The Pittsburgh Press (January 29, 1944)
Pegler: Fourth term
By Westbrook Pegler
New York –
A fourth term for President Roosevelt would just about finish off the form of government under which we lived when he took office in 1933, but even though the men and women in the services undoubtedly would give him a big bulge over Tom Dewey in the autumn election, I say Congress had better find some way to let them have their say.
In thus nominating Governor Dewey, I am anticipating the Republican Convention, but I suppose nobody is going to dispute me.
Congress had better find a way to let these people vote because they would be awful sore at Congress if not, and in the event that Dewey were elected by a strict home-guard vote, he would take office under a handicap of resentment and suspicion in the fighting forces and his authority and prestige as Commander-in-Chief would be badly impaired.
There is some dissatisfaction with the conduct of the home-guard already, mostly because of the strikes.
This annoyance should be directed against Mr. Roosevelt himself, because he is ultimately responsible and the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Merchantmen, WACs and WAVES undoubtedly know it in a subconscious way.
Lewis also blamed
However, in their immediate view, John L. Lewis was the devil in the coal strike and old Green and Murray and the racketeering Fays and de Lorenzos are responsible for the five thousand and odd walkouts since Pearl Harbor.
Most of these people grew up under President Roosevelt. A fellow of say 25 years fighting in Italy or the South Pacific was only a leggedy, bucktoothed kid when Mr. Big walked in and had no mature appreciation of the nature of the American system.
He has no perspective on the changes toward fascism wrought in those 12 years and he is going to feel that he has been gypped of a very important and precious right if he doesn’t get a chance to vote.
Moreover, in addition to the other advantages which Mr. Roosevelt enjoys with this great block of voters, he now appears before them as their champion against a lot of no-good Republicans whose very sincere and valid arguments on the question of states’ rights will seem mean and tricky and inspired by no other consideration than low politics.
A handicap for Dewey
And just as Hitler and Mussolini raised a generation in their own beliefs, the younger Americans whose whole conscious or intelligent life has been spent under the influence of the New Deal were taught not to be fastidious about strict observance of the Constitution and the laws of their own country, the less so when strict observance would subject them to a plain injustice and leave the election of the next President to civilians who have made little or no sacrifice and felt no physical pain.
This will be an awful handicap to Dewey even if he should hop up in Albany this very day with a loud declaration in favor of letting the fighters vote the federal ballot at least.
They all know Mr. Roosevelt.
He has shaped their lives to a great extent, he is their C-in-C and a gaudy showman and they will be more afraid of a change of command in a war which, in the military way and in the matter of production at home, has been going amazingly well, than of changes in their form of government and the status of the civilian under government at home.
They don’t know Dewey, they won’t be able to read his campaign speeches and he won’t be able to get around among them to stand inspection, so the choice in their minds is bound to be one between Mr. Big and Mr. Who.
Like the Democratic National Committee, I am anticipating the Democratic Convention in nominating Mr. Roosevelt for a fourth term and assuming he will run, and for like reasons.
If Mr. Roosevelt doesn’t accept the nomination, he will defeat his own party because there just isn’t any other Democrat who could like Dewey.
And if Dewey, the best vote-getter the Republicans have, should refuse to run, he would be throwing down his party and millions of people who really believe in him and regard him as the only hope of saving what is left of constitutional government under law and restoring some of that which was done away with in the adolescent days of the generation which is now fighting the war.