The Evening Star (November 2, 1946)
Dewey says pledges have been kept; Mead raises Klan issue
NEW YORK (AP) – Gov. Dewey and Sen. Mead were in the final round today of their contest for New York’s gubernatorial post with Gov. Dewey defending himself as a governor who kept his pledges and Sen. Mead maintaining that the 1944 GOP presidential candidate had failed to enforce laws against the Ku Klux Klan.
In campaign speeches last night at White Plains and Yonkers, in the Republican stronghold of Westchester County, Gov. Dewey said his administration had kept all campaign pledges he made in 1942.
“To us,” he said, “a party platform and a campaign pledge are solemn covenants. They are not catch words and glittering generalities. We have held the fulfillment of our promises to be a matter of simple honesty and good faith, for these are the pillars of good government.”
Lists fulfilled promises
Gov. Dewey added that “we have translated our words into deeds.”
He listed 10 promises he said had been fulfilled, among them full employment toward winning the war, business and individual tax reductions, aid to farmers in the matter of labor and other shortages, increased aid to dependent children, a highway building program and an anti-discrimination program for employment in private industry.
Sen. Mead, speaking last night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music after a campaign swing through Westchester County, said an investigation of the Klan ordered by Gov. Dewey was “synthetic and half-hearted” and declared “he failed to enforce the laws of this state.”
Says issue is ‘soft pedaled’
The Democratic senator said the State Supreme Court had ordered dissolution of the Klan in New York and added:
“I can tell you why Dewey soft pedaled this Klan issue. The reason is the same one which has caused him always to place the interests of the people of New York second, in order to get support elsewhere for his presidential ambitions.”
Sen. Mead termed Mr. Dewey’s treatment of the Klan issue “outrageous” and said: “Mr. Dewey knows that sinister nationwide organizations, reviving the tactics of the America-Firsters, have stated openly that they regard any victory of the Republican Party over the Democratic Party as satisfactory to their interests.”
The Democratic candidate said if elected governor he would “prosecute to the limits of the law every member of the Klan.”