March 24, 1902 – Birth of Thomas E. Dewey, Loser in Multiple Presidential Elections

Thomas Edmund Dewey was born on this day in Michigan. He received a B.A. from University of Michigan in 1923. Interestingly, he was an excellent singer and almost pursued a career as a professional performer, but after surgery for a throat ailment, he decided to become a lawyer instead. He received a law degree from Columbia Law School in 1925.

Dewey served as a federal prosecutor and District Attorney in New York City for many years. He came to national attention as Special Prosecutor in Manhattan for the pursuit of the mob and of political corruption. He so successfully prosecuted notorious members of New York’s mobs that in 1936 Dewey received the Hundred Year Association of New York’s Gold Medal Award “in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York.”

One of his biographers writes that by the late 1930s Dewey’s take-down of organized crime—and especially his conviction of Lucky Luciano—had turned him into a national celebrity.

Thomas E. Dewey

In 1937 Dewey was elected District Attorney of New York County (Manhattan), defeating the Democratic nominee after he decided not to run for re-election. Dewey was such a popular candidate for District Attorney that “election officials in Brooklyn posted large signs at polling places reading ‘Dewey Isn’t Running in This County’.”

In 1942 Dewey was elected Governor of New York, and in 1946 he was re-elected by the greatest margin in state history to that point. He won again in 1950. Among his notable achievements as governor, he put through the first state law in the country that prohibited racial discrimination in employment, signed legislation that created the State University of New York, expanded the state’s mental health care system, and created a water pollution program. Not all his initiatives were positive however; for example, he considered state funding for child care centers to be “Communist” and ended the program.

At age 38, Dewey sought the 1940 Republican presidential nomination, but his non-interventionist stance with respect to WWII led Republicans to select Wendell Wilkie instead, who of course lost to FDR. He was the frontrunner in 1944 however, and in the presidential election he crusaded against the alleged Communist influences in incumbent President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. Dewey lost the election on November 7, 1944 to President Roosevelt. Nevertheless, he made a stronger showing against FDR than any previous Republican opponent.

Dewey was the Republican candidate in the 1948 presidential election running against Harry Truman. In almost unanimous predictions by pollsters and the press, Dewey was projected as the winner. The “Chicago Daily Tribune” famously printed up 150,000 copies of papers with the headline “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN” before election returns proved them wrong.

President Truman holds up the erroneous Chicago Daily Tribune headline on November 3, 1948, the day after the election.

While Dewey couldn’t seem to be King himself, he successfully played kingmaker for others. In 1952, he played a major role in securing the Republican nomination for General Dwight D. Eisenhower. He also was instrumental in helping California Senator Richard Nixon become Eisenhower’s running mate.

Dewey’s third term as governor of New York expired at the end of 1954, after which he retired from public service and returned to his law practice, Dewey Ballantine, although he remained a power broker behind the scenes in the Republican Party.

On March 15, 1971, Dewey died suddenly after a massive heart attack. He was 68 years old.