The Wilmington morning star., 1944-02-14

a beginning dL S1lOWulS AOW tIle
national elections could evoke the
better rather than the worse as
poets of our public life. Mr.. Willkie
did this by remembering that the
Republicans, who are asking the
people to place them in power,
must persuade millions of voters
that the Republican party is fit to
govern. Very many of the profess
sional politicians seem not to real
ize this-that with their men at
the front and with their jobs and
their livelihood enmeshed with the
war, there are now countless
American families who will take
very sober and a very searching
interest in how this war is con-
Quoted and is concluded.
In the coming months the fury
of the battles will mount, and the
immensely of the issues involved
will become increasingly evident.
These people will then have less
and less appetite for harum-scar-
um party politics, and for the silly
assumption that because a man
says he is against the New Deal,
and is down on Roosevelt, and is
for free enterrise, he is therefore
and for that reason alone entitled
and qualified to govern the coun-
try. Too many American citizens
have now seen how difficult, how
complicated and how momentous
a thing this whole war is. They
will have to be persuaded that the
risks of changing horses are less
than the advantages. And one of
the first ways of persuading them
is to do what Mr.. Willkie did at
Twin Falls-to treat them as ra-
tional men who have to be per-
suaded by frank discussion of
the very serious problems of
changing the administration in the
midstof war, and not as rabble
to be manipulated by tricks and
swept along by rabble-rousing.
Mr.. Wilkes speech is a power
full answer given in measured
words and in fine temper to the
question of whether the country
can afford change Of admins
tration. But the answer could not
be conclusive for the simple rea-
son that Mr. Willkie is unable to
say whether the control of his par
ty will be in the hands of the
post-New Deal Republicans, who
mean to shape the future, CT of
the pre-New Deal old guard Re-
publicans who are out front in this
Congress.
Yet this is the crucial question
as to whether the Republican par
ty can be trusted with power. Mr..
Willkie cannot answer the ques-
tion today because the answer de-
ponds upon the outcome of the
campaign which he is now making
among the rank and file of his
party
Mr.. Wilkes campaign cannot
be fully successful, it seems to
me, if it becomes a personal con-
test between himself and the rest
Of the field He might win. but his
victory, as in 1910, would leave
the independent voters uncon-
WINGED if they saw that he had
beaten but had not won over the
main Republican organization. The
next President needs a disciplined
majority in Congress behind him,
if he is a new Presi-
dent. For he will have to learn all
sorts of things quickly and close
rapidly the inevitab BILE hiatus of ad-
and if he also has to
have a running fight with Con-
gress, his personal position will be
painfully difficult.
One of the strongest reasons for
not re-electing President Roosevelt |
is that he has lost so much of his
leadership of Congress. That cea-
son would be more than Cancelled |
out if the Republican candidate
had no leadership of Congress
even before he was inaugurated.
Now there is a reason why the
oost-New Deal Republicans, the
governors and some of the newer
members of Congress, are not Ger
ain of establishing their control
If the party and of imposing
which is indispensable if
they are to take power That rea-
son is the conflict between Mr.. |
Willkie and Governor Dewey. This
conflict divides the post-New Deal
i n to rather evenly
matched factions. and gives to the
Did guard Republicans the balance
IT power The old guard are trad
ng upon this situation. In so far
as they can keep Willkie and Dew
~ in conflict, they can still hope
either to make the nominee of the
convention beholden to them, be
he Dewey. Macarthur, Bricker,
lark horse, or if Willkie over
them. they can still hold
en as in 1910, to the party ma
chinery
The resolution of the Willkie-
Dewey conflict is, therefore, CEN
trail to the whole problem of how
he Republican party is to make
tself fit to govern.
Both Mr. Willkie and Governor
Dewey will be severely tested by
heir behavior toward one another
during the next four months. They
can be bitter and irreconsilable
rivals; if they are, the winner of
he nomination will find it hard to
De elected, and dangerously diff
cult to be good President if he is