an Oregon supporter in April 1944 said, "The Republican Party now has vitality and

unity. It must now become united. It must carry on in its great responsibility to lead

the nation." Dewey even went so far as to call the New Deal "an exhausted and

ineffective instrument of government;" a stark contrast with the candidate who had

referred to himself as a "New Deal Republican" in 1938.18 While ideological and

programmatic divisions remained under the surface, party leaders agreed on

statements of policy general enough to please all sides. The Taft-chaired platform

committee tried to draw a middle ground between the Old Guard and the progressives.

The group openly supported a postwar organization of nations and agreed to help

rebuild Allied countries, provided that American interests remained paramount. The

platform pledged to end the trend of centralizing power in Washington and to return

the states to their traditional role of welfare provider, albeit with some measure of

increased federal aid. Finally, the document called for an end to government

competition with private industry, price controls and rationing upon termination of

hostilities, and a return to a balanced budget.19 While the document did not

completely reject the increased statism of the New Deal, it did call for an overhaul of

the Federal Government.

 Dewey and his New York organization arrived at the national convention as the

clear front-runners. They had executed a superb pre-convention campaign and had

commitments from delegates from every state of the union, making the convention

results a mere formality. A group of three influential New York Republicans, whose

interests in state politics coalesced behind Dewey's second gubernatorial run, led this


18 Thomas E Dewey, Letter to Maj. Luther Felker, 1 April 1944. Copy in Folder 2 (1944 Presidential
Campaign- Delegates), Box 15, Series II, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, University of Rochester Library
Department of Rare Books and Special Collections [Hereafter cited as Dewey Papers].

19 1944 Republican Platform, Quoted in George Thomas Kurian, The Encyclopedia of the Republican
Party (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe Reference, 1997).