The Pittsburgh Press (October 17, 1944)
Dewey: New Deal rifts peril peace
Bickering, backbiting charged by nominee
Aboard Dewey campaign train (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey added today to his charge of Roosevelt administration failures at home an accusation that its conduct of foreign affairs also suffers from “constant bickering, quarreling and backbiting” and internal dissension.
The Republican presidential nominee, speaking last night on a nationwide radio hookup from St. Louis, said the failures he complained of abroad could be traced to the same conditions which have made the Roosevelt administration’s record at home “one long chapter of failure.”
‘Bosses, Communists’ assailed
He charged that “the New Deal has been taken over by the combination of corrupt big city bosses, Communists and fellow travelers.” He renewed and elaborated his charge that “the New Deal has been afraid all along that when the tame came to let men out of the Army there would be no jobs for them.”
The crowd, estimated at 15,000, loved it. When Governor Dewey asked whether post-war period must bring a return of “leaf raking and doles,” and the WPA his audience shouted a vehement “No.” They booed the mention of Harry Hopkins, Mrs. Perkins and Harold Ickes.
They laughed when he recited disputes within the administration’s official family and called it a case of “little men rattling around in big jobs.”
Ability challenged
Governor Dewey didn’t argue about policies. But he challenged the Roosevelt administration’s abilities to carry them out successfully.
He asked:
Can an administration which is so disunited and unsuccessful at home be any better abroad? Can an administration filled with quarreling and backbiting where we can see it be any better abroad where we cannot see it?
He listed New Deal agencies by alphabetical definitions but didn’t reach the final one – ACPSAHMWA designating the “American Commission for Preservation and Salvage of Artistic and Historical Monuments in the War Areas” – because of the crowd’s laughing response.
Governor Dewey went on:
This nation can be an inspiration to the world, can be a steadying influence for freedom and peace. But first we must have peace in our own government.
Here’s that list Dewey named
Washington (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, in his attack on “bickering and backbiting” in Washington, last night recited the initials of 15 governmental agencies but did not take time to identify them.
His enumeration sent reporters scurrying for their complete names. This is what they came up with:
- FEA: Foreign Economic Administration
- RFC: Reconstruction Finance Corporation
- WFA: War Food Administration
- OCIAA: Office of Coordinator of Inter-American affairs
- OSS: Office of Strategic Services
- OWI: Office of War Information
- WSA: War Shipping Administration
- WRB: War Refugee Board
- OAPC: Office of Alien Property Custodian
- OC: Office of Censorship
- OWM: Office of War Mobilization
- PWRCB: President’s War Relief Control Board
- OFAR: Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations
- FRC: Filipino Rehabilitation Commission
- ACPSAHMWA: American Commission for Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas