One day, Dewey got angry at a railroad engineer because his campaign train was late for a speech. Truman said this proved that Dewey did not understand the problems of railroad engineers and other working Americans. He tried to make the election a choice between hard-working Democrats and rich Republicans.

Two other men also were candidates for the presidency. Both were from newly created parties.

One was Strom Thurmond from South Carolina. He was the candidate of the States Rights Democratic Party, also known as the Dixiecrat Party. Most of his supporters were white people from the southeastern part of the country. They opposed giving full rights to black people.

The other candidate was Henry Wallace of the Progressive Party. His supporters believed that Truman had turned away from the progressive ideas of Franklin Roosevelt.

Both Thurmond and Wallace had broken away from the Democratic Party. Most political experts believed these two candidates would take votes away from President Truman. They believed the Republican Dewey would surely win the election. President Truman did not have strong public support.

But Harry Truman was a fighter. He did not believe the election was lost. He took his campaign to the American people.

HARRY TRUMAN: “On Election Day, the president, the Congress, the governor, the mayor all cease as the government. You are the government, because then you decide what sort of government you want. And when you do like you did in nineteen forty-six, when two-thirds of you stayed at home, you get just what you deserve -- you got that good for nothing Eightieth Congress.”