The Pittsburgh Press (April 23, 1944)
Stokes: GOP ‘oracle’ predicts Dewey on first ballot
Governor Bricker may be his running mate
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Washington – (April 22)
Every so often an oracle speaks and you know what’s coming.
Such was the statement of Col. R. B. Creager, long-time Republican National Committeeman from Texas, that he could not see how Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York could fail to win the Republican presidential nomination on the first ballot.
He made the remark in Chicago after the meeting of the Arrangements Committee of the Republican National Committee. It was generally overlooked. It should not have been.
It meant, for one thing, that Governor John W. Bricker’s campaign for the nomination is washed up, if this was not apparent already.
It meant, for another, that not only Texas but the rest of the South will drop into the Dewey basket, for Col. Creager is a kingpin among Southern bosses of what are sometimes known as “the kept delegations.”
For Taft in 1940
It meant, further and most important, that there will be no “Stop-Dewey” movement at Chicago.
Col. Creager has long been identified with the Republican Old Guard, and in recent years with the Taft forces in the South. He was floor manager for Senator Robert A. Taft at the 1940 Republican convention when the Ohio Senator lost to Wendell L. Willkie.
This year, the Taft forces were turned over, lock, stock and barrel, to the Bricker candidacy, and it was presumed that Col. Creager was cooperating.
Others agree
But he has seen the light gleaming from the watchtower at Albany, New York, and has submitted to the course of events.
The colonel went further and said the Dewey candidacy had gone so far that nothing should be allowed to interfere with it. An inquiry here today disclosed that leaders of other Southern delegations are of the same mind. This means no “Stop-Dewey” movement.
For if there were such a movement it would come from the Old Guard group in which Col. Creager is included, and which revolves about Senator Taft. The Senator, himself, is resigned to the Dewey nomination.
Not entirely satisfied
This is not to say that some of the Old Guarders are entirely satisfied with the New York governor. Some would prefer some fellow more tractable, less inclined to make up his own mind. But events have gone beyond them.
Nothing more than the Creager word is necessary to indicate a first ballot nomination.
It was learned here that Republican leaders have decided upon this, to do it quickly and unanimously, if possible, for the effect that will have upon party unity and party morale.
This early surrender of the Taft forces, as made public by Col. Creager, would indicate that they will now turn to promoting Governor Bricker for the vice-presidential nomination.
‘Deal’ expected
They will expect some consideration for steeping out of the way of the Dewey bandwagon, and catching on as it went by. Something of this sort may have been arranged already.
There was a big crop of “Dewey-Bricker” ticket rumors when California Governor Earl Warren, hitherto considered almost surefire for second place on the ticket, was selected as the keynote speaker by the Arrangements Committee, a position usually regarded as a bar to candidacy for either first or second place.