Tom Dewey Gets There

On election night, Democratic State Chairman James A. Farley sat glumly with his friends in Manhattan headquarters, waiting for the three phones to ring. To his sensitive politician's ear, the silence was ominous. When county chairmen have good news to report, they do it fast.

"A sad day, Jim," said one friend.

"Well," said Big Jim, "those things happen."

For the first time in 20 years, Big Jim Farley was on the wrong side of a New York election. He had named his own candidate, Attorney General John J. Bennett Jr.; but his convention fight with the forces of Franklin Roosevelt (TIME, Aug. 31) had left scars. The American Labor Party, once a little gold mine of Democratic votes, had split off to name its own candidate. The Democrats' campaign had gone wrong from the start.

The main thing wrong was Republican Thomas E. Dewey. At 40, the famed racket-busting boy wonder of politics, whom many regarded with suspicion, was older and wiser. He had polished his vote-getting technique to a thing of rare beauty; he had rubbed away the rough spots; he talked sound good sense that no man could identify with youthful arrogance. He began his campaign at the upstate country fairs, mingling with the crowds, signing autographs, winning friends quietly. He pledged full support of the war, proposed a liberal five-point labor program, dissected the State Democratic machines, charged that "the most reactionary element" in New York had taken over the Democratic Party.

Jim Farley was needled into making a speech assailing the "mental attitude of this young man who would rise to the Presidency by use of the propaganda of expediency." The new, warmer Tom Dewey turned the point neatly. When the Democrats tried to make him out a Prohibitionist, he said: "I'm dry only behind the ears."

The results gave Dewey 2,116,000, Bennett 1,505,000, the A.L.P.'s Dean Alfange 400,000. Tom Dewey was New York's first Republican Governor in two decades; he now held the second most important political office in the land. He looked at his stack of congratulatory telegrams and said: "Gee, this is a glorious day."

In his victory statement, broadcast by radio, Tom Dewey spoke a final word on the 1942 election. Said he:

"The fact that one party won and the other lost is not important. We are not here tonight to celebrate a party victory. We are all of us interested in only one victory--total, uncompromising, crushing victory over our country's enemies. . . . "In all things needed for the winning of this war we are united in unswerving loyalty to our Commander in Chief. Let us make this clear to all the world: We in America are solidly united. Shoulder to shoulder, we shall, with every resource at our command, carry on this fight to total and lasting victory."

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