The Wilmington morning star., 1944-09-26
Fair Enough

FQlT Enough
Editors Note.-rhs Star and the News accept no
and often disagree with them much many oil
making people think
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1914, King Features Syndicate, Inc.
Tom Dewey has been running very serious
pontlcal campaign on the long haul from
New York to the Northwest and now down
to California where we make the turn for
nome, but there are aspects of the trip which
prove that the method by which the greatest
1ree nation selects its presidents still calls
1or corn, comedy and emotion rather than
the pure political judgment of the voter
The nominating conventions with which we
oegln these quadrennial conniptions, of course
are, in their public manifestations, mainly
displays of idiotic buffonery in which the
clowns are mechanically melted to zip and
play the fool in spectacles that mock the
purpose OF the occasion while the managers
DO methodical business in their smoke filled
rooms. That we haven't had much worse
presidents should be matter of wonder and
satisfaction to us all for any foreigner gazing
on these imbecillic scenes with a cold OBJ
Jectve eye might expect us to come up with
candidates no better than the delegates who
vote for them. Actually, however, by some
strange political process we eliminate the
Pappy O'Daniels, the Joe Guffeys and La
Guaroias from serious consideration before
the conventions roll around and, though we
do let them go to congress, some great spirit
that must love us for our juvenile enthusiasm
and good intentions, protects us from our
logical fate.
The same inanity carries over, then, into
the campaigns.
On this expedition, Mr.. Dewey, at Valentine,
Nebraska, was invited into two traps which
might have cost him votes for reasons hav-
ing nothing whatever to do with his character,
ability, intelligence or political program, had
he been willing and less alert and wary, he
might have been photographed both for the
papers and the movies wearing Cd the tradi-
tional ten gallon hat of the cowman atd
OBJ the traditional Indian war bonnet of
dyed chicken feathers. The bearers Of such
gifts are proud and insistent representatives
of sensitive people whose gifts and honors
are not safely to be spurned but must be
rejected or evaded with tact. The dullest
Imagination needs no prompting to conlure the
effect on a newspaper or news reel public
of the spectacle of Mr.. Dewey, sedate as heI
is and little given to antics, peering soberly
from beneath either of these monstroSitIesI
and wearing his conventional business mans
suit to heighten the absurdity, the political &C
ton, committee of the CIO-Communist front
should be willing to pay million dollars for
such scene because, being as we are, enough
of us thereupon, with no consideration OF the
issues or debates, would turn against Mr..
Dewey and take Mr.. Roosevelt for a fourth
term and be glad to get him. Mr.. Coolidge,
whose sense of the ludicrous was strnted,
did yield on some occasions and we saw him
haying in overalls and trouting in boots while
wearing a high linen collar and an apatheticI
expression. But that was a time when the
alternative was a Wall Street lawyer and
ALL Fo- No1o nrI
by preference.
At every overnight stop along this route,
Mrs Dewey has been interviewed and the
subject Of every such audience has been her
two, or three, the figure VARIES nylon slips
and her small and treasured store of stock
ings These garments have tapped from the
brass tail board of their private car, strictly in
a manner of speaking, of course. for several
thousand miles and, for the rest, Mrs. Dewey
has been asked to explain and has done so,
how a woman can pack sufficient clothing
for so long a journey. The answer has been
that she selects combinations of costumes and
really has brought little but has made that
little seem lot.
Limited by her reticence on political subjects
the lady reporters have had dull time OIL
it and one may blow them a kiss for doing
such glrlsh pieces with the material on hand
Yet the question sometimes arises in our own
little set on board just what possible bearing
can this have on her husbands qualifications
and what would be the effect if Mrs. Dewey
sometime were to say that she wears a.
button union-suit? Or that it was nobody 81
business but her own. If there is a woman 81
vote, Mr.. D. would lose the election on that
issue alone and such trivaities as peace, jobs,
labor and the establishment of representa-
tive government would 60 by default.
The fact that Mrs. Dewey must be along att
all, is itself indicative. In what other nation.
to say nothing of large and successful one
claiming the right and qualifications to adj
monlsh and correct other countries, would the
nominees wife have to go along at all? 1t is
only three weeks tour and husbands and
wives think nothing of longer separations. Or,
recognizing that Mrs. Dewey does help her
husband with her counsel in private, why, in
the absence of any political expression from
her, should her nylons be political news?
There is, on such trips, constant fear,
amounting to dread, that the candidate, HIM
self, speaking off the end of his tongue from
the tail board in some small city, or his
wife, who might conceivably, be the garru-
lous and stupid spouse of another Lincoln,
will make some flippant or ill considered re-
mark that could destroy him utterly. Mrs.
Willkie went forth for her trip foreWarned|
and cautious and WILKES people caught their
breath at times because the candidate, him.
self, was uncommonly talkative and there
were, among the opposition, reporters W h Of
were masters of the loaded question.
hat we would reject a man because of al