The Pittsburgh Press (October 20, 1944)
Bricker: New Deal is ‘unreliable,’ breaks pledges
Violation of ‘almost every major promise’ in 1932 Democratic platform is charged
Fresno, California (UP) –
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker closed his California campaign last night with a blast at President Roosevelt who, he said, has violated almost every pledge in the 1932 Democratic program which launched his 12-year administration.
The GOP vice-presidential nominee attacked Democratic Party denials that it intended to keep men in the armed services after the war as another “unreliable New Deal promise,” recalling Maj. Gen. Lewis Hershey’s statement that “men could be kept in the service about as cheaply as we could create an agency for them when they are out.”
Mr. Bricker asked:
How can the American public be expected to believe these new New Deal promises and protestations when, for 12 years, this administration repeatedly broke its word to the public?
Departing from his prepared text, Governor Bricker said he would like to “see a law” that would “fine a public official who does not keep his promises – or else remove him from office.”
The Democratic Party, Mr. Bricker said, wrote “a splendid Jeffersonian platform” in 1932, and Mr. Roosevelt accepted it 100 percent.
“Actually, he has violated almost every major pledge stated in that platform,” he charged.
Governor Bricker continued:
One day Mr. Roosevelt is an inflationist, the next day a deflationist. He talks of the more abundant life, and then sanctions policies that destroy foodstuffs while millions of his countrymen are undernourished. He declared for the American system of government, but surrounds himself with men steeped in foreign ideologies, like Tugwell, Berle, Hillman and Browder.
He declares for a “liberal” Supreme Court, and then, by devious methods, “packs” it with his own disciples… he criticizes the financial policies of his predecessor, and then piles up a debt so vast that the American taxpayers will stagger under its weight for decades to come.”
Private enterprise hailed by Bricker
Reno, Nevada (UP) –
Private enterprise and a philosophy of production were listed today by Ohio Governor John W. Bricker as keys to post-war jobs.
The Republican vice-presidential nominee opened his drive for Nevada’s three electoral votes here with a speech in which he called for the repudiation “of alien forcers which would make our workers economic slaves.” He said he referred “in particular” to Earl Browder.
He added that private enterprise was threatened by “unreasonable government control and by an unstable system of taxation” which he said was “designed to confiscate wealth.”