Background of news –
Dewey stresses thrift
By Jay G. Hayden, North American Newspaper Alliance
Washington –
Because Governor Thomas E. Dewey is by all odds the most likely Republican nominee for President, and he knows it, his annual message to the New York Legislature last week assumed nationwide interest.
Particularly, this message is being compared with one another New York Governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, delivered in the same circumstances just 12 years ago.
From the standpoint of comparison, the remarkable thing is the unlikeness of these messages. Mr. Roosevelt’s bristled with obvious thrusts against the national administration of Herbert Hoover.
He said:
Not since the dark days of the sixties have the people of this state and of the nation faced problems as grave, situations as difficult, suffering as severe. The economies of America, and indeed of the whole world, are out of joint.
The states were doing their best, Mr. Roosevelt said, but because the problems are:
…national in scope, it is impossible to solve them without leadership and a plan of action by our national government… The public asks that they be given a new leadership.
‘Political bombast’ lacking
In contrast, there is not one word in Governor Dewey’s current message that even his most captious critic could spot as “political bombast” or “playing to the national gallery.”
Even so, the Dewey message contains many implications both as to future national policy and the character and political views of the man who wrote it.
Its high point is easily the announcement that the state has a $140-million surplus, coupled with a recommendation that the whole of this be saved for the after-war “rainy day.”
Mr. Dewey said:
Either tax reduction or increased spending at this time would, in my judgment, be unsound and irresponsible. We must never forget that this is not a normal surplus… It has come to us out of the hurricane of war. It can be, it must be, safeguarded to meet post-war needs.
Through the whole message runs the idea, not only that the states are financially better able than the federal government to handle many post-war problems, but a realistic thrift in dealing with them is imperative.
Bonus according to need
Whereas President Roosevelt has proposed a severance bonus for “every soldier,” Mr. Dewey differentiates according to need. Of 100,000 New York servicemen probably to be discharged during 1944, he says:
About one in five is likely to be unemployed and in search of a job for varying periods of time.
His plan is to give this unfortunate “one-fifth” fully adequate aid, rather than a bonus indiscriminately to all soldiers, poor or rich.
He says there has been much “talk” of federal action, “thus far exactly nothing has been done” and “returning veterans cannot wait for Washington.”
Mr. Dewey emphasizes that the main after-war economic hope is the revival of private enterprise. He cautions the Legislature not to do anything that will “interfere with or hinder the fullest possible productivity and employment of our people.”
Other features of the message carry a national appeal. Mr. Dewey presents the form of a state income-tax return that any taxpayer can fill out “in five or ten minutes.”
He enthusiastically supports governmental measures for better medical care, but stipulates that these should be a “partnership of government and the medical profession, functioning cooperatively,” rather than in the nature of complete “governmentalization.”