The Durant news. (Durant, Miss.) 1882-1985, 1941-04-03
"Union Now With Britain"
Rx Charles Willis Thompson

ing a cheering multitude in Montreal, evoked
wild enthusiasm by saying: When TINS war
is over I hope we will all be joined in a un-
ion of the great democratic states to see that
this menace may never come again" Ihls
utterance was the most significant thing that
has happened in the rapid progress of the
Union Now" movement.
AS yet, not much has been heard IN the
South about that movement, but it has had
the benefit Of much under-cover wire-pulllng
and a good deal of open propaganda in the
Northeastern part of the country. That IS
where the Tory influences are concentrated
which are variously personified in such nick
names as wall Street Capitalism" "high
finance" etc. The movement is to add the
United States once again to the British En-
pire, from which is seeded. in 1916; that is
the union it means. The now" means that
we should not even wait for the end of the
war, but rejoin the Empire as fast as the
union can be arranged.
A book entitled Union Now with Bri-
tain is most open manifestation of this un-
der-cover ropaganda-which is not so very
far under cover, with such well known pub
licists as Dorothy Thompson, Thomas Mann,
Clare Boothe, and others openly preaching
it. An English member of Parliament, josiah
Wedgwood, has been publishing in American
newspapers the desirability Of Americas
waiting no longer to resume the status We
forsook in the Declaration of Independence.
But other instances need not be given now;
IL Is XSuIIlClenC UnAL Tie OuiOH NOW MVSC-
ment is making great Roadway among Amer
leans who are fearful of the consequences If
we continue longer the experiment begun in
1876.
The only reason for saying anything a.
bout it now, more than any other time, is
that WILKES declaration for "uni0n"-that
It, remuneration to the British Empire-outs
an entirely different face on the matter.
It has seemed to be the agitation of q few,
some Of them influential and eminent, but
still only a few. But Willkie is something
else again" This is not SO much because OF
r6sents. He is still nominally, if not really,
the leader of the Republican party. And
he is one of the leading personal representa-
tives of President Roosevelt, the head of the
Democratic party.
Does he represent Roosevelt in his de-
c~laration for union uttered in a city Of the
British Empire? On this point it is well t.
bear in mind that one of Roosevelt's ~favorite
tactical methods, when he contemplates some
new act and is not ready to say SO openly, is
to test out public opinion by having one OF
his satellites declare for it. And Willkie Is
now one of those satellites. This tactical me-
thod, long one of the chief tricks in Roose-
velt's deck of cards, is called Sending up a
trial balloon"
Directly after Rosoevelt's reelection Will
Ike, in his capacity as nominal Republican
leader, called upon all the % millions who
had voted for him to join the Roosevelt band
wagon. Next, he went to England as the
personal emissary Of the President to Prime
Minister Churchill, for the alleged purpose
of deliyersing to Churchill a letter from
Roosevelt, the contents of which were never
.divufged, though Roosevelt did write it. This
seems too thin, and it is more likely that
he took the trip not just to deliver a letter
that anybody could have delivered, but to
carry confidential oral proposals from the
President and get Churchills oral response.
Immediately on his return Willkie an
nounced that he was going at once to China,
with which country the President has also
involved the United States. Then the trip was
suddenly and mysteriously called off, leaving
the obvious Inference that Roosevelt, Will
kie's employer, had changed his mind. Next
he opened, in New York, an office for the
gathering and organizing of such Republi-