The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1948-10-01

praise the beauty of Mon
tana's mountains, the invigorating freshness
of its air, the fierce grandeur of its winter
snow storms, the robust vitality of it's people,
for the better part of the 25 minutes he spoke.
In a sense | can't rightly blame him for exud-
ing enthusiasm over the wonders of our COM
monwealth even though he may have been
pouring it on a little thick The day of the
occasion was one of those wonderfully warm
sunny fall days-the acme in Indian Summer
weather AS we stood in Hill park and sur
veyed the beauty of the Helena valley and
the mountains in the distance, I'm sure that
all of the more than 1900 present felt as l.
We were enraptured. Thoughts of high
prices, foreign crises, Taft-Hartleyism - all
were forgotten
But-we had come to hear a man who
aspires to the highest office in the land
to CLEAN some little knowledge as to how he
would work to solve the mutitudinous prob
lens facing the nation = not to hear an
aesthetic presentation on the beauties of the
surrounding landscape. We can (and do)
appreciate them every day of the week by
simply peering from the front windows of
our hillside homes.
Greatly Impressed
This is not to say that Tom Dewey didn't
impress me. To the contrary l was greatly
impressed. Recalling the Dewey of four
years ago as contrasted with the 1913 model
1t was quite apparent that he had taken an
intensive postgraduate course on the fine art
of platform delivery. | could almost visual
lze his having burned the midnight oil week
in and week out for the entire four years
while studying the platform technique of the
old master, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His
gestures were similar the pauses for effect
were perfectly timed. Even his beaming
countenance showed the Rooseveltian influ-
ence-sans the long slender cigarette holder
But, there the resemblance ended
Whereas, FDR's perfection in platform
presentation was backed up with words that
had real meaning, and which instilled con-
fidence in millions of Americans; Dewey
offered only the former. The listener was
left with a feeling that under the carefully
exterior veneer there remained
only void-that the candidate, despite his
able service as a prosecuting attorney, was
only marionette who responded perfectly
as his master pulled each controlling string.
Charley Mccarthy under the expert manip-
ulating of Edgar Bergen, could have per-
formed equally as we'll in Hill park Wednes-
day afternoon.
Such portrayal of Candidate Dewey
may seem like an over-simplification of the
man. I believe it is, but it is not brought
about by any desire to belittle, to demean.
went to hear him with probably as unpreju-
diced mind as any NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
person could have. | went, with desperate
hope that there might be more to this man
than being just the product of a political
machine. | went, because | wanted to gain
a first-hand impression of this man who very
will sit in the White House for the
next four years-a man who will hold in his
hands the fate not only of lat million Amer
cans, but of the people of the rest of the
world as we'll
4 Carefully Drafted Plan .
This over-simplification | believe, is part
# carefully drafted plan of the COP ma
ional committee and it's big money hackers
Dewey by his record amply proves he is not