WENDELL WILLKIE

...I FIND it curious that people have said, both before Mr...

...And they taw Willkie as simply another big businessman...

...Freedom is an indivisible word...

...Ht did change, of courts...

...When they found out that Willkie really did mean it they turned on him with a virtriolic bitterness that even their hatred of Roosevelt c-uld hardly match...

...Recognizing that living costs-in different sections of the country vary widely, he proposes that a series of regional cost-of-living studies be made snd benefits set to conform with these...

...He worked his wsy through college, worked st every kind of bard, unskilled job throughout the Middlewett during those yeart...

...As one regards the political situation likely to prevail after the election one can only agree with what has become the refrain of thousands, that in the years to come Wendell Willkie will be most sorely missed...

...But his development was of a ' highly Individual character, determined only by bis awn logic Of mind and fearleet honesty...

...Willkie cuts through much asnddy thinking, the fault of a system of wage l'"> km—** hseedoM «*rrH, if is the fault of immature social ssinkissj whether by ladicpis or conservatives which Jfm ajrsierted the system to do something it was never j*W*d*m*4 to do...

...Close observers of hit defeat in the Wisconsin primaries however believed that it wst hit insistence on a liberal domestic program at much as hit internationalism that lost him the support of the Republican regulars...

...It apparently never occurred to them that another business man really meant what' he said when he talked about freedom...

...The answer, I think, to the seeming contradiction between his own fsaling of lifelong consistency and the vast change which friends and enemies thought thay saw after '40 was that Wendell Willkie, almost uniquely among men of hit generation, really believed with complete faith in both Halves of the American dream...

...He wat at dynamic in hit thought aa in hit personality...

...Hundreds of letters came from Negro organisations, from distinguished intellectual leaden of the Negro race and from humble folk who couldn't spell, saying again and again, "We have lost our greatest friend since Lincoln...

...Willkie wrote in One World, "is incompatible with foreign imperialism...

...for rater* peace if we eon tin a* ta practice an Bsly-dttcrinuaatlan at home against oar own minorities, the lsrg• eat ef which is ear thirteen millten Negro cili.ea* " ? • • WlLLKIE'S propostls for Social Security have not received the attention they deserve either from liberals' or reactionaries...

...Yst ha himself was always astounded when anyone said this ta him and would reply that he did not think he had changed...

...Above everything he wanted cooperation among the peoplet of the world to inture lasting peace...

...But Wendell Willkie was not the kind of idealist who, if he csn't hsve everything, prefers to remain aloof...

...But he believed as possible of achievement what many thought mere "idealism...

...He believed that lasting peace would not be possible without worldwide economic collaboration, the abolition of...

...The conventional pattern of a swing from "right" to "left" into which people sometimes triad ta lit him wat in fact quits irrelevant to the picture...

...Take for instance hit endorsement of the snnual wage, and of labor-management cooperation, and hit continued insistence that labor thould be given a recognized place in the determination of fiscal, domestic, and international policies...

...His capacity for growth and development wat one of the mott exciting snd remarkable things about, him...

...The irony is that a good many reactionary business men were just as fooled as the liberals...

...The loss of Wendell Willkie is a loss which American liberalism could ill afford...

...J5 {»• ••' 'em e • e OUT the most original and the most important part of the program.for She future of America is his propose...

...One had to know him to realize hew, by comparison, mott persons seam frozen hr - steed all their lives...

...They sre in my opinio* toundtr than Beveridge s plans in Britain...

...He wst thoroughly realistic about hit .own country's falling away from its best idesls...

...And it was consciously kept within bounds of what he believed possible—possible within the political and economic realities of the immediate years ahead...

...He was the last man in the world to pretend he had all the answers...

...Like his political career it was work-in-progress when he died...

...As it the question of taxes and benefits, coverage and «'•-, gibility, under both the present law and the proposed bill of Senators Murray and Wagner, it tends always to operate to the disadvantage of the lowest paid and least fortunate...

...Characteristically he saw the Negro problem not is ntrrow terms of an injustice to one section of our papulation but in its deeper content of world-wide significance...

...trade barriers and a scheduled and orderly end to imperialism and the exploitation of backward and subject peoples...

...Servicemen wrote to say that Mr...

...The Willkie proposal cuta through all of this to the simple proposition thst if socisl insurance is to mesn snything it must mean that protection against old age, illness and economic misfortune is a right tor everyone...

...Benefits on the other hsnd must be adequate for .sustenance in health snd decency without regard to a man's previous earnings...

...There is recognition of the changed economic condition* we shall face after the war, of the futility af exhortations to "return" ta the conditions of bygone eraa, and of the problems of a free society in a world of state-controlled economies...

...He expected to win and did...

...He therefore welcomed every move in this direction by either party and his last article on the international question was an attack on the evasions and use of the Word "sovereignty" In both party platforms...

...We whose faith," writes Mr...

...To be sure his program was not finished...

...W* cannot expect ¦mall nations aad men af ether races snd colors to credit the goad faith of ear professed purposes sad to loin aa m h. let national cdhUiXU...

...Such a system, says Mr...

...It has been popular for liberals to talk of the extraordinary change in Willkie since '40...

...A right each has earned through his" psyment of Socisl Security taxes in accordance with his ability...

...And he was by nature suspicious af neatly tailored blue prints, or of trick.-lOO per cent solutions by people who had neither the desire nor the possibility of ever taking responsibility for their ideas...

...He wst also realistic about the fsilingt of our allies...

...caessVe...

...in the lexicon of that master politician in the White House, this has meant that it was the conservatives he must appease...

...He meant of course that hit batic principles fundamentally hadn't changed—ha would have been the first to consider it unpardonable for any man not to change and grow in this rapidly changing world...

...To appreciate the boldness and independence of this program it is necessary to remember that it was advanced by a man seeking to win the leadership of a party whose Congressional representation has on the whole been unfriendly to a free school lunch program for needy children...

...Four yeart ago mott liberal* and labor people thought of him solely as the Republican candidate and the symbol of big business...

...This is true within the liberal camp as well a* >n its battles with the opposing forces...

...But he believed that' a beginning mutt be made with men and nations as thay are, that if once the major hump of a real world organization could be gotten over, however imperfect it might be, it would be something on Which future generations might build...

...So society «* sertk can pay to eveiy .^auisl worker e seeps high enough to tupport tho mim\rM ^•¦^^*^*m^hko tofV™ *9 *«v...

...Far It cannot he tea much emphasised that in the werM today whatever we do st heme affect* ear foreiga policy, and What we do abroad affect a ear domestic policy . . . We Americana cannot he en one »•*» abreed aad the ether it home...

...And there could be, I thing, no better summary of the basic philosophy of Wendell Willkie than his concluding sentence of his recent article on social security...

...It is curious that this is so, for tktt are mottjhoroghgolng snd far-reaching to have been made by any ons ta America...

...letters snd telegrams poured in by the thousands from national labor leaders and obscure union locals, from world leaders and high school classes in American towns, from organizations devoted to democracy and minorities snd civil liberties, and from individuals who had never teen him—all echoing one theme, that hit untimely death wat an irreparable loss to progressiva forces everywhere...

...He was brilliant, energetic, eager and to tuch men America promised tuccett...

...Ht wat the first prominent figure to openly protest discrimination against the Negro in tko armed form...

...For it might be argued that the gravest errors of the Roosevelt Administration have been due to the lack of an organized opposition from the left...

...Unfortunately, in 1940 American liberals had become used t' hearing big butinett men ute the language of freedom to further the poltciet of the Liberty League...

...The idea has been allowed to grow up by both friend and foe of the New Deal that criticism that counts has been criticism from the right...

...And to understand the hard-headed realism of such a program it is necessary to study what a nutritionally adequate diet for every American child Would do towards liquidating postwar agricultural surpluses of such items as milk and meat and citrus fruits...

...The principles of self-preservation, ne less than those Of humanity, demand that we place aauarely on society the responsibility of making j. the citizens' of tomorrow healthy, energetic and educated...

...Rejecting the backward-looking position of the Republican Party in leaving unemployment insurance t» the states, the Willki-i program points out that todM we have fifty-one separate laws governing unemployment compensation, that the postwar reconversk* •train will fall unevenly on the states, and that in this riucjal period we shall particularly need the stabilising toleonco ef aniform standards and procedures, and «dequ*t* benefits...

...In payioi benefits we pay the highest benefits to tact* who have previously enjoyed the highest wages and therefore presumably were better able to save aad lea urgently in need than the lower paid warkers...

...He called our treatment ef the Negro minority "our imperialism at home" and wrote in his last article before he died: "The equitable treatment af racial minorities hi America is basV ta a just and lasting peace...

...why oacitty thcul/d ****ew **•*« out children to grow up physically inferior , indeed society cannot afford to do so, for in peace . as in war, "The children of America are the future of America...

...he saw no contradiction between them, 'and never at any time stepped believing in either...

...Even those who had worked mott closely with him had not known how deeply this man who had been defeated for the Presidency and who had never held public office had struck roots into the minds and hearts of hit fellow countrymen...

...The problem of the rights of the Negro was particularly close to Wendell Willkie and ha fought that battlt with a boldness and persistence which csme \a be appreciated by Negro leaders and men in the street alike...

...Roosevelt's liberal critics have too often made it clear that tbey had no intention of becoming a serious political threat...

...social: Insurances art hi truth in*Krone* for society as a whole against the risk* which freedom entails, Mr...

...But whan he died liberals and labor organizations and the simple people of this country and the world mourned hie death as a blow to the cause of freedom...

...He therefore urged a single federal system ef anemployment insurance...

...A true world outlook," Mr...

...He took with equal seriousness the promise that a poor boy could work hard and achieve success, independence and perhaps become President, and the promise that America wat in truth the land of freedom, where oppressed minorities were to have equal rights and where civil liberties'were in violate...

...Willkie, and this is the point so generally disregarded by friend and foe of Social Security, would benefit not alone the individual tut would help to stabilize the consumer industries end agricultural production and hence to solve the probletM of employment and maintenance of national income is the npstwar world...

...Hia program for foreign affairs wat more familiar to mott Americans than hit domestic program, partly because of hit prolonged and truly historic light within the Republican Party agalntt the ignoble isolationist position which had dominated it for a quarter of a century...

...His program calls for complete medical care for til and for funds for building facilities where none now exist, for developing health and diagnostic centers end for research and medical education—vital points « medical care is really to be made universal...

...I can think of no other political leader of a major party who has spelled out l* program in such detail...

...It is his own statement of what I tried to describe in the beginning of this srticle as his belief in both halves of the American promise...

...This system is continued in the proposed Wagner-MurrayDingell Bill, and while coverage is extended to certsin groups now excluded it is by no meana all-inclusive snd eligibility rules are still extremely complicated...

...The present system is inadequate, he says, but the WagntrM urray-Dingell bill perpetuates many of the inequities of the present law...

...that, just a* we have long since decided ss s na4*ti thai the education of our children shsll not snd sweet net depend upon hie parent's income, so we, as a ¦a****, can no longer afford'to leave tha feeding, dothe*g)'*a**t*r and medical care of our children to the .eemrou of a system wherein the parent of six children jfjjjjfoasyo skills eufficient to esrn only a minimum wage...

...The unremitting faith of the democratic way of life at againtt totalitarianism it no tingle man or political tendency hat a monopoly •/"wisdom...

...Five yeart ago relatively fear American...

...We Should begirt th* moment the war is over to see that every child in America grows up with the basic necessities of education, good food, > adequate clothing, medical care and a decent home...

...If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin...

...Willkie had belt represented the things they were lighting for and that they had counted on his leadership to achieve them when the fighting was over...

...Willkie preeeedt to capiat drastic but sound changes which we mast make if..the social insurances are to fulfill their proper role...

...Re-examination of bis domestic platform as outlined in his just published book, An American Program, will, I believe, convince moat liberals that we shall wait many a day before either major party catches up to it...

...Whereas alee where in our, taz Jaw* we...

...At the same time one of his first law cases was a fight against a labor injunction, and one of the earliest of hit political fights wat against the Ku Klux Klan in Ohio...

...Or his anxiety that the transition to peace should not be used, as in 1918-19, to destroy labors organizations...

...4mm h» not, snd here Mr...

...Willkie's death and since, that his program was vngue...

...Beginning with the proposition that a free economic system and social security sre not opposite* but iitdispen sable component parts of a healthy and properly functioning society snd that...

...But (his.is no rtaoon...

...hsve accepted the principle of ability to pay, ia social aoenrity we tax the meet poorly paid workers it exactly the tame rate as the highest.—aad th.ua take a much larger proportion of the income which they need for the bare necessities of life...

...knew hit name...

...The two things were for him a rounded whole...

...Willkie, "is in a freely competitive society have the special obligation of seeing that all 'Start fair,' physically and mentally as wellequipped for the race as their natural endowment permits...