Back in Indiana

How near one to the other is every part of the world. Modern inventions have brought into close relation widely separated peoples. Geographic and political divisions will continue to exist, but distances have been effaced. . . . Isolation is no longer possible or desirable. . . . The period of exclusiveness is past.

"You might think I am quoting from one of my own speeches," said Wendell Willkie last week, reading this little homily at a Republican dinner in his home State of Indiana. He was not; he had just done a little historical sleuthing. The quotation was 41 years old, spoken by none other than President William McKinley, high priest of high tariffs, day before he was shot at Buffalo in 1901.

With a sly grin, Wendell Willkie used the quotation to make a telling point: the Republican Party need not accept the stencil that it is the party of high tariffs and protectionism; it should take the lead today in bringing about renewal of reciprocal trade treaties and Lend-Lease extension.

Having thus partly adjusted the U.S.'s memories of its 25th President, Wendell Willkie set out to do a little refurbishing of his own political glamor. The welcome that had greeted him in Indiana had not been warm; well known was the fact that the only pictures of Republican bigwigs which do not hang in State G.O.P. Headquarters are Wendell Willkie's and those of two miscreant ex-Governors.

His formal speech over, Wendell Willkie ad-libbed:

"I am thoroughly convinced that the preservation of everything we hold priceless . . . rests in the hands of the Republican Party between now and the day after election in 1944.

"We're the vital thinking party in this country. . . . Why be on the defensive against a party that is a combination of Northern political machines of the worst type and Southern oligarchies that don't even allow Negroes to vote?"

This was more like it. Indiana Republicans who had feared that Wendell Willkie was a Democrat in G.O.P. clothing rose and cheered. Next day a reception was hastily cooked up; Wendell Willkie's old enemies came in droves, no GOPster dared stay away. Then came the final tribute: State Chairman Ralph Gates asked Wendell Willkie for his picture, he wanted to hang it in State Headquarters.

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