THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1940 AMERICAN POLITICS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23739, 20 August 1940, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1940 AMERICAN POLITICS

The Republicans' nominee for the United States Presidency, Mr. "Wendell Willkie, has opened his public campaign by making his "acceptance" speech. Presently Mr. Roosevelt will be. doing likewise. In essence, the declaration is that of the party, for it has been drawn up by a committee acting in this respect as party managers and is known to the party's nominating convention ; hence the acceptance speech is an appropriate formality. Yet the selected bearers of the party banners have opportunity to show their paces ; so, to an appreciable extent, the contest thus begun gives scope for the expression of personality. In Mr. Willkie's case, this scope will be used to the full. He has not been fond of harness. In his college days he had strongly radical tendencies and gaily aired them. Later, when serious politics attracted his thought, he described himself as "a La Follette Liberal," in token of detachment from both of the great parties, and this claim he has maintained. Eight years ago he was a supporter of Mr. Roosevelt's first bid for the Presidency and contributed 150 dollars to his campaign fund, but publicly said afterwards "I wish I had it back." When Mr. Roosevelt stood for a second term,' this swing from Democrat politics took him further away —he voted for Landon against Roosevelt. Yet he has been indifferently Republican. A little while ago no less a devotee of party politics than Al. Smith spoke of him as a possible President: "there's Wendell Willkie ; I understand he's a Democrat, although I'm not sure." What the subject of this recommendation said of himself at that time, however, was "I think I am enrolled in the "Republican Party." Evidently, he has had no more love for labels than for harness.

Piquancy will be imparted to the campaign by public recollection of his blunt refusals to be catalogued. For instance, this: "My political philosophy agrees with neither that of the New Deal nor that of the Republican Party." As revealing is this bit of self-description: -"The greatest joy in life is to keep one's thoughts uncontrolled by formulas. I won't be dropped into a mould. I want to be a free spirit. If I wasn't one, I would be still sitting on a cracker box in Indiana." Many of those listening in his birthplace as a chosen audience for this initial speech of his candidature must have been calling such characteristic utterances to mind. Perhaps they probably wondered that he,' to whom politics had been often, a minor matter, should be so eminently speaking for a party; but they would be able to understand, as well as any, his unconventional handling of the fight, against Mr. Roosevelt. The situation is peculiar. He is as ready to agree as to disagree with the President. No doubt the choice of Mr. -Willkie as Republican candidate, in spite of earlier favour given to others, was largely influenced by a -recognition of the unwisdom of wholesale opposition to the President's known attitude on important questions: a man not hampered by a reputation for inflexible partisanship could best-tread a necessarily devious and possibly tortuous jiath.

On the greatest question of all, that of America's relation to the war, diametrically to oppose the President would be to court political failure. He has declared his repugnance to Germany's attempts to attain domination and his abhorrence of Germany's ~ unmitigated barbarity; and this antagonism to the Nazi regime and programme he has translated into terms of aid, "short of war," to the Allies. Why quarrel with that 1 ? In spite of much reluctance, Congress had not quarrelled with it. So Mr. Willkie has no protest. On subsidiary questions, such as Mr. Roosevelt's occasional "inflammatory" references to Hitler's conduct and his "meddling" to promote peace in Europe, Mr. Willkie speaks in the tones -of a heavy father, and so also of the need to take the American people into confidence. But even these strictures are half-hearted; Mr. Willkie himself, has hard words for Hitler and is ready to answer foreign threats with American threats, when these can be made good. As for "frank reports" to-the people, he is eager to make them, "to the limit of practicability." In all this, and the requirements of home defence, the points of agreement are real and cardinal, the differences almost negligible. In what Mr. Willkie says about the British defence of America and about the possible need to enter the war he goes as far as the President has gone. The contest, it seems, will be one of personal qualities rather than major divergences of policy.