The Chairman's Letter was ahead of the curve in criticizing the 1946 postwar

strike wave. The January 15 edition blamed the Democrats for the labor unrest.

According to Brownell, the opposition was "reaping the harvest of its long-standing

practice of putting politics ahead of justice in the handling of industrial problems,"

and linked the Democrats with the leftist CIO-PAC. Brownell criticized Truman's

price and wage control policy, attacking the role of appointed bureaucrats, rather then

elected legislators, in deciding the levels of wage and price hikes. Brownell noted

rather fearfully that the New Deal bureaucracy held the nation's economic recovery in

its hands and would continue to do so unless a Republican Congress was elected in

1946.58

 When Brownell discussed Republican alternatives, he mostly spoke in broad

sweeping generalizations. This was consistent with his desire to cast a wide net and

attract centrist voters. The one exception, the March 15 issue, was the only time he

revisited the Statement of Principles of the Congressional Republicans. He listed the

legislators' specific proposals and highlighted the efforts of the Republican caucus to

implement them. These included unsuccessful attempts by Representative John Taber

of New York to reduce the government payroll by ten percent, as well as Republican

support for the United Nations and the party's calls for a "common-sense" approach

to foreign aid. Brownell's final Chairman's Letter of his tenure, published on 1 April

1946, described the Truman administration as one of corruption and incompetence,

and argued that the only hope for the return of the "American way of life" was the

election of a Republican Congress in 1946. Although Brownell did not agree with the





58 Republican National Committee, "The Chairman's Letter" 2, no. 5, 1 March 1946. Copy in Folder
(RNC Publications The Chairman's Letter 1946 (1)), Box 123, Brownell Papers.