On air at 10:00 p.m. –
Dewey makes first campaign speech tonight
Domestic economy to be stressed
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey said today he will open his campaign as Republican presidential nominee tonight with a speech covering the “fundamental issues of the campaign” – which he termed a healthy domestic economy in peacetime.
Governor Dewey, in Philadelphia on the first leg of a 6,700-mile cross-country campaign trip, said the question before the voters in November is whether they want “to go back to their [the New Deal] 10 million to 12 million unemployed or go ahead.”
Governor Dewey’s address will be broadcast locally at 10:00 p.m. ET over Stations KDKA and WJAS.
Governor Dewey said this afternoon:
The question before the people is whether they want to elect an administration which will be largely, if not wholly, a peacetime government which believes in this country, or one which proved for eight straight years it couldn’t solve its problems and didn’t believe in it.
The New Deal tried for eight straight years, from 1933 to 1940, to solve the depression with more power and more money than any administration in 150 years, yet it failed.
Confidence in victory
Governor Dewey told reporters, in effect, that he was confident of victory in November.
Asked whether he thought that the way the war is now going would be favorable to the present administration, he replied: “I believe the people will change their administration next January.”
What of Pennsylvania
In response to a question on whether he had any recent reassurances regarding the large Pennsylvania vote in November, Governor Dewey said that he had “in the last half hour.”
He referred to his ride from a railroad station to the hotel with Governor Edward Martin of Pennsylvania.
In response to other questions, Governor Dewey said that a visit to this country by British Prime Minister Churchill for a conference with President Roosevelt, his opponent, reportedly scheduled in the near future, “would be an amazing coincidence.”
He did not elaborate, however, on the question which was prompted by the fact that the fourth-term campaign has been pitched largely on a “commander-in-chief” theme.
Wants no new CCC
When asked for his attitude on post-war military training, as suggested recently by President Roosevelt with little emphasis on the military phase of youth training, Governor Dewey said:
I am not for another CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] as a substitute for jobs. I would not put anybody in the Army unless they are needed for the defense of the United States.
Governor Dewey was greeted at the Pennsylvania Railroad Station here by a crowd estimated at between four and five thousand persons.
Rides with Martin
From the station, he rode in an open car with Governor Martin, to the Bellevue Stratford Hotel.
Along the route, Governor Dewey was greeted by scattered applause and showers of paper confetti.
Governor Dewey, leaving New York this morning, embarked on a 6,700-mile, coast-to-coast campaign trip with stops in 10 states where 134 Electoral College votes, almost one-fourth of the total, are at stake in the November election.
Other speeches scheduled
Before he returns to his gubernatorial office in Albany, New York, Sept. 28, he is scheduled to make six other major campaign addresses as well as confer with party leaders along the route.
In addition to Mrs. Dewey, the campaign party included Elliott V. Bell (New York State Superintendent of Banks and his closest political adviser), Lt. Gen. Hugh A. Drum (U.S. Army (retired), commanding officer of the New York Guard), Paul E. Lockwood (Governor Dewey’s executive secretary), Jack Flanagan (assistant secretary to vice-presidential nominee Governor John W. Bricker), half a dozen National Committee Research Staff members, and more than 50 newspaper, radio, newsreel and magazine reporters and photographers.