AMERICAN ALLIANCE WITH BRITAIN

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

AMERICAN ALLIANCE WITH BRITAIN

Dewey Proposal Recalled Governor Dewey is aged 4Q, and is one of the youngest Republican candidates ever to be nominated. In a recent assessment of Mr. Dewey’s position in American and international politics, the London “Sunday Observer” stated: “When Thomas E. Dewey, then District Attorney (i.e„ public prosecutor) of New York County, entered the Presidential election campaign of 1040, his party orthodoxy was altogether unquestioned, and he was deemed to be an isolationist. He is now Governor of New York State. Carefully economical in speech-making, his line has been to deal with New York affairs, to avoid national politics, and keep silence upon world issues. Yet, early this year, Governor Dewey exploded the bombshell in the Republican (Party. On Mackinac Island, Michigan, he called for a full alliance between Great Britain and the United States. By so doing he has marked the end of isolationism, old style. “Mr. Dewey is a public man who enjoys a threefold advantage. He is young; he is the executive head of the most important State in the Union, and he is the only American now in view about whom his fellow-citizens are saying that the chances of his being President some time are high. In any nominal leap-year no man is nearer to the White House than a successful Governor of New York, and Mr. Dewey’s success in his present office is taken for granted. He is vigorous, confident. and keenly interested' In his jo|>. “He comes from Owosso, Michigan, went through the university of his home State, took a law degree at University! and was adtnitted to the New York Bar at 24. For six years he was associated with law firms, and then obtained the first of a series of administrative posts which made him in a short time the most conspicuous public prosecutor in the United States.

“Ten years ago he became special assistant to the Attorney-General for the indictment of a prominent banker accused of large-scale tax evasion and the criminal prosecution of a notorious racketeer. Waxey Gordon. 1 These proceedings led Tom Dewey right to the heart of New York gangsterdom and into an assault upon racketeers, -which produced sensations on a mounting .wave. Dewey's office became the new model in this field. ,He is dark and- trim; dressed as correctly as Ar thony Eden, or R. G. Casey. lie is self-assured, dominant, a martinet; a speakir without graces, not too skilful in hiding the fact that the words may not all be his own. “Au immediate reward for so resolute a crusader was a foregone conclusion. In 1937 he was elected District Attorney for New York County (English people, living in a Parliamentary country that elects only representatives and never officials or Civil Servants, find it hard to grasp these democratic forms), and hjs political ambition awoke. The following year, not wisely, he ran for the Governorship and was lieaten by Mr. Herbert Lehman. He was not discouraged and 1940 brought a temptation that he could not resist. "The Re-iblicans believed that the President's decision Io run a third time had given them a first-rate election cry. Dewey, going after the Republican nomination. stumped the country, published ‘The Case Against, the New Deal,’ and attacked the Philadelphia Convention with a show of strength among the delegates. There was nothing in it. The Dewey contingent melted away and a clever manoeuvre resulted in the surprise nomination of Wendell Willkie,. Dewey realized that time was on his side: and when a second try in New York last year brought him the Governorship, he made the definite, and sensible, announcement that his intention was to devote himself entirely to its duties and serve out the four years. “Here, then, was the situation for Thomas E. Dewey when his activities at Albany were set against the stupendous happenings of (his year. Tunisia was followed by Sicily, by the fall of Mussolini, and the surrender of Italy. Mr. Roosevelt was struggling with a hostile Congress and bis difficulties on the home front were increasing. But the President is also Commander-in-Ciiief. His war policy has to he upheld, aud his stature, is steadily growing. President and Prime Minister, moreover, are closer together than any two heads of Allied Governments have ever been, while the American people have undergone a revolution in respect of the British Commonwealth. The war could not end before the election of 1914, and Air. Roosevelt would run again. What had the Republican leaders to say? “The Mackinac conference was called hr the party's post-war advisory group. The Willkie element was not invited, and the Old Guard wns fully represented. Dewey's anneal for a British Alliance is an affirmation of the middle way. He knows that isolation has gone. Here is a programme of definite and limited international commitments, of protection against, the perils and vague responsibilities of a world organization, and partnership with the one Great Power that Americans can understand. Dewey is adventurous.