The Pittsburgh Press (October 31, 1944)
Bricker: Many workers to back Dewey
Candidate assails Communist foes
Detroit, Michigan (UP) –
Governor John W. Bricker, Republican vice-presidential candidate, last night asserted that “countless members” of labor organizations will vote Republican because “they know that, for labor’s own best interests, it must choose between Communist domination and industrial freedom in this election.”
Facing the largest and one of the most enthusiastic audiences of his campaign tour, Bricker said that: “Labor can have, and it will get, either Hillman and Browder or respect and independence.”
The speech climaxed Mr. Bricker’s direct appeal to labor for votes for the Republican ticket.
Six-minute oration
The din that greeted him in a six-minute ovation was reminiscent of the cheers he had heard last summer in the Republican National Convention at Chicago when he withdrew his name from the presidential race in favor of New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey. A brass band and an organ were drowned out by the shouting applause.
The mention of Mr. Dewey’s name as “the next President” set off another ovation that Mr. Bricker had to wave down.
Mr. Bricker drew another outburst when he said he did not mind “taking a licking from the Democrats” but that he would “hate to be defeated by the Communist Party masquerading as the Democratic Party.”
Hillman’s name booed
A tremendous boo rose at Mr. Bricker’s first mention of Sidney Hillman who, he said, “helped toss the New Deal convention.” Another boo mingled with hisses when Mr. Bricker called Earl Browder “the No. 1 Communist in this country” and “a draft dodger in the First World War.”
He said:
The man behind Franklin Roosevelt is Sidney Hillman. The man behind Sidney Hillman is Earl Browder. And back of him are the class hatreds, the alien philosophies and the economic slavery of the Old World.
This nation intends to remain American. Nov. 7 is the day to let the world know it.