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There was a light Hyde Park supper of scrambled eggs, his "lucky dish." Then the President sat down to the old game at which he is expert—tabulating election returns. Supper dishes and cloth were whisked away; tally sheets and sharpened pencils were laid on the green felt cover. The big radio, provided by NBC, began to announce returns. Secretary Grace Tully and Mrs. Ruth Rumelt, Steve Early's secretary, moved in & out with flashes from A.P. and U.P. tickers. Around the big-table, individual state scores were kept by the President's intimates: Henry Morgenthau, Admiral Leahy, Steve Early, Samuel Rosenman, Robert Sherwood. As "managing editor," the President assembled the totals.
Vice Admiral Ross T. Mclntyre, the President's personal physician, hovered close; he would not leave, he said, unless or until the returns moved substantially in F.D.R.'s favor. (He left just before 11 p.m.) At 11:15 came the dull thump of a bass drum and the shrill tootle of fifes, and the usual torchlight parade of neighbors milled up the circular driveway.
The President was wheeled out on the porch by Valet Arthur Prettyman. Mr. Roosevelt remarked playfully that on the basis of partial returns it appeared that returns were partial to Hyde Park. In high good humor, grinning at the battery of photographers, he noted several children in the branches of one of the trees, and recalled how he had climbed the very same tree as a child to escape discipline. From that tree, he said, he saw his first torchlight parade from the village, at the time of Cleveland's election in 1892. "I got out of bed to come downstairs in an old-fashioned nightshirt—wrapped in a big buffalo robe."
Then the President went back into the house. Reporters were folding up their notebooks when Eleanor Roosevelt popped up in the door and remarked in a stage whisper to a group of chattering Vassar girls: "The President thinks the election is won."
Some guests stayed for coffee, chocolate, coconut layer cake. Eleanor Roosevelt lighted a fire in the library's huge marble fireplace.
By 3:50 Franklin Roosevelt went to bed. He had dispatched the following statement:
"His Excellency, Thomas E. Dewey . . . I thank you for your statement which I heard over the air a few minutes ago."
Soon military security would clamp down on the President's movements again. He and the U.S. would get back to their main business—winning the war.