The Free Lance-Star (June 26, 1944)
Dewey ahead at GOP convention
Action of individual states rolls up strong lead
Chicago Stadium, Chicago, Illinois (AP) –
Thomas E. Dewey’s harvest of pledged votes swelled beyond the total needed for a first ballot nomination as the Republicans held their first session of the 23rd national convention in the steaming amphitheater today.
With state after state jumping on a Dewey bandwagon, the New York Governor had a total of 539 pledged votes, when the opening session ended after a one-hour-and-15-minute meeting. In addition, his supporters said 159 others were assured.
By Paul Miller
Chicago Stadium, Chicago, Illinois (AP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey took an apparently insurmountable lead for the Republican presidential nomination today as the party’s 1944 convention opened to the main business of the conclave thus all but settled in advance.
Rapid-fire action by individual states raised the New Yorker’s total of pledged and claimed votes to 650 with 529 needed to nominate.
So far had Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio dropped in the pre-convention determination of state votes that speculation of the delegates switched from the Presidency to talk of vice-presidential prospects headed by Governor Earl Warren of California.
Governor Dwight Griswold of Nebraska, it was announced, will place Governor Dewey’s name in nomination Wednesday morning. Previously, Griswold had been mentioned for the Vice Presidency.
His designation to nominate, said unconfirmed reports on the convention floor, was part of a piece of high strategy that was discussed as shaping up like this:
Griswold (a Midwesterner) nominating Dewey (an Easterner) for President – with Warren (a far Westerner) as the possible vice-presidential choice.
The forces of Governor John W. Bricker continued their fight nonetheless. The Bricker supporters said: “It won’t be decided until the roll call actually starts on the floor Wednesday.”
Governor Dwight H. Green of Illinois had the job of officially welcoming delegates to the Windy City in a speech that accused the Roosevelt administration of “political meddling” with the Armed Forces in running the war.
Green declared that Republicans would give the professional fighting men a free hand.
A new flurry of speculation over the possibility of some Republican action towards Senator Harry F. Byrd (D-VA) was started by Senator Owen Brewster (R-ME), who declared in a radio interview that a “responsible leader” of the Republican Party had approached Byrd with the suggestion that he make himself available for the GOP vice-presidential nomination.
The subject was raised in Washington by a group of Republican Congressmen last week, but Byrd said he was not interested.