The Roots of Modern Conservatism: Dewey, Taft, and the Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party

THREE. Opportunity Wasted, 1948

56 Taft’s leadership in the Eightieth Congress reflected his disdain for the liberal policies of the preceding sixteen years and his desire to promote the Republicans as a conservative alternative to the Democrats. Though he found a degree of success on Capitol Hill, this did not directly translate to the national party. Whether the American polity supported or rejected the tenets of modern liberalism and how the Republicans should develop their campaign strategy remained the central points of contention between the Taft and Dewey factions as they lined up the support of the Republican elites for the next election cycle. As 1948 began, the factionalism expanded from the rnc and the Congress to the forty-eight state parties. In 1947 Truman’s popularity reached an all-time low, and many pundits and observers believed that the Republicans would win the White House and expand their majority in Congress easily the following year. Intraparty machinations, however, destroyed Republican ambitions. After a heated nomination process, the weak campaign of the Dewey organization and the widening divide between the factions spoiled for the Republicans their best opportunity since the mid-1920s. Dewey’s continued belief that traditionalist Republican views would conjure up memories of the Great Depression cost him the White House and left the factionalism festering. Taft and his associates stood on the record of the Eightieth Congress, and when Dewey refused to join them, the ideological nature of the two factions became much more important for the future of the Republican Party. As Taft and his Old Guard colleagues moved the gop rightward on Capitol Hill, Dewey adopted similar programs in New York. He advocated limited government while reducing taxes and streamlining the state budget, policies that generated a fiscal surplus that Dewey used skillfully to avert TH REE Opportunity Wasted, 1948 opportunity wasted : 57 the pitfalls of postwar demobilization. Under his leadership the Empire State implemented programs that reduced unemployment and averted serious work stoppages. He asked lawmakers to implement a state rentcontrol system and pass new education initiatives that focused on creating benefits with the least amount of cost and centralized control. These measures were similar to Taft’s public housing and federal aid to education bills and showed that Dewey, like Taft, was a flexible problem-solver who could abandon traditionalist Republican ideas if expedient. The pair differed more markedly over social programs. Legislation promoting labor-management relations and racial equality, especially the fepc, was a high point of Dewey’s tenure. On labor issues, the two agreed on basic principles but differed on methods. Throughout his administration Dewey took a proactive stance toward labor mediation and refused to challenge the right of collective bargaining in a private enterprise system . He would not sign a bill outlawing the closed shop, a central component of the Taft-Hartley Act, but when strikes affected the public sector, he advocated making striking a terminable offense for public employees. This was a more hard-line approach than that of Taft, who rejected similar proposals at the federal level, continually affirmed the right to strike, and made no distinction between the public and private sectors. Neither man molded his policies to fit his campaign rhetoric exactly.1 Despite Dewey’s legislative record, he maintained his plans for a moderate gop nationally and built his 1948 campaign team and political organization accordingly. Through 1947 Dewey continually met with his 1944 advisors, once again led by Herbert Brownell, to discuss the political implications of his state policies and to plan for the next election cycle. As experienced operatives, Dewey and Brownell knew that the Republican nomination ran through the state gop leaders, many of whom stood ready to trade the support of their delegations for patronage or favorable considerations on legislation that would benefit them directly. In early 1947, with this in mind, the Dewey group began lining up delegates for the 1948 national convention. Thanks to his past rnc chairmanship, Brownell had contacts in every state and relied on this network to form the bulwark of Dewey support among party operatives. In the Northeast, Brownell’s allies were generally high-ranking Republican officials who controlled their delegations. New Jersey and Pennsylvania experienced heated delegate contests between Dewey and Taft supporters, but New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine lined up solidly for Dewey early on. In more contested areas, most notably parts of the 58...