Dewey Remains Hot First Choice For Presidency

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 October 1948, Page 8

Dewey Remains Hot First Choice For Presidency

The campaign for the Presidency of the United States is grinding along in second gear. To many people, the dull campaigning yet to come might as well be omitted. They think the winner is obvious. They are referring to the governor of New York State, Thomas E. Dewey, writes J. E. Alexander, of Akron, Ohio, U.S.A. A large majority of the country’s newspapers are for Dewey. The conductor of the Fortune poll, Elmo Roper, has declared he is through predicting from his poll figures. He has chosen Dewey and says nothing can change the outcome.

Dewey is conceded the best chance 01 any Republican candidate for nearly two decades. But all this doesn’t keep the verbal blasts quiet. President Harry S. Truman who wants to keep his residence at White House four years more, is losing no opportunity to hit at his opponents. Dewey’s staunch ' supporters are veiling right back. Henry Wallace, leading the Progressive Party, and Strom Thurmond, heading the Dixiecrats, are shouting too. You can write off Thurmond and Wallace, for together they are rated 5,000,000 votes at the outside, which will not win any election of national proportions. “Truman Pounds Away Thurmond has been doing his best to get Truman’s name off ballots in the South and has managed in a state or two, but it will mean little in the final count. Wallace has stirred up much feeling by travelling through the South, where negroes are in large proportion, and making inflaming speeches. But for every vote he wins in the North by his “brotherhood” tactics, he loses another elsewhere. He has tried to become a martyr, but so far has failed, although his rabid supporters think he is “wonderful.’ Dewey has tried to keep himself out of target range, but Truman pounds away. . ~ In a major speech in Detroit, Truman said that the Republicans had “failed to crack down on prices (in Congress, which is G.O.P. controlled), but they cracked down on labour. They voted themselves a cut in taxes and voted you (he was speaking to labourers) a cut in freedom. The boom is for them (G.O.P. has represented big business to voters for many years) and the bust is for you. ’ These statements hurt, as the Dewey-supporting newspapers showed by lashing out at “irresponsible statements by our President,” “inane remarks by a small-statured politician,” and such. Truman was hitting at the failure of the last Congress to do anything about prices and inflation, and at the party which sponsored the Taft-Hart-ley Bill. This Bill restricts labour unions just as the Wagner Act of years ago held back business in its fight with labour. The Taft-Hartley Bill has been a target of almost all labour unions, although a great number of union members admit its provisions are good. But the heavy labouring-man vote has been Democratic for decades, and Truman was strengthening the party’s hold. He had vetoed the Bill, but it was passed. Dewey's Strategy Governor Dewey’s strategy became apparent immediately. He refused to answer Truman. Instead he delegated his right bower, a man he had.defeated for the G. O. P. candidacy, young, appealing Harold Stassen. Stassen has pledged himself to Dewey

and the G.O.P. If his choice wins he undoubtedly will be a Cabinet choice. So he stepped to the firing-line to answer Truman. Whenever the President mentions prices, Congress, or labour, Stassen will answer. Dewey’s guns will be tiained on the holes in Truman’s armour: a jumbled foreign policy and high prices. Stassen answered the President by saying that labour is better off under the Taft-Hartley Bill than before. He also pointed out that Dewey had a good record with labour as Governor of New York. And. tie picked, away at Truman’s remarks diligently. Incidently, his speech was made in Detroit the day after Truman spoke there. The President addressed more than 120,000 in a public square meeting in the auto city. Stassen pulled only 3000. Nation-wide polls show Dewey leading Truman with support from nearly 50 per cent, of the voters. The President is getting the nod from only about one-third. The others are for Wallace, Thurmond, or are undecided. But this is a large lead, for this time of the year, for Dewey. Elmo Roper, of Fortune poll, confidently predicts an overwhelming defeat for Truman, comparing this coming election to the 1936 fiasco when Alf. Landon, the G.P.O. candidate, was slaughtered by Franklin Roosevelt. Newspaper Support More than two out of three daily newspapers, with 70 per cent, of the nation’s readers, are out and out for Dewey. Truman has support from about 16 per cent, of the papers. However, that does not mean that Dewey is a cinch. In 1944 Roosevelt beat Dewey. Dewey had 60 per cent, of the papers with nearly 70 per cent, of the country’s readers behind him. And so, with about six weeks to go, the United States more or less maintains the status quo in domestic and foreign affairs, waiting for the naming of a leader who will serve for four years.