Evening star., 1944-09-30
Mr.. Browder Aooin

olcSSlllS d SdCIlcTulR OF new YOrk
Communists which packed Madison
Square Garden Thursday night, he
demanded the reelection of Presi-
dent Roosevelt as one of the
three great architects of the world
a-coming." The Republicans, he
said. simply will not do. According
to him, Governor Dewey is anti
Communist" His election would be
a message to "our great ally'-the
Soviet Union-that America diSap-
proved in principle of cooperation
between the two countries and was
determined to bring it to an end as
soon as possible. Should the Re-
publicans win, he concluded, "all
hope of orderly and peaceful
progress, national and international,
will disappear
That is the Earl Browder OF 1914
speaking. -Four years ago his views
were quite different; in fact, one
might almost say that he was then
talking out of the other side of his
mouth.
In 1910 Mr. Browder, the Com
munist candidate for President, was
quite bitter toward both the Repub-
licans and the Democrats. He told
a similar Madison Square Garden
audience in that election year that
neither the President nor Wendell
Willkie was worthy of the slightest
confidence" Both men, he declared,
ARE pledged to spend the life blood
OF American youth and the sweat
OF American labor for the aggran-
dizement Of Wall Streets profits and
imperial world power" Two months
later, when he had been convicted
OF a passport fraud, Mr.. Browder
said be had been found guilty by a
capitalist court" because "the Com
munists stand in the way of efforts
OF President Roosevelt and Wall
Street to drag us into the i'm
perialist war"
1t was not until Russia was at
tackled by Germany that Mr..
Browder and his fellow American
Communists began to see the light.
No longer was it an imperialist war.
No more was heard the chant that
the Yanks aren't coming" Today
Mr.. Browder is 100 per cent behind
the President in the prosecution of
the war and in the making of the
peace.
But, we may wonder, how does
the President feel about the ardent
Mr.. Browder of 1914? The Com
munist leader was pardoned by Mr..
Roosevelt in May of 1912, after he
had served fourteen months of his
prison sentence for the passport
fraud. The President said he hoped
the pardon would promote ma
tional unity, and by the end Of 1943
Mr.. Browder was telling the Amer
lean voters that they should cry
out in clear and loud voices to force
President Roosevelt to run for a
fourth term" Since then Mr..
Browder has been rendering yeo-
mans service. The Communist
party, as such, has been dissolved,
and there is no Communist presi-
dental candidate this year. The
Communists are doing their 1914
political work in conjunction with
the CIO Political Action Committee,
and it may very we'll be that they
hold the balance of power in such
an important State as. New York.
But how does Mr.. Roosevelt feel
about having their support?
On the eve of the 1910 election
he told a Cleveland audience that
the Communists and the "Girdlers"
were the forces of dictatorship" in
our own land They are men who
call themselves Americans. he said,
but who would destroy America. All
of them, he declared, we're going to
vote against him, and he was proud
of it," But this is another year and
another election. There has been
no evidence that the Communist
support. unwanted in 1910 when it
was not available. is unwelcome
today.