The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1942-06-25
THE GREAT
GAME OF
POLITICS
By FRANK r. KENT
Copyright by The Baltimore Sun and
reprinted in The Republican by per-
mission.
TIE Wallace ''Build-Up"
Washington, June 20

Washington, June 20.
The strenuous effort to make Vice
President Henry Wallace into a super
man has been pushed just a little too
far The key was pitched too high.
Too many superlatives were used. The
overpraise brought the inevitable re-
action.
Some Of his associates in the Sen
ate have begun to laugh and his
dearest friends" in the Administra-
ton to make unkind and underhanded
comments-as ones dearest friends
so often do. 1t is a little tough on Mr..
Wallace, who is an amiable, likable
and sincere Though somewhat vague
man, with plenty of intelligence and
high character. But to picture him as
great world statesman, a far sight
ed internationalist, a profound econo-
mist, an administrative genius and a
gifted philosopher with a penetrating
understanding of all human problems
that just is overriding it.
Certainly, it has been overdone for
what is known as the Douglas group,
composed of advanced New Dealers
who, rightly or wrongly, regard Jus
tice W. O. Douglas as a superior man
to Mr.. Wallace, meriting considera-
ton ahead of the President
should at some future time-say 1914
the road be open to the White
House. And it has been overdone, too,
for the friends of Mr.. Paul V. Nc
Mutt, the handsome Indianan who
two years ago aspired first for the
Presidency and later for the Vice
Presidency.
Interestingly enough, this Wallace
campaign seems to have been slightly
overdone also for certain members Of
the White House elmer circle" These
take the view that the Wallace trib-
utes were so high and the Wallace
eulogies so glowing that it would now
be possible to say more Of the Presi-
dent, himself This otfends alike their
sense of proportion, their conception
of proprety, and their feeling for the
truth. The extraordinary thing is that
this prolonged and sustained eulogiz-
ing Of Mr. Wallace is based wholly
on a single speech made in New York
some weeks ago.
A careful reading of this speech
and "a check with various detached
persons fail to reveal anything re-
markable about it-that is, to the av-
erage mind. Certainly, there is not
in it a single concrete practical sug-
gestion concerning the postwar per
iod with which it chiefly deals. In de-
Tense Of this, however, we are now
told that those who deal in the con-
crete are the crackpots and the wise
are those who generalize. That is a
strange, new notion, but it has to be
accepted to regard the Wallace speech
as great Mr.. Wallace did speak of
thesunsoundness of world half free
and half slave; he did discourse upon
what he called the EZRA of the COM
mon man; he did refer to this as
peoples war;; and he did comment
upon the peoples revolution" which
began with the establishment of the
American Republic. But, there was
nothing in the speech that the late
William Jennings Bryan, the late Rob-
ert NJ. La Toilette and the late Billy
Sunday had not said over and over
again. And neither the ideas nor the
words were original with them.
Nevertheless, the radicals went al
most into Mysteries about it. They
labeled it great historic document;
they insisted that Mr. Wallace had
blazed a trail" revealed the way"
and given the world hope" One
weekly magazine went so far as to
compare it with Lincoln's Gettysburg
address. The newspapers generally
were upbraided for failure to appre-
ciate the greatness of this speech
Some attributed this neglect to igno-
rance; one highly intellectual writer
a few days ago saw in it a conspiracy
of "half- witted editors" to keep an
inspired message" from the people
By now, the whole thing has become
ridiculous and Mr. Wallace has suf-
fered in prestige.
1t is likely, Of course, that these
overheated individuals who have been
shrieking about the Wallace speech
will now assail those who consider it
an ordinary piece of rhetoric as either
hopeless ignoramuses or paid reac-
tionaries, animated by some sinister
motive. But the fact is that the eX-
travagant outpouring Of praise not
only has made the naturally modest
Mr.. Wallace very self-conscious but
has aroused suspicious among the low
midded which do him no good. 1t is all