Dewey critical of bureaucracy
Asks greater harmony between President and Congress
Chicago, Illinois (AP) –
New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey sent Republican platform drafters a message today criticizing the national administration as “a sprawling, overlapping bureaucracy” and calling for a new regime in which the President would act with Congress to “raise the federal service to a high level of efficiency and competence.”
The message from Dewey, whose supporters have contended he will win the Republican presidential nomination on the first or second ballot at next week’s convention, was read to the platform committee after Senator Vandenberg (R-MI) had presented a proposed foreign plank calling for creation of “peace forces” to prevent future aggression.
In connection with presentation of a report on the Post-War Advisory Committee on government reform, Dewey’s message said:
The national administration has become a sprawling, overlapping bureaucracy. It is undermined by executive abuse of power, confused line of authority, duplication of effort, inadequate fiscal controls, loose personnel practices and an attitude of arrogance previously unknown in our history.
The times cry out for the restoration of harmony in government, for a balance of legislative and executive responsibility for efficiency and economy for pruning and abolishing unnecessary agencies and personnel, for effective fiscal and personnel controls, and for an entirely new spirit in our federal government.
We need an administration wherein the President, acting in harmony with Congress, will effect these necessary reforms and raise the federal service to a high level of efficiency and competence.