The Pittsburgh Press (September 19, 1944)
Speaks again tonight –
Dewey blames Roosevelt for strikes
Governor Dewey delayed after train wreck
Seattle, Washington (UP) –
Governor Tom E. Dewey’s special campaign train left Seattle several hours behind schedule today because of a freight train wreck near Castle Rock, Washington, but railroad crews were expected to have the roadway repaired in time to get the Dewey train into Portland, Oregon, by early afternoon.
Aboard Dewey campaign train (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey makes his second campaign speech from the West Coast tonight with a direct attack on President Roosevelt’s fourth-term bid, a follow-up to last night’s address at Seattle when he appealed to American labor to desert the present administration.
Governor Dewey’s theme tonight in Portland, Oregon, will be: “Is There An Indispensable Man?”
Governor Dewey’s speech will be broadcast over KDKA at 10:30 p.m. ET.
The Republican presidential nominee told a nationwide radio audience last night that the Roosevelt administration was responsible for wartime strikes and said it seeks to make labor a political pawn.
Five-point program
Before an overflow crowd of some 6,000 persons in Seattle’s Civic Auditorium, Governor Dewey outlined a five-point program he would inaugurate if his White House bid is successful. He called for:
- An able Secretary of Labor from the ranks of labor;
- Return to the Labor Department all the functions of each a department;
- Abolition of “wasteful, competing bureaus filled with men quarreling for jurisdiction;
- Establishment of a Fair Employment Practice Committee as a permanent government function;
- Abolition of “privilege for one group over any other.”
Governor Dewey defended the right to strike as “one of the fundamental rights of free men,” but he charged that it has been abused and laid blame for such abuse directly with the Roosevelt administration. He said:
The chief blame goes directly into the White House and to its agency created at the top of all this chaos of agencies – the War Labor Board.
That board has supreme power over the vital matters of wages and conditions of employment. Whether by design or sheer incompetence, its practice has been to stall – weeks, months, sometimes years – before issuing decisions.
He charged:
This policy of delay, delay and more delay serves only the New Deal and its political ends. It makes the leaders of labor come hat in hand to the White House. It makes political loyalty the test of a man getting his rights…
Governor Dewey summed up his estimation of the Roosevelt administration’s labor policy as one of “delays, bungling and incompetence,” which has bred class division, hate and insecurity, placed obstacles in the way of labor’s efforts to avoid wartime strikes, and fostered strife among labor groups as well as between labor and business.