The Pittsburgh Press (September 15, 1944)
Bricker assails New Deal ‘Nazism’
Urges fight against regimentation
Columbus, Ohio (UP) –
Republican vice-presidential nominee Governor John W. Bricker last night charged that the New Deal has adopted “the basic doctrines” of Nazism against which U.S. men are fighting and asserted that the issue of the 1944 election is whether these doctrines or “the fundamentals of Americanism” shall prevail.
Speaking at the Ohio State Republican Convention in Memorial Hall here, he asserted that the administration for “12 long years” has applied a pattern which would “control, direct and manage the economic lives of all our people.”
He said:
The issue today is not between the historic Democratic and Republican parties. It is between New Deal collectivism and the fundamentals of Americanism to which Democrats and Republicans each hold allegiance.
The question confronting every American citizen in this campaign may be simply stated: Shall government direct the lives of our people or shall it create conditions which will enable them, individually and hopefully, to find their own way? Shall we continue to march toward absolutism, or shall we preserve the free atmosphere which our people have breathed since our country was founded?
Mr. Bricker cited the switch to support of the Republican Party by “many Democratic newspapers and some of the country’s great independent dailies like the Baltimore Sun and the Cleveland Plain Dealer.”
States rights threatened
Mr. Bricker also charged the administration with attempting to destroy state and local governments by making them financially dependent upon a centralized government.
Mr. Bricker said Republican presidential nominee Governor Thomas E. Dewey “has already demonstrated his intention to consult with and to work with the governors of the states.” Not once in the last 10 years, he said, has President Roosevelt “invited the governors to exchange views with him.”