Volume 18 , Issue 10

Gov. Thomas Edmund Dewey, NY

Remember Thomas Edmund Dewey who international fame prosecuting top drawer criminals, and crusading against the alliance between politics and rime in New York?

Found on Newspapers.com

The Kingsport Times, Kingsport, Tennessee, dated 25 June 1948, Friday, page 1, mentioned these headlines and story written by S. Burton Heath, concerning Thomas E. Dewey: "Few People Like Thomas Dewey But His Friends Swear By Him."

Thomas Dewey, in three different offices, one after another, established himself as Mr. District Attorney in person. He became known as a ruthless, hard-hitting investigator, and prosecutor from whom no criminal could feel safe, whatever his prestige and whoever his powerful friends might be.

Back in the summer of 1948 a few might think of Dewey as prosecutor. In less than six years since he left the district attorney's office and became governor of New York, he had built up a new personality. Now he was judged as an executive, an administrator, a political leader.

Back in 1948, on the surface this looked as though Dewey had changed. But those who knew him when - those who followed his earlier career most closely - say that he hadn't changed, but only developed. They claim that even when he was sending racketeers, thugs, chiselers, crooked financiers to prison and making front page headlines, above all he was a first class executive.

Dewey success in the court room always hinged upon the extreme care with which he prepared cases in advance. He would spend days finding ways to word charges so as to limit the fight to points on which he had overwhelming evidence. His cases were thoroughly prepared because he had a talent for surrounding himself with capable assistants, and using their talents in effective team work.

Outsiders thong of Dewey as a boss, trying to run every show. Insiders say that his administrations, from the first time he ever ran an office, had depended largely on well organized team work.

When Dewey's name was mentioned the first things that always came up were temperament, personality. There is a well cultivated legend that he was cold, egotistical, arrogant, calculating, over ambitious, untrustworthy.

Some who had worked with and for him had become unfriendly. But over the years, since he first became an executive 17 years ago (1931) as chief assistant tot he U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, there had been a remarkable continuity in the group that had worked with him. It had expanded as he moved up, but few had left the circle.

Most of the bitterness came from those who never were rally close to Dewey. Those who had worked intimately under him for years claimed and showed for him a deep respect and admiration. They did not, for the most part, pretend to warm personal affection. They did say, on the record and off, that he was a kindly, considerate, reasonable, generous boss to those who played the game on the level.

Thomas Edmund Dewey was born March 24, 1902, in Owosso, Michigan, of Huguenot French, English and County Cork Irish ancestry. His grandfather helped to found the GOP and campaigned for it every four years until 1896. His father was publisher of a weekly newspaper, postmaster and Republican county chairman.

The Deweys were neither poor nor wealthy. There always was a comfortable living, but Tom worked like most small town boys of his day. He peddled magazines and newspapers, but on that job he had about 10 other youngsters working for him. He was a "devil" in his father's print shop, he clerked in a drug store, he worked one summer on a farm.

Dewey entered the University of Michigan with $800 saved from such earnings. There he was on the college paper, sang in the glee club, acted in college plays. Music was his big love. One college mate, who will vote against Dewey in 1948, said he really hasn't a thing against him except that he was always singing somewhere - "even at football rallies." For a time he studied singing on a scholarship won in competition, and considered making ti a career. At Columbia Law School he paid part of his expenses singing in an Episcopal church and a Synagogue.

In 1925 Dewey started practicing law as a junior clerk at $1800 . By 1928, having risen to $3000 a year, he ventured to marry Frances Eileen Hutt of Sapulpua, Oklahoma, and took his bride to a two room walkup on the East side.

In 1931, George Z. Medalie became U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He remembered Dewey, who had worked with him on one case, and asked the young lawyer to join his staff. Dewey agreed on condition that he become chief assistant. Medalie, a hard bitten leader of the New York bar and the GOP, was impressed enough to agree.

So at 29, six years out of law school, Dewey was running a busy 60-man law office and, on the side, prosecuting and convicting some of the most notorious criminals in New York's recent history. He did both so well that when Medalie resigned the district's federal judges unanimously recommended him for the job, and President Roosevelt made the 32 year old republican acting U. S. Attorney until he got around to name a regular Democrat to the post.

At 33, as special prosecutor, Dewey began his crusade against the alliance between politics and crime. At 35, he beat Tammany and became district attorney of New York County. At 36 he lost the New York governorship to Herbert Lehman, the best vote-getter the state's Democrats ever had, by 40,000 less votes than Lehman got. At 38 he went to Philadelphia with the biggest bloc of pledged delegates, but lost the GOP presidential nomination to Wendell Willkie.

At 40, Dewey won the governorship of New York. AT 42 he was GOP candidate for President. At 44 he was re-elected governor of New York by the biggest majority ever given any candidate of either party.

In 1948, at 46, Dewey's back again after the presidency. Every record was broken some time, but his supporters liked to point out that he never yet had won a major goal on the first try - nor lost it on the second.

Eileen Hutt turned down his first proposal, then became Mrs. Dewey. Dewey lost the first attempt to convict Jimmy Hines, Tammany district leaders and intimate of President Roosevelt, but won the second. Dewey lost his first race for the governorship, won the second. Dewey lost his first shot at the GOP nomination, won the second.
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