Advice from Mr. Willkie

The Republican Party last week got a ready-made 1944 platform from Wendell Willkie. An extraordinary number of the 1,859 U.S. daily newspapers published seven short articles written by the excandidate. Willkie turned down an $18,000 offer by one magazine, gave the articles free to the newspapers, to get the widest possible publication.

The seven-point Willkie platform:

States' Rights is a worn-out issue, a relic. The answer to "the present Administration's arbitrary use of vast authority . . . the inefficiencies and reckless extravagances . . . lies not in a weakened central government." The answer lies in government administered under law, substituted for government "by caprice."

Negroes got their freedom through the G.O.P. "Millions of them distrust the Democratic Party, which for years has deprived the Negro of his right to vote in Atlanta while seeking his vote . . . in Harlem." But they have made economic gains under the New Deal; "they will not leave that party for vague assurances of future action expressed in pious platitudes. The Republican Party . . . should commit itself unequivocally and specifically to federal anti-poll tax and anti-lynching statutes."

Social Security supplements rather than threatens the free-enterprise system. "Security or initiative . . . is a factitious issue. We need both. Protection against old age, illness and economic misfortune must be a right for everyone. Complete medical care should be available to all."

The Tariff should be lowered.

Labor distrusts the G.O.P. for its "19th- Century industrialists," but the Democratic Party has as many labor-baiters. Republicans should be satisfied that collective bargaining is here to stay. Give Labor responsible representation in the Cabinet. But labor unions must make themselves responsible (drive out racketeers, adopt democratic procedures, give an accounting of funds) or it will be done for them. The G.O.P. must demonstrate "tangibly that it appreciates the contribution of labor to our economic wellbeing."

Postwar Problems cannot be solved by "passing resolutions in favor of free enterprise." Government help will be needed, to start useful public works in depressions, and to curb monopolies. "But our basic answer to the problems of a demobilization economy . . . lies in our great productive ability. . . . Capital is necessary--risk capital that is ready to take a chance on the future. . . . There should be a drastic revision of the tax laws to encourage risk capital. . . ."

Foreign Policy should "emphasize that our sovereignty is not something to be hoarded, but something to be used. The United States should use its sovereignty in cooperation with other powers to create an effective international organization for the good of all." Small nations should have a say; their destiny should not be decided by the great powers. "Finally, the Republican platform should state the conviction that, Mr. Churchill to the contrary, the ideologies for which we fight have not become blurred for us. . . . We are fighting a war for freedom . . . not only at home but everywhere in the world. . . . But while [our forces] are winning the armed victory for us, we have already begun to lose the things that victory could bring.

"Three years ago, two years ago, the United States had the material, the political, the moral leadership of the world. Today we have only the material leadership. We have lost political leadership through ineptness and delay. We have lost moral leadership through attempted expediency. The Republican Party should frame and pursue a foreign policy that will recapture America's lost leadership."

Was the G.O.P. Listening? The Willkie articles well summed up his general line of thought since 1940. They added up to a vigorously liberal position. His seven

planks would offend the fringe of the Republican Old Guard which still sits in high places in the G.O.P. They would be looked on as good, though embarrassing, pieces of advice by the now robust progressive leadership in the G.O.P., as exemplified by most of Republican Governors.

Some would feel that the articles would prove to be more embarrassing to Willkie's own party than to the Term IV Democrats. For Willkie had put the GOPlatform on the spot, since he demanded that the platform be liberal on all the sore issues of the day. Meanwhile, shrewd Franklin Roosevelt, with his finger to the wind, was considering a Democratic platform so brief and so general that it could offend no man or woman, and could be written on a postcard.

Once again it was clear that Willkie's contribution to the Republican Party is not as a conformist or a middle-of-theroader but as a goad, as a prodder, an onward-and-upwarder. In the Democratic Party, there is no such character.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.