Dewey will gain, capital believes
MacArthur’s backer await announcement
Washington (UP) –
**House Republicans today believe that Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York will be the GOP presidential nominee despite latest indications that Gen. Douglas MacArthur may be available for a draft.
Most Republicans declined comment on the state of Gen. MacArthur, who disavowed office-seeking but suggested that he would accept the nomination if he were drafted by the Republican National Convention.
Privately, however, House Republicans believed that nothing would stop Governor Dewey’s rise in popularity among convention delegates. Many Democrats expressed similar sentiment.
Rep. A. L. Miller (R-NE), whose recently publicized exchange of correspondence with Gen. MacArthur gave added emphasis to him as a possible candidate, was certain the general would make an announcement within six weeks “regarding his receptiveness” to the nomination.
Rep. Miller revealed last week that he had written Gen. MacArthur urging him to announce his candidacy.
Meanwhile, pre-convention talk that Associate Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts was a good bet as a dark horse candidate was evident at the Capitol and elsewhere, but found no general support.
Gerald L. K. Smith, head of the America First Party and a presidential aspirant, issued a statement saying that Justice Roberts “is worse than Wendell Willkie” and has a “repudiation for internationalism which is more completely and dangerously developed even than it was in Willkie.”