The Pittsburgh Press (October 14, 1944)
Wallace attacks Dewey as puppet
Calls him ‘front’ man for reactionaries
Cleveland, Ohio (UP) –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace last night attacked Governor Thomas E. Dewey as a “front” man who “cannot go back” on reactionary Republicans “as Hitler handled Theissen.”
“They pay the piper – they call the tune,” Mr. Wallace declared.
That is why, he said:
“The young man on the flying trapeze” spends part of his time talking like a liberal, part of the time like an old-fashioned reactionary and part of the time pretending that he really believes Roosevelt is a Communist.
The young, but vague Republican governor may be expected any night now to describe Governor Bricker as a New Deal Democrat.
Puts GOP in two classes
Speaking at a rally here, the Vice President divided Republicans into two classes, local Republicans, “usually fine people,” and national Republicans, “the Pews and Grundys of Pennsylvania, the Gannetts and Ham Fishes of New York, the Hearst-Patterson-McCormick newspapers axis, the Tafts, Gridlers and Hannas of Ohio.”
He said:
National Republicans are like the famous bird which always flew backward and thus could see where it had been, but never had any idea where it was going.
Their election would mean a soft war, a soft peace and a reactionary post-war period.
‘Fear a full vote’
Mr. Wallace charged:
The reactionary national Republicans fear a full vote. They have placed one obstacle after another in the way of the voter this year, and “outstanding leaders in this effort are the governors of Ohio and New York” whose “secretaries of states have lent themselves to efforts to restrict voting.”
He said:
The national Republicans voted against Selective Service, against an adequate Army Air Force, against Lend-Lease, against the arming of merchant ships, against repealing the arms embargo.
If the Republican candidate were a true liberal, he would tell the American people that it was the Republicans in Congress who are blocking adequate emergency unemployment compensation during the transition from war to peace.