The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-08-02
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER

his readers His articles the good purpose Of
making people think.
BY wEsTBROoK PEGLER
NEW YORK, Aug. IL have just come
away from the mirror and what do you know?
The Republicans nominated the wrong man
in Chicago.
Height six feet something weight 1870, clean
shaven, except on week ends, with dis
tinguished touch of gray at the temples, gay
witty, popular, lovable and just the right age
so next month, if not any too bright.
So they had to pick little guy with an
eye brow mustache with not a gray hair
in his head and a serious preoccupation with
the problems of national government w h O
doesn't try to WOW them with gags at his
press conference and won't be 43 until after
election
These deficiencies are being exploited rath-
err Importantly against Mr.. Dewey who doubt
less will be called Tom Thumb before long if
he hasn't been so called already and some
of the objections from the direction of Sidney
Hillman's communist front are enough to make
a person check back to make sure whether
our fellow is a candidate for the presidency
or the police department.
They are particular about such things in
the cops. Their minimum height would dis
qualify Mr.. D. and I doubt that he could
bring himself up to weight though he got
awash with water and bananas, a sly resort
of border line aspirants just before reporting
for their physical examinations.
Mr. Roosevelt, by contrast, is big, limou-
sine job, above six feet even now, and back in
the early twenties when he ran for vice presi.
dent there were fight managers in town who
would have been glad to take him over, knock
five years off his age and throw him in there
for a shot at the heavyweight title. True,
Dempsey would have taken a bead on that
big chin of his and knocked him into the dol
lar seats but, with that Harvard Groton
choctaw of his and his yachts on Funday and
the spanking bays up around the old ancestral
halls at Hyde Park, old Leo P. Flynn or
James ]. Johnston could have cut him up
for a million In rousing mockeries with some
of the docile dry docile dry divers who
were always willing to put on the splash for
modest consideration. He might even have
knocked over few buns on the square for
he had plenty of height and heft and get
around but it wouldn't have been necessary
for him to level. There is always a certain
element Of risk even against bum, so why
level with a promising skate with million
dollars worth of color when you can protect
him for few hundred bucks.
Another one who out scores Mr.. D. inI
height, stance and looks is poor old Paul Nc
Mutt who has found himself behind the eight
ball ever since Mr.. Big first got elected in
1882. There II nios guy who by force Of
circumstances, was compelled to waste his
own chances serving the career Of the very
man who blocked his own ambition. Mr. Nc
4nf vNp1,t -
old managers admitted back around SO that
ne was practically all looks but was figuring
to do a lot with him just the same
This hoosier politician was talking over the
field one day. along toward convention time,
and said that but for Roosevelt his guy would
be worth fortune on the hoof
'McNutt," I yelled. 'Why the Republicans
could beat him with Hoover. All they would
have to do would be to drag out his record,
as lowercase Huey Long when he 81
governor"
Oh 1 know all about that the Hoosier
said. II don't figure to really run him for
president. The mugg couldn't run lick but
ne IS hell of a show horse just the
same. With that white hair and those dark
eyes and l could do us lot of good in the
convention If the big guy would get of the
way
don't want to be dirty to the communists
put, II 1t comes to matter of height and
the way candidate land scapes his lip in
this campaign, 1 wonder how they figure on
squaring themselves with their boss Because
little Joe isn't any taller standing up than
Roosevelt is sitting down, and that tangle oil
hair combings that he wears would make
good start toward stuffng a sofa He put
on long pants for the first time when he went
to Teheran and before that he always wore
those stove pipe boots which, as any military
stylist will tell you, are used more to create
an Illusion of height than to ward off rattlers.
They certainly must be affectation of vanity
in man with desk job such Joe's be-
cause they are hard to get on and off and
they murder your feet
So, if Dewey had to sit on dictionary to
see over that big desk in Albany Stain could
keep house in a drawer of the same desk
and La Guardia couldn't get into the chair
without ladder. This is hell of a big
DESK built just for show. Sulzer was the last
governor to use it. (
Anyway, the commies should be the last
to rib Mr.. D. about his size That Hillman,
himself, is no Camera and moreover they are
always hollering up their great love for the
little people of the u. S. A. This sounds as
though they are against little guys.
so THEY SAY