Evening star., 1948-06-25
Candidate Dewey

There are some things that can be
said with considerable assurance about
Governor Thomas E. Dewey, once again
the Republican Party's choice for the
presidency.
If the hope and belief of the COP that
this is their year to win should prove well
to a more efficient national administra-
tion than Washington has seen in a long
time. For in any enumeration of Governor
DeWeys qualities, efficiency would lead the
list His career as racket buster, his excel
lent record as Governor of the largest
State, even the campaign which he so
successfully directed in Philadelphia this
Week-all OF these reveal a man with
genuine capacity for organization, talent
for the choice of the right men as his
aides, and the gift of getting things done.
In short, assuming that Mr.. Dewey gets
to the White House, there is every reason
to look forward to good government in
the managerial sense.
Nor should any one underestimate the
Importance of this We will hear much
talk during the campaign of returning
government to the people, of clipping the
wings of the gigantic establishment which
has grown up in Washington But that is
not likely to happen. The chances are that
the future will bring more not less, gov
ernment. In the years to come our quest
will be, not for the good old days, but for
ways and means of making big govern
ment work, for formula and a method
of operation which will be able to recon-
clle expanding governmental authority
with our concepts of individual liberty. If
Mr.. Dewey, as President, is able to demon
strate that this can be done, to show that
Dig government need not pose a choise
between dictatorship and collapse, he will
have made very great contribution to
our future
There will be somewhat less confidence
in Mr.. Deweys ability to give us good
government in the political sense. It is
said that the job of Governor of New York
is second politically only to that of being
President. That may be true, but the gap
is big one and a growing one. Before
his death, Franklin D. Roosevelt, as skilled
in political management as any man who
has been in Washington, had come to the
parting OF the ways with Congress. Pres
1dent Truman has failed utterly in this
respect. Would Thomas E. Dewey be able
to do any better? Could he pull together
the diverse wings of the Republican Party,
especially in the vital area of foreign
policy, and achieve the constructive results
which the times demand?
Manifestly, there is no assurance that
Mr.. Dewey, or any other man, can do
these things. About the most that can be
said is that his record at Albany argues
In. his favor, and that he has demonstrated
capacity for growth
The Dewey of today is not the Dewey
whose bid for the nomination eight years
ago was suggestive of immaturity and
opportunism. He has learned, in Lincolns
words, that "the dogmas of the quiet past
are inadequate to the stormy present"
His brief address to the convention last
evening shows that he is ready, as Herbert
Hoover put it, to face the truth that we
are in critical battle to safeguard our
Nation and civilization"
Between now and election day the people
will have time and opportunity to make up
their minds. But if the wheel has swung
around, If Republican victory is in the
cards for the first time in twenty years,
the COP is entitled to feel that it could
not have put forward any man who, all
things considered, would be better equipped
to assume the heavy responsibilities which
lie ahead.