conservative Republicans believed were most critical, including the "loss" of China

and calls for fiscal responsibility.19 The plan was calculated to please the party base,

but Gabrielson's rhetoric did not play well in the press. Joseph Harsch of the

Christian Science-Monitor thought that the "loss" of China painted a totalizing picture

of gloom and did not accurately represent Truman's foreign policy.20 Stewart Alsop

attributed Gabrielson's overly aggressive statements to his desire to be a successful

RNC Chairman and noted that "amateurs cast in difficult roles tend to overact." He

believed that Gabrielson, above all else, desired to run the 1950 campaign on the pro-

business principles of the party but did not understand that the plethora of vocal

interest groups had expanded the electorate and now guaranteed that such a strategy

would not be effective.21

 In late June Gabrielson took an even more conservative tone. He asserted that a

majority of Americans believed in the crusade of Senator McCarthy and that few

cared about the methods he employed. This was the first time that Gabrielson had

publicly endorsed McCarthy. It came on the heels of a statement from New Jersey

Governor Alfred Driscoll, a Deweyite, which condemned the Wisconsin Senator for

his red-baiting tactics and their possible infringements on civil liberties.22 Driscoll

urged a liberal position similar to that espoused by Dewey at Princeton. He claimed

that "it is silly for us to keep insisting that we were right all of the time our party was

out of power, and that the people were wrong during the entire period."23 Dewey and



19 Washington Post, 15 April 1950.
20 Christian Science-Monitor, 17 April 1950.

21 Stewart Alsop, Washington Post, 28 April 1950.

22 Christian Science Monitor, 23 June 1950

23 Alfred Driscoll, quoted in Washington Post, 24 June 1950.