POLITICAL NOTES: With Homburg & Hammer

New York’s Governor Thomas E. Dewey, mouse-quiet since the Democratic sweep in the New York City elections (TIME, Nov. 19), suddenly spoke up in a voice that had loud tones of renewed hope.

First he proposed a state rent-control law to replace OPA ceilings if Congress lets them expire this year. Such action might not endear Tom Dewey, titular head of the G.O.P., to those Republican Congressmen who take the view that price controls are an unnecessary evil born of the New Deal. But it sounded like smart long-term politics for wooing the man who might be in the street except for rent controls. (It also sounded realistic to most economists, who agree, however reluctantly, that the free supply-&-demand economy which was an inevitable war casualty could not return full-blown the day war ended.)

Next, rumors began leaking from the State Capitol that Governor Dewey, who can boast a $500 million war-accumulated treasury surplus, would soon announce a new cut in taxes—possibly reducing state income taxes to half the prewar level.

Finally the Governor showed up in person on Staten Island, where his administration is starting a $5 million project for converting Army barracks into temporary housing for veterans. Wearing his inevitable Homburg with the preciseness of a toy soldier, he accepted an honorary membership in the A.F. of L.’s United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners, thereupon took six hammer strokes to drive the first nail into a two-by-four. The resulting picture looked for all the world like candidate-with-Indian or candidate-with-dead-fish, only a little better.