The Pittsburgh Press (September 20, 1944)
Dewey: ‘Indispensable man’ a myth
GOP leader demands a ‘peoples’ peace’
Portland, Oregon (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey turned south to California today for more campaign speeches following last night’s appeal to voters in the November election to reject the theory of an indispensable man” and the argument that future peace and prosperity depend upon the reelection of President Roosevelt.
The Republican presidential nominee made his challenge of the “indispensable man” issue before an overflow audience of more than 7,000 persons in the Portland Ice Coliseum and over a nationwide radio hookup.
‘No indispensable men’
Governor Dewey opened his blast by declaring flatly that: “There are no indispensable men.”
He said:
If our republic, after 150 years of self-government, is dependent up the endless continuance of one man in office, then the hopes which animated the men who fought for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution have indeed come to nothing.
“The peace and prosperity of America and of the world can never depend on one man,” the GOP candidate added.
Threefold requirements
The essential requirements for peace and prosperity, he countered, are threefold:
- “Unity in our government and strength and unity among our people.”
- “Harmonious action between the President and Congress.”
- “A strong and vigorous America with jobs for all.”
None of them, he added, have been evidence in 12 years of the Roosevelt administration. All of them can be realized, he promised, by a change in administrations next January.
‘A people’s peace’
Governor Dewey argued that President Roosevelt will not be indispensable to writing or preserving of the peace terms either.
He insisted:
The peace we seek must not hang by the slender thread of personal acquaintance of any two or three men. The pages of history are littered with treaties proclaiming permanent peace made privately by rulers of nations and quickly and publicly broken…
I want to see a people’s peace come at the end of this war. I want to see a peace which has been worked out in the full light of day before all the world.
To speak in California
Governor Dewey will speak tomorrow night at San Francisco, and at Los Angeles the following night.
Governor Dewey’s address tomorrow night will be broadcast at 11:00 p.m. ET, over KDKA.