NOMINATION TODAY SOUGHT FOR DEWEY
Sponsors of draft movement accelerate convention to permit Albany-Chicago trip
Vice Presidency an issue; new national committee is expected to meet tomorrow to elect chairman
By James A. Hagerty
Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
Supporters of Governor Dewey took steps today to accelerate the Republican convention by nominating the candidates for President and Vice President tomorrow afternoon with both nominees accepting tomorrow night.
Sponsors of the movement to draft Governor Dewey for the presidential nomination expect this to be done unless there are unexpected difficulties in the selection of a vice-presidential candidate.
The Dewey supporters hope to make the nominations for President and Vice President tomorrow afternoon. This will permit Governor Dewey to leave Albany by plane in time to accept the nomination at an evening session.
Under the convention rules, seconding speeches will be limited to four for each candidate. With Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio and LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, the only other candidates to be presented, it is hoped that the nominating and seconding speeches will not take more than three hours and that the roll may be called on the first ballot immediately afterward without recess.
Nomination time is estimated
This would permit the nomination for President to be made by 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon, which would give ample time for Governor Dewey to reach Chicago.
Governor Dwight H. Green of Illinois will meet Governor and Mrs. Dewey and his party on arrival at the Chicago Airport and escort him to the Stadium.
Governor Dwight Griswold of Nebraska is scheduled to nominate Governor Dewey. Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin of Baltimore and Rep. Leonard W. Hall of New York have been selected to make seconding speeches.
Other seconds of Governor Dewey’s name will be made by a Midwestern and a woman delegate from the Midwest or Far West yet to be selected. Sponsors of the Dewey candidacy have been somewhat embarrassed by the number of requests from delegates for permission to make seconding speeches but have been obliged by the rules to restrict themselves to four.
Leaders in the campaign to nominate Governor Dewey estimated that he had in sight about 900 votes of the 1,057 total. J. Russell Sprague, New York National Committeeman, was informed today that the Kentucky delegation would not present Governor Simeon S. Willis for the presidential nomination and that the 22 votes of that state would be cast for Mr. Dewey.
Committee to meet tomorrow
If the program of the Dewey group is followed, there will be a meeting of the new national committee Thursday at which a new chairman will be elected. If Mr. Sprague had not declared himself unavailable because of the restrictions imposed by the Nassau County Charter upon his continuing as county executive, a post which he does not want to resign, he would be chosen, it is stated.
With Mr. Sprague unavailable, speculation centers on Herbert Brownell Jr., close friend of Governor Dewey and chairman of the law committee of the New York State Republican Committee, or State Chairman Edwin F. Jaeckle.
Selection of a national chairman from the Midwest would be gratifying to that section, and the name of Rep. Charles A. Halleck, whop placed Wendell L. Willkie in nomination at the Philadelphia convention four years ago, has been mentioned. By party custom, the nominee is entitled to name the national chairman. The New York Governor, however, has let his sponsors know that he intends to consult members of the National Committee and other party leaders before making his suggestion.
Mother awaits Dewey
Arrives in Chicago to join son on his great day
Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
Mrs. George M. Dewey of Owosso, Michigan, who has never witnessed a political convention, will be on hand tomorrow morning when the roll call of states begins for nominees for the Presidency. The mother of the outstanding candidate, Governor Dewey, motored here today with friends from home.
Confronting reporters and photographers in a suite at the Stevens Hotel, Mrs. Dewey answered many questions about her own life as a homemaker and Red Cross worker at Owosso and about the past, present and probable future of her son, whose great day she will share tomorrow.
If he won the election, she was asked, would she live in the White House? She gasped a bit and retorted, “Well, I might not be invited. But I suppose I’d be there at least part of the time.”
Owosso, a town of 16,000, was rather agitated at the prospect of a hometown boy as a presidential nominee, Mrs. Dewey admitted. Her telephone had been ringing without cessation up the time she departed this morning, she said.