Tom in the Fight

It was a new Tom Dewey who last week carried on his own crusade to capture New York for the Republicans. Audiences recalling his 1948 campaign manner found that the waxiness of his smile seemed to have melted, giving way to genuine friendliness and humor. He was self-assured, easily articulate, and clearly the Republicans' smoothest TV star (Dewey plans at least twelve TV appearances before the election, will also join Eisenhower on a whistle-stop tour of New York later this month). On TV last week, he continued his fight to show New York's minority groups that the Democrats' record of tolerance is not as pure as they claim.

Before the cameras, Dewey held up a ballot of Senator John Sparkman's home state, Alabama; on it was the Democratic symbol, a rooster, with the legend: "White Supremacy--for the Right." Said Dewey: "White supremacy is the battle cry of the old Ku Klux Klan. It is the battle cry of the hatemongers and the fascists. It is the battle cry of those who would suppress the rights of all minorities . . . The Ku Klux Klan white-supremacy slogan was anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish and anti-Negro . . . Governor Stevenson pretends to be a modern, liberal gentleman who reads well-written, glittering speeches, defending the disreputable record of the Truman Administration. Meanwhile, with his full knowledge, Senator Sparkman continues to beat the bloody trail of suppression . . .'

The New York Democrats' answer, delivered by Walter Lynch, acting state chairman: "The same 'white supremacy' label has been on the Alabama ballot for over 50 years ... To raise this issue now is entirely out of order . . ."

Next day, at a dinner commemorating the 41st anniversary of China's revolution against the Manchu dynasty, Dewey made a noteworthy foreign-policy speech, the significance of which went far beyond the battle for New York State. Since the last presidential election, he said, China's 450 million people had been conquered by the Communists. Referring to Stevenson's San Francisco speech on foreign policy (TIME, Sept. 22), Dewey said: "It was shocking to me that the sum total of it was that we should forget about China and start thinking about other areas ... I do not see how the cause of freedom can forget about a loss which was a staggering blow . . . We must at least think in terms of recovery, of progress, not of reaction, failure and slavery ..." Dewey cited signs of unrest in Communist China, hoped that, in case of a rebellion against Peking, the U.S. would do nothing to discourage it. As for Chiang's forces on Formosa, "certainly we should not encourage them in any rash adventures, but no law of God or man requires that we prevent any man from fighting for freedom wherever reasonable opportunity occurs."

Above all, said Dewey, the U.S. must have a Pacific defense treaty (a project which the State Department considers premature). The individual treaties the U.S. now has with Japan, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand are, by themselves, "either too little or too much . . . We are bound to defend these widely separated, isolated areas . . . but each is likely to turn out indefensible as an isolated spot . . . We should view the Free Pacific as a whole." The U.S. and its allies, said Dewey, are already carrying most of the burdens of a Pacific defense treaty, but are getting none of the benefits. Concluded Dewey: "We should stop allowing these vacuums of power to exist, because they invite wars . . . The greatest force on our side ... is moral leadership. If we abandon our friends and our moral leadership, we shall deserve the fate which will most surely be visited upon us . . ."

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