On foreign policy –
Dewey to fill ‘gaps left by Roosevelt’
Address to be on air at 10:30 tonight
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Minneapolis, Minnesota –
A speech in which Governor Thomas E. Dewey will haul the history books up to the microphones to propound some of the questions left untouched by President Roosevelt in his Saturday night foreign policy address is on tap here tonight.
Mr. Dewey’s address tonight will be broadcast over KDKA and KQV at 10:30 p.m. EWT.
The Republican presidential nominee tucked away in his suitcase the farm speech he had prepared for his Minnesota audience and announced he would “fill in the gaps” in certain large areas of recent history where, he said, Mr. Roosevelt’s memory “seems to fail him.”
Declines comment on Ball
Governor Dewey arrived in this city, confronted with the fact that one of the state’s two Republican Senators, Joseph H. Ball, is openly supporting President Roosevelt for reelection.
The news reached Governor Dewey last night in Cleveland but he declined to comment. Mr. Ball told a press conference in Washington yesterday that he would “vote for and support” President Roosevelt because his views on foreign affairs, go further into the field of international collaboration than those of the Republican nominee.
Possible Dewey attack
A chief point on which Governor Dewey is expected to rake the Roosevelt administration over the coals tonight is its pre-war policy of sending scrap iron and oil to Japan – a policy continued as late as 1940 and denounced as “appeasement” in the past by other critics of recent foreign policy.
Another point on which Governor Dewey may attack was Mr. Roosevelt’s mention of isolationist obstruction of his attempt to lift the arms embargo, but his failure to mention that the embargo was part of the Neutrality Act – passed earlier by a Democrat-controlled Congress and signed by Mr. Roosevelt.
Mr. Roosevelt, in his Saturday speech, said the embargo “tied our hands against selling arms to European democracies for defense against Hitler,” and charged that after it had become plain to Hitler that the embargo would not be lifted, the Nazis attacked Poland.
Dewey on offensive
Carrying the fight to Mr. Roosevelt, the Republican candidate is emphasizing again his refusal to stay on the defensive and his determination to give back, if he can, blow for blow, or better.
The big talking point of Mr. Dewey’s campaign has been the Roosevelt “fumbling” on the home front. The President has been rated strong on foreign policy, and the GOP candidate could have pulled away from this subject and turned again to his emphasis on Washington “bickering and bungling” and his charge of the administration’s inability to provide jobs at the war’s end.
But Tom Dewey didn’t choose to turn away. Again, he will go to the record and meet Mr. Roosevelt on his own grounds – the field of foreign affairs.
Mr. Roosevelt’s Saturday night speech chided Mr. Dewey for using quotations in his speeches which were out of context and, it is claimed, presented a distorted picture.
“Mr. Roosevelt, I’m afraid, took his history out of context in that speech of last Saturday night,” Mr. Dewey told reporters.
“His memory seems to fail him on large areas of recent history, so I’ll fill in the gaps in my Minneapolis speech tonight.” He said he was delaying his farm speech to “fill in the context which Mr. Roosevelt forgot.”