomas E. Dewey (New York), John W. Bricker (Ohio)

Convention Turning Points:

Democratic National Convention:

• Roosevelt’s declining health and suspicions of concealed health problems prompted the party’s conservatives to oppose the renomination of Roosevelt’s second Vice-President Henry Wallace. Wallace left wing position and New Age spiritual beliefs concerned conservatives considering might have to assume the Presidency. (Wallace had written coded letters discussing Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to his controversial Russian spiritual guru, Nicholas Roerich.)
• Party leaders told Roosevelt about their opposition and suggested Missouri Senator Harry Truman, a moderate and chairman of a Senate wartime investigating committee. Roosevelt refused to publicly support any of the Vice Presidential choices
• Roosevelt’s second choice was James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, however, he was conservative on race and labor issues, and Sidney Hillman, chairman of the CIO’s Political Action Committee and Roosevelt campaign contributor opposed his nomination.
• Roosevelt accepted Truman as his running mate for party unity, Truman himself was reluctant to accept the nomination, called “the new Missouri Compromise.”
• Liberal delegates still supported Henry Wallace and he was in the lead in the first ballot.
• The Northern, Midwestern, and Southern state delegates supported Truman, and he was able to clinch the nomination on the second ballot after shifts.

Republican Party:

• Dewey as the frontrunner captured the nomination with near unanimous delegate support, one Wisconsin delegate voted for MacArthur.
• Dewey accepted the nomination and gave a speech at the convention in Chicago.

Number of Ballots to Choose Nominees:

Democratic Party Nomination

• Vice Presidential 2nd ballot After Shifts
• Harry S. Truman   319.5   477.5   1,031
• Henry A. Wallace             429.5   473      105
• John H. Bankhead            98        23.5     0
• Scott W. Lucas     61        58        0
• Alben W. Barkley             49.5     40        6
• J. Melville Broughton 43  30        0
• Paul V. McNutt    31        28        1
• Prentice Cooper    26        26        26
• Scattering              118.5   20         7

Republican Party Nomination

Presidential 1^st Ballot

• Thomas Dewey 1,056
• Douglas MacArthur 1

Vice Presidential 1^st Ballot

• John W. Bricker 1,057

Third Party Candidates and Nominations:

Convention Keynote Speaker:

Nominating Speech Speakers (President):

Party Platforms and Issues:

• Democratic Party: Unconditional surrender in the war in Europe, Pacific; end tyranny in the world; United Nations organization; acknowledged American military might as the best in the world; assistance for the transition to civilian life for ex-servicemen and women, disabled; unrestricted Jewish immigration to Palestine; establishment of a free and democratic Jewish state; self government in Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico; extend suffrage to the people of the District of Columbia.
• Republican Party: Denounced the Democratic rule and centralization of power, increasing deficit spending, failing private enterprise promotion; military strength and expansion until both Germany and Japan were defeated; postwar United Nations organization; Fair Employment Practice Commission; set agricultural products prices.

Convention Quotations:

• “I like him and I respect him and he is my personal friend. For these reasons I personally would vote for his renomination if I were a delegate to the convention.” Franklin Roosevelt about Henry Wallace

General Election Controversies/Issues:

• Lack of different positions on the issues: Republican platform agreed with the Democrats on too many of the social and foreign policy issues, except for endorsing free enterprise and state control over social problems

Campaign Innovations (General Election): 

Major Personalities (General Election): 

Sidney Hillman; Robert Hannegan;

Campaign Tactics:

Democratic Party:

• Would not campaign/stump, to begin with, continue responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief
• Tired of the attacks Roosevelt commenced in mid-September stumping, planned to give five speeches, to answer his criticism sho he was physically up to the challenge.
• To quiet rumors of his poor health, Roosevelt insisted on making a vigorous campaign swing in October and rode in an open car through city streets.

Republican Party:

• Dewey only candidate on the stump first few weeks of the general campaign.
• Dignified stance: Efficiency; finely honed (unexciting) speeches, impeccable dress, cool demeanor, perfect timing for speeches and press conferences.
• Did not attack Roosevelt’s foreign policy, endorsed much of the New Deal, emphasis on change in leadership.
• To capture the public’s attention, the Republican campaign turned to visceral attacks on Roosevelt and the administration.

Turning Points (General Election):  

• After the convention, Arthur Krock of the New York Times reported that FDR had told Hannegan: “Go down and nominate Truman before there’s any more trouble. And clear everything with Sidney.” Became a controversy, that Sidney Hillman had too much decision making power within the Roosevelt administration, Democratic Party.
• Linked the Democrats to Communism: Linked Sidney Hillman, who praised Russia’s resistance to the Nazi invasion with Earl Browder (urged the Communist Party to support FDR).
• During the early campaign, only Dewey on the stump dignified position; did not attack Roosevelt’s foreign policy, endorsed much of the New Deal, emphasized on a change in leadership, a change did not appeal to the public.
• Roosevelt’s failing health issue; rumors that Roosevelt could not live out the term.
• Communism issue: Republican newspapers, orators and Dewey linked the American alliance in the war with Russia and Communist Party support for Roosevelt to communism influence within the Roosevelt administration.
• Roosevelt took to the stump September 23, 1944, his first of speeches answering his critics, was to the Teamsters Union in Washington, considered the best campaign speech of his career; Fala Speech: Speech carried on national radio in which he ridiculed Republican claims that his administration was corrupt and wasteful with tax money. He particularly ridiculed a GOP claim that he had sent a US Navy warship to pick up his Scottish terrier Fala in Alaska, noting that “Fala was furious” at such rumors.
• In response, Dewey gave a blistering partisan speech in Oklahoma City a few days later on national radio, in which he accused Roosevelt of being “indispensable” to corrupt big-city Democratic organizations and American Communists; he also referred to members of FDR’s cabinet as a “motley crew”. Accused the President of incompetence, arrogance, inefficiency, fatigue, and senility.
• American battlefield successes in Europe and the Pacific; the liberation of Paris (August 1944); Battle of Leyte Gulf, Philippines (October 1944).

Popular Campaign Slogans:

Campaign Song:

Influential Campaign Appeals or Ads:

• Democratic Party:
• Republican Party: “CLEAR EVERYTHING WITH SIDNEY”; “It’s your country and why let Sidney Hillman run it?”; “Everything in your government will be cleared with the radical Sidney Hillman and his Communist friend Earl Browder.” “Sidney Hillman and Earl Browder’s Communists have registered. Have you?” “Clear it with Sidney, you Yanks Then offer Joe Stalin your thanks, You’ll bow to Sid’s rule No matter how cruel, For that’s a directive of Frank’s.”

Money Spent (Each Campaign/Party/Overall):

Defining Quotation (Winning Candidate):

• “These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him – at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars- his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself – such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to libelous statements about my dog.” Franklin Roosevelt, Campaign Dinner Address, September 23, 1944, Washington, DC, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America
• “Well, here we are — here we are again — after four years — and what years they have been!” he began with a smile. “You know, I am actually four years older, which is a fact that seems to annoy some people. In fact. . . . there are millions of Americans who are more than eleven years older than when we started to clear up the mess that was dumped into our laps in 1933.” Franklin Roosevelt, Campaign Dinner Address, September 23, 1944, Washington, DC, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America
• “They will decide on the record—the record written on the seas, on the land, and in the skies. They will decide on the record of our domestic accomplishments in recovery and reform since March 4, 1933. And they will decide on the record of our war production and food production- unparalleled in all history, in spite of the doubts and sneers of those in high places who said it cannot be done. They will decide on the record of the International Food Conference, of U.N.R.R.A., of the International Labor Conference, of the International Education Conference, of the International Monetary Conference. And they will decide on the record written in the Atlantic Charter, at Casablanca, at Cairo, at Moscow, and at Teheran. We have made mistakes. Who has not? Things will not always be perfect. Are they ever perfect, in human affairs?” Franklin Roosevelt, Address to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, July 20, 1944

Defining Quotation (Losing Candidate):

• “Now, Mr. Roosevelt in his recent speech from the White House very softly disavowed communism. But the very next day, at a meeting right here in Boston, Earl Browder made a speech for Mr. Roosevelt and a collection was taken up for the fourth term. And not a voice in the New Deal was raised in protest.”…”now, by the self-same tried and familiar tactics and with the aid of Sidney Hillman, the Communists are seizing control of the New Deal, through which they aim to control the Government of the United States.” Thomas Dewey, Nov. 1, 1940, Boston, Boston Garden
• “Does anyone suggest that the present national administration is giving either efficient or competent government? We have not heard that claim made, even by its most fanatical supporters. No, all they tell us is that in its young days it did some good things. That we freely grant. But now it has grown old in office. It has become tired and quarrelsome. It seems that the great men who founded this nation really did know what they were talking about when they said that three terms were too many.” Thomas Dewey, Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, June 28, 1944

Campaign Quotations:

• “Nothing wrong organically with him at all. . . . He’s perfectly O.K. . . . The stories that he is in bad health are understandable enough around election time, but they are not true.” Admiral Ross McIntire, the President’s personal physician, statement on Roosevelt’s health
• “He was like a veteran virtuoso playing a piece he has loved for years, who fingers his way through it with a delicate fire, a perfection of tuning and tone, and an assurance that no young player, no matter how gifted, can equal. The President was playing what he loves to play — politics.” Time magazine
• “Roosevelt’s dog and Dewey’s goat.” one wag

Further Reading:

• Evans, Hugh E. The Hidden Campaign: FDR’s Health and the 1944 Election. Armonk: N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2002.

Lasting Legacy of Campaign:

• First and only time a President was elected to a fourth term; The passing of the 22nd Amendment of the United States Constitution in 1947 limited the number of Presidential to two, three, if a Vice President succeeded as President had less than two years of the term left
• A historic fight over the Democratic Vice Presidential nomination resulted in the next President. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1944, less than 4 months after taking the oath of office for the fourth time, and Truman became the nation’s 33rd President instead of Wallace.
• Last election in which a Democratic presidential candidate carried every state in the South.
• The first election since Grover Cleveland’s re-election in 1892 in which Ohio went to the losing candidate
• Last election in which any candidate received over 90% of the vote in any state.

 

CHRONOLOGY

• March 11, 1941: FDR signs the Lend-Lease Act.
• May 27, 1941: “Following German victories over Greece and Yugoslavia, Roosevelt issues a proclamation declaring an unlimited national emergency.”
• June 16, 1941: “FDR orders the closing of all German consulates in the United States; Germany and Italy respond by closing all U.S. consulates in their countries.”
• June 22, 1941: “Germany breaks the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 when it invades the U.S.S.R. Two days later, Roosevelt promises U.S. aid to the Soviet Union.”
• June 25, 1941: Roosevelt issues an executive order and establishes the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC).

• September 20, 1941: “FDR signs the largest tax bill in American history, as the Revenue Act of 1941 provides for sharply increased taxes to collect more than $3 billion for the defense effort.”
• October 27, 1941: “Ten days after a German U-boat torpedoes the U.S. destroyer Kearney, FDR announces to the nation that “America has been attacked, the shooting has started.” He stops short of declaring war on Germany, however, as many Americans are still reluctant to enter into open war, even after another U-boat sinks the U.S. destroyer Reuben James just three days later with the loss of 100 American lives.”
• December 7, 1941: “Japanese bombers attack Pearl Harbor, the major U.S. naval base in Hawaii. The attack kills 2,400 soldiers, sailors, and civilians, and wounds nearly 1,200 others. In addition, the U.S. Pacific fleet is significantly weakened by the loss of eight battleships and 150 planes. That evening, Japan will officially declare war on the United States.”
• December 8, 1941: Roosevelt appears before a special Joint Session of Congress, calling December 7 “a date which will live in infamy,” and asking for a declaration of war against Japan; Congress does so the same day.
• December 11, 1941: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States; Congress, in turn, declares war on Germany and Italy.
• January 14, 1942: “By proclamation, FDR orders all aliens in the United States to register with the federal government. The order is significant for Italian, German, and Japanese immigrants American citizens who are now viewed with suspicion, although most fears will focus on Japanese-Americans residing on the West Coast. They will soon be moved to internment camps under the pretense that they might provide aid to the enemy.”
• June 19, 1942: “FDR meets with Winston Churchill in Washington, D.C., to plan the invasion of North Africa. On November 8, 400,000 Allied troops will land in Morocco and Algeria, under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the newly appointed commander of U.S. forces in the European theater.”
• January 14-24, 1943: Casablanca Conference in Morocco. “At the Casablanca Conference in Morocco, FDR, Churchill, and other Allied representatives agree to the following: they will demand that the Axis powers surrender unconditionally; they will invade Europe initially through Sicily and Italy; they will launch a combined bomber offensive on Germany; they will step up aid to Russia, and they will prosecute the Battle of the Atlantic with greater vigor.”
• April 8, 1943: “FDR freezes prices, wages, and salaries in an effort to stem inflation.”
• May 7-13, 1943: “During the course of this week, Allied forces remove the Axis from North Africa through the forced surrender of German and Italian commanders. The two-year effort by the Axis to control North Africa, and specifically the Suez Canal, comes to an end.”
• May 11-27, 1943: Trident Conference in Washington, D.C. “At the Trident Conference in Washington, D.C., Churchill, Roosevelt, and their top military planners meet and formulate a general strategy for the planned invasions of Europe, and for the commitment of forces to the European and the Pacific theaters.”
• May 27, 1943: FDR establishes by executive order the Office of War Mobilization
• June 9, 1943: “The Current Tax Payment Act goes into effect, introducing the withholding of federal income taxes on wages and salaries. Also known as the “Pay-As-You-Go-Act.””
• July 25, 1943: “King Victor Emmanuel of Italy forces Benito Mussolini to resign after more than two decades as Il Duce, effectively ending Italy’s role as an Axis power. Allied forces will invade the country five weeks later; Italy will surrender unconditionally on September 8, although German troops will pour into the country, continuing the fight.”
• August 11-24, 1943: “Quadrant Conference in Quebec, Roosevelt, Churchill, and others agree on, among other items, a plan for the invasion of France, set for the spring of 1944.”

• November 12, 1943: Prohibition Party National Convention nominates Claude Alonzo Watson for President.
• November 22-26, 1943: “FDR, Churchill, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek meet at the Sextant Conference in Cairo, Egypt, and demand the unconditional surrender of Japan according to the following terms: it must restore Chinese territory; give Korea its independence; and give up all Pacific islands seized after 1914.”
• November 28-December 1, 1943: FDR, Churchill Joseph Stalin meet at the Tehran Conference in Iran. “Flying from Cairo, FDR and Churchill meet Joseph Stalin at the Tehran Conference in Iran. At this, the first ever meeting of the “Big Three” leaders, the timing of the invasion of Europe is finally settled.”

• 1944: Supporters want General Douglas MacArthur to run for the nomination, however, he is leading the Allied forces in the Pacific and could not actively campaign
• 1944: Thomas Dewey wants the nomination, however, when he was elected Governor of New York in 1942, he promised to serve his entire four-year term. He could not actively campaign, or announce his intentions for the Republican nomination; However, his name is on write-ins in state primaries contests, and, Republican state conventions pledge delegates to vote for him at the convention.
• 1944: Wisconsin primary: Thomas Dewey: 14 delegates; Harold Stassen: 4 delegates; General Douglas MacArthur: 3 delegates; Wendall Willkie does not win a single delegate in the Wisconsin primary and subsequently withdrew from the race.
• May 1, 1944: Republican Isolationist are no longer able to find a candidate to represent them, they are looking to draft McCormick. (“The old-line isolationists who used to rule the roost out this way and who still have undoubted influence in the councils of local Republicanism are beginning to feel themselves nevertheless isolated in their own ranks after the speech of Governor Dewey in New York last week and the disavowal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur of any Presidential aspirations.”) (NYT)
• May 16, 1944:  “Speaking in the name of 5,000,000 members of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the CIO Political Action Committee, meeting in Chicago concurrently with the convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers formally endorsed President Roosevelt for re-election today as “the only man in public life today qualified to lead the nation during the next four years.”” They want Wallace to have another term as Vice President.
• June 4, 1944: Socialist Convention Norman nominates Mattoon Thomas for President.
• June 4, 1944: “Allied forces enter Rome after German troops evacuate the city in retreat; it marks the beginning of the end of German resistance in Italy.”
• June 6, 1944: “”D-Day”: Operation Overlord begins just after midnight, with some 4,000 invasion ships, 600 warships, 10,000 planes, and about 176,000 Allied troops. The invasion of the continent takes place at a series of beaches in Normandy. By the end of the day, and despite heavy casualties, around 150,000 Allied troops have safely reached the beach and are dug in.”

• June 26-28, 1944: Republican National Convention convenes at the Chicago Stadium in Chicago, Illinois, and nominates on the 1^st ballot, Thomas E. Dewey (New York) for President, and John W. Bricker (Ohio) for Vice President. Dewey as the frontrunner captures the nomination with near unanimous delegate support, one Wisconsin delegate votes for MacArthur.
• June 28, 1944: Thomas E. Dewey gives an address accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.
• July 5, 1944: “Thomas E. Dewey, while revealing a part of his own campaign plans, challenges President Roosevelt to carry out persistently reported plans to make some major campaign move on the battlefields abroad, such as the delivery from Normandy of the acceptance speech to the Democratic convention.” (NYT)

• July 19-21, 1944: Democratic National Convention convenes at the Chicago Stadium, in Chicago, Illinois. Samuel D. Jackson (Indiana) serves as chairman. The convention renominates on the 1^st ballot, Franklin D. Roosevelt, (New York) for President, and nominates Harry S. Truman (Missouri) for Vice President.  Roosevelt’s declining health and suspicions of concealed health problems, prompt the party’s conservatives to oppose the renomination of Roosevelt’s second Vice-President Henry Wallace. Wallace left wing position and New Age spiritual beliefs concern conservatives considering that he might have to assume the Presidency. (Wallace had written coded letters discussing Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to his controversial Russian spiritual guru, Nicholas Roerich.) Roosevelt is renominated easily despite growing concern/opposition to his economic and social policies among conservatives in the party and especially in the South.
• July 19-21, 1944: Party leaders tell Roosevelt about their opposition to renominating Wallace for Vice President and suggest Missouri Senator Harry Truman, a moderate and chairman of a Senate wartime investigating committee. Roosevelt refuses to publicly support any of the Vice Presidential choices. Roosevelt’s second choice is James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, a conservative on race and labor issues, and Sidney Hillman, chairman of the CIO’s Political Action Committee and Roosevelt campaign contributor oppose being nominated. Roosevelt accepts Truman as his running mate for party unity, Truman himself is reluctant to accept the nomination. The agreement is called “the new Missouri Compromise.” Liberal delegates still support Henry Wallace and he maintains the lead in the first ballot. The Northern, Midwestern, and Southern state delegates support Truman, and he is able to clinch the nomination on the second ballot after shifts.
• July 20, 1944: Franklin Roosevelt addresses the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and accepts his fourth nomination for President.
• July 1944: After the convention, Arthur Krock of the New York Times reports that FDR had told Hannegan: “Go down and nominate Truman before there’s any more trouble. And clear everything with Sidney.” Became a controversy, that Sidney Hillman had too much decision making power within the Roosevelt administration, Democratic Party.
• August 21-October 7, 1944: Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, D.C. “The Dumbarton Oaks Conference begins in Washington, D.C., attended by representatives of the United States, Britain, China, and the U.S.S.R. It lays the groundwork for the United Nations, an international organization for promoting peaceful and legal solutions to international problems.”
• August 25, 1944: “Allied forces liberate Paris, France.”
• September 11-16, 1944: “At the Octagon Conference in Quebec, FDR and Churchill discuss strategies for pursuing the Germans and Japanese and their treatment following the war.”
• September 12, 1944: “American forces engage German troops on German soil for the first time in the war.”
• September 10, 1944: “Governor Dewey’s opening campaign speeches “reveal that he has found no weak points in the armor of his opponent,” Frank Kingdon, chairman of the New Jersey League of Independent Voters for Roosevelt, declared yesterday, adding that the Republican candidate is “failing utterly in his attempt to charge the responsibility of the depression to the Roosevelt Administration.””
• October 20-26, 1944: “U.S. forces invade Leyte Island in the Philippines. They are led by General MacArthur, who broadcasts to the Philippine people that he has fulfilled his promise of returning to the country. Three days later, the Japanese send a major naval force to disrupt the invasion. These forces meet in the Battle of the Leyte Gulf where the Japanese suffer a major defeat, losing twenty-four large ships; it is the largest naval engagement of the war and thereafter, the Japanese Navy is limited largely to suicide engagements in the form of Kamikaze fighter pilots.”
• November 1, 1944: Boston, Governor Dewey declared here tonight that the Communists, using Sidney Hillman as a front, were trying to seize control of the Federal Government, and if they succeed, he added, the fundamental American freedoms, particularly freedom of religion, would be endangered. Republicans visceral attacks on Roosevelt and the administration and linked the Democrats to Communism: Linked Sidney Hillman, who praised Russia’s resistance to the Nazi invasion with Earl Browder (urged the Communist Party to support FDR) DEWEY PREDICTS ‘RED MENACE’ RISE IF ROOSEVELT WINS; Asserts Communists With Aid of Hillman Seek to Seize Control of Government.
• Communism issue: Republican newspapers, orators and Dewey linked the American alliance in the war with Russia and Communist Party support for Roosevelt to communism influence within the Roosevelt administration.
• Mid-September 1944: At first, Roosevelt decides not campaign/stump, but continue responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief. Tired of the attacks that his health is failing and the rumors that Roosevelt could not live out the term. Roosevelt commences stumping, plans to give five speeches, to answer the criticism show he was physically up to the challenge.
• September 23, 1944: Franklin Roosevelt gives a campaign dinner address in Washington, DC to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America. Roosevelt takes to the stump, his first of speeches answering his critics, was to the Teamsters Union in Washington, which is considered the best campaign speech of his career. Fala Speech: Speech is carried on national radio in which he ridicules Republican claims that his administration is corrupt and wasteful with tax money. He particularly ridicules a GOP claim that he had sent a US Navy warship to pick up his Scottish terrier Fala in Alaska, noting that “Fala was furious” at such rumors.
• September 25, 1944: In response, Dewey gives a blistering partisan speech in Oklahoma City on national radio, in which he accuses Roosevelt of being “indispensable” to corrupt big-city Democratic organizations and American Communists; he also referred to members of FDR’s cabinet as a “motley crew”,  Accusing the President of incompetence, arrogance, inefficiency, fatigue, and senility.
• September 30, 1944: DEWEY’S LIVELY SPEECH SPURS REPUBLICAN HOPE; Retort to Roosevelt Has Changed Tone Of Campaign and His Party Thinks The Democrats Blundered BUT LATTER SEE IT OTHERWISE  There is plentiful evidence that the Republican campaign management is much encouraged by the effects of the President’s first openly political speech, one of which was the vigorous reply of the party candidate, Gov. Thomas E. Dewey. There is abundant evidence also that the oratorical exchange has given to the Republican management more hope than before of a successful election outcome.
• October 1944: To quiet rumors of his poor health, Roosevelt insists on making a vigorous campaign swing, and rode in an open car through city streets.
• October 1944: Battle of Leyte Gulf, Philippines.
• October 27, 1944: California Republican leaders are pleased by the third private poll they took during the Presidential campaign, which indicates that Dewey could win California by 140,000 votes. However, bets still indicate 4 to 1 that President Roosevelt will carry the State.
• November 1, 1944: “Two labor leaders listed by the Republican State Committee deny being among those signing a round-robin letter endorsing Governor Dewey for President and blaming President Roosevelt for prolonging the depression.” (NYT)
• November 7, 1944: Election Day, Franklin D. Roosevelt is reelected President for an unprecedented fourth term and Harry S. Truman is elected Vice President.
• December 18, 1944, Presidential Electors cast the electoral votes in their state capitols.