Evening star., 1948-08-10
The Political Mill
Trumon's Strategy Faces
Moior ObstocIe-Dewey
New Yorker Has Proved Ability
q While President Has Not
By Gould Lincoln

President Trumans campaign strategy-to
run against the Eightieth Congress and its
record-faces one great obstacle. GOV. Thomas
E. Dewey of New York. All the probabilities
point to Mr.. Trumans finding 1t impossible
to duck the idea he Is a candidate for the
presidency against the man who has proved
himself an excellent administrator Of the
Government of the Unions most heavily popu-
lated State, with approximately one-tenth
Of the population Of the country, while Mr..
Truman has been at best an Indifferent adj
ministrator of the affairs of the Nation.
Nor does the Republican candidate for
President intend for one moment to allow Mr..
Truman to get away with attacks on the Con-
gress, many of whose acts he has approved
In the end, however. 1t Is Mr.. Dewey and-his
own program for the next four years which
will become the dominant issues in his race
with Mr.. Truman.
Effective Campaigner.
Gov. Dewey is hard and effective CAM
paigner. His most recent demonstration OF
campaigning ability happened not long before
the Republican National Convention which
nominated him for President. He went into
Oregon for an intensive two weeks campaigns
ing against Harold E. Stassen, former Gov
ernor of Minnesota and now president of the
good campaigner himself had been in the
State many times during the past year. and
was an odds-on favorite to carry the presi-
Dental preferential primary. BY his own ef-
forts, Gov. Dewey upset the Stassen apple
cart More particularly he trounced Mr.
Stassen in much publicized debate, another
indication of what he may be expected to do
to Mr.. Truman when they begin to exchange
punches.
Outside of his acceptance speech, delivered
the night he was nominated for President at
the Philadelphia convention, Gov Dewey has
made no major public address since he became
the Republican standard bearer He has
wide field to cover and his close associates
say he has many constructive proposals to lay
before the voters The New Yorker, too, has
never lost the hard-hitting technique which
he developed when he was the countrys white
hope busting rackets in New York and falling
corrupt politicians as well as racketeers.
1t is the man who gets things done who
counts with the American voters. The Truman
administration domestically, has accomplished
little Even on the foreign front it has been
open to criticism. At home it has done so
little that, when the Democrats met in ma
tional convention last month, only the fact
that the anti-Truman Democrats were unable
to find suitable candidate saved Mr.. Tru-
mans political hide.
Has Made His Play.
Mr.. Truman has made his play-his call for
a special session of Congress. The Congress
gave him some increased powers to fight
imitation and high prices. 1t did not give
him power to ration or to AK prices Of COM
modities The Congress has gone, and Mr..
Truman is left to hammer at its-in his mind
iniquities until next November.
The Presidents effort to pin the present
high cost of living on the Republican Congress
is a slender reed to lean upon. The cost Of
living steadily increased under both the
Roosevelt and Truman administrations during
and after the war. Further, 1t was q Demo-
cratic Congress, the Seventy ninth. which
declined to re-enact the wartime price control
laws which Truman asked for In peacetime.
not the Republican Congress.
1t was Mr.. Truman himself who caused the
first jump in prices when he vetoed the bill
the Seventy ninth Congress did pass, dealing
with prices. And 1t was Mr.. Truman who
lifted meat and other controls in a political
panic in 1946, before the Congressional elec-
tions that year.