The Pittsburgh Press (November 1, 1944)
Dewey calls Roosevelt’s pledges bogus
Speech tonight will hit subversive groups
Aboard Dewey campaign train (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey swung his campaign into New England today after charging that President Roosevelt’s campaign promises are “bogus,” “no good” and “worthless.”
The Republican presidential candidate, in a strong bid for Massachusetts’ 16 electoral votes, will make a major radio address tonight from Boston.
KDKA and WCAE will broadcast the speech at 9:30 p.m. EWT.
Paul E. Lockwood, Mr. Dewey’s secretary, said he will discuss in tonight’s speech “the subversive elements who now seek to take over the country,” and would outline “the principles by which we must live if we are to be free.”
Browder, Hillman targets
There was no doubt that his targets would be Communist leader Earl Browder and Chairman Sidney Hillman of the Political Action Committee, both supporting President Roosevelt, and the Democrats’ defense against Governor Dewey’s recent charge that the Roosevelt administration offers for sale a voice in administration policies to those who contribute $1,000 to the fourth-term campaign fund.
At Pittsfield, Massachusetts, before a station audience estimated at about 4,000 persons Governor Dewey promised “the most thorough housecleaning in history” in Washington if he is elected to the White House. He named Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes and presidential adviser Harry Hopkins as three who would go.
20,000 at Buffalo rally
At Springfield, Massachusetts, Governor Dewey told an estimated 10,000 persons on the City Hall esplanade that President Roosevelt’s quarreling with Congress was the reason “why it took months to get a reconversion bill” passed this year.
The charge of “bogus” and “worthless” campaign promises was hurled by the Republican candidate last night before approximately 20,000 in the vast Buffalo, New York, Memorial Auditorium.
Insisting the record of the Roosevelt administration since its inception 12 years ago has been one of “broken promises,” Governor Dewey said: “We cannot live on promises. We must have performance this time – before it’s too late.”
Crowd joins in chant
Five times the GOP candidate said the President’s promise couldn’t be trusted, “even though it is repeated again and again and again.”
Although Mr. Dewey never identified the expression, it was an unmistakable takeoff from Mr. Roosevelt’s Boston speech of October 30, 1940, in which Republicans claim he promised that Americans taken under the Selective Service program would not be sent to fight in foreign wars.
The first time Governor Dewey said it, the audience responded with laughter. The second and third times they applauded. The last two times they chimed in on “again and again and again” and joined him with a tremendous chant when he repeated his now familiar argument that “it’s time for a change.”