The Pittsburgh Press (September 22, 1944)
Bricker: Faith broken by New Deal
Virtual dictatorship claimed established
Baltimore, Maryland (UP) –
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker, charging that Sidney Hillman, Earl Browder and “their Communist comrades” control the Democratic Party, said last night that the New Deal has broken every American tradition in its 12-year program of establishing a “virtual dictatorship.”
Speaking before a Republican rally on a 3,250-mile Eastern campaign swing, the GOP vice-presidential nominee declared that: “The New Deal has failed to keep its promises.”
It has broken the tradition of “limited tenure” in the Presidency.
It has discarded the “relationship of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government” as fixed by the Constitution.
‘Cause for change’
The New Deal, although failing to “pack” the Supreme Court directly, has succeeded through its long tenure in doing so and has appointed a majority of the judges of appellate courts and district courts who conform to their “philosophy.”
“That alone,” Governor Bricker said, “is cause for a change.”
The danger of the long tenure of the President is “reflected in the judgment of the Supreme Court in many cases,” Governor Bricker said.
The nominee added:
A minority of the court has pointed out that the majority opinions have broken so many precedents, upset so many decisions that the law is in utter confusion and the lower courts are not given guidance for their judgments.
Appeals to Democrats, too
He charged:
At one time, this New Deal court even spoke of the President as a ruler rather than the servant of the people.
Governor Bricker appealed to the Democrats “to take back their party by voting Republican this year.”
He said:
Look at the history of the leaders of the New Deal – Rex Tugwell, Felix Frankfurter, Harry Hopkins. Now Sidney Hillman has come into the inner circle and taken the seat at the head of the table.
It would seem incredible that such a group could take control of the Democratic Party, but it has done so through alliances with nefarious political groups headed by big city bosses such as Kelly of Chicago, Hague of New Jersey and temporarily-inactive Pendergast of Missouri.
‘Shame battle’ charged
Governor Bricker said:
The true Democrats – the Farleys, the Al Smiths, the Byrds, the Garners – have been cast aside as being out of step.
The New Deal put on a “sham battle” at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in order “to deceive the people” in the fight for the Vice Presidency, he said.
He added that Senator Alben Barkley’s defiance of the President over the veto of the Tax Bill soon subsided and he became “the willing worker for the White House clique.”
Governor Bricker asserted:
That short revolt may be the reason that Sidney Hillman vetoed Senator Barkley as a candidate for Vice President.
Says Congress ‘abused’
To bring about the “servile” position of Congress, Governor Bricker added, the New Deal “belittled, abused and smeared” Congress. The New Deal “power grabbers,” he said, have been very “careful” in recent months.
He said:
Be not deceived, people of America. The intent is still there, the habits have not been changed and it is their hope that once the election is by and should the New Deal be successful, that that the program of destroying the very foundation of free government and our constitutional concepts under which we have built so mightily will be revived.
Earlier, at a press conference, Governor Bricker pursued a theme advanced in his speech at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Wednesday night that the administration should now “disclose the facts” about the Pearl Harbor attack.