MR WENDELL, WILLKIE

Evening Star, Issue 25301, 9 October 1944, Page 4

MR WENDELL, WILLKIE

DEATH ANNOUNCED IN NEW YORK MAN OF COURAGE AND VISION Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright NEW YORK, Oct. 8. The death Has occurred of Mr Wendell Willkie from coronary thrombosis. He died in his sleep after three heart attacks in 10 hours. He was 52 years of age. TThe strange spelling of (Mr Willkio's name was due to the fact that it is a corruption of the German name Wilckfl. All his four grandparents left Germany nearly 100 years ago at the time of tho revolution. They bequeathed to their descendants, and to none more than Mr Wendell Willkie, a passionate hatred of German arrogance and aggression. Within a few months of, his admission to the Indiana Bar, in 1918, Wendell Willkie volunteered for service in the war against Germany. He was a native of the small town of Elwood, Indiana, where he was born in 1892. His father, a lawyer, was the leading man in the place, and held many public appointments. The mother.

a pioneer in higher education for; women, was also a lawyer, and in duo course Wendell Willkie qualified for the profession at Indiana University. After the last war was over he moved to Akron, Ohio, the rubber manufacturing pity, and there became legal adviser to the Commonwealth Corporation, a public utility company supplying light, heat, and power over a limited area. He gradually became its head, and as he did so, amalgamated it with other similar companies until he had under him a whole string extending from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the AHeghanies_ beyond the Mississippi. Politics had little attraction for him. for his mind was centred wholly on his business, and in 1932 he is believed even to have voted for Mr Roosevelt. It was only when the New Deal began to interfere with his utility companies that he started to oppose the President. The battle was on. and was waged furiously and mercilessly until the Tennessee Valley Authority came to a compromise, purchasing some of Mr Willkie's interests in their area and agreeing not to oppose him elsewhere. Thus his attention was called to na-, tiqnal .politics. .1 His..drive and energy,'.' coupled with his. big business position. : soon made him of Presidential timbre, and he sensationally won the Republican Party's- nomination at: the 1940 Presidential elections, polling the lar<j-' est popular vote ever given a Republican candidate. After his defeat in the election. Mr Willkie ■, went through an intensive period of political education which greatly changed his oui'.ook. He showed ipublic sipiritedness and political genius. in his visit to England, and his consequent influencing of the final vote ou lend-lease in 1941. On his visit to England he made it clear that he would do everything possible in America to, aid Britain, and he spoke in terms of the highest praise of the great courage and determination of the British people. In September, 1942, Mr Willkie began a visit to the Middle East, Russia, and China, on a special mission for. the President. He travelled 30,000 # miles, chiefly by air, arriving back in Washington on October 14. As a result of his tour he wrote a book. 'One World.' .

Mr Willkie offered himself again in the Republican interests for this vear's presidential contest, but at the "Wisconsin primaries in -April he received no support from the 24 delegates. He withdrew from the contest "as he believed that a Republican could not be nominated for President unless he received at the convention the votes of some major Mid-western States where the Republican Party had its greatest resurgence.