The Wilmington morning star., 1944-09-14
Fair Enough

i UIJ AHOuSu
Editors Note.-Ths Star and the News accept no
responsibility for the personal views Of Mr. Peser,
and often disagree with them as much - many Of
his readers. His articles the good purpose Of
making people think.
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1914, King Features Syndicate, Inc.
DES MONIES, Iowa-As Tom Dewey moves
into the west, passing through areas where
on every hand the opportunity for real Jobs
can be seen from the train windows, he shows
that he has scrapped the method and the po-
litical psychology of Hoover and Landon and
Willkie.
For the first time President Roosevelt has
been set on the defensive and it will be no.
ticed that the speeches and the propaganda of
the new deal press this time consist almost
entirely Of counter punching. Hoover was de-
fensive and slightly querulous, Landon was
sincere and amiable lightweight who was over
matched and Wilkes theme was that even
if Roosevelt was good President it were
better to accept successor of doubtful ability
than to let the good man have third term.
not that he doubted his ability.
Dewey's proposition, stated with such mod
esty as is possible in any man offering his
services for the greatest job in the world and
arguing his qualifications in detail, is that
President Roosevelt has turned in spectcu-
lar failure in domestic management and that
he could do the job better. The original de-
preston, or panic, generally but unfairly
charged to Mr.. Hoovers failures, for it came
only seven months after his Inauguration, has
receded into history and millions of voters
and fighting men of the present day were so
young when Mr.. Roosevelt took over that they
remember the Roosevelt depression better
And, to refresh their memory and to sug-
gest, on the basis of past performances. what
Mr.. Roosevelt would have in store for them,
Dewey has sounded again the startling chal-
lenge that he voiced in his acceptance speech
in Chicago, do we have to have a war to
get jobs?" He now has pointed out twice
that there were still ten million Americans
out OF work Notwithstanding Mr.. Roosevelt 5
promises and experiments and then, as he
said in Philadelphia lit took a world war to
get jobs for the American people"
In neWey's emphasis on the exhaustion ILL.,
temper and pickering of the Roosevelt govern
ment he is attacking with a weapon devised
by the new DEAL itself, in the fight 10 dis.
credit and then pack the United States Su-
preme Court. The retort to the disparagement
OF Dewey because of his youth presents itself
IN the recent photographs of the President,
revealing haggard man who has aged much
in the last two years. Although Dewey doubt.
less would have invited the comparison any
way. the new deal propagandists relieved him
OF any unpleasant responsibility for calling
attention to the difference, by their derision
OF him as a pushful youth.
Although Dewey may yet address himself
TO the fourth term as issue by Itself, he
may deal competently with it by the more
concrete method of pointing out the charac-
ter OF the Presidents political backing in the
influential left wing Of the new deal party this
element frankly repudiates private industry
and thus would promise only government Jobs
IN plants owned by the government or con.
troned by the government after t lie war.
Given four years more, the President, by all
precedents, would veer again sharply to the
left, would impose even tighter restrictions on
the lives of people and on private industry
ana would relax none of those already in eff.
!ect. Even now all males over seventeen are
frozen to their jobs with few unimportan1
glasses OF exceptions, and may change only
oy specific permission of the War Manpowe1
commission. There is neither assurance nor
precedent for a belief that Mr. Roosevelt
would change this regulation during the next
TOUR years. If the war power emergency
should dissolve, peace-tme or interim cmer.
gency could intervene for emergencies have
been the justification for all such restrictions
OF individual liberty, and one Of the Presi-
dents propagandists recently has suggested
that the state of war with Germany be con.
tlnued for probationary period of possibly
20 years, course which obviously could be
used to justify the continuance and even the
Tightening of war controls long after the fight
ing stops.
The countryside, as Dewey passes through,
presents even to the casual eye stupendous
invitations to work, produce and prosper, ca
pable of employing millions of men, and, in
the war industries along the railroads, equally
impressive demonstrations of the ability OF
Americans. Although this enormous war plant,
all a monument to the waste of war, was
built and put into operation under government
auspices, the human efforts were those of a
nation Of people who developed those talents
under the American system. It was to this
system that Russia had to appeal for the
weapons to save her life.
| Chicago needs to be rebuilt and delapidation
is shockingly apparent everywhere across the
country, not only because of the suspension OF
private industry in the relatively short time
since conversion but because of inertia and
neglect in the long stretch since 1929.
| On the attack, Dewey charged in Philadel.
phia that the Roosevelt government had moth.
| ing to promise but another dole. The instant
answer of Senator Wagner of New York at
the state convention of the CO. was defen-
sive, yet affirmative, for Wagner denounced
the Republicans in the Senate for defeating
the Murray Kilgore bill proposing, not re-ena-
n1ovroent hit another dole.