It had been known for some while that Newsweek magazine was taking a poll of fifty highly regarded political writers, to ask which candidate they thought would win the election. And since several of the fifty had been on the train with Truman during the course of the campaign -- Marquis Childs, Robert Albright of The Washington Post, Bert Andrews of the New York Herald Tribune -- there had been a good deal of speculation about the poll. It appeared in Newsweek in the issue dated October 11, and on the morning of Tuesday, October 12, three weeks before election day, at one of the first stops in Indiana, Clark Clifford slipped off the train to try to find a copy before anyone else. The woman at the station newsstand pointed to a bundle wrapped in brown paper, telling him to help himself. "And there it was!" remembered Clifford years afterward.

Of the writers polled, not one thought Truman would win. The vote was unanimous, 50 for Dewey, 0 for Truman. "The landslide for Dewey will sweep the country," the magazine announced. Further, the Republicans would keep control in the Senate and increase their majority in the House. The election was as good as over.

Returning to the train, Clifford hid the magazine under his coat. With the train about to leave, the only door still open was on the rear platform.

So I walked in, President Truman was sitting there, and so I cheerily said, "Good morning, Mr. President." He said, "Good Morning, Clark." And I said, "Another busy day ahead." "Yes," he said. . . . So I walked off . . . and I got almost by him when he said, "What does it say?" And I said, "What's that, Mr. President?" He said, "What does it say?" And I said, "Now what does what. . . ?" He said, "I saw you get off and go into the station. I think you probably went in there to see if they had a copy of Newsweek magazine." And he said, "I think it is possible that you may have it under your jacket there, the way you're holding your arm." Well, I said, "Yes, sir."

So I handed it to him. . . . And he turned the page and looked at it . . . [and] he said, "I know every one of these 50 fellows. There isn't one of them has enough sense to pound sand in a rat hole."

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