COULD WILLKIE WIN?
Villard, Oswald Garrison
Could Willkie Win? By Oswald Garrison Villard SINCE WENDELL WILLKIE is at the moment working hard for the Republican Presidential nomination, it is well worth while to inquire what Mr. Willkie's...
...He said, after Willkie's recent Yisit to St...
...Willkie's chances are for winning the election...
...Don't overlook one angle of present-day voting, that is that people are not talking very much about how they are going to vote...
...Waiving these polls, the question remains whether Mr...
...He is 90 per cent as much detested in the Middle West as Roosevelt...
...For the moment the Gallup polls slfow a majority of the electorate still favoring the President...
...To that I think the reply is that in some sections of the country he would be a positive liability...
...Whether that is due to my own position as to the war being known or not, the fact is that they come, and that they read astonishingly alike...
...I therefore shall quote here at length from a letter just received from the head of a large mercantile company in one of the leading cities—not Indianapolis or Terre Haute—of Willkie's own state, Indiana...
...The same is more or less true of Stassen, but I believe that any other nominee besides these two can go to town, preferably Bricker or Dewey, unless the MacArthur boom looks like a winner at convention time...
...Many have relatives in the war, many have opinions they will not express because this is wartime, but when these people go into the polls they do as they please and they are not favorable to F. D. R. and his New Dealers...
...I think the average Mid-West voter believes that we were pushed into this war by the government which did not make any honest effort to keep out of it, that we have nothing to gain by being in it, and are being sold down the river by the New Dealers who are kow-towing to Britain and the Netherlands Queen, are giving our assets away, and bringing national insolvency upon us for no good reason but to gain the fourth term, and, if that works, the fifth term...
...Until the end of the New Deal this will continue, regardless of the smiling face in the White House and his partner, who is usually in an airplane somewhere burning up high octane gasoline...
...Then I have read the statement of a Missouri politician who worked and voted for Willkie in the last election...
...Louis, that there wasn't a chance in the world of Willkie's carrying that state, that both the machine politicians and the people behind them would not work for him or vote for him...
...Willkie would make a good run and be a popular candidate...
...Here are the salient parts of the letter: "I do not think the election was any great surprise to the voters in the Middle West, probably not as much as to you in the East, but I think that the Mid-West voter comes nearer to representing the average popular feeling than the similar man in the East...
...Millions voted for him in those states because they believed he meant what he said when he attacked President Roosevelt for following policies which would take us into war, and solemnly promised that if elected he would keep the country out of war unless it was attacked...
...They often come from key men, one of the most impressive being from a Grange official who travels a great deal and ought to know what his state and the neighboring ones are thinking...
...I have in mind especially the great agrarian states of the Middle West...
...A Letter From Indiana I base the latter statement upon information that comes to me from reliable sources, notably from letters that I have received during the last six months from states as far west as Idaho and as far south as New Mexico...
...What Impresses Villard As one swallow does not make a Summer, so one letter does not prove a case, but what impresses me is the number of such letters that I get...
...Their tenor is all the same as to Willkie...
...My next-door neighbor, who is Republican County Chairman and high in state politics, tells me that if Willkie is nominated, one-half of his precinct committeemen will resign, and the other half will probably do nothing when election rolls around...
...Immediately after the election he swung over to the President's policies, eating his own words, and the Middle West has never forgiven him...
...The Republicans' One Obstacle "As for 1944, the only thing that can lick the Republican ticket nationally would be the nomination of Wendell Willkie...
...All of this is respectfully referred to the managers of the Republican Party for their benefit and information...
...The letter was in reply to an article of mine in regard to the significance of the 1943 election...
...But having a majority of the electorate does not necessarily mean the election of the man to whom it is inclined, since so much depends upon the votes in the Electoral College...
...Then I find a lot of Democrats who are not voting—they won't vote Democratic and won't vote Republican, so they just stay home...
Vol. 7 • December 1943 • No. 50
