| Wednesday, June 28 |
|---|
| Convention called by Governor Warren at 10:15 a.m. |
| Nominations for President of the United States |
| Roll call on presidential nominations |
| Nominations for Vice President of the United States |
| Roll call on vice-presidential nominations |
| Convention called at 8:15 p.m. |
| Continuation of roll call |
| Convention called at 10:15 p.m. Thursday, with Thursday program subject to change |
The New York Times (June 28, 1944)
Hoover says youth rules; calls for all-out drive on New Deal – war on bureaucracy is pledged by Martin
By Turner Catledge
Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
The Republican National Convention today promulgated a platform of national and foreign policies highlighted by a pledge of post war international cooperation to maintain order, by which it proposes to convince the American electorate next fall that it can be depended upon to win the war, keep the peace and restore prosperity, if returned to power in Washington.
The party’s declarations were, for the most part, in broad terms. The platform left considerable details to be filled in by the candidates. The convention is expected to designate Governor Dewey of New York for President tomorrow.
The prospect that Governor Earl Warren of California would be the candidate for the vice presidency was subject to reappraisal tonight after he told his state delegation that “in good conscience” he could not accept the nomination.
Platform session listless
A few hours after it had adapted the platform, in the most listless and sparsely attended of its sessions, the convention heard its leading elder statesman, the former President Herbert Hoover, hand over leadership of the Republican Party, in the convention’s name, to “a new generation.”
Mr. Hoover shared the honors at a crowded night session with Rep. Clare Boothe Luce. She emphasized the party’s appeal to the “G.I. Joes,” who, as the former President put it, will be returning soon “to demand justification for their sacrifices.”
Earlier in the day, Rep. Joseph W. Martin, House Minority Leader, was elected permanent chairman of the convention and in his speech declared that the Republican Party was the only force that could be depended upon to straighten out the sprawling bureaucracy in Washington.
With these preliminaries out of the way and a platform loaded with appeals to the greatest possible number of voting groups and interests, the convention looked forward to the nomination of presidential and vice-presidential candidates.
Nominating plans speeded
Selection of Governor Dewey for top place on the ticket remained a certainty. Plans were also perfected to go through with the nominations early enough in the day to have the presidential nominee appear for a rousing notification ceremony at the night session. Should these plans go through as made, the convention will then end a day earlier than expected.
Governor Warren’s refusal caused some consternation among convention leaders because of the possibility of a last-minute scramble for the place. Attention began to quickly center on Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio, who, it was understood, would be entirely acceptable to Governor Dewey.
The Ohio delegation went into caucus at a late hour to decide its course. Earlier the delegation had staged a meeting for the forces determined to present Mr. Bricker for the first-place nomination. Leaders then insisted that they would follow the original Bricker-for-President program. Some Midwest delegations were understood to be putting pressure on Mr. Bricker to accept second place.
…
Party’s nominees bound; ‘as a matter of private honor and public faith’ they should accept program
By C. F. Trussell
Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
The Republican National Convention adopted without a dissenting vote today a 27-point platform which, although it provoked backstage and open outbreaks during the six days it was in the making, lent itself in the final draft to sufficiently broad, if not elastic, interpretations as to win general acceptance for the coming campaign.
Within the document itself was a pledge of good faith which extended beyond the delegates to the party’s candidates themselves.
The pledge of good faith declares:
The acceptance of the nominations made by this convention carries with it, as a matter of private honor and public faith, an undertaking by each candidate to be true to the principles and program herein set forth.
It appeared to be the convention’s opinion that this pledge could be taken and carried out under conscientious interpretations of the issues enunciated by a wide assortment of candidates.
Similar planks were in the 1936 and 1940 platforms and were revised by the Drafting Committee this year.
…
Dewey leaders turn to Ohioan when Warren refuses to take nomination
By Warren Moscow
Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
Following the refusal of California Governor Earl Warren to be a candidate for the nomination for Vice President, Ohio Governor John W. Bricker seemed likely tonight to be the choice of the Republican National Convention tomorrow for second place on the ticket.
Governor Warren’s announcement, made to his delegation this afternoon, caused a quick change in the program of supporters of Governor Thomas E. Dewey for the Presidency.
Bricker confers with aides
After a telephone conversation with the New York Governor, J. Russell Sprague, National Committeeman, and one of the three leaders of the Draft-Dewey movement, said that the New York delegates regarded Governor Bricker as well qualified for the Vice Presidency and would be glad to join the delegates of other states in nominating him for that office.
Mr. Bricker withheld immediate public acceptance of the informal tender, but went into conference with Roy D. Moore and John W. Galbreath, his campaign managers, and it was announced that he would make no statement before late morning.
It was learned, however, that at least half a dozen party leaders from the larger states would urge Governor Bricker to accept the nomination and his friends believed that under such circumstances he would accept.
…
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.
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.
To ‘free Democrats, too; House leader denies charge his party has no program, lists its main points
By James B. Reston
Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
The Republican Party is fighting the arrogant and bureaucratic dictatorship which is leading the people to national bankruptcy and complete regimentation, but the Republicans must have more help from the people if they are to hold the lines of constitutional government, Joseph W. Martin Jr., House Minority Leader, told the Republican National Convention today.
Mr. Martin, who was elected permanent chairman of the convention, emphasized that the Republicans had a constructive policy, based on the Constitution, private enterprise and collaboration with the other countries of the world, to lead the United States back to a “sound, prosperous peacetime basis.”
He said:
We are in more than one war. In one of those wars, our sons and daughters are against the German and the Jap. But there is another war here at home. It is a war between two eternally hostile ideologies. One idea is that of a free society – the society of free men creating their wealth with the instrumentalities of free enterprise under the protection of a representative republic.
The other is the conception of the regimented and planned society living upon vast streams of government debt and taking its shape and destiny from the directives from a bureaucratic elite under the command of a self-inspired leader. You may call it anything you wish. In Europe, they call it Fascism. Here we call it the New Deal.
Fight to ‘free’ Democrats
Mr. Martin sought to distinguish between the New Deal and the Democratic Party.
Mr. Martin said:
The Democratic Party which we have known and with which we have honorably struggled on so many fields. But which was a party of Americans, who believed in the American system, has lost its own powers over its own destiny. The Democratic Party has been captured by a minority, whose philosophy it despises. It has become a prisoner of the New Deal.
Thank God some of its leaders realize this and have had the courage to revolt. This election, curiously, is not merely a fight to put the Republicans into office, but, by a strange twist of fate, it is also a fight to emancipate the Democrats.
After repeating the policy of the Republican Party as defined by the Republican members of Congress in September 1942, Mr. Martin said that whenever criticism was leveled at the New Deal administration, the reply invariably was that the Republicans had no program. He insisted that the Republicans had carefully thought out what they would do when they were elected, and this program could be summed up in part by the following points. The Republicans would, he said:
Restore to Congress its responsibility and function as the people’s special instrument of control over their government and their public officials.
Restore responsibilities in matters of local concern to the state and local governmental subdivisions.
Produce “genuine economy” in government. Mr. Martin said:
To achieve that we will eliminate administrative non-essentials. No one can pretend that under the New Deal there will ever be retrenchment in governmental costs. The New Dealers just don’t believe in it.
Establish a taxation system that would not only be as simple and equitable as possible but a system designed to “stimulate industry and create jobs for the people,” a system of taxation “on a revenue basis and not for punitive purposes.”
Under a Republican administration, “labor will retain all the essential rights and just privileges it has gained.”
Make it possible for private capital to be permitted and encouraged to venture in the post-war period into renewed and expanded production.
Continue humane and beneficial economic and social advantages.
Provide “adequate benefits” for the men and women of our military services and make certain they are promptly available.
The House leader indicated that the Republicans would attempt to make the Communists’ support for a “fourth term” an issue in the presidential election. The “coalition” of the Communists with the CIO Political Action Committee in favor of another term for Mr. Roosevelt was, Mr. Martin said, “an insolent challenge” to the people of the United States.
He said:
This challenge has been insolently and boldly issued to the people of America. It presents a vital issue of this campaign.
Congressmen in Washington call them an avalanche of words
Washington (AP) – (June 27)
Democratic Congressmen derided, today, Republican Party platform proposals with expressions such as “an avalanche of words” and “a straddle,” while their Republican colleagues applauded the planks as “dandy.”
Rep. Robert Ramspeck (D-GA), House Majority Whip, said that the Republican proposals as approved by the Platform Committee “sound like the same old Republican runaround.” The platform, he said, “is full of ambiguous words from which it is possible to construe almost any meaning desired.”
Rep. Walt Horan (R-WA) expressed approval of the platform throughout. He said:
I think it is a dandy and one of which the party can be proud. It increases my confidence in the Republican leadership.
Rep. Clarence Cannon (D-MO), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, described the foreign policy declaration as “merely an avalanche of words, so stated that anyone could read into it anything they cared to believe.”
Opposing his view, Rep. Marion T. Bennett (R-MO) analyzed the statement on foreign policy as being “as specific and as well outlined as is possible at this stage of our relations with other nations.” He said that it was “a much better plan than as yet advocated by any of the opposition.”
Senator Lister Hill (D-AL) called the foreign policy statement “a straddle to catch both isolationists and internationalists.”
Senator Elbert D. Thomas (D-UT) said he believed that the platform was written “in a spirit of wishful thinking.”
He stated:
The plank on veterans covers ground that already is law. I am glad the Republican Party has made declarations that are very close to the aims of the present administration in regard to peace. That indicates the Republicans in Congress will be helpful in bringing about a fair peace.
The plank calling for an end of rationing and price-fixing was described by Rep. Brent Spence (D-KY), chairman of the House Banking Committee, as “designed to gain a few votes, and it means nothing.”
Mr. Spence said:
Anybody knows that the program is only temporary and will be discontinued as soon as the emergency is over.
Some want Dewey to clarify it as Senators, Governors voice general satisfaction
Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
The reaction here to the Republican platform was favorable.
Criticism about the “ambiguity” of the party’s declaration on foreign policy was prevalent earlier, but after the platform was approved, Governors, Senators and other delegates said they were satisfied with the main features of the declarations.
Governors of some Eastern states, who had been expected to be critical of what Wendell Willkie has termed the “ambiguity” of the foreign policy pronouncement, were unanimous in declaring that they would “go along” with the committee’s final report.
Governor Edge of New Jersey, who had threatened a floor fight on the plank said he would not raise his voice against it. He decided to rely upon the interpretation which Governor Dewey would put upon the declaration.
Senator Reed (R-KS), while abiding by the party declaration, said he thought that the statement on foreign policy might have “contained fewer words” and expressed the wish that the party had adopted the Mackinac statement as “far more succinct and expressing Republican feelings better.”
Framers voice satisfaction
Senator Taft, chairman of the Resolutions Committee, which has labored since Wednesday to draft the platform, declared himself “well satisfied” with it and added:
The declarations presented to this convention have been framed with more care and greater seriousness than ever were devoted to the platforms of any previous conventions.
Senator Austin (R-VT), head of the group which shaped the foreign policy plank, said that the platform would “represent a marked advance in both domestic and foreign policy toward the establishment of security, peace and prosperity.”
Senator Danaher (R-CT), commending “the mutuality we seek among nations,” said:
The platform is a remarkable achievement and presents sound and cogent American doctrine. The people will support us, as our views are their views.
Senator White (R-ME) praised the platform as “dealing soundly and effectively with the problems of America and the world.”
Senator Ball (R-MN) said the foreign policy plank was not in terminology which he would have chosen, but that he considered it a strong statement, particularly if the candidate endorsed “the positive and not the negative implications.”
Senator Hawkes (R-NJ) maintained that the party’s expression on foreign policy was in line with the sentiments of most Americans.
Rep. Hamilton Fish (R-NY) approved the foreign policy plank as reflecting the determination of the American people “to win the war and go a long way to preserve the peace through international cooperation.”
Edge cites Dewey’s approval
Governor Edge of New Jersey made no secret of his disapproval of the foreign policy plank, but expressed his faith in Governor Dewey’s interpretation of it.
He said:
From a layman’s standpoint the platform, especially on foreign policy, could be clearer. However, I am informed that Governor Dewey has accepted this text, and further I am quite positive that our nominee-to-be will carry out the pledges made in his speech on foreign relations to the newspaper publishers two months ago.
I have every confidence that Governor Dewey will enlarge and amplify the party’s position on this foreign policy plank, just as other nominees have done in the past with involved platform expressions.
The appearance of the Governors of many of the leading Republican states before the foreign policy subcommittee last night apparently resulted in helpful changes. Certainly, there can be no question that by an adequate force Governor Dewey means a military force when necessary.
Governor Saltonstall of Massachusetts expressed satisfaction with the platform in its entirely but added that he would be interested in hearing Governor Dewey’s interpretations of one or two of the planks, including that on foreign policy.
Governor Martin of Pennsylvania said that the platform was “all right” and that the foreign policy plank “embodied the Mackinac Charter.”
Governor Sewall of Maine termed the platform “a good document, the best statement you can reasonably expect in view of the conflicting opinions” and Governor Blood of New Hampshire declared that it was “one of which the Governors can unite and elect Dewey.”
Arthur T. Vanderbilt sees ‘handsome majority’ in November
Chicago, Illinois (AP) – (June 27)
Arthur T. Vanderbilt of New Jersey, delegate-at-large and dean of the New York University Law School, one of the men behind the campaign to make Governor Dewey the Republican presidential nominee, predicted today that he would win by a “handsome majority” in November.
Mr. Vanderbilt said:
Our best friends smiled three months ago when we said Dewey would be nominated on the first ballot, but everybody concedes it today. They will probably smile when we say he will be elected in November, but personally I haven’t the slightest doubt.
Hails ‘G.I. Joe and G.I. Jim;’ declares party best fitted to serve men who return and vindicate men who die
By Kathleen McLaughlin
Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
Once again, a woman had the last word, and Rep. Clare Boothe Luce, who spoke it, also made it the most effective of the evening at the Republican National Convention. Her ringing address was undeniably the peak of the program as she arraigned the Democratic Party and warned her own party to prepare for the homecoming of the G.I. Joes.
Spotlighted by many kliegs, the playwright and legislator was a cynosure of attention from every corner of the crowded hall. She was simply clad in a short-sleeved, navy dinner dress, with a crisp white plastron caught at the throat into a narrow white bow.
Her voice, clear and penetrating, reached every point in the hall and the close of her speech found the crowd on its feet acclaiming her with shouts and waving banners while Chairman Martin summoned a mixed chorus to serenade her with “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”
Theme of war and peace
Addressed to the convention but aimed beyond the tiers of delegates and visitors at all the women of the country whose hears and thoughts are with their men in uniform, her speech carried an indirect plea for support of the man the Republicans will nominate as the man best fitted to insure a quick homecoming and a secure future for those in the Armed Forces.
Proclaiming her credo that “American women do not wish their praises sung as women any more than they wish political pleas made to them as women,” Mrs. Luce asserted that women “feel no differently from men about the ever-growing threats to good government.”
She declared:
They feel no differently about the inefficiency, abusiveness, evasion, self-seeking, and personal whim in the management of the nation’s business, which are little by little distorting our democracy into a dictatorial bumbledom.
And certainly, they feel no differently about pressing this war to the enemy’s innermost gates, or creating from the sick havocs of war itself, a fair and healthy peace.
The G.I. Joes, she insisted, wanted the country to be secure from here out, not only because, no matter how confused people at home were, he knew what he was fighting for, but to vindicate and avenge G.I. Jim, his pal who was “immobilized by enemy gunfire – immobilized for all eternity.”
Memorial for ‘G.I. Jim’
Of G.I. Jim, she said:
His young bones bleach on the tropical roads of Bataan. white cross marks his narrow grave on some Pacific island. His dust dulls the crimson of the roses that bloom in the ruins of an Italian village. The deserts of Africa, the jungles of Burma, the rice fields of China, the plains of Assam, the jagged hills of Attu, the cold depths of the Seven Seas, the very snows of the Arctic, are the richer for mingling with the mortal part of him.
The objective of the convention, she went on, was to nominated a candidate for President “who will make sure that Jim’s sacrifice shall not prove useless in the years that lie ahead.
She added:
For a fighting man dies for the future as well as the past; to keep all that was fine of his country’s yesterday, and to give it a chance for a finer tomorrow.
She flung a direct challenge at the Roosevelt administration by questioning whether the war might not have been averted or whether, once proved inevitable, it might not have been lessened in horror by better preparation.
She noted that Republican Presidents had been “overconfident” during the 1920s that sanity would prevail abroad.
She added:
But it was not a Republican President who dealt with the visibly rising menaces of Hitler and Mussolini and Hirohito. Ours was not the administration that promised young Jim’s mother and father and neighbors and friends economic security and peace. No Republican President gave these promises which were kept to their ears, but broken to their hearts.
Washington – (June 27)
President Roosevelt laughed off the fourth term question again today.
A reporter asked at his news conference if there was anything he could say today on the Democratic candidate for President.
The President threw his head back and laughed, then turned to the questioner and said, “So they saddled that one on you today.”
It had been some time since “the” question had been asked. Some correspondents, knowing the President’s way of sometimes blanketing Republican convention news with major news of his own, had thought that the eve of Governor Dewey’s nomination might strike him as an opportune time to make his announcement.
But Mr. Roosevelt apparently thought otherwise.
Chicago, Illinois – (June 27)
Archbishop Francis J. Spellman of New York was the author of the four stanzas of blank verse which Mrs. Clare Boothe Luce quoted in her address to the Republican convention tonight.
Written by the prelate on his return to this country after his tour of battlefields and war areas abroad, to express his impressions of the supreme sacrifice made by so many young Americans, the lines were sent by him to Mrs. Luce on the occasion of the death of her daughter, Miss Anne Brokaw, in an automobile accident in January.
In quoting them, Mrs. Luce did not indicate their origin.
The two-party system under which American democracy operates requires compromise. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are in fact coalitions to many minor parties. If they are to avoid being pulverized into fractions, their right wings and their left wings must somehow get together. The extreme position is not practicable and cannot be expected. But this does not mean that a party platform ought to be a mere bundle of promises to catch votes. There are certain broad principles and major issues on which the electorate is entitled to expect clear and unequivocal declarations, and that is particularly true in times like these. It is in the light of its positions on such principles and issues that a platform should be judged.
Foreign policy
The Republican Party pledges (1) “prosecution of the war to total victory,” (2) “full cooperation with the United Nations,” (3) “Pan-American solidarity,” (4) “maintenance of post-war military forces and establishments of ample strength” (but without mention of a system of compulsory military service for this purpose), (5) restoration to “sovereignty and self-government” of the victims of aggression, (6) treaties for our enemies “based on justice and security,” (7) no American membership in “a world state,” but instead (8) “responsible participation by the United States in post-war cooperative organization among sovereign nations” which “should develop effective cooperative means to direct peace forces to prevent or repel military aggression.” To this, the party adds a demand that all treaties and commitments be ratified under the present constitutional requirement for a two-thirds vote of the Senate.
There are two points here which we find disappointing. We are sorry that the Republican Party did not take this excellent opportunity to propose a constitutional amendment for the ratification of treaties by plain majority vote, so as to put an end to the evils of minority obstruction which have bedeviled American foreign policy for a generation. And we are sorry that the party lacked either the foresight or the courage to propose a democratic system of post-wat compulsory military service; for without the aid of such a system, it is simply not going to be possible for the United States to maintain military forces “of ample strength” for its post-war responsibilities. But considering the program as a whole it seems clear that the action proposed is about what the American people expect and will approve. Certainly, this country is not ready now (nor is any other major power) either for membership in a “world state” or for an “international police force” in the sense of a military establishment independent of existing sovereign governments. There is no issue here between Republicans and Democrats. President Roosevelt has already taken the same position, regarding the fundamentals of organizing peace, which the Republicans now take.
It is true that the formula in which the Republican Party has stated its own method of organized peace – “responsible participation in post-war cooperative organization among sovereign nations to… develop effective means to direct peace forces” – is a jumble of words into which it is impossible to read any concrete meaning. It is also true that there are holes in this pledge as wide as several barn doors, through which Mr. Dewey, if elected, could make an easy exit if he chose to make an exit. But there are three things to be said here. First, it is difficult for a minority party, out of power and lacking a benefit of conferences with the governments of other nations, to write a very concrete plan for so large and complex a problem as the organization of world peace. Second, no platform pledge, in any case, can be made so tight as to leave no loophole if the party does not really mean to keep its word. And third, the real meaning and degree of integrity of this particular pledge can only be gauged by the interpretation and the emphasis which Mr. Dewey gives it.
By this, we do not merely mean what Mr. Dewey says when he goes to Chicago to accept the nomination. We mean what Mr. Dewey continues to say, in speech after speech, as the campaign develops. For it is clear that there are sections of the country in which strongly isolationist Republican newspapers and Republican Senators with monumentally isolationist records will attempt to whittle away the platform pledge until it means nothing. They will dwell long and lovingly on such words as “sovereignty,” “no world state” and “looking out for American interests and resources.” And they will
Mr. Dewey will have no alternative but go into these newspapers and Senators on their home ground, if he wishes either to give real meaning to his party’s pledge or to obtain a mandate from the electorate for position action in the event of his election.
Domestic policy
On the domestic side, the best sections of the platform are those which deal with the question of post-war reconversion and which put their emphasis on the necessity of encouraging a revival of the private enterprise system which has always provided the great bulk of employment in this country and for which government-sponsored projects can never provide a satisfactory substitute.
For the rest it must be said that the domestic platform consists largely of special inducements to special groups, plus a liberal borrowing of planks from the New Deal itself. Prominent among the former group, and presumably designed to win the support of American farmers and some American industrialists, is a proposal which would seem to jeopardize the whole structure of Secretary Hull’s tariff agreements, since it implies that in future such agreements should be restricted only to those directly “approved by Congress” – which would mean, as experience has proved, no agreements at all. Among the issues borrowed from the New Deal are practically all of the major legislative enactments of the last ten years, plus a plentiful sprinkling of new subsidies and public works. At the same time, though the government’s responsibilities and activities would be larger than ever, if this program were adopted in its entirety, expenditures are to be cut, taxes reduced as soon as the war ends and the “sprawling, overlapping bureaucracy” somehow diminished.
All this is disappointing because, instead of sharpening differences between present administration policies and proposed Republican policies and proposed Republican policies, its net effect is to blur them. the section on labor is an outstanding illustration of this. The administration’s labor policy is extremely vulnerable and the Republican platform is thoroughly justified in criticizing the conflicting jurisdictions of federal labor agencies. But the Republicans show no courage whatever in dealing with basic issues of policy. There is no demand for union responsibility, for example, commensurate with union privileges. So far from any demand for amendment of the Wagner Act, the platform “accepts the purposes” of that act by name, together with the Wage and Hour Act. It appears that it is the “perversion of the Wagner Act by the New Deal” that is the evil. Rather than any unbalance in the act itself. Going further, the platform demands that the Secretary of Labor “should be a representative of labor” – that is, a union leader, presumably named by the unions themselves. On the same pressure theory of government, the Secretary of Agriculture should be named by the farm organizations, and the Secretary of Commerce should be a representative of business named by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the National Association of Manufacturers.
But in the scramble for the “labor vote” the worst declaration of all is this: “We condemn the freezing of wage rates at arbitrary levels and the binding of men to their jobs as destructive to the advancement of a free people.” This is written as if there were no such thing as a total war going on, no such thing as an inflation danger, and no such thing as a price-control policy. To remove the wage controls would blow off the price ceilings. The greatest danger to the anti-inflation program at this time is that the administration may be tempted for political reasons this fall to break the Little Steel formula. Instead of standing firmly against such a step, the Republicans in this declaration actually put pressure or the President to take it. What will the Republican Party itself have left to say if he does it?
We have become accustomed to national platforms intended as a catch-all for votes. The present one is unfortunately typical of these. But as the nominee of his party, Mr. Dewey will still have the opportunity to improve the platform by a sensible interpretation of ambiguous pronouncements and by courageous supplement of his own.
Mr. Willkie’s final effort to obtain what he believes to be a necessary clarification of the foreign policy plank of the Republican platform failed, but he went down fighting. Mr. Willkie is a good soldier in any cause in which he believes.
Four years ago, Wendell Willkie polled 22,304,765 votes, not quite 5,000,000 short of the number that went to President Roosevelt. This year his campaign for the nomination failed, and there was evidence that much of his regular, dyed-in-the-wool Republican following had dwindled away.
Nevertheless, Mr. Willkie may feel that he stands high in the respect of his countrymen. He always had courage and sincerity. Four years of world tragedy taught him much and deepened his convictions as they broadened his sympathies. During the pre-nomination campaign he did all that a man could do, bravely and unselfishly, to awaken his countrymen to the desperate need of a decline plan to maintain a just peace after this war is over. More than any other individual he is responsible for such progress in this direction ads the Republican Party has made. Whatever his future career, public or private, he has deserved well of the American people.
I am deeply grateful to the many friends who have expressed their loyalty to me, far more important than that, to the cause for which I have tried to stand. I have traveled throughout the United States for the last six months preaching to the best of my ability the gospel of Republicanism, which is the gospel of Americanism.
I have talked with you in your homes and your public meetings. I have talked with you privately, and I know the heart, the feeling, the longing, and the determination of the people of America, expressed through the representatives assembled here to preserve, not only for America but for the whole world, the blessings of free government and liberty as we have them here in America.
There has been a magnificent response everywhere to the preaching of fundamental American constitutional doctrine. Everywhere Republicans have come, and come enthusiastically, and Democrats have come by the thousands to Republican meetings.
Time and again I have said throughout this country, to the Democratic friends who are supporters of our cause, that the old-line Democrats, the Jeffersonian Democrats, and the Republicans have so much in common now; neither side has anything to say about what goes on in Washington today.
A thousand times I have said to you and Republicans everywhere that this is an hour when personal ambition should not prevail, that the party is greater than any individual ambition. In this hour, when the nation calls for unselfish service, the Republican Party unselfishly goes into the campaign to redeem free government that the world may be better tomorrow.
A thousand times I have said to you that I am personally more interested – and this comes from the depths of my heart – that personally I am more interested in defeating the New Deal philosophy of absolutism which has swept free government from the majority of countries throughout the world; I am more interested in defeating that than I am in personally being President of these United States.
I say to you today that it is the first duty of every Republican, as of every patriotic American citizen of every political party, to do all in its power to promote the war effort and bring speedy victory, that our boys may soon come home again.
I would not be here today, pleading the cause of the Republican party, if I did not believe with all sincerity in my heart that the best thing that could happen, the one thing that would bring speedy victory, a better world in which to live, better international relations, would be the election of a Republican President and a Republican Congress this fall.
Industry, under the impetus of such a victory, would produce as it never produced before. Labor would work as never before. When victory comes, we should have a stable, consistent economic tax policy in this country which would give greater hope of return than possibility of loss.
Labor would work as never before because it knows, as you and I well know, that this government cannot reach out its tentacles and take a strangle hold on one segment of society unless ultimately every segment of society comes under the domination and dictates of government.
Agriculture would be encouraged as nothing else could encourage it – by a Republican victory – because a bureaucratic government would be taken off its neck and farmers again could till the soil as independent farmers of America have always tilled the soil.
Appreciative as I am of the devotion to the cause which I have tried to represent of the many that are gathered here, I understand it is the overwhelming desire of this convention to nominate a great, a vigorous, a fighting young American, the noble and dramatic and appealing Governor of the State of New York – Thomas E. Dewey.
He charged the ramparts of crime and took them. He took over the government of the great State of New York, the largest state of the Union, and what a magnificent job he has done as Governor of that state! He understands not alone domestic problems, but international issues. The relationships of the nations of the world of tomorrow are going to be more trying than they ever have been before, and we cannot separate our domestic policies from our international program.
The hope of a better tomorrow lies in Thomas E. Dewey becoming the leader of the Republican hosts who will free us from the clutches of bureaucracy next January.
Time and again I have said that as this campaign goes on my heart and soul will be behind it, regardless of who might be nominated here today. Let me say to you that the best President of the United States to build a better international order tomorrow will be the best American President.
He shall speak for the people of America through the platform which has been adopted by this convention, one of sound American doctrine, which will preserve our form of representative republican government and which will bring a Republican victory this fall.
I am conscious of the fact that it is the desire of the great majority of the delegates to this convention to nominate the gallant righting Governor of the State of New York for President. I believe in party organization, as expressed in this legally constituted representative body of my party.
I believe a Republican victory is not only necessary this fall to preserve the Republican Party, but it is necessary likewise to preserve our two-party system. To preserve a representative system of government here in America, and likewise necessary to preserve the Democratic Party.
I appreciate the support which has been accorded me by the delegates from Ohio, especially the support which they have given in the last few days; but I am now asking them not to present my name to this convention, but to cast their votes, along with those of the host of friends I have here, for Thomas E. Dewey for President of the United States.
The Free Lance-Star (June 28, 1944)
Nominee to fly to Chicago to make acceptance talk
Chicago Stadium, Chicago, Illinois (AP) –
A 1944 Republican ticker headed by Governor Thomas E. Dewey for President, with Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio as his running-mate, was nominated in a whirlwind session today by a national convention that gave Dewey all its votes save one and made it unanimous for Bricker.
Dewey immediately arranged to fly here from Albany and appear before the convention to deliver his speech of acceptance at 9:00 p.m. CWT.
The nominating session recessed at 1:56 until 8:00 p.m. CWT.
A lone delegate from Wisconsin, Grant Ritter, 55-year-old farmer of Beloit, cast his vote for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, explaining “he’s still my candidate. We didn’t get an opportunity to present him.”
A committee hurried to telephone Governor Dewey at Albany where he awaited formal notification before going ahead with plans to rush here for his speech of acceptance – tonight, if weather does not interfere with a trip by plane.
Martin wires news
At the same time, Rep. Joseph W. Martin of Massachusetts, convention chairman, dispatched the following telegram to Dewey:
May I on behalf of this great Republican convention advise you of your nomination as President.
Heartiest congratulations. We know you will make a winning President.
Even before the roll call, shortly after Dewey’s name was placed in nomination by Nebraska Governor Dwight Griswold, Wendell L. Willkie, the 1940 nominee, whose possible attitude toward a Dewey candidacy was a subject of conjecture, drafted a message of congratulations from New York. A bulletin over the Associated Press wire at the platform brought word of the gesture.
Governor Bricker, playing the key role in a harmony move that developed overnight, announced his own withdrawal as a presidential candidate as soon as Dewey’s name was placed in nomination.
Bricker speaker
In a dramatic convention appearance to tremendous applause, at the termination of a rousing demonstration which greeted the nominating speech for Dewey, the tall Ohioan strode to the speaker’s stand, looked steadily over the vast reaches of the teeming convention hall and said:
I am deeply grateful to the many friends who have expressed their loyalty to me, far more important than that, to the cause for which I have tried to stand.
I am personally more interested – and this comes from the depths of my heart – personally I am more interested in defeating the New Deal philosophy of absolutism which is threatening Americans today; I am more interested in defeating that than I am ever of being President of these United States.
I understand, as you do, that it is the overwhelming desire of this convention to nominate a great, a vigorous, a fighting young American, the noble and dramatic and appealing Governor of the great state of New York – Thomas E. Dewey.
Praises record
There were cries of “no” from some of the Bricker boosters, as the Governor continued:
What a magnificent job he [Dewey] has done as Governor! He understands not only domestic problems, but their involvement in international issues. The relationship of the world of tomorrow are going to be more trying than they ever have been before.
Thomas E. Dewey will become the gallant leader of the Republican hosts which free America and return American to the Republican democracy next January.
Bricker thanked the Ohio delegation for its support, saying:
I am asking them not to present my name to this convention, but to cast their votes, along with those of the host of friends I have here, for Thomas E. Dewey for President of the United States.
No sooner had Bricker turned from the platform than Chairman Joseph W. Martin announced, “I now introduce Senator Ball of Minnesota.”
Proud of Stassen
Ball led the campaign on behalf of LtCdr. Harold E. Stassen for President. He said:
Ours has been a clear fight. We are proud of Cdr. Stassen…
As long as there was the slightest chance of Stassen’s nomination, we were determined to present his name to this convention. Governor Bricker’s eloquent statement has eliminated any chance that existed. Minnesota’s delegation has therefore decided not to present Stassen’s name to this convention.
…
If FDR decides to run for a fourth term, it’s going to be a Slam Dunk on the republican party.
Amplification of views is expected in his acceptance talk; floor fight fails
Chicago, Illinois (AP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey apparently held the key today to a question of whether Wendell L. Willkie and other party critics will go along with a Republican platform pledging American cooperation to prevent future wars by use of “peace forces” and ruling out entry into a “world state.”
The party’s prospective presidential nominee was expected to amplify, in his acceptance speech, a post-war foreign policy plank shoutingly approved by delegates but sharply criticized earlier by the 1940 standard-bearer and a group of governors.
A convention floor fight failed to materialize after it was reported that Dewey had given the plank his specific approval and two critical governors – Walter Edge of New Jersey and William H. Willis of Vermont – had expressed the view to reporters that nothing could be gained by a fight.
Upon the ability of the New York Governor – assuming, of course, that he will be the nominee – to satisfy criticisms of Willkie and the governors that the plank is “ambiguous” and offers inadequate hope for post-war peace collaboration, possibly hinges the question of whether the 1940 candidate will go along, bolt, or remain silent during the campaign.
Willkie silent
In New York, Willkie refused last night to say what action he would take.
The controverted plank was a featured part of a 2,000-word statement of principles.
On domestic issues, the platform promised the party would devote itself to “reestablishing liberty at home;” to providing stable employment by encouraging private enterprise freed of government competition and “detailed regulations.”
Remedies for economic and political problems should be based, the statement asserted, “on intelligent cooperation between the federal government and the states and local government and the initiative of civil groups, not on the panacea of federal cash.”
The platform said:
Four more years of New Deal policy would centralize all power in the President, and would daily subject every act of every citizen to regulation by his henchmen; and this country could remain a Republic only in name. No problem exists which cannot be solved by American methods. We have no need of either the communistic or the fascist technique.
Making appeals to business, labor and agriculture alike, the platform charged that New Deal “perversion” of labor laws “threatens to destroy collective bargaining completely and permanently.”
Promises to farmers
Farmers were promised an “American market price” to be maintained by commodity loans, price supports and other measures, and government aid in dealing with “unmanageable surpluses” by means of crop adjustment. This probably will go a long way toward removing the principle of crop control as an issue. The Republicans pledged, however, the elimination of subsidies as a substitute for adequate prices at the market prices. They also promised to free farmers from “regimentation and confusing government manipulation and control of farm programs.”
In the field of foreign trade, the Republicans promised farmer, livestock producers, workers and industry that they would establish and maintain a “fair protective tariff” on competitive products produced with lower-paid labor.
They expressed willingness nevertheless to cooperate with other nations to remove international trade barriers.
Other planks pledged aid to small business; tax belief for individuals and corporations when peace returns; a “genuine” Western Hemisphere good neighbor policy “commanding respect, and not based on reckless squandering of American funds;” rigid economy in government expenditures; extension of Social Security; and enforcement of laws against monopoly and unfair competition.
I am profoundly moved by the trust you have placed in me. I deeply feel the responsibility which goes with your nomination for President of the United States at this grave hour of our nation’s history.
That I have not sought this responsibility, all of you know. I told the people of my State, two years ago, that it was my intention to devote my full term as governor exclusively to their service. You have decided otherwise. In accordance with the principles of our republican form of government you have laid upon me the highest duty to which an American can be called. No one has a right to refuse such a call. With the help of God, I will try to be worthy of the trust. I accept the nomination.
I am happy and proud to be associated with my good friend from the state of Ohio, John W. Bricker. For many months, John Bricker has gone from state to state telling the people of the issues, of the great need for better government, for the sound principles of government, and the leadership which will come to it with a Republican victory this year. Never before have I seen such good sportsmanship as that displayed by John Bricker here this morning and I am proud to be associated with him.
I come to this great task a free man. I have made no pledges, promises or commitments, expressed or implied, to any man or woman. I shall make none, except to the American people.
These pledges I do make:
To men and women of the Republican Party everywhere I pledge my utmost efforts in the months ahead. In return, I ask for your support. Without it, I cannot discharge the heavy obligation you lay upon me.
To Americans of every party, I pledge that on January 20 next year our government will again have a cabinet of the ablest men and women to be found in America. The members of that Cabinet will expect and will receive full delegation of the powers of their office. They will be capable of administering those powers. They will each be experienced in the task to be done and young enough to do it. This election will bring an end to one-man government in America.
To Americans of every party, I pledge a campaign dedicated to one and above all others – that this nation under God may continue in the years ahead a free nation of free men.
At this moment on battlegrounds around the world Americans are dying for the freedom of our country. Their comrades are pressing on in the face of hardship and suffering. They are pressing on for total victory and for the liberties of all of us.
Everything we say or do today and, in the future, must be devoted to the single purpose of that victory. Then, when victory is won, we must devote ourselves with equal unity of purpose to re-winning at home the freedom they have won at such desperate cost abroad.
To our allies let us send from this convention one message from our hearts: The American people are united with you to the limit of our resources and manpower, devoted to the single task of victory and the establishment of a firm and lasting peace.
To every member of the axis powers, let us send this message from this convention: By this political campaign, which you are unable to understand, our will to victory will be strengthened, and with every day you further delay surrender the consequences to you will be more severe.
That we shall win this war none of us and few of our enemies can now have any doubt. But how we win this war is of major importance for the years ahead. We won the last war but it didn’t stay won. This time we must also win the purposes for which we are fighting. Germany must never again nourish the delusion that she could have won. We must carry to Japan a defeat so crushing and complete that every last man among them knows that he has been beaten. We must not merely defeat the armies and the navies of our enemies. We must defeat, once and for all, their will to make war. In their hearts as well as with their lips, let them be taught to say, “Never again.”
The military conduct of the war is outside this campaign. It is and must remain completely out of politics. Gen. Marshall and Adm. King are doing a superb job. Thank God for both of them. Let me make it crystal clear that a change of administration next January cannot and will not involve any change in the military conduct of the war. If there is not now any civilian interference with the military and naval commands, a change in administration will not alter this status. If there is civilian interference, the new administration will put a stop to it forthwith.
But the war is being fought on the home front as well as abroad, while all of us are deeply proud of the military conduct of the war, can we honestly say that the home front could not bear improvement? The present administration in Washington has been in office for more than eleven years. Today, it is at war with Congress, and at war with itself. Squabbles between Cabinet members, feuds between rival bureaucrats and bitterness between the President and his own party members, in and out of Congress, have become the order of the day. In the vital matters of taxation, price control, rationing, labor relations, manpower, we have become familiar with the spectacle of wrangling, bungling and confusion.
Does anyone suggest that the present national administration is giving either efficient or competent government? We have not heard that claim made, even by its most fanatical supporters. No, all they tell us is that in its young days it did some good things. That we freely grant. But now it has grown old in office. It has become tired and quarrelsome. It seems that the great men who founded this nation really did know what they were talking about when they said that three terms were too many.
When we have won the war, we shall still have to win the peace. We are agreed, all of us, that America will participate with other sovereign nations in a cooperative effort to prevent future wars. Let us face up boldly to the magnitude of that task. We shall not make secure the peace of the world by mere words. We can’t do it simply by drawing up a fine-sounding treaty. It cannot be the work of any one man or of a little group of rulers who meet together in private conferences. The structure of peace must be built. It must be the work of many men. We must have as our representatives in this task the ablest men and women America can produce, and the structure they join in building must rest upon the solid rock of a united American public opinion.
I am not one of those who despair of achieving that end. I am utterly confident we can do it. For years, we have had men in Washington who were notoriously weak in certain branches of arithmetic but they specialized in division. They’ve been playing up minor differences of opinion among our people until the people of other countries might have thought that America was cleft in two.
But all the while there was a larger, growing area of agreement. Recently the overwhelming majesty of that broad area of agreement has become obvious. The Republican Party can take pride in helping to define it and broaden it. There are only a few, a very few, who really believe that America should try to remain aloof from the world. There are only a relatively few who believe it would be practical for America or her allies to renounce all sovereignty and join a superstate. I certainly would not deny these two extremes the right to their opinions; but I stand firmly with the overwhelming majority of my fellow citizens in that great wide area of agreement. That agreement was clearly expressed by the Republican Mackinac Declaration and was adopted in the foreign policy plank of this Convention.
No organization for peace will last if it is slipped through by stealth or trickery or the momentary hypnotism of high-sounding phrases. We shall have to work and pray and be patient and make sacrifices to achieve a really lasting peace. That is not too much to ask in the name of those who have died for the future of our country. This is no task for men who specialize in dividing our people. It is no task to be entrusted to stubborn men, grown old and tired and quarrelsome in office. We learned that in 1919.
The building of the peace is more than a matter of international cooperation. God has endowed America with such blessings as to fit her for a great role in the world. We can only play that role if we are strong and healthy and vigorous as nature has equipped us to be. It would be a tragedy if after this war Americans returned from our armed forces and failed to find the freedom and opportunity for which they fought. This must be a land where every man and woman has a fair chance to work and get ahead. Never again must free Americans face the specter of long-continued, mass unemployment. We Republicans are agreed that full employment shall be a first objective of national policy. And by full employment I mean a real chance for every man and woman to earn a decent living.
What hope does the present administration offer here? In 1940, the year before this country entered the war, there were still 10,000,000 unemployed. After seven years of unequalled power and unparalleled spending, the New Deal had failed utterly to solve that problem. It never solved that problem. It was left to be solved by war. Do we have to have a war to get jobs?
What are we now offered? Only the dreary prospect of a continued war economy after the war, with interference piled on interference and petty tyrannies rivaling the very regimentation against which we are now at war.
The present administration has never solved this fundamental problem of jobs and opportunity. It can never solve this problem. It has never even understood what makes a job. It has never been for full production. It has lived in chattering fear of abundance. It has specialized in curtailment and restriction. It has been consistently hostile to and abusive of American business and American industry, although it is in business and industry that most of us make our living.
In all the record of the past eleven years is there anything that suggests the present administration can bring about high-level employment after this war? Is there any reason to believe that those who have so signally failed in the past can succeed in the future? The problem of jobs will not be easily solved; but it will never be solved at all unless we get a new, progressive administration in Washington – and that means a Republican administration.
For one hundred and fifty years, America was the hope of the world. Here on this great broad continent, we had brought into being something for which men had longed throughout all history. Here, all men were held to be free and equal. Here, government derived its just powers from the consent of the governed. Here men believed passionately in freedom, independence – the God-given right of the individual to be his own master. Yet, with all of this freedom – I insist – because of this freedom – ours was a land of plenty. In a fashion unequalled anywhere else in the world, America grew and strengthened; our standard of living became the envy of the world. In all lands, men and women looked toward America as the pattern of what they, themselves, desired. And because we were what we were, good will flowed toward us from all corners of the earth. An American was welcomed everywhere and looked upon with admiration and regard.
At times, we had our troubles; made our share of mistakes; but we faltered only to go forward with renewed vigor. It remained for the past eleven years, under the present national administration, for continuing unemployment to be accepted with resignation as the inevitable condition of a nation past its prime.
It is the New Deal which tells us that America has lost its capacity to grow. We shall never build a better world by listening to those counsels of defeat. Is America old and worn out as the New Dealers tell us? Look to the beaches of Normandy for the answer. Look to the reaches of the wide Pacific – to the corners of the world where American men are fighting. Look to the marvels of production in the war plants in our own cities and towns. I say to you: our country is just fighting its way through to new horizons. The future of America has no limit.
True, we now pass through dark and troubled times, scarcely a home escapes the touch of dread anxiety and grief; yet in this hour the American spirit rises, faith returns – faith in our God, faith in our fellowman, faith in the land our fathers died to win, faith in the future, limitless and bright, of this, our country.
In the name of that faith, we shall carry our cause in the coming months to the American people.