Whither Willkie

Big, shaggy Wendell Willkie, the man who walks like a bear, was caught last week in a crushing bear trap. The springs and teeth had been fashioned out of his own party's machinery. He had fallen into it through his own stubborn disregard for danger signs. The result was that Wendell Willkie. while making his greatest impact on public life, was in jeopardy of being immobilized as a public figure.

In New York. Governor-elect Thomas E. Dewey. a longtime Willkie enemy, had read himself out of the 1944 Presidential race. Ohio's Senator Robert A. Taft. who will never forgive Willkie for taking the G.O.P. nomination away from him in 1940, had withdrawn in favor of Ohio's Governor John W. Bricker. Michigan's potent Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg had also withdrawn, in favor of nobody in particular.

If Wendell Willkie had a firm hand on G.O.P. "organization," all these moves might have added up to a clear field for him. But since he is still an amateur among professionals, they appeared to add up to an anti-Willkie plot--with most of the party's top leaders firmly united (perhaps behind Bricker, perhaps behind someone as yet undisclosed) to stop a repetition of 1940's Philadelphia convention.

The astute Scripps-Howard political correspondent, Thomas L. Stokes, wrote last week: "Willkie is regarded as too visionary by most of the other Republican leaders. They have, however, confined themselves either to vitriolic diatribes against him--mostly in private--or to joshing him as a sort of Don Quixote, this also privately. . . ." Even as Thomas Stokes wrote these words, the private antagonisms--of isolationists, of Old Guard tories, of party professionals who hate upstarts, of good, sincere Republicans who just plain could not figure what sort of creature Wendell Willkie was--were coming out in the open.

Sample reports from TIME correspondents last week on Wendell Willkie's status in the G.O.P.:

Pennsylvania (72 delegates to the 1940 national G.O.P. convention): "Wendell Willkie's chances here do not look bright. He is not considered by most party leaders and officers as the real leader of the Republican Party. . . . They do not consider his 'international meddling' in line with Republican policy. Pennsylvania's Pew-Grundy organization has been strengthened considerably by the election of Governor Edward Martin, an Old Guardsman. Both Pew and Grundy are New Deal haters and a little afraid of Willkie's progressiveness. They would be much happier with a quieter and more conservative man. . . ."

Ohio (52 delegates): "With Republican laymen, Willkie is the only party leader who arouses any enthusiasm. In prestige and personal appeal, he has no runner-up. But to the Republican machine, Willkie simply does not exist. In 1940, Ohio's professional Republicans had their own man in Senator Taft. Now they have Governor Bricker. And this time they think they have a winner. Ohio is sewed up tight for Bricker; right now Willkie couldn't swing a precinct committeeman. . . . The independent organization that fought for Willkie in 1940 is dead.. . ."

Illinois (58): "When he comes to Illinois, Wendell Willkie is a politician without a party. The Chicago Tribune's Colonel Robert R. McCormick, who probably has more to say than any other man about Illinois G.O.P. policy and candidates, hates him. . . ."

Indiana (28): "The Republican State organization is against Willkie, with four or five strong exceptions. In State headquarters hang the pictures of every prominent Republican, from Abraham Lincoln on. The only ones missing are onetime Governor Ed Jackson, who was tried and acquitted of bribery; the late Governor Warren T. McCray, who served a Federal prison sentence for using the mails to defraud--and Wendell Willkie. . . . Yet among Indiana voters, Willkie has greater support than any other potential 1944 candidate."

New York (92): "Willkie lost his chances to control the State machinery when Thomas E. Dewey was nominated for Governor, over his opposition, and then won easily in the election. Willkie probably could have made a 'deal' with the Dewey forces--if he were the deal-making type. But now that New York Republicans have proved to themselves that they can win without Willkie, his enemies will be glad to do him any future disservice that presents itself."

California (44): "Even Willkie's stanchest supporters here concede that he would have trouble winning the nomination again. Said one of them this week: 'Frankly, I'm disappointed in Willkie. He seems to have everything that it takes to win the Presidency, but he also seems to lack the special kind of leadership ability that would make his election possible. When the last campaign was over, he had an army of 22,000,000 to help him fight for his cause. But he walked off the field and left them. If he had kept his organization together and sat down with the party leaders in Congress to map out a definite domestic program, the country would have been in much better shape today and he would have some definite accomplishments to point to. He could still start the ball rolling if he would spend the next two years doing some good, earnest political gumshoeing; he's got to forget about the front page and talk cold turkey with the men who can nominate him. . . .'"

The U.S. (654). In most of these States, Wendell Willkie still had some great & good friends in the G.O.P.'s high places. In other States (notably Oregon, Washington, much of New England) his friends were in control: at the recent St. Louis convention, 21 of the 106 Republican committeemen were definitely on his side, and another 19 voted with them. But the plain fact was that a potent majority--including many a pre-Philadelphia Willkieite like Colorado's Governor Ralph L. Carr--now opposed him. If he ever wanted to be the Republican candidate for President again, he would have a hard and discouraging row to hoe.

For his troubles, Wendell Willkie could thank many factors: human nature, because of which an outspoken man makes nearly as many enemies as friends; the American political system, whose rules are designed to discourage any man from starting at the top; the back-breaking !:--bor of bringing off an ideological revolution inside a party still run largely by men schooled in Smoot-Hawley foreign policy and Warren Harding "normalcy."

But he could also thank himself. In the first months after his defeat, he left many Republicans mistakenly believing he had deserted them for an alliance with Franklin Roosevelt. He has seldom shown other Republicans that he is interested in getting or keeping them in office. Said one cynical observer last week: "The only people Willkie has really gone out of his way to influence are the New Republic liberals--and they like Henry Wallace better."

Yet, although he was a forthright, wholesomely vigorous force in U.S. politics, Willkie looked in a fair way to being consigned to the role of Elder Statesman unless he could 1) do a better job of playing politics according to the time-honored rules, 2) persuade ordinary Republicans to insist, as they did in 1940, that the rules be changed.

A Candidate is Picked

One night last week eleven Chicago Republicans, most of them ward heelers, were quietly eating dinner in the La Salle Hotel. As a special subcommittee on candidates, the eleven GOPsters were charged with the duty of picking the Cook County Republican Committee's official candidate for Mayor of Chicago in the February primary. For ten days they had been shuffling in & out of hotel rooms, conferring, dickering, laboriously going over a list of some 20 names; they were prepared to resume their deliberations.

In burst reporters with the first edition of Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick's Tribune. On the first page of the Tribune, committee members learned that they had already completed their job.

Announced the Tribune: the committee had picked burly, jovial Roger M. Faherty, 53, real-estate lawyer and almost a complete political unknown. There were a few astonished remarks, a few indignant outbursts. Then the committee retired to a room, soon announced that it had, indeed, "unanimously" chosen Mr. Faherty.

The son of a political ally of Chicago's British-hating, onetime Mayor Big Bill Thompson, Roger Faherty had kept out of politics most of his adult life. After graduating from De Paul University and Yale Law School, he quietly practiced law, served overseas in World War I. Going back into their files, reporters could find only one political pronouncement by him. That was last fall when he suggested the following platform for the Illinois G.O.P.:

"First, the Republican Party pledges itself to preserve the independence of the United States.

"Second, the Republican Party endorses the record of Senator Brooks in every particular, to the crossing of every V and the dotting of every 'i.' "

Dopesters pointed to the selection of unknown Roger Faherty as a boon to smooth-working, curly-haired Democratic Mayor Edward Joseph Kelly, who was making unmistakable gestures of getting ready to run for a fourth term. Ed Kelly's well-oiled machine had been having a few troubles: parent-teacher groups were denouncing the transfer of a high-school principal to make room for a political friend; public clamor forced the suspension of four policemen who had been charged with protecting petty gamblers. But Ed Kelly had picked the war as his big issue, worked mightily for civilian defense and entertained soldiers at two of the country's largest servicemen's centers. Day after the Faherty selection, Democrats at City Hall smiled broadly.

To the Chicago Sun the selection of Faherty by the G.O.P. seemed to be a move "to keep the Party in isolationist hands, keep supporters of Wendell Willkie throttled [see p. 18] and insure the selection of pro-Tribune men as delegates to the 1944 Republican convention."

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