Countercharge

Tom Dewey got hit twice last week, once by a flying thermos jug, when his train crashed in Oregon, and once by Franklin Roosevelt.

The Champ had swung--a full roundhouse blow. And it was plain to the newsmen on the Dewey Special that the challenger had been hit hard--as plain as when a boxer drops his gloves and his eyes glaze.

The Dewey radio would not work that night, as the Dewey party rolled through the flat Arizona desert, eastbound from California after a full week of campaigning on the coast (see below). But the reporters' radio, in the lounge car, worked perfectly, almost as perfectly as the Champ had used it. And soon word of the speech filtered through to the Dewey car.

Tom Dewey and his chief speechwriter, scholarly Elliott V. Bell, decided te sleep on it, but took the precaution to wire New York for a full text of the F.D.R. speech. Reading it the next morning in the cold light of day and without benefit of the superb Roosevelt inflection, Speechwriter Bell thought his chief could ignore it. But then the telegrams began to pour in from irate Republicans offering advice on how to answer the President.

As the stack of telegrams mounted, so did Tom Dewey's anger. He finally collected himself and handed newsmen a reply, just in time to catch the Monday morning papers. Said he: "My opponent indicated that he has no program and has sunk to mere quoting from Mein Kampf. . . . I shall examine his record with unvarnished candor." At Belen, N. Mex., Tom Dewey got off, walked into a glass phone booth in the station, put in a long distance call to National Chairman Herbert Brownell. While Indian children and cowboys ogled him through the glass, Tom Dewey ordered a second radio network (170 more stations on the Blue) for his speech in answer.

A kind of earnest frenzy came aboard the Dewey train. Dewey, Bell & Co. went to work, and wrote four consecutive drafts. Dewey stayed up until 2 a.m., polishing the phrases; researchers were up for four more hours, checking facts and dates, even calling Albany from tiny way stations for more ammunition.

Next morning, at his Oklahoma City press conference, Tom Dewey was all business and no banter. He rushed through his usual conferences with businessmen, farmers and GOPsters, rushed back for more work on the speech. Two hours before delivery he read it aloud to himself in his hotel room.

The speech was a solemn, serious, hard-hitting countercharge. Tom Dewey was not going to crack any jokes at the brilliant level of Bob Hope, or any other. Cried he: "I shall not join my opponent in his descent to mudslinging. . . . I will never divide America."

Then in his most aggressive courtroom manner, Tom Dewey went after the Roosevelt record on preparedness:

"In 1940 the United States [Army] could put into the field . . . no more than 75,000 men. The Army was only '25% ready.' Now, Mr. Roosevelt, did those statements come from Goebbels? Was that fraud or falsification? Those are the words of General George C. Marshall. . . .

"I quote again: 'Dec. 7, 1941, found the Army Air Forces equipped with plans but not with planes.' Did that come from Goebbels? That statement was made by General H. H. Arnold. . . .

"On the floor of the Senate in May 1943, these words were uttered: 'After Pearl Harbor we found ourselves woefully unprepared for war.' Was that Dr. Goebbels? That Statement was made by Harry S. Truman."

Like a prosecutor confronting a stubborn defendant with his own damning confession, Tom Dewey had a field day with a hatful of hapless Administration quotes, including some from Franklin Roosevelt. He recalled that, in January 1940, he himself had called for a two-ocean Navy. That statement had been branded by F.D.R. as "just plain dumb." Cracked Tom Dewey: "Then, as now, we got ridicule instead of action."

Tom Dewey could not compete with the Champ when it came to sustained sarcasm; but he threw one sudden and effective sarcastic punch, when he announced that Franklin Roosevelt was indispensable : "He is indispensable to Harry Hopkins, Madame Perkins, Harold Ickes . . . the Mayor of Jersey City . . . to Sidney Hillman . . . and to Earl Browder.

"Shall we perpetuate one man in office to accommodate this motley crew? The American people will see that we restore integrity to the White House so that its spoken word can be trusted."

The audience ate it up. This was more like it. From now on it would be blow for blow.

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