The Dominion. FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1944. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 234, 30 June 1944, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1944. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

The Republican Party in the United States has selected Mr. Thomas Edmund Dewey, Governor of New York State, as its candidate for the presidency of the Republic. It may have been because the choice of the convention delegates was so clearly indicated that public interest, at least for the time being, appears to have turned from personalities to policies. That is by no means the usual order at these great gatherings, so that the prominence given to matters of policy, and especially of foreign post-war policy, must be regarded as deeply significant. This striking development may, however, be in no small measure due to the energetic campaign which Mr. Wendell Willkie has conducted on the platform and in the Press for a policy of close collaboration with other nations in the post-war world. It has been admitted that the man who carried the Republican banner four years ago, by his outspoken advocacy of active international co-operation, has influenced the thoughts of some millions of people. The party managers at the Chicago convention are said to have estimated that he could control 1,000,000 votes, and any man who can do that cannot be ignored. After his defeat in Wisconsin Mr. Willkie retired from the contest for nomination, but in doing so he made it quite clear that he intended to go on fighting for the policies in which he believed, and correspondents have stated that “if the man chosen by the Republicans at Chicago uses weasel words on post-war collaboration Mr. Willkie can be counted upon not to spare him.” That fact, plus the prominence given to the foreign policy plank, now combine tA make indications of Governor Dewey’s views on these matters of greater interest and importance. Unless the candidate, in his speech of acceptance, dealt with the issues there will be few direct references in recent; months available.- The most direct, apparently, was one made at Mackinac last September when Governor Dewey was reported to have advocated strongly an Anglo-American military alliance, which would join with other nations in securing world peace “by force if necessary.” He also contended that the United States “must be prepared to undertake new obligations and responsibilities in the community of nations.”. These views did not find favour, at the time, with several prominent figures in the Republican Party, one terming them “a fool idea,” but others saw in them an approach to the active participation urged with such energy by Mr. Willkie. In a recent speech Governor Dewey stated that, if selected, he would not make a campaign issue of foreign policy, and to the. extent that that meant that a change of administration would not involve a change of policy it would be gratifying, for no effort to establish international co-operation could succeed without the active participation of the United States.' The campaign will be followed with Worldwide interest, once, the Democrat selection has been made, and if policies should overshadow personalities it will be because a world at war realizes that so much depends upon the course to be taken by the big Republic.