Manner of Speaking

As a platform speaker, Henry Wallace has warm words and a cold tongue. As a politician, he doesn't know what time it is. Six months ago he was generally rebuked by the press, not for his assertions that certain Americans are Fascists, but for not naming them. Last week his passion for labeling his opponents got the upper hand again.

In Seattle, the Vice President was winding up a West Coast tour on behalf of what he calls the "ageless New Deal" (TIME, Jan. 21). Without pausing to aim his scatter-guns, Henry Wallace fired from both hips. Cried he: "Wall Street and the Wall Street stooges . . . [are] safely sitting on top of the country. . . . [But] the people can, at any time they wish, throw the American Fascists out of control. . . ." The temperate New York Times asked sharply: "Who are the 'stooges' of Wall Street? . . . Who are these American Fascists? If they exist, Mr. Wallace should present us with their names and with concrete evidence against them. . . . Perhaps he is merely throwing . . . reckless charges and abusive language ... at people whose economic and political views differ from his own. . . . The Vice President of the United States, if anybody, ought to learn to weigh his words. . . ." At week's end Mr. Wallace consented to name one of the American Fascists he meant: Colonel Robert R. McCormick of Chicago. But no one, not even the Chicago Tribune, thought that Colonel McCormick was "safely sitting on top of the country."

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