Editing Thomas E. Dewey (section)

==Public image==
Dewey received varied reactions from the public and fellow politicians, with praise for his good intentions, honesty, administrative talents, and inspiring speeches, but most of them also criticized his ambition and his perceived stiffness in public. One of his biographers wrote that he had "a personality that attracted contempt and adulation in equal proportion."<ref name="Smith, p. 18" />

Dewey was a forceful and inspiring speaker, traveling the whole country during his presidential campaigns and attracting uncommonly huge crowds.<ref name="Peters, p. 18">Peters, p. 18</ref> His friend and neighbor Lowell Thomas believed that Dewey was "an authentic colossus" whose "appetite for excellence [tended] to frighten less obsessive types", and his 1948 running mate Earl Warren "professed little personal affection for Dewey, but [believed] him a born executive who would make a great president."<ref name="Smith, p. 18" /> The pollster [[George Gallup]] once described Dewey as "the ablest public figure of his lifetime... the most misunderstood man in recent American history."<ref name="Smith, p. 18" />

On the other hand, President Franklin D. Roosevelt privately called Dewey "the little man" and a "son of a bitch", and to Robert Taft and other conservative Republicans Dewey "became synonymous with&nbsp;... New York newspapers, New York banks, New York arrogance – the very city Taft's America loves to hate."<ref name="Smith, p. 33">(Smith, p. 33)</ref> A Taft supporter once referred to Dewey as "that snooty little governor of New York."<ref name="Smith, p. 33" />

[[Herbert Brownell]], Dewey's campaign manager in his 1944 and 1948 presidential campaigns, later recalled that Dewey was "a tough man to herd...He'd see a local political leader who wasn't doing a very good job and he'd tell him so. Well, he should have left that to his managers to do...he could tell another person what to do brilliantly, but he wouldn't do it himself. He'd give me the perfect formula for handling a difficult person, but then he'd get annoyed at something the guy said."<ref name="auto3">(Smith, p. 348)</ref> According to Brownell, "perfectionism had its price, and Dewey paid it...He didn't really like handshaking, and he wasn't good at it...he'd climbed up the [political] ladder the hard way. He worked harder, studied longer than anyone else. He could take a problem, break it down into component parts, assign it to talented people. He was a real fighter. As president he would have been boss, but the glad handing, small talk, personality side of politics, he just could not do."<ref name="auto3"/> When asked if Dewey was happy in politics, Brownell replied "I don't think he was ever happy. He got joy out of attainment. He was satisfied with many of his accomplishments. But as for happiness, in the usual sense of the word – he wasn't really geared to our political system."<ref>(Smith, p. 349)</ref>

=== Appearance and knowledge ===
Dewey grew his mustache when he was dating Frances, and because "she liked it, the mustache stayed, to delight cartoonists and dismay political advisers for 20 years."<ref>Smith, p. 91.</ref> During the 1944 election campaign, Dewey suffered an unexpected blow when [[Alice Roosevelt Longworth]] was reported as having mocked Dewey as "the little man on the wedding cake",{{Efn|Longworth did not originate the witticism. Democratic Party operatives Isabel Kinnear Griffin and Helen Essary Murphy began circulating the remark, attributing it to Longworth to help it spread (Cordery, p. 424).}} alluding to his neat mustache and dapper dress. It was ridicule he could never shake.

Dewey alienated former Republican president [[Herbert Hoover]], who confided to a friend "Dewey has no inner reservoir of knowledge on which to draw for his thinking," elaborating that "A man couldn't wear a mustache like that without having it affect his mind."<ref>William E. Leuchtenburg, ''Herbert Hoover'' (2009), p. 155.</ref>

=== Aloofness ===
Dewey had a tendency towards pomposity<ref>{{cite news|last=Jones|first=Tim|url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-chicagodays-deweydefeats-story,0,6484067.story|title=Dewey defeats Truman: Well, everyone makes mistakes|newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]]}}</ref> and was considered stiff and unapproachable in public, with his aide [[Ruth Hanna McCormick|Ruth McCormick Simms]] once describing him as "cold, cold as a February iceberg". She added that "he was brilliant and thoroughly honest."<ref>Smith, pp. 298–299</ref>

During his governorship, one writer observed: "A blunt fact about Mr. Dewey should be faced: it is that many people do not like him. He is, unfortunately, one of the least seductive personalities in public life. That he has made an excellent record as governor is indisputable. Even so, people resent what they call his vindictiveness, the 'metallic' nature of his efficiency, his cockiness (which actually conceals a nature basically shy), and his suspiciousness. People say... that he is as devoid of charm as a rivet or a lump of stone."<ref>(Gunther, po. 533)</ref>

However, Dewey's friends considered him a warm and friendly companion. Journalist Irwin Ross noted that, "more than most politicians, [Dewey] displayed an enormous gap between his private and his public manner. To friends and colleagues he was warm and gracious, considerate of others' views… He could tell a joke and was not dismayed by an off-color story. In public, however, he tended to freeze up, either out of diffidence or too stern a sense of the dignity of office. The smiles would seem forced… the glad-handing gesture awkward."<ref>(Ross, p. 31)</ref>

A magazine writer described the difference between Dewey's private and public behavior by noting that, "Till he gets to the door, he may be cracking jokes and laughing like a schoolboy. But the moment he enters a room he ceases to be Tom Dewey and becomes what he thinks the Governor of New York ought to be."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/17/archives/thomas-e-dewey-is-dead-at-68-racket-buster-twice-ran-for-president.html|title=Thomas E. Dewey Is Dead at 68|newspaper=The New York Times|date=March 17, 1971}}</ref>

[[Leo W. O'Brien]], a reporter for [[United Press International]] (UPI) who was later elected to Congress as a Democrat, recalled Dewey in an interview by saying that "I hated his guts when he first came to Albany, and I loved him by the time he left. It was almost tragic – how he put on a pose that alienated people. Behind a pretty thin veneer he was a wonderful guy."<ref>Smith, p. 456</ref> John Gunther wrote in 1947 that many supporters were fiercely loyal to Dewey.<ref name="Gunther, p. 533">(Gunther, p. 533)</ref>

=== Opportunism and vagueness ===
Dewey's presidential campaigns were hampered by his habit of not being "prematurely specific"<ref name="Peters, p. 18" /> on controversial issues. President Truman poked fun at Dewey's vague campaign by joking that [[Republican Party (United States)|G.O.P.]] actually stood for "grand old platitudes."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.usnews.com/articles/news/politics/2008/01/17/when-harry-gave-em-hell.html?PageNr=1 |title=Dewey Defeats Truman? No Way. Truman "Gave 'em Hell" on His Whistle Stop Tour in 1948 |newspaper=[[US News]]|date=January 17, 2008}}</ref>

Dewey's frequent refusal to discuss specific issues and proposals in his campaigns was based partly on his belief in public opinion polls; one biographer claimed that he "had an almost religious belief in the revolutionary science of public-opinion sampling."<ref name="Smith, p. 30">(Smith, p. 30)</ref> He was the first presidential candidate to employ his own team of pollsters, and when a worried businessman told Dewey in the 1948 presidential campaign that he was losing ground to Truman and urged him to "talk specifics in his closing speeches", Dewey and his aide Paul Lockwood displayed polling data that showed Dewey still well ahead of Truman, and Dewey told the businessman "when you're leading, don't talk."<ref name="Smith, p. 30" />

[[Walter Lippman]] regarded Dewey as an opportunist, who "changes his views from hour to hour… always more concerned with taking the popular position than he is in dealing with the real issues."<ref>Peters, p. 77</ref>

The journalist [[John Gunther]] wrote that "There are plenty of vain and ambitious and uncharming politicians. This would not be enough to cause Dewey's lack of popularity. What counts more is that so many people think of him as opportunistic. Dewey seldom goes out on a limb by taking a personal position which may be unpopular... every step is carefully calculated and prepared."<ref name="Gunther, p. 533" />

=== Relationship with legislators ===
As governor, Dewey had a reputation for ruthless treatment of New York legislators and political opponents.

<blockquote>[Dewey] cracked the whip ruthlessly on [Republican] legislators who strayed from the party fold. Assemblymen have found themselves under investigation by the State Tax Department after opposing the Governor over an insurance regulation bill. Others discover job-rich construction projects, state buildings, even highways, directed to friendlier [legislators]... [He] forced the legislature his own party dominates to reform its comfortable ways of payroll padding. Now legislative workers must verify in writing every two weeks what they have been doing to earn their salary; every state senator and assemblyman must verify that [they] are telling the truth. All this has occasioned more than grumbling. Some Assemblymen have quit in protest. Others have been denied renomination by Dewey's formidable political organization. Reporters mutter among themselves about government by blackmail.<ref name="Smith, p. 38">(Smith, p. 38)</ref></blockquote>

=== Honesty and integrity ===
Dewey received positive publicity for his reputation for honesty and integrity. The newspaper editor [[William Allen White]] praised Dewey as "an honest cop with the mind of an honest cop."<ref>(Smith, p. 23)</ref> An October 1953 editorial in the ''Oneonta Star'' said that "We think the Governor is ruthless in his actions, but we also think he will countenance nothing that smacks of trickery and dishonesty in public administration."<ref>(Smith, p. 614)</ref>

He insisted on having every candidate for a job paying $2,500 or more rigorously probed by state police. He was so concerned about the elected public official being motivated by the wealth his position could produce that he frequently said, "No man should be in public office who can't make more money in private life."<ref>Repeated statement quoted in ''Eigen's Political & Historical Quotations'', The Literacy Alliance Quote Number 549592.</ref> Dewey accepted no anonymous campaign contributions and had every large contributor not known personally to him investigated "for motive."<ref name=":0">(Smith, p. 27)</ref> When he signed autographs, he would date them so that no one could imply a closer relationship than actually existed.<ref name=":0" />

A journalist noted in 1947 that Dewey "has never made the slightest attempt to capitalize on his enormous fame, except politically. Even when temporarily out of office, in the middle 1930s, he rigorously resisted any temptation to be vulgarized or exploited...he could easily have become a millionaire several times over by succumbing to various movie and radio offers. He would have had to do nothing except give permission for movies or radio serials to be built around his career and name. Be it said to his honor, he never did so."<ref>(Gunther, p. 531)</ref>