Oscar L. Chapman Oral History Interview, August 25, 1972

Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened 1980
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

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HESS: All right, continuing on with our discussion of the 1948 campaign, and we have just been talking informally about the Dexter plowing match, the National Plowing Match at Dexter, Iowa. Tell me what you recall about that occasion.

CHAPMAN: I remember the occasion with a good deal of pleasure, because the President was called on to plow. Instead of using the machinery for plowing, he used a two mule team and he plowed a straight row with a twelve inch cut in the soil. He was plowing as straight a row as any man that ever has driven a mule anywhere. They were two of the most beautiful mules I ever saw that he was using to drive that day, and they were well-trained, well broken in for this work. That was also the occasion at which we had lots of fun, more or less teasing Margaret.

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We didn't let her know the truth about the situation, but we told her that we were going to call on her to sing, that the committee, local committee, had asked that she sing a song they'd heard her sing--"Ave Maria." She, of course, didn't want to sing in the great outdoors space and there were several reasons that she didn't want to do it, and they were legitimate reasons, But she was really scared that I was going to introduce the President or make him introduce Margaret too--and ask her, at the request of this committee, if she would sing "Ave Maria" for them, that they had been so impressed with her singing of "Ave Maria" when she sang at Constitution Hall in Washington.

HESS: Had you talked to the members of the committee about that?

CHAPMAN: No. Because I wasn't going to do it; I wasn't going to do it anyhow, I was just having fun with the inside group. It was just the inside

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group and we were having the fun with Margaret.

HESS: And she didn't want to do it.

CHAPMAN: And she just didn't want to do it, and I was very much amused by it and he was--I spoke to the President about it first before I started the little cabal on her, and he laughed. He said, "'You get her to sing, introduce her, let her sing."

I said, "All right, I'll see if I can get her to do it."

He said, "Well, you ask her and see. I don't think she will do it, but you ask her."

I said, "All right, she may come to you to get you to call me off."

"Oh," he said, "I'll tell her I've given you carte blanche authority to run this thing; you'll have to run it your way."

And, if I remember correctly, she did go to see the President at the head table, went around to see both Charlie Ross at the head table, and the President, and told them to make me--to call

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me off of doing this particular kind of a thing and to ask me not to introduce her to sing. She said she just could not sing in the great outdoor theater of this kind, and that she just thought this would be out of place for her to try to do it. She, oh, she had a good argument that she'd made up, with some good answers for me, and she didn't know that I really wasn't planning to use it anyway; I wasn't going to introduce her anyhow to sing, because we just did it for having some fun with her.

HESS: That was on September the 18th, 1948.

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: I have a list of the speeches. Let me see, "September the 18th, Address at Dexter, Iowa, at the National Plowing Match."

Did you leave with the President when he left Dexter?

CHAPMAN: I took a plane and left there way ahead of

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them, and left them about three stops in between that and Portland. I let them take those stops and handle them; they were small places behind the platform on the train.

HESS: The whistlestops.

CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: Did you generally try to stay about two or three days ahead of the President?

CHAPMAN: About a week. I tried to stay ahead of him. I couldn't always do it; there were several places I had to remain with the President's party because I felt certain differences among some of the local committees that would be in controversy with each other about what they were going to do and wanted to do, and sometimes I…

HESS: Can you give me an illustration, a point to illustrate that fact?

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CHAPMAN: Well, just to illustrate that perfectly, was--well, Portland. I had to stay with him in Portland during the whole trip he was there. I couldn't just leave him and go on then ahead of him and leave somebody in charge to introduce him; some one of his men on the train would introduce him. Charlie Ross--I mean Clark Clifford was on the train and he would help me out beautifully, and if something came up like that I could always call on him and get him to fill in to introduce the President on the back of the train and he knew just what to do and how to do it. Clark was extremely helpful, and he knew--he had the touch and the feel of the President and the local citizens, how to deal with them and how to handle them, better than any man that I have ever known. He made a perfect man to--not to do the footwork. In the way I'm telling it it may sound like that. Not the question of the footwork and things like that; there were other people that had to do

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that. But Mr. Clifford would come along and do the important things and things that would give it standing and give it prestige as we went, because he is a man of nice physical stature and intellectually he was a man of real stature, and he could speak on the subject that applied to that locality and community as well as anybody. He had this brief that we had with the President that was bigger than any one of these you've got here, one of these books; we had two of them as a matter of fact. One continued on with the subject matter. But I was used to people. Well, particularly the one in Portland, I had to stay there, not so much for the question of introducing the President; that was not an important factor in most cases. Sometimes that became an issue with the local people about which one of the leaders of this faction, of that faction, was going to introduce the President; it got down to where there was--a question would be resolved by my just saying, "Oh, there is a man on the

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train with him, Clark Clifford, who will introduce the President, because he understands the program, how long it will have to run, and so on."

HESS: What were the main problems in Portland?

CHAPMAN: First, they had a real political difference going on among the political parties there; political leaders were having this little controversy about what to do and how to do it and what they ought to do. For instance, one group was recommending that I schedule the President in the "Rose Parade," an annual event. They wanted us to keep that schedule and put him on there because we'd have a lot of publicity on this, but two or three days before, that devastating flood had come.

HESS: This is in June.

CHAPMAN: This was...

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HESS: Yeah, we discussed that last time; this was in June,

CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: The same year though.

CHAPMAN: I didn't discuss this phase, on June 5th; it was the same trip I believe.

HESS: Yes, that's right, what was called the western or that so-called nonpolitical trip.

CHAPMAN: Nonpolitical trip, yes.

HESS: So-called nonpolitical trip, usually seen in quotes.

CHAPMAN: That is right.

HESS: One of the important trips though for 1948.

CHAPMAN: One of the most important trips; it is one of the most important trips that made the groundwork for the pattern which we followed. And I was really laying it out as to what I was

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trying to do, which was to leave a pattern to follow so that we could make another trip and do it easier, and so on. I was trying to do that, and having to try to settle the differences between the local political people, and you ask the question what were some of the problems they had. Well, it would go into problems like this where the official committee, the proper committee that had charge of this, that legally was their representatives, who had legally been elected as their national committeemen and committeewomen and so on, and they wanted to do it a certain way, and they thought they had the right to set the course. Normally that would be true, but sometimes you would run into a situation where you couldn't follow what would be the normal procedure and what ought to be followed. There were circumstances that intervened on a lot of these occasions that meant you would have to change their pattern and

[390]

their plans. You didn't want to change their local plans a bit more than you had to, and you wanted to...

HESS: You didn't want to step on any toes.

CHAPMAN: No, you wanted to leave them actually in control as much as possible, you know, to make them happy about the whole situation and then in that effort try to bring together the contending parties. Sometimes you would succeed by a change of program a little bit, which satisfied these people. As a matter of fact, the Portland one turned out fine. In fact, I thought I was going to have a terrific headache with that one before I got through, because from the looks of it and from what I was getting from some of the local people, the problem was being overstated to me a great deal. And therefore, I was expecting a lot of difficulty there, and I had asked Clark to help me, but I didn't need anything then, because by the time the President got there, the crest of

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the water had been reached and was going down.

HESS: The flood was going down.

CHAPMAN: Yes, the flood was going down, and they were still finding bodies though that had not been recovered, and that made it a very sad occasion. And they were still searching for some missing parties they had not found. And they did find eight or ten more that night and the next morning; they found eight or ten more bodies. All of that tied in with a change of plan that I made there and then I telephoned it back to the President's train and got his permission to do this, to cut his noonday luncheon, where he was going to make a speech, and talk to the big hall full of people and then go in the cars and line up in a parade. We were to drive in this beautiful--it was a very beautiful occasion where each car was decorated with roses and was done with really a beautiful show that could be put on and usually was put on with that and

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nobody wanted to miss the rose parade; they wanted it because it was something they had advertised for years.

HESS: Traditional.

CHAPMAN: They didn't want to miss it, and I could understand their feelings, but I could also understand how quickly it could be turned against the President. When you were outside of Portland, got outside of Portland, they turned that kind of an event against Truman by implying that he was kind of a hard-hearted fellow and didn't have the sympathy of the people that a man ought to have, which you and I know is not true of Mr. Truman. We know just by nature he didn't have to put on those things; it came by nature to him because he was a man that had a real heart for people's troubles. He really did have a heart for them, and he tried to help them all he could. I felt that we had gotten by the Portland program unusually well, much better than--it was worth

[393]

more to Truman for this to have happened when it did, and for him to appear there when he did and to make his appearance and ask the Red Cross to immediately start to send some help.

I had developed that. The regional Red Cross man spoke from the podium there at Salem, which is a little ways outside of Portland; it's the state capital. I had the regional Red Cross man speak there and had the President ask him for a report. I had tipped him off ahead of time that he had to have a report ready for the President, a report that tells what they had done, what plans they had to help carry on and provide help in this disaster. And that went off beautifully; it went over the air nicely. We had radio and television on them, and it went over beautifully. I think really it turned out better for us in the long run than had we been able to follow the original schedule that they had there. It was nice and one I would have

[394]

liked to have seen very much, but I had...

HESS: Had conditions have been normal.

CHAPMAN: That's right, but I wouldn't stay there under normal circumstances. I would have gone on to the next place, because the people had pretty much gotten together. This disaster kind of helped bring them together.

HESS: When you would get into an area, was one of the main considerations in seeing that there was going to be a good turnout to see the President and to hear the President speak when he came?

CHAPMAN: In some places I'd make that a special effort, but not in all of them.

HESS: In some places you'd just leave that up to the local committees to handle the beating of the drums to get out the crowd?

CHAPMAN: That's right, I'd leave it to them to handle that.

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HESS: Which cases did you look after specifically to try to get a crowd out for President Truman?

CHAPMAN: I checked on his luncheon in San Francisco and in Los Angeles, stayed with him at the Los Angeles lunch, but I didn't stay up at San Francisco. It was all harmony up there; everything was harmonious, and there was no interparty squabble going on and he was--the President was far more popular than people realized. And it wasn't a question of getting a crowd there for him; it was a question of how to keep them out, because you couldn't get seats for all those people who wanted to sit at that luncheon. And my problem in Los Angeles, just like San Francisco; there’s a reverse from the problem of getting a crowd, but a problem of appropriately taking care of the crowd that came. And you have an open meeting and you have a local committee, which I had there, and that local committee would give me suggestions about who ought to do this, and do that, and it worked out

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very well, the Los Angeles one, in the front of the...

HESS: The Greater Los Angeles Press Club.

CHAPMAN: Yes. Yes, that is under the Greater Los Angeles Press Club on June the 14th. I stayed there for that because there's always some problems that would come up down there, quite different from San Francisco, and I had to stay, but didn't feel I did at San Francisco. I had been there, two days, and talked with all the leaders and I had asked certain ones too, if I could I'd take the party chairman, if I could use him. Sometimes they were not friendly enough that I wanted to trust it with them, and I wouldn't, and I'd pick somebody else that was active in the particular company, and...

HESS: Was sometimes their unfriendliness caused by a lack of support of Mr. Truman; they didn't think that he would win?

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CHAPMAN: A good deal of the time that was the background.

HESS: Did you run into that very often?

CHAPMAN: Well...

HESS: Not just in June, but all during the campaign?

CHAPMAN: Oh, yes. It started like this: We started on the bottom step; he had to go to the top, and it kept going like that to a point I could tell it.

HESS: Things kept getting better during the campaign?

CHAPMAN: Yes, and they were easier to get to come out when I called the national chairman or the committeeman from a certain state, and he would be in this time. I could see him when I got there to his place he would be available. The first trip...

HESS: But there was a reluctance early in the campaign?

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CHAPMAN: That's it, the earlier part of the campaign they were reluctant to come out.

HESS: Well now see, the Dexter plowing match was in the early part of the campaign; that was on September the 18th. Just taking a glance at some of the other stops I see your home state of Colorado...

CHAPMAN: Well, he came through Colorado and then went on West.

HESS: ...he spoke at the State Capital in Denver, on the 20th. Do you recall having any difficulty with lack of cooperation with any of the Colorado leaders?

CHAPMAN: No, we didn't have any problem there. That was a very, very good experience. I want to say that I took some credit for myself to think that they thought enough of me that they weren't going to cause me any trouble, knowing I was handling this program. They didn't want to cause me any trouble,

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locally. I had some people there that were obligated to me politically that I could call on and tell them I wanted them to do this and do that, and I knew whom to get and whom not to get for myself. And that was a very simple one; I got that straightened out in the first afternoon.

HESS: On the point of lack of cooperation, do you recall any times when that may have been a problem? Lets start with Labor Day in Cadillac Square.

CHAPMAN: Labor Day in Cadillac Square.

HESS: And then we come on down through Dexter. He made rear platform remarks in Iowa, in Missouri, Pennsylvania and Ohio...

CHAPMAN: That's right,

HESS: …went on out to Utah, and then on out to California...

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CHAPMAN: We got a wonderful reception in Salt Lake. We stopped in Salt Lake. They really gave us a good reception.

HESS: His address at the Mormon Tabernacle was on September the 21st.

CHAPMAN: You know that was a--and I want to be certain of this, I'm not sure, but I think this was the first time the Tabernacle was ever used for a straight out-and-out political speech.

HESS: Did you have any difficulty arranging for the Tabernacle to be used in that manner?

CHAPMAN: No, because I could go to George Smith; I could go to him direct and see him, and sit down and talk with him.

HESS: The man who was head of the church at that time?

CHAPMAN: Yes, he was head of the church, he was 82 years old.

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HESS: I wonder if he was there at the time the President spoke.

CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: The note in the Public Papers is as follows: "The President spoke at 8:03 p.m. in the Mormon Tabernacle. In his opening words he referred to Herbert B. Maw, Governor of Utah, and George A. Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: So, President Smith was probably in attendance.

CHAPMAN: Smith was there. I had seen Smith; I had gone up to see the old man. And as I said, I call him an old man; he was nearing 90 years, but he had a vigorous, sound, mental standing in this community. He was well thought of and they liked him and it was really a very fine thing he did there in Utah, because he knew the sentiment, what it was; he knew how it was, and

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he really was for Truman. He didn't publicly say so, I don't think, but he absolutely gave authorization for the use of the Tabernacle. I don't recall its ever being used at any other time when he was speaking in the state; of anyone going up there for strictly political purposes, or of anybody speaking in the Tabernacle for a strictly political purpose. Now there may have been and I don't recall it, so I don't want to be positive in that statement.

But I want to say that we had warm and close cooperation with the people in the organization itself up there, and support from the people was enthusiastic. They were coming along nicely. They had the background of all these stops you see all the way from Chicago and Pennsylvania and Ohio stops, and Illinois stops, and on to Chicago, and they followed us. The press had to write something. Wherever the President stopped they had to say something, so they wrote something about him.

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You see, that's what the average person doesn't realize. If the President stops at Timbuktu, it wouldn't make any difference whether there were five people or five thousand, your press people had to be there, and they were there and that's worth something. And they didn't have much to write about since he stops there for only ten minutes of remarks from the back of the platform. They say he was here today and he was well-received and drew applause, something like that. Nine out of ten would use that phrase, and the story on Truman began to build up. The whole idea of Truman's strength was beginning to show, to come through. But at the time we had made all these stops through Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and then on back to Salt Lake. I think he spoke at Salt Lake after he spoke at American Fork, Utah; the people there had the benefit of that much publicity on the campaign, and I think it showed.

HESS: But still this was early in the campaign...

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CHAPMAN: Well, they had had, though, quite a bit of speaking on the first part of this trip.

HESS: I'm still interested in this proposition of who you had some difficulty with, and at what stops you may have had some difficulty.

You mentioned that there were certain state chairmen that early in the campaign were unavailable.

CHAPMAN: Well, when I would get to Ohio for instance, Governor [Frank J.] Lausche was not available for me to see him, to make arrangements for him to get on the train to see the President. I wanted him to get on the train as the train entered Ohio, and ride with him when ate got to Cleveland where he was to speak there that night.

HESS: Here on the list are "Informal remarks in Pennsylvania and Ohio." That was on the 17th...

CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: ...but I don't think they stopped at Cleveland

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at that time.

CHAPMAN: Did they stop in Cleveland at this time? They may not, maybe not.

HESS: I don't think so.

CHAPMAN: That's probably not the one; that was probably that second special trip we made.

HESS: Did they stop in Cleveland in June?

CHAPMAN: I think they did.

HESS: Let's take a quick look at the list and see.

CHAPMAN: We stopped there, but I don't know just for sure when it was.

HESS: I don't think he went to Cleveland at that time.

CHAPMAN: I don't think he spoke there on that trip.

HESS: Probably later on another trip, but anyway, you did have some difficulty and lack of cooperation on Governor Lausche's part, right?

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CHAPMAN: I had very definite problems with getting him to cooperate in publicly showing himself with us, being with the President. Perhaps I shouldn't get into this but it was funny, and I will tell this on him.

When I tried to get him to get on the train when it entered Ohio (I think from Illinois), I think we came in from Illinois into Ohio, and the first stop we entered Ohio was a stop quite early in the morning, between 7 and 8 o'clock. Governor Lausche didn't show up for the meeting to meet the President or to get on the train there. Now we were only going to make a few stops through there, and he had two other chances; he had several (I'll put it in those terms), he had several other chances to get on the train.

HESS: In the note on page 287 of the 1948 Public Papers is the following: "In the course of his remarks on June 4, the President referred to former Governor Frank J. Lausche, Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio," and a couple

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of other fellows. Now this is Crestline, Ohio on June the 4th.

The President mentioned him in Sandusky, Ohio on...

CHAPMAN: In Sandusky, Ohio, what time of day?

HESS: Well, it's late in the afternoon, 3:37 in the afternoon, but this was on October the 26th; this was late in the campaign.

CHAPMAN: I see.

HESS: Yes, in the course of his remarks he mentions him, but I don't know whether he was there. "I am very happy indeed to be here this afternoon. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this wonderful turnout. I sincerely hope you will send Dwight Blackmore to the Congress. We need Democrats in the next Congress to look after the interests of the people, and you can't do better than to send Dwight Blackmore to the Congress. I know very well you're going to elect Frank Lausche Governor." Now that doesn't say if he was there or not there, it is not specific, but here in June it says, "It is a pleasure to have been able to see the Governor."

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CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: "I know he is going to be the next Governor of Ohio."

So, in June it looks like he did see him; in October he refers to him, but I don't know whether he was there or not.

CHAPMAN: Now here’s the story; I just can't fit it in the timing, but this story happened. I can't place it in the right context of the time of the trip.

Lausche did not come and get on the train as I had asked him to do over the phone. I had talked to him over the phone and I had difficulty getting him on the phone, but I finally got him and asked him to come to get on the train and appear on the back platform with the President at this particular place.

I don't know the name of the little town. I have that in my own papers there in the Library, I think, a memorandum that I made there regarding the incident because it was rather interesting.

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He couldn't come, he was so busy. But he got a report of the five thousand people that stood back of the platform to hear Truman speak at 7 o'clock or 7:30 in the morning, whatever it was, and we did have a crowd. And the enthusiasm was expressed by the crowd, by their applause. The reception they gave him was warm. You couldn't miss it.

So, I got a call from Lausche sometime there early in the morning. We stopped at some other place and Lausche wanted to know if he could get on the train with the President. I told him the President would welcome him and would be glad to see him on the train. I said, "I will like to introduce you to the audience or have you to introduce the President to the audience would be better."

He said, "Oh, I'd be glad to, I'd be glad to." He had gotten a beautiful report from his scouts from that morning whistlestop, and as I

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said, we had over five thousand people at some little small town, I don't know what it was. In such a small place it didn't require much of a crowd for there to be a crowd, but we had a good crowd.

HESS: This brings up a point that we will want to cover and it interests historians a great deal. The question of how the decisions were made of who would ride on the train, who would be invited to come on the train, who would be invited to talk to the President while the train was moving across the state.

CHAPMAN: Well, that whole problem, that would be wrapped up in this kind of a statement. I would quite generally, in a lot of cases, indicate who would get on the train, but the President...

HESS: Who made that decision though?

CHAPMAN: Well, it depended on the state leaders; it

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depended somewhat on the state leaders' attitudes, what they had been saying and doing. If they had not been making public statements for Truman I wouldn't invite them on.

HESS: Anti-Truman statements in other words, anti-administration statements.

CHAPMAN: If they made some anti-Truman statements I personally wouldn't invite them on, but maybe the President...

HESS: Would you give me some illustrations?

CHAPMAN: I'm trying to think of this fellow's name.

HESS: Which state.

CHAPMAN: California, out in San Francisco, and that's where we had a very general warm background up there at the President's speech. We had a very generous turnout there in San Francisco, a warm reception.

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HESS: But someone there had been making statements against the President?

CHAPMAN: There was one fellow who had been making some wild statements about the President and that was not true generally of that area. That area was very friendly to Truman. Now had that come from some other area I would have expected it.

HESS: In Southern California during the June trip they were having trouble with James Roosevelt. I think we have covered this. But did you speak to James Roosevelt before Mr. Truman went out there?

CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: What did he say, what was his attitude?

CHAPMAN: You know, his attitude was very interesting. He was not hostile to the President, but he was so skeptical as to his possibility of being elected.

[413]

HESS: He just didn't think President Truman could win?

CHAPMAN: He just didn’t think President Truman could win. And he wasn’t hostile to me in talking of the President, and Jim always talked to me very, very frankly on personal matters and he told me of the local problems they had and I listened to all of his problems first and then let him get them off his chest. And then we started talking. And I said, "Jim, you know the troubles that you have; they don't appear to be any serious trouble here for you. You're going to be re-elected; it won't be any problem with you."

He said, "Do you get that impression?"

I said, "Why, sure, you're going to be elected without any question, you'll be reelected." And I said, "Therefore, you are strong enough? You believe that there may be possibly a prospect that Truman will not be elected; you're the kind of person I’d like to get to go out and make a public speech and express some optimistic points."

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HESS: What did he say?

CHAPMAN: Well he said, "Oscar, will it hurt me if I speak for Truman?"

"Well," I said, "Jim, I think that 9 out of 10 people would probably answer that question by saying, 'Yes it would. I wouldn't get into it.’"

I said, "That's just because people do not interpret the whole picture of what's going on." I told him, I said, "You may not realize that we've got four candidates in this campaign," and who was our Republican candidate, Dewey?

HESS: Dewey.

CHAPMAN: Dewey.

HESS: And then there's Wallace...

CHAPMAN: Wallace.

HESS: ...and J. Strom Thurmond.

CHAPMAN: J. Strom Thurmond.

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HESS: So, this was during the campaign, when you were speaking to him; it wasn't June.

CHAPMAN: No, I spoke to him in June.

HESS: In June too.

CHAPMAN: This was early, because I made this kind of a talk to him in June. When I talked to him up on the second trip, he had changed completely.

HESS: In what way?

CHAPMAN: That he began to believe that I was right. You see he said, "He's picking up in this area so very fast."

HESS: This was during the campaign?

CHAPMAN: This was during the campaign. He indicated that he thought Truman was picking up quite fast at that time.

HESS: And Mr. Truman did win California.

CHAPMAN: Oh, he carried California by the number of votes that Wallace lacked in getting two hundred

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thousand, and the only political prognostication I gave in the campaign was that one right there.

That was because this old fellow on the Times there was a nice old guy; he wrote the political column. He was an older fellow but he wrote a darn good column. He always wrote a good column, and I thought so because he always came out on my side, as a rule. And he had a long talk with me. He said, "I wish you'd give me some ideas about this campaign;" he said, "I can't depend upon what these folks said around here. I can't risk my reputation on what they say, because I know he's stronger than what some of these political leaders around here are trying to imply," But he said, "I just wish I had somebody like you that would give me a real story on that."

"Well," I said, "the trouble with it is, Mr. Bowers, that everybody knows that I am working for Truman." But I then gave him the prediction

[417]

that Truman would win California by the number of votes that Henry Wallace lacked getting two hundred thousand votes. And that's the way the vote went in California in November.