CHICAGO, Wednesday—I left New York early Monday evening to come here. Just before that I appeared on Martha Deane's radio program and lunched with an old friend, Mr. Bernard Baruch. I wanted to hear more about Mr. Baruch's recent short trip abroad. He seems always to gather more information in a short time than anyone I know. He feels that the attitude on inflation taken by our citizens and their leaders at the present time is one of the most important things domestically, but also that it has a great bearing on our foreign affairs.

My past two days have been quite busy!

Late Monday night here I went on a program on the air for the Sun-Times.

Tuesday began with a breakfast given by the members of Americans for Democratic Action, following which I paid a visit to the Stevenson Citizens' Committee headquarters. At 11 o'clock I saw members of the press and from 12 to 2 p.m. I examined a very extraordinary Negro press setup. Later in the afternoon I attended a tea given by the American Association for the U.N., and at six o'clock I was guest at a small dinner given prior to my speech for the World Council that evening.

At nine o'clock Wednesday morning I was scheduled to leave for Milwaukee where my day is as fully scheduled as in Chicago. Thursday morning early I am to return to New York and motor straight to Hyde Park from the airport where I will meet a number of members of my family who will have already arrived earlier that day.

I give you this skeleton preview of my activities because I may not be able to report more fully until my return the latter part of the week when I will tell you in detail about anything which I think might interest you.

I was interested to see these two headlines run by a metropolitan newspaper: "Eisenhower Charts New Tour of the South" and "Emphasis on Texas Is Expected in Bid for 63 Electoral Votes." He will also visit Louisiana, Tennessee and Oklahoma, according to this report.

I think all this campaigning by the Republican candidate in the South is a good thing. I am not averse to seeing the whole of our country a battleground for the two major political parties. Perhaps for too many years the South has been just a one-party section. The real political battles were fought in the primaries, and once a candidate was nominated on the Democratic ticket it was tantamount to election.

It may be a good thing for the South to have real interparty battles where the final decision is rendered on election day. I cannot help believing, however, that it will be a long time before there will be a majority of Republican voters in the states of the South.

In the newspaper article to which I referred above there was a little item that seemed to me slightly ironic. It read:

“Today General Eisenhower took Sunday off from the campaign to relax at the fishing lodge of his friend John Cowles, Minneapolis publisher. The nominee arose for breakfast at 6:15 a.m., Standard Time, and attended church services at the First Lutheran Church of Battle Lake, Minneapolis. Governor C. Elmer Anderson of Minnesota visited the Cowles lodge for luncheon.”

I wonder, when your activities are so minutely chronicled, how one can have a day of relaxation free from campaigning!