The Pittsburgh Press (September 28, 1944)
Stokes: Dewey optimism
By Thomas L. Stokes
With Dewey party –
Governor Dewey came back to New York from his transcontinental trip in quest of the Presidency, with his spirits and those of his campaign managers in a state of optimism, largely as a result of the fighting technique he adopted in the final stages with his direct attack on President Roosevelt at Oklahoma City.
Throwing off the wraps had an obviously elating effect upon the Republican presidential candidate, again the young District Attorney prosecuting a case, as it did upon Republican Party workers encountered since, in Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. Talking back to Mr. Roosevelt is the medicine that was needed to pep up the campaign, they said.
The enthusiastic response of his audience at Oklahoma City had an exhilarating reaction upon Governor Dewey. His managers immediately scheduled four additional stops in Oklahoma and Missouri.
About once an hour until midnight he was out on the back platform, smiling down upon hilarious crowds at every stop, a rousing stump speaker denouncing Sidney Hillman, Earl Browder, Secretaries Harold Ickes, and Frances Perkins and Harry Hopkins, pledging a housecleaning it he goes to Washington, satirizing bureaucratic government.
Different figure now
Mr. Dewey was a different figure than the calmer man who had devoted his previous major speeches to catching up with the New Deal social welfare program as he traveled down the Pacific Coast, now with a bit of the air of the rabblerouser. He spit out harsh adjectives, calling the New Dealers “that motley crew,” “that leprous collection,” and referring to the minions of the big city bosses – Ed Kelly of Chicago and Frank Hague of Jersey City and Tom Pendergast of Kansas City – as “hoodlums.”
Comparing notes in the private car, the candidate and his aides toted up these gains as they saw them from his western tour:
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They forced President Roosevelt to take the political stump earlier than had been expected, noting that the President has now added additional “political” speeches to his October program.
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They drew blood from the administration by the charge that it was planning to keep millions of men in the Army after the war to take up probable unemployment, at least that is what they read in Maj. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey’s statement that Selective Service accepted responsibility for demobilization and the lifting of controls by the War Manpower Commission on veterans so they could seek any sort of civilian jobs they wanted.
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Governor Dewey has now removed the post-war international organization issue and the New Deal social welfare program from the realm of debate, leaving him free now to devote himself to an analysis of the defects of administration by the Roosevelt administration.
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He injected new enthusiasm into part workers by the conferences he held with them in the states he visited.
Republicans optimistic
Republicans were found by newspaper correspondents who talked with them on the trip to be in a very optimistic frame of mind, even in states now seemingly safe for President Roosevelt, working hard, expecting some sort of break to play into their hands, and ready to capitalize upon it.
The campaign plainly took a new turn with Governor Dewey’s frontal attack on President at Oklahoma City, and it will be interesting to watch whether this is the beginning of a trend, or whether President Roosevelt can still hold the advantage that he apparently now holds.