They Are Off to a Bad Start
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
They Are Off to a Bad Start By William E. Bohn LAST week Governor Dewey and his ttilow campaigners got off—not precisely as a t triumphal start—hut, anyway, te a start—and with all the...
...On thia he rang the changes again and again...
...He charges them five times more for his goods than they are actually worth...
...Ramon Grau San Martin intends to solve the problems of the Cuban people by means of laws, we suggest that he enact one which will protect the small farmer...
...The Louisville address is a carefully considered statement of the problems which will face us nt the war's end...
...After the Philadelphia meeting the Republican leaders were troubled by the lack of popular enthusiasm...
...Then the land-grabber, the grocery-store-shark, attaches the farm as payment for the farmer's debts...
...But there is this strange thing about the situation...
...The candidate dipped into history: "In the last hundred years we have had eleven periods during which business snd employment were well below normal...
...And in one important respect he is at a sad disadvantage...
...And there is in the pictures taken on the steps of the City Hall precisely the spirit suggested in the highsehool couplet of 1919...
...Some things which the New Deal has given as are'to be retained—without credit to BseseveM—each as unemployment inaurance, rights of labor, support of farm prices, insurance of bank deposits...
...Dewey is whooping up * Roosevelt program for a party which is in largo part still isolationist It is difficult to recall a candidate 4a a more perplexing situstion...
...If he did not cultivate the land by the sweat of his brow, we would have nothing to est...
...About the only fixtures in this so-called store are a counter and some heavy pieces of furniture...
...In fact, he made a good job of it...
...But he never made the grade...
...He was watching the weathercocks...
...The Adminiatration, he cried, "is afraid of peace...
...Last month General'Hershey (a Republican) made a general statement to the press expressing the opinion that demobilisation should be keyed in with job-finding, that men should not just be turned loose to form breadlines...
...Charges like these—so patently unjustified—he does not bring into his, formal campaign argument...
...BlJT it is in the held of economics, of depression, business and jobs, that Mr...
...The whole country got a new lease on "life...
...nevertheless, he is the base upon which society rests...
...Mayor Ellis fsirly drooled with delight on introducing the small-town boy who made good in the big city, but it Is doubtful whether he served his idol well in broadcasting the couplet in which, }h&hj?ii*vn«6i elasl ilass of 1919 described their HlyjtrUrus ciasitnaU: —, ^'fint in the eouneil kali to steer the State And ever foremott in a tongue debate...
...Here ho goes through all the motions of a man righteously indignant on behalf of a betrayed and downtrodden people...
...It Sopped...
...If he loses the bad-boy vote in Owosso and other places, the Horatio Alger story may be given a wrong ending in November...
...Some sixty nations, great and small, must help shape it, believe in it, join it, make i* work...
...Herbert Hoover waa a tired and defeatest do-nothing...
...It eaeeJd be noted that Mr...
...The results which he achieves by this method will be instructive...
...The merchant who sold the farmer the groceries on credit is looking for him...
...You would think we had never tried that plan...
...And he still tambs that the beat way U deaP with them ia the Hoover way...
...What does it amount to...
...He did, on the other hand, make the glee club and the debating society...
...That is sn intelligent, humane point of view...
...and the modern serf goes out to cultivate other fields which he most rant These storekeepers finally g«t possession of all the farms in the vicinity and the poor farmer Is left in abject misery...
...Most of these abnormal periods lasted about two year...
...Anyone who is cajoled by the Philadelphia address must have a weak memory and a weaker logical faculty...
...Here is bow it was done: A man comes and sets up a store in some old shack along the Central Highway...
...This paragraph is actually a fair condensation of the entire Philadelphia speech...
...Every proposal which be makes precisely parallels something which the present administration has under way...
...This simple history Mr...
...The land waa taken from them by trickery and violence, although it was all done within the law...
...When President Roosevelt took office the depression which started under Hoover had been steadily getting worse for more than three years...
...The farmer is unable to hold on to his farm...
...The longest lasted five years...
...This is all good...
...So all our trouble was Roosevelt's fault . . . and now this man Roosevelt is afraid of peace . . . afraid to go back to the depression which his methods make a regular part of peacetime life...
...There was no lack of attempts at old-time nostalgic smalltown drama in the best Republican tradition...
...If he fails to recall, a lot ef voters will...
...Anyone who carefully reada the three addresses must agree to this conclusion...
...There ia not from beginning to the end of the address one constructive, idea on how to do gffay with depression, or-to mitigate their impact...
...He should be able to recall what happened betwen 1929 and 1932...
...He is chained to the land in the sense that he has to cultivate it from sun-up to sun-down—but he works on land that does not belong to him...
...But then we learn that the boys of his own age didn't like him—nor the girls either...
...But the outline of the Dowey-Bricker argument is now before us...
...The smile and the puffed-out chest are those of the boy who is bound to go places...
...And these heaped together add up to the notion that if the people of this country, aa represented by their government, just leave business corporations alone everything will soon be fine...
...In this Sold, at least half the area within which he should be building up his ease against President Roosevelt, he has no case at all...
...Bat net a single now idea...
...It is a fear which one can understand...
...Dewey falsified in a way that must be hard for the most orthodox Republican to swallow...
...And—since the Louisville speech asesamsd Bttle mora tama an endorsement of ¦sitHiPra foreign pofawy this must be taken as the basis ef Mr...
...There is, in fact, a feeling that the whole campaign is taking place in a vacuum...
...The email farmer is the forgotten Kuban...
...With regard to the hottest issue of all, the war and the whys of making peace, the Republican candidates have no case at all...
...Wc must have a world organization...
...Believe in enterprise . . . encourage enterprise " And so on and on...
...On the whole, the campaign strategists would be wise to forget about Owosso...
...We began to work our way out...
...This piece of distortion was later given a place of honor in his main argument...
...He returns to his miserable hut with the little money he received from the sale of his crop, nearly crazy with the thought that he is unable to pay hia debts, and that he is destined to live another year in misery and humiliation...
...The farmer harvests his crop and takes it to the market, where he can only get for it about one-tenth of its real value...
...Dewey's entire campaign ditty consists of a rapturous repetition of words of Republican magk...
...Roosevelt came in with hope, with ideas, with faith in America...
...And he was on tims for church, and there his youthful baritone rang clear...
...The fine hand of John Foster Dulles is evident in it from beginning to end...
...His plight is highlighted by the fact that isolationist Congressman Everett Dirksen and other birds of i imilar feather preceded him upon the platform at Louisville and roused tumultuous enthusiasm with old-faahioned knov -nothing nonsense...
...They always hoped that he would bring hia marka up from the "B" level to at least one "A...
...They Are Off to a Bad Start By William E. Bohn LAST week Governor Dewey and his ttilow campaigners got off—not precisely as a t triumphal start—hut, anyway, te a start—and with all the traditional twists and turns and trappings...
...Net a suggestion of anything coaatraetive...
...Dewey had to go through with an act ia Owosso, Michigan...
...But he says to the farmer: "We are mortal, and so we should draw up a legal document in which you put up the farm as security for your debt" It goes on this wsy from year to year and the farmer gets deeper into debt until there is s cyclone, or a drought or a poor crop, or a super-sbundance, and the farmer is unable to pay anything to his creditor...
...Other phrases will be used from time to time...
...His most powerful press support comes from papers like the Chicago Tribune, which carefully plsy down his new international principles...
...Dewey did, after all, graduate from high school in 1919...
...It comes out clearly etched and explains a lot about the man—his stance, his smile, his attitudes...
...What he said was this: Look, practically all depression's ended in less than four years . . . when Roosevelt came in this one was near < i end . . . had it not been for Roosevelt we would just naturally have got >w steam and made the grade...
...What he succeeded in doing was to give the country a picture of himself as he looked to his playmates and fellow-townsmen...
...He has said that the President failed to prepare for war and that he did not do all that might have been done to prevent war...
...We must continue close cooperation among the four great powers...
...Thomas E. Dewey, up to some months ago, had no opinions about foreign policy...
...That is, with regard to this Important half of his program Mr...
...But he is worse off than anyone else in Cuba...
...Mr...
...He did not, like Harding, merely throw out a phrase about an "association of nations" and 1st it go at that Like a good attorney bound to win Ms case, he threw his heart into the business...
...So, instead of pressing the farmer to pay hia bills, the merchant tells him net to worry about it, that he can pay when times are batter...
...Dewey's bid for the presidency 0f the United States...
...There will be attempts to take advantage of new turns In the news...
...When public sentiment favored international cooperation and a league to prevent war, he went along...
...We get the picture of young Tom hurrying through the early morning streets to snatch hia bundle of papers from the train and cover his route before the schoolbell rang...
...He lost his' small farm to the clever swindlers who sold him goods on credit...
...There can be no doubt that he favors a league of nations as much as any lawyer over wanted to win hit ease...
...It is well stated...
...The Forgotten Cuban Froin Acton Socialitta, Cuba i. F Dr...
...His accounts grow by leaps and bounds, and he is not averse to *. little juggling of the figuresduring the night when he goes over the books and changes all the ones into fours, all the zeros Into eights, and all the sevens into nines...
...Dowry was able to abstract a sentence from this interview and twist it to mean that Roosevelt favored keeping the men in the Army to avoid flooding the labor market...
...Tommy was a good boy whom hardly anyone liked...
...But the most careless listener or reader must have noticed.that it is precisely what the Roosevelt Administration has been working toward...
...Not even a definite suggestion as to how enterprise is to be encouraged...
...Now and then Mr...
...But he tried so hard that the teachers were on his side...
...He then stocks up with groceries snd begins te sell to the farmers on credit...
...It Is the perfect start for the rags-to-riches fable...
...The outline of the new world fetlerat*'ii, *)n fact, is point for point the plan (good or bad) that is being worked out at Dumbarton Oaks this minute...
...Hoover tried to play his part in the Iowa hamlet of his birth, Alf Landon returned te the old swimming hole in Pennsylvania, Wendell Willkie really put on a good show on his return to boyhood scenes in Indiana— so Mr...
...Dewey has made scurrilous charges of dereliction against President Roosevelt...
...Ha has seen ths farm and he knows that the land ia as good as gold, and thst sooner or later it will fall into his hands...
...ThDS far we have had two full-scale addresses by Governor Dewey and one by Governor Brickner...
...He just hasn't any punches...
...The two parts of the address are interlocking...
...Dewey is really putting up a light...
...He is not pulling punches...
...Dewey accepts deprisri— aa a normal part of ear way of life—sf free sates prise...
...and he and his wife and children were thrown off their land...
...Just implications...
...We must wage peace, as we have waged war...
...the eo-acxhiag way...
...Long before the start of war production unemployment had been reduced to five or six millions —from the high of thirteen millions during the Hoover time...
...Me expects thorn to retara—like anew or rata or maws ef droata...
Vol. 27 • September 1944 • No. 38
