“Not all groups are free to live and work where they please or to improve their conditions of life by their own efforts. Not all groups enjoy the full privileges of citizenship… The federal government has a clear duty to see that the Constitutional guarantees of individual liberties and equal protection under the laws are not denied or abridged anywhere in the union.” He called for federal laws against “the crime of lynching, against which I cannot speak too strongly.” He called for a end to poll taxes and end to discrimination by employers and labor unions. He called for Congress to act on the claims of Japanese Americans forced from their homes and kept in confinement” solely because of their racial origin”

Several Southern Democrats meeting privately with him, explained all would be forgiven if he would only soften his views. He responded “But my very stomach turned over when I learned that Negro soldiers just back from overseas, were being dumped out of army trucks in Mississippi and beaten. Whatever my inclinations as a native of Missouri might have been, as President I know this is bad. I shall fight to end evils like this.”

With his approval rating at 36% in June he took to the rails as the press had already written him off. He told the crowds “I am coming out here so you can have a look at me and hear what I have to say, and then you make up your own mind as to whether you believe some of the things that have been said about your President. Yet every where he went the people turned out 1,000 at Crestline, 100,000 in Chicago in Republican Omaha 160,000 lined the streets. In Missoula they waited late into the night, He appeared in his bathrobe and pajamas, “I’m sorry I had gone to bed, but I thought you would like to see what I looked like even if I didn’t have on any clothes”

His attacks were pointed and not just at Congress “educate yourself, you don’t want to do like you did in 46 when two thirds of you stayed home and look what a Congress we got! That’s your fault, that is your fault, you know, this Congress is interested in the welfare of the better classes. They are not interested in the welfare of the common everyday man.” A cry from the crowd said pour it on! He answered, “I’m going to, I’m going to. At Seattle 100,000 at Los Angeles an estimated one million lined the route from the train station to his hotel.