Democrats train their big guns on Governor Dewey
New Yorker’s statements on Russian and American production are cited
New York (UP) –
Robert E. Hannegan, chairman of the Femocratic National Committee, intimated last night that the party’s high command believes the Republicans will nominate Governor Thomas E. Dewey to oppose President Roosevelt, but asserted that the President would be reelected “to complete the assignment which destiny has given him.”
In his first public prediction linking the President with a fourth term candidacy, the Democratic National Chairman told a Thomas Jefferson dinner that he had not discussed the coming convention and campaign with Mr. Roosevelt, but added:
The people of the United States are determined that Franklin D. Roosevelt shall complete the assignment which destiny has given him.
Barkley raps Dewey
Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley (D-KY) credited “a Democratic administration, headed by a Democratic President,” with the success of organizing the nation for war.
Mr. Hannegan, while criticizing the Republican Party as a whole, mentioned no other possible GOP nominee than Mr. Dewey, and he devoted part of his speech to a resume of the New York Governor’s utterances in recent years on Russian recognition and American production for war.
Mr. Hannegan said:
There is among our people a firm conviction that the Republican Party… cannot be given another opportunity to destroy or confuse the hope of mankind that we will have both victory and peace in the great war that is now reaching its climax.
Experience cited
It is my personal opinion that the mothers and fathers, the wives and sweethearts of the men serving in the Armed Forces, the workers in our factories and shipyards, the owners of farms and the enlightened leaders of our great industries, alike are coming to a single great realization: That the future, not only of their own private interests but of their country, is at stake, and that the stakes are too large, the penalty of inexperience too heavy, to shift the tasks that lie ahead to an unpracticed hand.
‘Most unfortunate’
Discussing Republican leaders who he said “run with the hares and bark with the hounds,” Mr. Hannegan recalled a statement by Mr. Dewey in January 1940 deploring the New Deal administration’s recognition of Russia.
Mr. Hannegan commented:
It was “most unfortunate,” said the Governor of New York, that our President recognized Soviet Russia.
Of course, he said that four years ago. And at that time, unless a person was gifted with a rare insight into the play of great forces in the world, unless he had in him the quality of statesmanship which would enable him to judge accurately of the pull and direction of those forces, he could not have known, could not have realized the great peril in which our country stood in 1940, he could not have recognized the heroic roles which the people of Great Britain, the people of China and the people of Russia were to play, he could not have foreseen how, in fulfilling their own destinies, they were to halt the menace that threatened us.
‘Has shown insight’
Our President, by his actions before and since that time… has shown that insight, that quality of statesmanship. And those characteristics go far toward explaining today the steady march of the United Nations toward final victory.
Mr. Hannegan continued:
A few days ago, speaking his piece this time after the answers had been given out and the examination was all over, Governor Dewey said:
No initial measures against Germany and Japan, however drastic, will have permanent value unless they fall within the setting of a durable cohesion between Great Britain and ourselves, together, I hope, with Russia and China.
…the government of Russia with which Governor Dewey wanted to have no truck in 1940 is the same government with which he hopes we shall have a durable cohesion in 1944. The only major change pertinent to this question that has taken place inside Russia since that time is the elimination of somewhere around eight million Germans.
Another statement recalled
Mr. Hannegan recalled that Mr. Dewey four years ago said American industry could not produce 50,000 airplanes.
The Democratic leader said:
He had all the figures to show how and why it could not be done.
He said Mr. Dewey had pointed out that an air force of 750,000 men would be necessary and that “these are sobering facts.”
Four years later, Mr. Hannegan said, American industry has produced 184,000 planes and has built an air force of 2,385,000 men.