Choosing Truman: The Democratic Convention of 1944

3. Roosevelt and Truman!

- 3 ROOSEVELT AND TRUMAN! The final drama in the choice of Harry S. Truman took place in the Chicago Stadium, as it was called. It was a big barn ofa hall near the center of the city that could seat twenty-four thousand people, and if they stood up in aisles and balconies it would hold maybe ten thousand more. To this mecca came the Democratic party faithful in mid-July 1944 to yell, shout, vote, whatever would bring victory in the November election. Democrats converged upon Chicago from all over the country. The group from New York City was perhaps a bit special, in credentials as well as size. A reporter from the New York Times interviewed its most prominent member, the former national chairman, Farley, as he boarded the Twentieth Century Limited. Farley refused to say much-he had given up the state chairmanship some weeks before and was only a delegate at large. Another traveler to Chicago was the secretary of Tammany Hall, Bert Stand, who left by plane from La Guardia Field. He made up for some of Farley's silences. Asked who he would back he said it would be "Roosevelt on the first ballot and Roosevelt on all ballots." He refused to commit himself on the vice-presidency, merely saying, "Whoever Mr. Roosevelt wants, we will back." Asked about the role ofFarley, who had become an executive for the Coca-Cola Company, he said he thought Farley would be "pretty busy selling Coca-Cola." "Ifhe sees this," said Stand, "he will thank me for the plug."! A few delegates, like the Tammany secretary, traveled by plane, but only a few: it was difficult to gain access to the strictly rationed seats. Most arrived by train. Wartime trains, to be sure, were a difficult means oftravel. They were crowded with servicemen and harried civilian travelers. Pullmans and compartments were available only for peo63 64 Choosing Truman pIe who reserved long ahead of time; all others crowded aboard and sat in coaches not much changed from the time of William McKinley and the Republican Roosevelt. At night weary passengers tried to sleep, difficult in the heat ofmidsummer with no air-conditioning. Conductors turned on lights at every station stop. In daytime passengers looked out dirty windows at nearly interminable open spaces as mile after mile of middle western or western or southern landscape glided by. All this accompanied by the clickety-clack of unwelded rails. Over the weekend of July 15-16 delegates staggered in. The lobby of the huge Stevens, later known as the Hilton, filled with talkers, sometimes picturesquely garbed westerners or southerners, together with all sorts of hangers-on who wanted to see what was happening. Delegates walked around wearing their badges; all were decked with emblems ofstates and regions, proud to show off, even more proud to be present at their party's great quadrennial assemblage. Chicago Stadium, meanwhile, was getting its decorations. Thirtyeight cardboard cutouts, life-sized and highly colored, of servicemen and service women in grim battle poses, charged toward delegates' seats from every corner of the hall. Red-white-and-blue fluorescent victory Vs were arranged to light up when the stadium darkened after the playing of the national anthem. Over the balcony, in imposing rows, were affixed greatly enlarged black-and-white likenesses of the country's fourteen Democratic presidents, from Thomas Jefferson to FDR. An eight-foot colored image of Roosevelt's face looked down on the convention floor from the highest point in the northwest girders. "Same one we used four years ago," said the superintendent of the Chicago Sewer Bureau, Tom Garry, who was in charge. "Retouched ," he explained. "It was a little pale."2 J. G. Grouzard, in charge of concessions, was getting ready for the crowds. He was clearly disappointed in the appetites and thirsts of the Republicans who had used the stadium for their convention just a few weeks earlier. He had overestimated the hunger of the Republicans and arranged for 50,000 hot dogs, but the Republicans ate only 30,000. Based on the Republicans' appetites, for the Democrats he prepared only 30,000 hot dogs; however, at Thursday's session delegates and visitors ate 25,000 hot dogs, and the next day almost as many. By convention's end they had doubled or better the sandwich figures of all previous conventions. As for drinks, Grouzard Roosevelt and Truman...