Dewey warns Democrats of peril to party
Charges Roosevelt sold out to Communists
Baltimore, Maryland (UP) –
Carrying his campaign into borderline Maryland in an effort to win votes of old-line Democrats, Governor Thomas E. Dewey charged today that if President Roosevelt is reelected, “the Democrats would irrevocably lose their party.”
The Republican presidential nominee climaxed a seven-mile parade through Downtown Baltimore with a speech at the Lyric Theater before a rally of Republicans and Democrats-for-Dewey.
A capacity crowd of 3,000 cheered lustily when he said that if he is elected, “he will take the choking hard of government off the throat of every small business in the country… and restore free collective bargaining in the United States.”
Democrat speaks
Police estimated that 300,000 persons lined the streets to watch the parade. Former Democratic Mayor Howard W. Jackson, defeated in 1943 for a fifth term, rode in the Dewey parade with the man who beat him, Republican Mayor Theodore McKeldin. Mr. Jackson, who has been speaking for Governor Dewey, also spoke at the rally, saying he was a Democrat but in this case “an American first.”
Occasional boos rose from the street throngs as the parade passed, and “Vote for Roosevelt” banners were in evidence. Dewey was loudly cheered, however, and received a long ovation at the theater.
He told the rally in an open bid for Democratic votes:
The only way for the real membership of the Democratic Party to win this election. The only way for the Democrats to recapture their party, is to join with the Republicans in defeating the New Deal, the Political Action Committee and the Communists.
Speaking only from a partial prepared text, Governor Dewey also used sections of previous campaign speeches.
Chorus of ‘noes’
He evoked a chorus of “noes” from the crowd by asking “do we continue with secret diplomacy… Harry Hopkins… constant bickering…”
He praised the country’s military and productive leadership but said “we can and we will speed victory on every front” by ending quarreling and dissension in the administration.
The United States, he said, should participate in efforts to achieve world peace, but through open methods “resting on the rock” of public understanding and agreement rather than through “secret diplomacy.”
Governor Dewey accused President Roosevelt of “dusting off” and bringing out again all the “broken promises of the past and then doubling down” in his speech last Saturday night. But “the best this administration ever did” in employment, he said, “was in the spring of 1940, before war saved it, and that was 10 million unemployed.”
In another allusion to the “1000 Club,” he said:
My opponent in his desperate desire for 16 years is making desperate efforts including an offer to sell “special privilege in our government” for $1,000.
Governor Dewey carried forward the anti-New Deal attack he launched in Boston last night with an accusation that President Roosevelt is selling out his party to Communists.
Not between parties
Dewey insisted:
This is not a contest between Democrats and Republicans. It is a contest between, on the one hand – those who believe in our system of government – Republicans and Democrats alike, and on the other – those who have kidnapped the Democratic Party in order to change our system of government.
Recalling President Roosevelt’s frequent clashes with Congress, including the Supreme Court case of 1937 and the subsequent attempt to purge Democrats who opposed him, Governor Dewey argued that the problems confronting the nation in the post-war years cannot be solved without unity between the legislative and executive departments of government.
Good start made
Tying that need for unity with the problem of maintaining peace, he said:
We have made a good start toward the establishment of a world organization to prevent future wars. But much remains to be done.
In the end it will be Congress that must approve the terms and Scope of our participation in this world effort to maintain peace. In the working out of that program there must be mutual confidence and teamwork between the President and Congress.
If we are not to run the grave danger of seeing this whole program wrecked on the rock of one man’s arbitrary will, we must install next Jan. 20 an administration that wants to work with Congress, that knows how to work with Congress, and that deserves the confidence of the people and their elected representatives.
From Baltimore. Governor Dewey goes to Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, for evening appearances. None of his three talks today were being broadcast.
Denounces ‘cynical alliance’
His Boston speech last night was the strongest denunciation he had made of the “cynical alliance” which, he told 25,000 persons in strongly Catholic Boston, the New Deal has entered into “with Earl Browder’s Communists.” He charged that the alliance was effected through Sidney Hillman and his Political Action Committee.
Boos for Communism
Mention of Communism, Browder and Hillman brought a chorus of boos from the audience which packed Boston Garden to the rafters.
Lashing out with the bitterest personal denunciation of President Roosevelt since the campaign began, Governor Dewey charged that “Mr. Roosevelt, in his overwhelming desire to perpetuate himself in office for 16 years, has put his party on the auction block – for sale to the highest bidder.”
He said the highest bidders were “the Political Action Committee of Sidney Hillman and the Communists of Earl Browder.”
Governor Dewey charged that President Roosevelt has “so weakened and corrupted the Democratic Party that it is readily subject to capture” and “the forces of Communism are, in fact, now capturing it.”
The candidate painted the Communist system as one under which “the individual cannot worship, vote or think as he would, or conduct his life as his own.” The price for disobedience, he declared, “is liquidation, either through violence or slow economic strangulation.”
Attacks Browder, Hillman
The GOP candidate leveled personal attacks against Messrs. Browder and Hillman. Of the former he said:
He is the man who was convicted of draft dodging in the last war. He was again convicted – this time of perjury – and pardoned by Franklin Roosevelt in time to organize the fourth term campaign. Mr. Browder stands for everything that would destroy America.
He described Mr. Hillman as a labor leader who had held “one official post after another in the New Deal” and “a front for the Communists” in the fourth-term campaign.
Mr. Dewey predicted, however, than any Communist bid for control of the American government is doomed to failure.
Describing the PAC levy of one dollar per member as "This Roosevelt poll tax imposed by Sidney Hillman,” Governor Dewey said working men and women are “rising in protest all over the nation.”
The solution, he continued, lies in voting for the Republican Party “in the secrecy of the voting booth.”
