Journey West

All week long the urgent bulletins from harried Dewey lieutenants in Wisconsin reported new gains by General Douglas MacArthur and indefatigable Harold Stassen. Unless Dewey reversed his 1944 strategy, when he swept the Wisconsin primaries without lifting a finger, he might find himself out in the cold after next week's primary election. At week's end Tom Dewey made his decision: he would hustle out to Wisconsin this week, would follow up with a trip to Nebraska.

The announcement from Albany was carefully phrased to conceal the Dewey-men's concern. Said Dewey: "The time has come for a frank and blunt statement of the complex and serious problems confronting our nation and the world. . . . The national Administration has failed in its duty of frank discussion. I propose to bring before the American people the facts as I see them and the solutions I believe necessary."

But there was no concealing what had happened. Even before MacArthur's entry into the race, Harold Stassen's free-speaking, free-spending campaign had won him thousands of new supporters. When MacArthur jumped in, his name became a new rallying point for many who had climbed reluctantly onto the Dewey band wagon for lack of anywhere else to go.

By the time of the Dewey announcement, MacArthur supporters had whipped themselves up to a lather of confidence. Gathering in Milwaukee's Plankinton House, 200 MacArthurmen from 19 states met to listen to jubilant speeches by Wisconsin's Secretary of State Fred Zimmerman and ex-America Firster Lansing Hoyt, national chairman of the MacArthur-for-President clubs. The delegates talked hopefully of winning all of Wisconsin's 27 convention votes.

Even Dewey's campaigners were willing to admit that a MacArthur victory seemed in the cards. But that could always be explained away as local loyalty to a favorite son. What really worried Tom Dewey was the fear of running behind Harold Stassen, a defeat that would seriously cripple his whole campaign for the nomination. If he was going to do anything about it, there was no time to lose.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.