The Free Lance-Star (July 6, 1944)
Dewey criticized by South Carolina Governor
Anderson, South Carolina (AP) –
Governor Olin D. Johnston of South Carolina criticized Governor Thomas E. Dewey last night for Dewey’s attendance at what Johnson termed “a Negro drinking party.”
In a radio address at Anderson, Johnston declared:
If additional proof is needed that South Carolinians should remain Democratic, look at the Republican presidential nominee as he attended a Negro drinking party as pictured in the issue of LIFE Magazine of July 3, 1944. President Roosevelt has never been pictured at a Negro liquor party.
In Albany, Dewey declined comment.
The pictures to which Johnston referred were those taken at a gathering of Negro newspaper publishers and editors in New York a week before the Republican National Convention.
Johnston is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat from South Carolina now held by Senator Ellison D. “Cotton Ed” Smith.
Neither picture showed Dewey drinking or with a drink in his hand.