The Waterbury Democrat., 1940-09-17
Highlights or Willkie s
 Address At CoHeyuiHe

Making his first major address in his campaign for the presidency, Wendell L. Willkie spoke at Cof- feyville, Kas., yesterday before an estimated throng of 67,000 people. Among many of his charges against President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the latter's drift toward un- constitutional government. MT. Willkie urged his heaerrs to de- dicate themselves to the funda- mental values without which Dem ocracy cannot exist. Excerpts of his address are as follows:
 But today, at the opening of this campaign, let us dedicate our selves to those fundamental values we learned at school, without which democracy cannot exist. Let us recognize that democracy is not something that just anybody can have. .. Democracy is the highest form (of government), and the hardest to keep. To have it and to hold it we must understand, and believe and insist upon, the home ly virtues that we learned when we were boys and girls. Only we, the people, can save our country. And we can do so only if we are worthy of our country.
 'This desparate concentration of power is always, and 1t must al- ways be the beginning of the end of democracy. Already it has choked our enterprises and depriv- ed our unemployed of their right full opportunities. Already it has weakened all the other democrac- ies of the world. The Army, the Navy, and almost all indepen- dent authorities who have studied the subject are agreed that the speediest way to build an arma- ment industry without hurting democratic institutions is by del- egating authority to a temporary civilian authority instead of to the executive for the simple reason that by delegating it to 8 tempor- ary authority upon the conclusion of the emergency that authority can be dissolved and we can auto- matically recover back those pow CTS.
 we Americans who have grown up in the ways of liberty must realize what this (cOncentration of pOwer) means to us. The doubt in the Presidents heart has so weak ened this country that MT. RoOse- welt is being pushed, I believe against his will, toward the uncOn- stitutional government. He is be-. ing pushed by the foreign situa- ti0n, in which he considers himself justified in violating the COnstitu- tiOn. He is being pushed by the failure of his own domestic policies to relieve us of unemployment which has been the root of dicta- t0rship In other lands. He is be- ing pushed by his cynical advisers, who have indented ali sorts of tricks to short-circuit the demo- 0cratic process.
 1T am here to represent that (faith in the people, faith. re- present your power, the power of the people, to judge. to choose and to elect in Q political campaign. This power you have not yet given away to Mir. Roosevelt. If you elect me as your President, you will never give 1t away to anybody. I shall preserve this power of yours because I believe in you. (. call upon you, therefore, to help me fight this battle of America. I call upon you Co awaken your fellow citizens to these moral and spiritual values. without the exsr. elss Of which GUT democracy must inevitably contract Into dictator. ship. I call upon you Co exact Of every man in government office the same standards of courage,