Show DW IU busts ousts eve JQ T toward oward presidency new york governor stands high in public estimation by BAUKHAGE news analyst and commentator washington last week we looked at some of the con tenders for the republican presidential nomination tins this week it is the new york governors turn more than one person who has tried to talk about or write about thomas edmund dewey has com complained bained of the difficulty of this task there seem te to be any one place to begin or end several simple declarative sentences can be written about the ambi bious governor of the state of new york k bior or instance be he is ambitious everybody admits that his friends approvingly making it a sort of copy book virtue and dewey has taken the copy book to heart not merely in regard to ambition in general but in attempting to just afy a specific ambition one we all heard some time or other in our youth every american boy has a chance to be president dewey has taken that seriously his enemies look upon dewey s ambition as brutus looked upon caesar s I 1 im m afraid that wasn gasn t as simple or declarative a sentence as I 1 in tended let s try this again thorn thom as dewey is not a hail hall fellow well met 1 I doubt if it anybody will deny that thomas dewey once was chosen as one of amer leas ica s 25 best dressed men I 1 think t h I 1 n k anybody v ho has seen him will say that was a justifiable choice baukhage hage thomas dewey if Is a small man in stature stature the jokesters have done the best they fan with that joke but it s worn by now low standing in a small group dewey you aren t particularly on of his height or lack of t when he looks at you he can look rard yard enough to make you feel that aou ou are almost seeing eye to eye I 1 I 1 mean not ly figuratively tom dewey is a hard worker he Is 45 and like taft was a good student when it comes to generalities dewey is more difficult to describe there is one thing however that emerges clearly when one elamin examines es dewey s career it follows a very definite curve which he undoubtedly plotted a long time ago and which will take the boy from owosso mich all the way into the white house if he is permitted to follow it frequently he has had to pause in his upward course but he always manages to start over again where he left off and con dinue in the same direction he ile lost his first bids for the guber nat nasonal orial and presidential nomi nation in 1938 and 1940 respectively but he tried again for the governorship in 1942 and was carried into office on a land slide that ended 20 years of democratic control that car ned ried him along to the next milestone and he became automatic contender for the presidency in 1944 the revolt against the new deal which put the republicans back into power in new york wasn gasn t strong enough to over come the roosevelt popularity so dewey devey had to mark time until the next time which is now however there is no use leap frogg ng the nomination which is the issue at the moment there is the usual controversy over the re suits of dewey s western trip which ended in august but his managers with confident optimism announced on his return that bis his first ballot strength at the convention would reg ster at least out of the votes needed to nominate him taft might hinder deweys De iveys possibilities however the results of the more cent talt taft journey might mean a double setback tor for dewey if U what is cla med is correct namely that taft not only strengthened himself but strengthened republican pros pacts generally the reason for this Is that the men who pull the strings in the republican party have no great affection for dewey it if they thought they were due for an easy victory they would be likely to puh pu h him aside regard less of his vote getting ability in other words while the in siders want a man who can get the popular vote they would rather have somebody whom they are entirely sure Is their man even it if he isn t as lar so long as he has edge enough to pull through while no formidable stop dewey in nn is evident the fact thit taft tossed warren of calif califor or nia a whole bowl of roses took oc casion to at least mention stassen and found no occasion to notice the existence of the governor of new aj york seemed to indicate that there might be some concerted effort in the future on the part of the senous serious contenders and of course there are always the favorite sons whose supporters always hope against hope to get together in a stop dewey effort one thing about dewey how ever is that he appears to be able to build as he goes that Is u up p to the present he has gained in ve without having to reach too far back for his prestige dewey s opponents point to what they call a blank I 1 record as governor the democrats say that about all he did was to cash in on a number of progressive steps taken by his predecessors clear back to AI al smith while it Is true that he has increased his political stature moving steadily and steadfastly toward his goal the white house he has at the same time been accused by his opponents of leaning over backwards to avoid doing or saying anything that might prove ao an obstacle toward that goal ibis this thought was put into concrete form in a recent resolution passed by the new york state industrial union council the official CIO body which represents all the CIO unions of new york at saratoga springs in september which read we ac cuse governor dewey of permitting his personal ambition to take prece dence over the best interests of the people of new york I 1 don t mean to imply by this that dewey counts too heavily on the CIO vote although he lie has created a considerable aura of pro gress cism about h some of his backers are very conservative and financially powerful individuals there is one characteristic re healed in dewey s career which may be forgotten as his record as an executive eclipses his achievement THOMAS THOMASE E DEWEY he s ambitious as a prosecutor it must be kemem bared that more than once he has sacrificed a highly lucrative tion tor for the pure joy of pf criminal prosecution first when after mak ing a good record on the staff of the united states district attorney he postponed returning to private tice in order to prosecute municipal court judge kunstler Hunst ler without pay tor for the american bar association then when he accepted the position as deputy district attorney at 16 a year to go after dutch schultz lucky luciano et al lie ile is quoted as saying once that he would rather prosecute criminals than eat |