The Weil-Tailored Farmer

Tom Dewey's automobile reached Pawling Village, 105 miles from Albany, at 4 p.m., exactly on schedule. Pawling was ready, too. The wood-pillared front porch of the 58-year-old Dutcher Hotel was bunting-draped. In the tree-shaded park behind it--which looks like all U.S. village parks from Idaho to Georgia--1,000 people crowded behind the roped-off lanes. Men, coatless on the hot day, women in summer frocks and bare legs, young girls in pinafores and bobby socks, waited for a look at their famous neighbor, the man who owns the 486-acre Dapplemere place two miles outside of town.

Even the town's No. i Democrat, who is also cashier of the bank, was in the crowd. So was Tom Dewey's "citified" neighbor, Commentator Lowell Thomas. Thomas introduced the Governor to the friendly small-town audience, with folksy references to Dewey gadding off to big cities like Chicago when his hay needed putting in. Thomas said he had put his own hay in that very morning, and as a neighborly turn had even pitched a little at the Dewey farm. Dewey replied, with characteristic heavy jocularity, that if so, it was the first work Lowell Thomas had done in 21 years. Commented Scripps-Howard's veteran Tom Stokes: "It was a little hard to imagine either one with a straw lying honestly behind one ear."

Farmyard. But Tom Dewey was not asking anyone to see a straw behind his ear. Next day, when photographers snapped and clicked all over Dapplemere, Dewey firmly set his usual limitations, for Candidate Dewey is very much aware of what the camera has done to U.S. politicos. He or his family would don no overalls, feed no chicks, milk no cows, pitch no hay. In white shirt, neat grey trousers, and brown tie carefully in place though the temperature was 90, Dewey for three hours patiently posed for shots showing him only as a spectator-farmer. Typical authorized shot: Dewey standing by, with hands in his pockets, while a farm assistant fed the chickens. Then Dewey led newsmen about the place: to the big barn where the 90 dairy cattle are kept; the boys' Victory garden; the cherry orchard, and the 150-year-old colonial house, with its twelve rooms and four baths, which Dewey bought Oct. 16, 1939 for $30,000.

Governor Dewey had already warned his growing assemblage of press followers that they need come down to Pawling just this once: henceforth, when he traveled to Pawling for weekends, there would be no news.

Front Porch. Tom Dewey had resolved that, if he must be in the spotlight, he would decide when it was to be turned on & off. Right now he was content to be a "front-porch" candidate. Last week he:

P: Dined in Albany with Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the phrasemaker of Mackinac; four days later saw Vermont's internationalist Senator Warren R. Austin. Both Senators said they saw eye-to-eye with Dewey on foreign policy.

P: Received his first state delegation: Massachusetts' Governor Leverett Saltonstall and Willkieite Senator Sinclair Weeks. When newsmen asked if they would discuss the wooing of Wendell Willkie, Dewey gave a noncommittal reply and then added briskly: "That is my entire answer to your question."

P: Approved a new 15-man Republican National Committee. Included: Willkie's ex-campaign manager, Ralph H. Cake, Willkieite Senator Weeks, and John Bricker's convention manager.

P: Brushed off questions about De Gaulle, Finland and foreign policy, but added a third word to his usual dismissing phrase. Said he: "No comment now."

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