Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-02-20
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER

By WESTBROOK PEGLER
SLOWLY but irresistibly since
~ Wendell Willkie started to
eapound that which he called
his political flossfy last Summer
the realization has been dawn
ing on me that I am at least
two decades. and possibly three
decades, behind the times in my
concept of the Middle West, and
probably of the small town al
most everywhere in the United
States.
My mental picture has re-
manned that of an unpaved main
street. town hall where wan
dering entertainers fired the
stove three or four times a Win
ter TO sing illustrated songs. q
local weekly paper. an educa-
tional system which expired
halfway through high school,
a fixed population composed al
most entirely of native Ameri-
cans and a two-party political
mentality which never heard of
social gains and used the word
social only as noun, mean
ing an ice cream or strawberry
party on the lawn of the M. f.
church. Un the basement in
case of RAIN
The Hoosier remains a distinct
breed, to be sure, and Willkie
remains a Hoosier, but the scene
has changed since he turned his
back on Indiana, and any one
who still thinks of Hoosiery in
terms of simple and honest but
shrewd ruSticity Is living in the
past.
I DOUBT that Willkie himself
L has really made that mistake,
and suspect that his emphasis
on open-faced. boyish political
LONELINESS in the late campaign
was something which the actors
used to call hokum or hoke and
now call corn.
That was the last stand Of the
great American hick-may he
rest in peace,-and Willkie was
not a hick but a slicker.
And the Hoosiers TO whom he
addressed this appeal at the
homecoming show were slickers
who had put themselves into
costume and a mood. as in some
other American festivals the
people dress up in fur caps and
fringe TO recall for a day the
civilization of the little brown
jug.
N1ILLkIE s own Indiana has
W become an industrial state
with an industrial population
which is urban even in the
country
The factories and works have
spread out beyond the old city
lines. which used 10 be the de-
marcation between soft comfort
and hardy misery, sophistication
I and c h e w tobacco innocence.
way up into Michigan and over
Ohio and Illinois.
As of the period of which I
retain a mental picture and
which Willkie revived, only 10
/ discover that after such a long
+ time dead. il had reached a high
state of kipper, college education
was largely restricted 10 the
sons and daughters of the bet
tep-on and a few remarkably
ambitious young ones of the
relatively poor.
But obviously the reason why
+ the cracker barrel philosopher
is no more-not that he ever
really was-is that he would be
argued out of breath in an hour
I and would remain thereafter an
affected and ignorant bore.
| say he never really was be-
cause the few men who actually
did business as cracker barrel
philosophers were really smart
humoristS who worked in dialect.
BY imputing to whole area
of population their carefully ex-
aggerated. professional version
of the local language and thought
they gave all these people a
chance to think of themselves as
salty wits of the keenest intel
ligence.
Even after they have been
gone TO the cities for years some
grownup, one-gallus Hoosiers
still conjure themselves as
cracker-barrel philosophers when
they get a little tight at re-
I unions. But the effect is pretty
sad. because it is so far out of
date.
My conclusion is that if WILL
kie had acknowledged the change
in his native section and, all
through his campaign, had en-
phasized the fact that the great
American hick has been laid
away in his celluloid Sunday col
lar and Sunday suit, he would
have relieved himself of an
awkward pose and the campaign
of an artificial quality which con-
fused many people.
He said mostly, and especially
on the subject of war. just what
President Roosevelt was saying
but the President spoke in Har.
vardese and Willkie in rube dia.
! lect.
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