MR. DEWEY'S START
Mr. Dewey's Start GOV. THOMAS E. DEWEY'S opening campaign addresses, at Philadelphia and Louisville, can hardly have won him much of the vast independent vote he needs if he is to have a fighting...
...Despite his preoccupation with the war, the President had ample opportunity to step into this situation...
...Campaign Note "THE evening outburst was but a repetition of that Dewey received upon his arrival here from New York when his motor cavalcade was showered with confetti and ticker tape as it moved from the depot to his quarters in the Bellevue-Strat-ford hotel...
...Philadelphia dispatch in the Chicago Tribune, Sept...
...If all is to be well with America, this doctrine holds, corporate taxes must be eliminated, thus providing seed capital for expanding enterprise...
...Dewey has made a bad start...
...That was regarded then as a political gesture to hold as many conservatives on his side as possible...
...Dewey spoke some plain truths about the Roosevelt Administration's failures on the home front, but he had little enough to offer the progressive, independent voter by way of reform and reconstruction...
...The strongly pro-Roosevelt Times noted with satisfaction that Dewey spoke "alon» lines which could well have been delivered by President Roosevelt himself...
...Thomas L. Stokes, able Washington correspondent for the Scripps-Howard newspapers, confirmed a report carried in The Progressive when he noted that "President Roosevelt offered no help whatever in this fight" over the Kilgore and George Bills...
...The conclusion drawn by the SEC from these figures is indisputable: "The continued increase in working capital and in liquid funds of corporations since the end of 1943 re-emphasizes the ability of American industry as a whole to reconvert to peace time production and also to undertake considerable expansion without recourse to outside sources of funds...
...7. "Dewey found himself forced to combat apathy on the part of the public...
...Relief For Corporations THE country is currently being deluged with "plans" for postwar prosperity concocted by conservative committees of Congress and equally conservative committees of big business...
...Although the schemes differ widely in many respects, they all seem to discover one burning, passionate need —the prompt and complete elimination of taxes on corporations...
...He let the Republican-Southern Democratic coalition have its head without challenge...
...Curiously enough, however, two reports urging abolition of corporate taxes—by the private Committee for Economic Development and the Colmer Committee of Congress—appeared during the same week that the Securities and Exchange Commission released a fact-packed report showing that American corporations now have a record-breaking amount of net working capital on hand and will have billions more in tax refunds after the war...
...It is based on the old Hoover-Mellon theory that when the servants are hungry, the master's food must be doubled so more crumbs may fall from the table...
...When queried at his press conferences, he would reply that he had not followed the bill, or had not examined the amendments, and thus casually pass off the matter...
...Dewey's Louisville effort was dreary confirmation of what The Progressive has contended right along—that there is no basic disagreement on foreign policy between the ruling cliques of both the old political parties...
...They do constitute a start...
...DEWEY'S failure at Philadelphia to deal more courageously and specifically with the great challenge of home-front reconversion has its Washington counterpart...
...Washington Counterpart MR...
...Two speeches do not make a campaign...
...4Corporations are slated to receive estimated ? refunds of $2,000,000,000 on emergency facilities if the war ends by the close of this year and they have claims pending for refunds of $2,300,-000,000 under other provisions of the tax law...
...They are now acting in concert to deprive the American people of a basic choice on this issue...
...This freshly ballyhooed doctrine is not really new, of course...
...Here are some of the figures in the SEC report which you can paste in your hat and pull out whenever you are approached by Ruml's Relief-for-the-Rich agents: 1. Net working capital for corporate industry has now reached $43,000,000,000, an increase of $19,000,000,000 piled up out of war profits since 1939...
...During two drives in an open car down Broad Street during the day, he was greeted by no more than normal week-day throngs...
...Philadelphia dispatch in the Chicago Sun, same day...
...O! to be in Philadelphia, now that everybody and nobody is there...
...Other refunds for business cutbacks are a virtual certainty...
...Roosevelt still seems to be playing the same game...
...But beyond these generalities, there was^noth-ing—nothing but words, words like "enterprise" and "security" which are barren of meaning unless they are flags which fly over a program that is progressive and socially-minded...
...Of this latter there was no sign—no sign at all...
...2. Corporations are certain, under the mystical workings of the present Federal tax program, of getting back $1,600,000,000 in refundable excess profits taxes, in addition to other billions that can't yet be estimated...
...Stripped of their superficial cleverness," both speeches were masterpieces of mediocrity...
...In Philadelphia the night before, Mr...
...3. Under the carry-back provisions of the tax law alone corporations will be refunded from $2,000,000,000 to $3,000,000,000 if profits drop back to the 1939 level...
...THOMAS E. DEWEY'S opening campaign addresses, at Philadelphia and Louisville, can hardly have won him much of the vast independent vote he needs if he is to have a fighting chance for the Presidency...
...The present system of taxing corporate profits discourages industrial expansion because it leaves nothing for reinvestment, according to the gospel as revealed by the new prophets of profits...
...The New York Governor was on sound ground when he assailed the Roosevelt -Administration's internal bickering, its lack of direction, its fundamental failure to solve the problem of unemployment except by war, and its inability to plan for a dynamic future for America...
...He was on sound ground, too, when he advocated the retention of #he best of the New Deal agencies and laws, and when he called for "jobs and opportunities for all, without discrimination on account of race, creed, color, or national origin...
...Roosevelt has steadfastly refused to be drawn into the struggle in Congress over liberal and reactionary bills on the basic problems of reconversion...
...It was just the sort [of fight] he would mix into in the days before he asked that the New Deal name be dropped in favor of Win the War...
Vol. 8 • September 1944 • No. 38
