Action v. Waiting

Ex-G.O.P. Chairman John D. M. Hamilton, named by Vermont's pro-Willkie Governor Wills as one of the "four-year locusts of Republican politics" (TIME, Jan. 17), retorted last week with charges of a "Willkie blitz." Willkie managers, cried he, have tried to clinch the nomination for their man "before anyone else had a chance to be heard," by "false claims" that Willkie has 300 to 500 delegates already in the bag.

Disputing Governor Wills's claim that Willkie is the outstanding Republican candidate, Hamilton reported that Republican leaders he has talked with "recently believe that the party has a "wealth of good Presidential timber." But the news of the G.O.P. National Committee meeting in Chicago last week was that the race is now clearly between Willkie and Dewey. True, they might still kill each other off, as Wood and Lowden did at Chicago in 1920. And the prospect of a repetition of that tragic convention hung smokily over the nation and the party. But for the moment, Dewey and Willkie had left the rest of the field far behind.

Last week Willkieites were frankly dismayed by the strong Dewey sentiment among the committeemen at Chicago. Their dismay crystallized plans for an immediate Willkie campaign of action. Trusting as always in an appeal from G.O.P. professionals to the rank & file, Candidate Willkie will shortly set off on a nationwide speaking tour, declare himself strongly on domestic issues.

Meantime the Dewey strategy will be simpler and quieter. At Chicago, his managers made no pretense that he is really unavailable, all previous Dewey statements notwithstanding. But Tom Dewey has learned many a political trick from Franklin Roosevelt, and he proposes to continue giving Republicans and all U.S. voters the same kind of treatment they are receiving from the White House.

Asked a correspondent: "Are you willing or ready to use General Sherman's remark that 'I will not accept if nominated, and I will not serve if elected?"

Replied Governor Dewey: "I am wholly and exclusively occupied with administering the affairs of the State of New York, period, close quote."

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