The Pittsburgh Press (September 23, 1944)
Stokes: Dewey in filmland
By Thomas L. Stokes
Los Angeles, California –
Here is the City of Miracles. Here is the City of the Angels – the lost angels with broken wings and tarnished souls who used to flash across the sky like a flaming bird of paradise, trailing expensive perfume.
Here is the city where the girl who once stood behind the 10-cent store counter, the girl who handed out the hash in Pete’s restaurant, soars to fame and glory, learns how to speak English with a sultry British accent, how to throw a mink coat nonchalantly across her shoulders, how to order about a butler and a covey of maids and a whole battalion of publicity men – all of whom, behind her back, snarl: “That lousy–!”
This is the city of hard-faced women, beautifully dressed, tough of heart. This is the city of slick men on the make. This is the city that lives for a gag and celebrates a new publicity coup as no civilization ever celebrated a major poet.
WPA remembered
This is the city that is up today, was down yesterday. and is afraid it may go broke tomorrow.
This is the city where only yesterday – less than 10 years ago, there were 10,000 women on WPA sewing projects, and as many men on garden projects. They were men and women with soft hands, for they had worked in nicely paneled offices where promoters were promoting. The depression put a sudden stop to all that. One-third of the city’s population was on relief. Yet, out at Santa Anita then, somebody was betting $65,000 a race.
And there was misery among the old folks. Their investments no longer paid dividends, the remittances from the children to whom they left their farms back in the Midwest stopped, for the sons and daughters were caught, too. in the national disaster. Hopefully the old folks marched into old Doc Townsend’s sideshow, for the promise of $200 every month. They got the Townsend habit then. On the California ballot for a referendum vote in the coming election is a proposal for $60 for every person 60 and over – 60 at 60.
All of this, and it is somehow sad to contemplate, is perhaps America – America in miniature.
It all seemed a bit too much for Governor Thomas E. Dewey, though there’s a touch of Hollywood in him.
Dewey ‘the actor’
No suave actor who walks on the stage in one of those dinner-dress English drawing-room comedies ever looked more the part than did he when he strolled down the aisle of a hotel conference room for his daily press conference. He seemed to catch the spirit.
“What is this – Hollywood?” he asked.
Just then, there was a stir at the back, and down the aisle, in a wheelchair, they pushed Lionel Barrymore through the crowd to talk to the candidate. Mr. Barrymore being head of the Hollywood-for-Dewey Committee. That took more time, more picture-taking.
At last, the session could begin. There was a raw edge in the Governor’s voice, when he said: “Have we sobered down to the proportions of a press conference?”
At one time, a Canadian newspaperman jumped up with a question, explaining that he happened to be in town and wanted to take this opportunity to meet the Governor.
“Is there anybody here from China?” the Governor retorted.
And at night, the Republican candidate went out to that monster Coliseum. Ginger Rogers introduced Governor Warren of California, who introduced Governor Dewey.
The Governor rose to the occasion.
He came out for an expansion of the social security program that nearly matches that of the New Deal and also appropriated some features of the CIO program, critical as some other Republicans are being just now about the CIO.
Old Doc Townsend must look to his laurels.