HERE ARE THE CANDIDATES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 280, 3 November 1944, Page 10

HERE ARE THE CANDIDATES

As Sketched for ‘‘The Listener’’ by |

A.M.

R.

FE:QVERY fourth year, "on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November," the people of the United States, by a roundabout process of electing an "Electoral College," select their President and VicePresident. Our contributor A.M.R. here offers a tram-ticket sketch of each of the four candidates, "tempering the best their own election literature says with the wisecracks of their opponents." FOR PRESIDENT Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 62, Democrat.

¢ Me. ROOSEVELT," said an admirer on the day in mid-depres-sion, 1932, when "F.D.R." was first elected, "if you pull us through you will be the greatest President in American history." "And if I don’t," replied

Roosevelt, "I'll be the last." Roosevelt’s position among the first half-dozen of American Presidents is already secure. Should he be re-elected and see his term through he will have done just twice as much (quantitatively) as any President before him — leading the nation through two major crises and holding office for 16 years against the. previous record of eight. In origin, Roosevelt is something new to American politics since its early "Virginian" days, though a common enough type in Britain-a radical aristocrat. Son of the "country squire" of Hyde Park’s 600 acres, he was taught by governesses till he went to Groton, a wealthy re-creation in America of the English Public School. Here he was the one Democrat among several hundred pupils, but was otherwise undistinguished. On his graduating from Harvard (with

average pass), family influences got him a clerkship in a socialite legal firm, where his only unusual achievement was raising five children in quick succession. Though made Assistant-Secretary of the Navy in 1912-a small job considering the scarcity of Democrats with push and pull-he was defeated by an all-time record majority when drafted for VicePresident in 1920. Infantile paralysis next year retired him to Hyde Park, apparently for life. However, his wife’s keeping him ip touch with Democrat politicians (as "an interest in life’) had the result of making him a pivotal point in the Party; and his own determination and persistent exercise (mainly swimming) put him on crutches in three years and then gradually on his feet. Brought back into politics, he became a somewhat equivocal Governor of New York State and then, "in a year when anyone not a Republican could be elected," was chosen President. Two days after inauguration this "pleasant man with no particular qualifications’ whose "weakness and readiness to compromise are as evident as his personal charm and integrity" (I quote 1932 newspapers) astounded the world by shutting every bank in the United States and embarking, under "Brains Trust" guidance, on the radical programme of "pump priming" and "Government interference" called the New Deal. Both New Deal measures and the gentle jolts by which Roosevelt gradually sidled his country into the present World War have brought him fanatical support and as fanatical opposition. "That man" is despised by Republicans as a renegade on the rich, packing the Supreme Court and levying taxes "for revenge, not revenue." He is under suspicion by Democrats of purging his

own Party to maintain power, and of "inaugurating Chamber of Commerce Fascism." Something more than a "Grotongrandee accent" and "aristocratic ease of manner" have been needed to carry the President through the physical -and psychological ordeal of 12 such years. Commentators find it in his sheer joy in politics. "From his love of the game as a game comes his power of refreshment and renewal." The’ Democratic Party is, unlike its solid 100 per cent American Republican opponent, an incongruous coalition of all the less-than-100-per-cent elements in the United States: "nigger-hating’ Southerners — and Negroes; Tammany Hall "machines" -and idealist reformers; the semi-feudal "Deep South"’-and left-wing Labour. Roosevelt could never follow any policy acceptable to all these. But he has presented and timed his measures so well, that, though they have often been radical by United States standards, he has probably always had the approval of some majority of Americans (Democrats .and Republicans), though never the same combination of support for long. Through it all he maintains "an ebullient gaiety, a perfect digestion, and the sleep of a child." FOR PRESIDENT Dewey, Thomas Edmund, 42, Republican.

YOUNG Governor Dewey of New York is the perfect | American now that the traditional Pre- | sidential qualification of birth in a log | cabin is hard to come by. Bred in the "small town" of Owosso, Mich., Tom

never missed a day or a punctuality mark at school, scouted, sang in the choir, and not merely delivered newspapers to pay his singing fees but sub-paid other boys to run an immense (and correspondingly profitable) delivery round. He sang his way through Law School, grew the famous moustache on a bike tour of France, married a handsome fellow-professional singer, and at 29 graduated from law clerk to Assistant to the District Attorney of New York. These jobs go~with politics in the United States -if your Party happens to be in-and Dewey had prepared himself for it by joining the local Party Branch when he reached New York and assiduously working his way up from door-to-door deliverer of election pamphlets. The Big Chance came when the first four men approached to become Special Prosecutor turned: the offer down and only Dewey was lefg The public at this time (1936) was becoming aware of the "Empire of Crime" and apprehensive of its powers. Dewey therefore became front page news in the slack period between (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) the Depression and the War when he massed an attack upon "Lucky Luciano, King of Vice." The case was spectacular in the vast sums expended on both sides, in the Hollywood attractiveness of Luciano’s female employees, who formed the principal witnesses, in the impropriety of their evidence, and in the "cops and robbers" technique of the Prosecutor (""Dewey’s private and public conversation always emphasised the Menace of the Underworld, omnipresent, crouched for a leap’’). As lesser monarchs of crime were bailed up in turn, the New York Court news continued to run_ throughout America as "a sort of front-line Arabian Nights serial." Dewey published a book attacking the New Deal, and, but for his youth ("he has thrown his diaper into the ring," a wag said) and the whirlwind campaign of Wendell Willkie, would probably have been Republican candidate for President. in 1940. This year a 1056-to-1 vote for Dewey made the Republican Convention the dullest in history. Dewey was not even present. They sent him a toll call when it was time for him to come and make his speech of acceptance. This unparalleled unanimity inside the G.O.P. ("Grand Old Party") does not exist in the country as a whole. Dewey in fact is "top-flight clay pigeon of the political sharp-shooters." It is partly ‘that switching to a man who, if elected, would be the youngest President é¢ver, seems a daring change in the midst of a war. "I don’t mind swapping horses in mid-stream," said someone, "but I won’t change to a Shetland pony." "Dewey’s fine baritone can make the smokiest platitude sound like brand new evidence just mined by a special investigator," said another. Others go further and allege in large print that Dewey’s attack on the racketeers was itself a racket, a "build-up" to fame based on perjured evidence. Still others dislike his "patent avidity for high office": "No one knows anything he stands for-except that he will stand for anything." However, most of his critics simply dislike his sleekness -of action as well as appearance. "A bridegroom on a wedding cake"... "if so cold at 37 he will pass zero by 50" .. . and, unkindest of all, "You have to know "gM Age! really well to dislike him." FOR VICE-PRESIDENT Bricker, John William, 50, Republican.

HE Republican Convention voted for Dewey, but they cheered for Bricker. For Bricker is the "cabin- born corn-~-husker with a mis-, sion — to save the Party from Willkie, the country from Roosevelt, and the

world from Wallace." His intentions if elected are simple: "I don’t know anything about how the post-war world should be organised. How can I, who have never been to Europe, tell where the Polish boundary should be, or what government France should have? When elected I’d get the best advice. If anyone is thinking of electing me it is because I made a good Governor of Ohio." First day in office in Ohio Bricker fired 4000 officeholders . "without creating a_ single

vacancy." He intends to slaughter on the same scale in Washington if he can get the chance. Lawyer . . . professional politician . . . Middle-West "nationalist -not isolationist" . . . six foot three and every inch a Republican. FOR VICE-PRESIDENT Truman, Harry S.; 60, Democrat.

H ENRY WALLACE, the present Vice-President, has been fired by his Party for being "too honest to catch votes." The " Missouri Compromise" chosen in his place is something equally rare among poli-

ticians — a modest man. The biography he supplied to the Congressional Record was only three lines long. Truman calls himself a farmer, though he has been 30 years off the land. Elected Judge in 1934, he was in charge of roads. Sent to the Senate through Tom Pendergast, who was later gaoled for bribery, he is himself incorruptible. In 1941 Truman got a very small Investigation Committee set up which forthwith reported that "fantastically poor planning" in the Army was causing $100,000,000 of "needless waste." Investigating next international and local "Big Business," Truman’s Committee sliced a second hundred million of "unreasonable and unconscionable profits" off war contracts. His drafting as VicePresidential candidate is the Government’s reply to Republican charges of inefficiency and waste. Truman’s one wisecrack: "The war can be lost in Washington." :