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Show 7ie Dewey Sfory . Candidate Proposes Economical Regime Editor aote: This is the second of three dispatches highlighting the life story of , the Bepnblicaa candidate for president of the United States. ' By S. Burton Heath -KEA Staff Correspondent ' "' Thomas E. Dewey's platform, in the domestic field, has to rest mostly on his record as governor of New York. Some few items that he considers con-siders important are national, so that he can only say what he would like to do about them. One suCh is inflation. For this he blames the war as prime villain, but claims that government mistakes have aggravated the evil. His proposed cure includes government gov-ernment economy, restraint upon taken back he cannot have a pay raise for three years, and he can be fired at will, for any reason, for five yean. The C I O in New York has been against Dewey. But when he ran for reelection in 1946 the A EL, which for 20 years had backed every Democratic candidate, stayed neutral in spite of the fact that- Sen. James Mead, Dewey's opponent, had long been organized labor's favorite. When Dewey took office, four leading Industrial states had better bet-ter strike records than New York. Now none has. His backers attribute at-tribute this to the effectiveness of the state's conciliation service and labor relations board. liberalize Laws Under Dewey, New York has liberalized its unemployment compensation com-pensation and workmen's compensation compen-sation laws, hss extended minimum mini-mum wage controls to cover retail workers, has provided that women must get the same pay as men for the same work. The bottom pay for state employes has been raised from $900 to $1640, the average pay from S1700 to $2450. New York has provided emergency emer-gency homes for 50,000 veterans at a cost of $70,000,000. The state has 26,000 permanent homes built or building with public moneys, and Gov. Dewey has sponsored an additional $135,000,000 bond issue to provide more permanent housing, hous-ing, as well as an increase in housing hous-ing subsidies to $13,000,000 a year. When OP A rent controls went .off, first temporarily and then permanently. New York had Its own controls waiting to go on,, to prevent boosts. Provides (Colleges New York has provided three special colleges to accommodate 6200 veterans and has helped 52 regular colleges and universities to house and care for more than 100.000 new students, which more than doubles the ability of the state's institutions to educate veterans vet-erans without neglecting youngsters young-sters Just out of high school. Taxes have stayed just about where Dewey found them when he took over after years of Democratic Demo-cratic administration. Gov. Herbert Her-bert H. Lehman had cut the state income tax in half. Dewey kept it there until the veterans' bonus was, authorized. Then he Insisted on providing to pay that off, and as a major part of the finaucm both speculation and consumer credit, greater sale of government bonds and encouragement of other forms of saving, retirement of th federal debt and tax revision to encourage production and thrift. He is squarely on record for federal development of the Missouri, Mis-souri, Columbia and Willamette rivers for flood control, irrigation and power and of the St. Lawrence Law-rence for navigation and power. Sees Security Hike He wants to see social security extended to cover persons now left out But a much larger number of national issues are merely broader aspects of the same problems with which he has been wrestling in Albany for six years. Short of confessing that he has been wrong all that time, he could not change his approach, if he would, to labor, housing, health and similar issues. The voters would go behind whatever what-ever he might say to th record of what ha has dona. Dewey has taken the bull by the horns, and proclaimed his pride in two of th most controversial measures he sponsored as governor. gov-ernor. These are the act forbidding forbid-ding public employes to strike, and the act forbidding employers to discriminate against job seekers because of race, creed, color or national origin. The Dewey camp boasts that New York, under him, beat Washington to both of these measures as well as to protection of the employer's right to argue unionism and . to ask for a collective col-lective bargaining election. Strike Wave In 1947 a wave of actual and threatened strikes of public employes em-ployes got under way school teachers, sanitation workers, water wa-ter supply employes, transit workers. work-ers. Dewey sponsored a law under which any state or municipal employe em-ploye who strikes shall automatically automati-cally lose his job. He can be rehired re-hired only by expressed permission permis-sion of bis superiors. . If he is program the personal Income tax was raised by 20. Instead of cutting taxes greatly, Dewey chose td pay off steie u-and u-and lay up reserves to pay for postwar state construction. He has cut the state's debt by $136,000,000 and saved more than $600,000,000 tor public works. Claim for Credit His publicists claim credit for simplifying the income tax. He has done that, but in general jthe state's simplification has followed that 'f the federal government. Its short form return is about as easy to handle as UncleSam's. but the long form, for those who want to or must report in full, still is more complicated. The state's mental institutions, which were in pretty bad shape, have been vastly improved since Dewey took office. State aid to education has been increased by 80. Administration of relief to the needy has been streamlined so that, the deserving can get help with a minimum of red tape. By Inference, at least, Dewey has been accused of being too tolerant of Communists, though the reds themselves consider him pretty close to their public enemy number one and he glories in their hatred. The accusation appears to spring largely from Dewey's opposition to any attempt to outlaw the Communist Com-munist party. His theory, elaborated elaborat-ed on many occasions, is that the reds are easy to beat so long as they are in the open. Therefore they should be kept above ground, watched, and soundly thrashed on every occasion. Credit Given When Dewey first was elected, before he went to Albany, GOP politicians expected him to try to run things with an iron hand. Some of them had a meeting at which they decided to fight when he tried to boss them. Later, one disclosed dis-closed their amazement when he began, from the first, consulting them, listening to . their opinions, taking their advice, working with them, and giving them credit in public. There have been occasional "arP ' rebellion when some GOP leader thought Dewey was pressing him hard, but these have been rare and brief. The record unquestionably is Dewey's. Some he inspired, the rest he accepts. But overall it is also the record of the Republican party in New York under Dewey's leadership. Tuesday: Dewey's International Internation-al views. |