U.S. At War: Time for a Change

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The themes: the Administration is "very tired," too tired for the job ahead; the Roosevelt Depression left 10,000,000 still unemployed in 1940; he will make no change in the military leadership, and will make the construction of the peace a nonpartisan matter;* the New Deal means confusion, bungling, bickering. And, once again, one of his most effective lines: "On Jan. 20 of next year we shall restore honesty to our government, so that its spoken word can again be trusted."

Four times Tom Dewey called Franklin Roosevelt's disavowal of Communist support a "soft" disclaimer. He attacked Earl Browder — "now such a patriot" —as a man "convicted as a draft dodger in the last war, convicted again as a perjurer and pardoned by Franklin Roosevelt in time to organize the campaign for his fourth term." Then Tom Dewey explained why, in his view, the Communists are supporting Mr. Roosevelt. He dug up a quotation from a memorandum written by Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle in 1939: "Over a period of years the Government will gradually come to own most of the productive plants in the United States."

To make this sentence stick as something more than a sentence torn out of context, Candidate Dewey pointed out that in traveling "down that New Deal road" there are now "55 Government corporations arid credit agencies with net assets of $27,000,000,000," that the Government now owns or operates one-fifth of all the manufacturing plants in the U.S. (Actually, most of these are war plants.) Governor Dewey charged that thus "little by little, the New Deal is developing its own form of corporate state." That, said Candidate Dewey, was why Comrade Browder favors Term IV —that and the fact that the Communists "love to fish in troubled waters," and know that "their aims can best be served by unemployment and discontent."

This was hard slugging, and the crowd of 6,000 liked it. They applauded Dewey again & again; a "pour-it-on" spirit was obvious even over the radio.

Dewey also attacked the President's accusation that the Republicans had opposed the soldier vote; he noted that, while in 1940 only 62.5% of the eligible U.S. electorate actually voted, already 77% of New York's soldiers & sailors have received ballots, under the Dewey-guided state law. On the subject of balloting he noted further that the President's main support comes from the South, "where millions of Americans are deprived of their right to vote by the poll tax and by intimidation. Not once in twelve years has my opponent lifted a finger to correct this, and his platform is cynically silent on the whole subject."

Dewey also took time to trace, in considerable detail, the long record of Administration bungling in setting up and tearing down defense agencies, from WRB through OEM and NDAC down to OPM and SPAB and finally WPB, which only a month ago "fell apart . . . and the head of the board was given a ticket to China."