Evening star., 1940-06-27
Most Wires Come
From Middle Class
G. 0. P. Independents
Dewey and Taft Begin
To Get Tough in
Combating RivoI
BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.

platform adopted yesterday by the
Republican National Convention
broke the heart of the isolationists
and was exactly what the interven-
tioniSts asked for.
Early in the platform fight the
interventionist asked only that the
platform should not contain a WORD
that would bind a candidate in the
campaign if the emergency. in the
autumn should make it wise to ad-
vocate aid to Great Britain far be-
yond what the needs today seem to
demand.
To keep out anything that would
bind man like Wendell Willkie
who has publicly declared for aid to
Great Britain, was the gist of the
whole fight in the Resolutions Com
mittee.
Alf M. Landon and his friends
win. incidentally, the platform was
another piece of Willkie luck. And
altogether yesterday was Wendell
Willkie day. Not that Mr.. Willkie
has gained so much strength, but
rather it has been a day in which
every one-fnendS and enemies
alike-has been conscious Of him.
Opponents Get Tough.
His opponents, Thomas E. Dewey
and Senator Taft, have been so
conscious of him that they are
beginning to get tough about
him. Feeling their moorings loosen,
friends of both Mr.. Dewey and
Senator Taft are saying to be-
wildered delegates who obviously are
wondering what the Willkie tide
means: Nov, look, we are going to
win the second ballot. We have
y been assured of 600 second-ballot
votes" Then the high pressure
Dewey or Taft salesman tells his
customers to get off Willkie-unless.
Another indication is that stories
about Mr.. Willkie are floating around.
AS for instance: That a stack
of post-dated checks is in the
hands of the Republican Nation
al Committee, signed by various
high placed Republicans, to be used
only if Mr.. Willkie wins The story
comes from national committee
sources and Tuesday the national
committee issued a broadSide in the
National Republican, aimed at Will
kie but not naming him. 1t is
not unlikely that the stories yes
terday are from the same source
as the broadside from the COM
mittee of Tuesday, for the Repub-
lican National Committee is Mr..
WILKES bitterest enemy.
And then again, the story OF the
post-dated checks may be true.
Such things have happened. The
average American voter may dis
abuse his mind of the theory that
the Wendell Willkie boom is COM
posed entirely of psychological
cream-puff floating out of the good,
the true and the beautiful.
Messiah Illusion Persists.
Power influence and power money,
of course, are in the Willkie boom
but their influence is insignificant
compared with the messiah illusion
which is the handspring Of the
Willkie movement.
1t is said that Bruce Barton, the
advertising agency member OF Con-
gress, equipped the Willkie boom
with it's psychological wings. If so,
Mr.. Barton was smarter than he
knew, for nothing like this has
happened in a convention of either
party since william Jennings Bryan
electrified the country in 1896 by his
crown of thornS and cross of gold
speech. Willkie kilograms are liter
ally swamping the convention dele
gates. which proves something, for
kilograms cost money, and they are
not paid for by the electric light ana
power companies OF the various
towns.
Delegates have checked back on
that and the delegates are SatlSfled
that the significance of these tele-
grams is that they come from
rniddle-class people who have any
where from so cents to dollar to
spend at the telegraph office and
the Willkie boom has that crowd.
1t is an independent Republican
crowd, the crowd which supported
Roosevelt in 1886.
Fought the Politicians.
The upper middle-class Republl-
cans have created god out of their
own image, the god which they
think is the need of the hour,
brave, sturdy, unpolitical figure who
will save them from the politicians.
He has the old log-cabin-to-the-
White House features, for Mr.. Wlllkle
worked his way through college.
Mr.. Willkie also, as the president OF
Commonwealth & Southern, the
greatest holding company of the
country, fought the politicians in
Washington. That his cause was
that of public utilities apparently is
unimportant in the public mind.
They only know that he fought the
politicians and they reason there
fore that he is not politician. He
stood for civil liberties as a lawyer
in Ohio, so he rides up on the up
surge of the wave of democracy.
Literally in 10 days under the
dramatic stage setting of this con-
ventlon, Mr.. Willkie has risen to al
most a NEUROLOGICAL figure. Every
day he adds to the veriSimilitude OF
the myth-says something or does
something strange and unpolltlcal.
Minnesotans are greatly interest
ed in the st. Lawrence Waterway
Canal. Yesterday Gov. Stassen of
Minnesota declared for Mr.. Willkie
and said his delegation would follow
him. An hour or SO afterward Mr..