The Pittsburgh Press (September 22, 1944)
‘Dog-eat-dog days gone’ –
Dewey promises security for all
Personal and political freedom also pledged
Los Angeles, California (UP) –
Governor Thomas E. Dewey winds up his Pacific Coast campaign tonight with an address from this city’s huge Memorial Coliseum where he will outline the Republican program for expansion of unemployment compensation of unemployment compensation, old-age pensions and minimum wage laws.
Governor Dewey arrived here shortly before noon.
En route to a hotel, crowds were sparse. One spectator shouted “What kind of breadlines are you going to have?” and received only a glare from Mr. Dewey.
Tonight’s speech will be a follow-up to last night’s speech from San Francisco when he promised, if elected, to find a middle road between “New Deal regimentation” and “a reactionary philosophy of dog-eat-dog” to post-war jobs and security for all without loss of personal or political freedom.
Governor Dewey’s address will be broadcast at 11:00 p.m. ET over KDKA.
Governor Dewey and his party were accompanied here by Governor and Mrs. Earl Warren of California.
Governor Dewey made his initial bid for California’s 25 electoral votes last night before an overflow crowd of 15,000 persons who heard the GOP nominee charge that the Roosevelt Administration has “failed utterly” to solve the problem of political freedom and economic security.
He charged:
Saturated as it is with the defeatist theory that America is past its prime, the New Deal can see only two possibilities for America – ever increasing regimentation as one alternative, and reaction as the other. It believes that economic security can only be purchased at the price of freedom.
That argument is false. Our people do not want to see this country dragged further and further toward complete government control over every aspect of our lives. Neither do we want to go back to the reactionary philosophy of dog-eat-dog.
Middle ground urged
There is a middle ground, Governor Dewey insisted, which involves a limited amount of government intervention into the daily lives of business, industry and agriculture.
For example, Governor Dewey said there should be limited government control of money and credit to keep interest rates stable, a government work program to take up the slack in employment which private enterprise cannot absorb, and support prices on basic agricultural products.
He promised that the days when men and women “had to work for whatever they could get” are gone forever.
Governor Dewey proposed three principles of government action which he described as “the exact opposite of the New Deal.” He listed:
-
“Its objective must be not to restrict individual economic opportunity but to widen it.”
-
“[It] Must be administered by men and women who believe in and understand American workers, American businessmen and American farmers.”
-
“The role of government cannot be the purely negative one of correcting abuse, of telling people what they may or may not do.”
Governor Dewey charged that the New Deal “has sought to buy the favor of one group and then of another, has pretended to be the generous uncle for each group, meanwhile playing one against the other for political profit.”