The Voice of Opposition

For 53 days the Voice, harsh, flat and earnest, had dinned from railroad sidings, auditoriums, all around the radio dial. It did not stop until Nov. 5. There, according to convention, it should have stopped for good, since a majority of the voters voted for a golden voice instead. But the election, far from striking the Voice dumb, gave it new inspiration.

The defeated candidate had something to say not only to the 21,900,000 people who had voted for him but to those who had turned him down. Since the election, he had received a steady stream of visitors. To his headquarters at the Hotel Commodore in New York City had come more than 30,000 letters, in growing volume, most of them not condoling with him but urging him to continue his "crusade."

As Wendell Willkie saw it, the campaign had only begun. The first phase had been primarily to rouse an intelligent opposition to the New Deal, incidentally to get himself elected. Incidentally he had failed. But primarily he had succeeded.

The job now was to keep his crusade alive. With that in mind he went on the air this week.

Said Wendell Willkie: "We Americans know that the bitterness is a distortion, not a true reflection of what is in our hearts. I can truthfully say that there is no bitterness in mine. I hope there is none in yours. I was the target of most of the shafts and if I can forget, surely you can.

"We have elected Franklin Roosevelt President. He is your President. He is my President. . . . Nevertheless [we] retain the right, and I will say the duty, to debate the course of our Government. Ours is a two-party system. Should we ever permit one party to dominate our lives entirely, democracy would collapse and we would have dictatorship."

Chubby-cheeked Oren Root Jr. had already written to all the Willkie clubs,* --urging them to keep their files and organization intact, stand by for orders. The orders came from Mr. Willkie: "Your function during the next four years is that of the loyal opposition."

How far into the nation the voice of Willkie reached was something for Republicans and Democrats both to ponder. Wendell Willkie had received more votes than any other Republican candidate in history. But he could not expect even lip loyalty from all the 21,900,000 voters who had cast their ballots for him. Many were simply habitual Republican voters. Many simply disliked and distrusted Roosevelt above all else. Many a professional who had supported him was only casually concerned about anything so academic as a national issue, was far more interested in his own backyard fences.

Much depended on Willkie's own leadership. A sniping campaign, a constant picayune harassment would be a plague to the nation trying to gather itself together for defense. Recognizing that, he declared: "Ours must not be an opposition against--it must be an opposition for . . . a strong America, a productive America."

But unrestrained spending, a mounting national debt, he said, led to inflation and finally "the rise of dictatorship." He laid down five steps for the Government to take: 1) cut to the bone Federal expenditures, except those for defense and necessary relief; 2) induce private capital to build plants and new machinery; 3) levy taxes so as to approach as nearly as possible the pay-as-you-go plan; 4) take the brakes off private enterprise; 5) change Government's punitive attitude towards big and little business.

He asked his followers to continue their organizations, but under other names. "I do not want this great cause to be weakened by even a semblance of any personal advantage to any individual. . . . 1944 will take care of itself." He concluded with Lincoln's stirring words: "With malice towards none ... let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds ... to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Then he left the nation to digest his words, prepared to go for a rest to Rushville, Ind.

* New York City's Mayor LaGuardia peevishly announced the continuation of the National Committee of Independent Voters, which had opposed Willkie.

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