Evening star., 1939-12-07

enterpriSerS to create jobs.
For several weeks, the candidacy
of the New York district attorney
has been drifting along in sort
of semi -obscurity. 1t had been in
tended that several speeches be
made before this, but the war crisis
put the country out of mood so far
as politics was concerned. Now,
however, with both political par
ties agreeing that America must
be kept out of war, the emphasis
has shifted again to domestic is
sues.
Mr.. Dewey's address is pene-
trating attack on the most vul-
nerable spot in the New Deal rec
ord-the fact that it has failed to
bring e-employment for those pre-
viously idle and for those who have
come of working age. The reason
given by the Republican spokes-
man at Minneapolis is that the
New Deal has crushed the spirit
and the initiative out Of American
industry and that it has left the
WllUlC CCOllOlIllS Sy oeSiil Al - AAASSN
OF despair and defeatism..
Points to Weakness.
To large extent, American busi-
nessmen will agree with the thesis
which Mr.. Dewey has chosen. They
have been saying for several years
that they would not mind Govern
ment regulation so much if it were
specific and concrete and not merely
the whim of bureaus, commissions
and boards or the vindictive attitude
of economic partisans. Mr.. Dewey
puts his finger on the weakness IN
the American economic machine
the lack of energy and enthusiasm
on the part of the builders of jobs.
What keeps them back? What i'm
pediments have been imposed on the
economic system which the admin
istration after seven years stub
bornly refuses to correct?
Mr.. Dewey did not mention par
ticular measures, but delivered his
first broadside on the general posi-
ton of the New Deal toward the
system of private initiative. His
doctrine can be summed up in a
sentence:
"We can cure abuses in business
without creating abuses in govern
ment"
Just the opposite formula, he feels,
has been tried in Washington in
the last seven years-a formula that
considers business to be built to
capacity and ready for Government
dissection or Government competi-
ton.
What the New York candidate
announces is that he believes in a
program of expansion which will
enable America to pay her debts
and fulfill her social obligations to
the sick and the needy, the old and
the young. But it is jobs that Mr..
Dewey emphasizes, and he calls at
tention to the idle men and idle
machines" which have characterized
the business situation until the war
brought on the recent squirt.
Compliments Some Objectives.
Mr.. Dewey's first speech revealed
an interesting style Of campaigning.
He does not condemn the New Deal
100 per cent. He gives it credit for
sincere intentions and sincere effort
to fulfill its pledges. But he con-
demns it as incompetent and made
quate and points out that, while the
administration has worthwhile OBJ
jectives, it does not know how to
fulfill them.
This strategy is the kind that will
appeal to fair-minded and pro-
gressive citizens in both the Re-
publican and Democratic parties,
and separates Mr.. Dewey at the very
outset from those in the Republican
party who believe that everything
the New Deal did or tried was
wrong and that the way to restore
employment and prosperity is to
clean out the whole thing.
Mr.. Dewey will come to be known
as the progressive candidate, as dis
tinguished from the conservatives
who are going to be competing with
him for the nomination. He will
make a colorful race. He has an
excellent radio voice and all the
vigor of youth plus an enthusiasm
for the battle which resembles that
of Theodore Roosevelt, the last truly
progressive Republican to sit in the
White Hn1se Incidentally Col