He said he had always campaigned by going around talking to people and meeting them. Running for president was no different, he said. He just got on a train and started across the country to tell people what was going on. He wanted to talk to them face to face. When you stand there in front of them and talk to them, he said, the people can tell whether you are telling them the facts or not.

HARRY TRUMAN: “If you give the Republicans complete control of this government, you might just as well turn it over to the special interests, and we’ll start on a boom-and-bust cycle and try to go through just what we did in the twenties and end up with a crash, which in the long run will do nobody any good but the communists.”

Truman campaigned with great energy.

(SOUND: Truman’s campaign train)

He made hundreds of speeches as his train crossed the country. It became known as the "whistle stop" campaign, because it stopped at some of the smallest towns and villages in the country. Truman gave speeches from the back of his campaign train, the Ferdinand Magellan. He spoke to farmers in Iowa. He visited a children's home in Texas. And he discussed issues with small groups of people who came to visit his train when it stopped in rural areas of Montana and Idaho.

Dewey and the Republicans laughed at Truman's campaign. They said it showed that Truman needed votes so badly that he had to spend his time looking for them in small villages. Truman said the criticism proved that Republicans did not care for the average American.