Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-11-08
Wi|Ikie Plea
To COP
Called Trick
Some Consider Reading
Him Out Of Party
BY GEO. ROCKWELL BROWN
WENDELL L. WILLKIE is
W fixing to have himself read

W fixing TO have himself read
out of the Republican Party.
He does not belong there by
temperament, public service or
official record. and nothing
would be more welcome TO Re-
publicans in Congress than for
the 1910 presidential candidate
TO associate himself definitely
with his old alliance, the Demo-
cratic Party.
Whether a caucus Of House
Republicans will actually adopt
resolution bidding Mr.. Willkie
be gone is problematical. But
II is significant that the idea
has been seriously considered on
Capitol Hill by spokesman for
the party.
But Mr.. Willkie has done a
wider mischief than that which
he has sought to inflict upon the
party which honored him with
presidential nomination.
The turn-coat candidate Of
1910 has deliberately sought TO
inject politics in questions in
volving the honor and safety of
the United States, which have
been debated in Congress on
their merits without regard to
party lines.
TT WAS a cheap trick for Mr..
L Willkie to try to make him.
self the exponent of the idea
that the Neutrality Act should
be repealed.
Everybody who has followed
the Presidents press conference
reports, and his messages to
Congress, has been aware of the
fact that Mr.. Roosevelt all along
has seen eye to eye with Secre-
tary Hull.
But the President is not
merely the leader of a party,
but he is a practical politician,
and he has been obliged to
move cautiously in his RECON-
mendations to Congress.
Then, too, the President must
occasionally remember his CAM
paign pledges to keep the coun-
try out of war. 1t is his strategy
to have Congress take the initia-
tive now. He cannot break his
solemn pledges-but Congress
can. All this is obvious.
But Mr.. Willkie. in trying to
outsmart the President (which
can't be done by dozen Will
kies) touches perilous ground,
and does so either ignorant of
the facts, or in contempt of
them.
Who are leaders of the long.
long struggle in the United
States Senate to keep out of the
war? Are they Republicans?
Certainly not! This fight has
been led almost wholly by
Democrats, by Senator Wheeler
of Montana, chiefly, and by
Senator Bennett Clark of Mis-
souri,. and others of that stamp.
Not on any of the congress
sional actions creating the legis-
lative background of the Roose-
velt-Hull foreign policy were
the divisions political.
IN THE House some OF the
L most ardent supporters of the
all-aid policy are Republicans of
the stamp of Representative
Wadsworth of New York.
When the President was at
sea with Winston Churchill he
was saved from a tremendous
embarrassment, a humiliating
defeat and complete check upon
his whole international program
by single vote.
BY this narrow margin-one
lone vote-the House passed the
law extending the service of the
draft army.
Nearly 100 Republicans voted
to sustain the Presidents hand,
thus saving him from repudi-
alton by his own party in Con-
gress at the very moment he
was drafting his celebrated
eight points with the British
prime minister.
There has been no effort by
the Republican leadership in the
House or in the Senate to have
the party as a whole take any
position for or against any
measures implementing the
Roosevelt foreign policy. Every
Republican has voted his own
convictions and many of them
have been as firm in support of
that policy as the Democrats
have been.
1t Is deplorable that in a time
of national emergency Mr.. Will
kie should render himself vul-
nerable to a charge Of playing
politics.