Evening star., 1944-06-28
Mrs. Luce Tells COP
Democrats Must Take
Roosevelt and Like Il
picture on Page BID

By the Associated Press.
HICAGO, June 28.-Clare
Boothe Luce. first woman invited to
address Republican National Con-
vention in half a century, wants
Americans to think as Americans
and send to the White House a man
who-as she put it-loves his coun-
try more than he loves power.
Dressed with schoolgirl simplicity
in dark blue with white guimpe,
blond braids framing her face, the
slim politico playwright orally
dramatized last night the service
beyond price" of CT Joes and the
deaths of "GI Jim's."
At the same time she raised the
suggestion that "skillful and de-
termined American craftsmanship"
during President Roosevelt's three
terms might have headed of the
war.
THE last II years have not been
Republican years. Ours was not the
administration that promised -
economic security and peace" The
playwright-authcr member Of the
House asserted as she assailed the
years of Democratic administration
as "a decade Of confusion and con-
flict that ended in war;
"Dictatorial BumbJedom."
The administration, she said, is
"distorting our democracy into a
dictatorial bumbledom."
Mrs. Luce got the biggest hand
from her audience when she as
serted that apology and explana-
ton must suffice for the Demo-
cratic convention when it meets in
this city and added:
'They will meet not to choose
President but to take Franklin
Roosevelt and like it."
Assailing what she termed Roose-
velt administration promises kept
to their ears, but broken to their
hearts," the freshman House mem
Der from Connecticut declared Re-
publicans must choose a President
who would justify &c. I. Jim's
death" and prove it not useless.
Jim has taken the rap for every
| one, from the man in the White
House down to the man in the lit
tie house around the corner" she
said. "And 1t was o. K. with him
- If 1t gave good old Joe a fresh
start on life. liberty and the pur-
suit of happiness in a world wiped
clean Of Nazi marauders and Japa-
nese spoilers"
Jim was the heroic heir OF the
unheroic Roosevelt decade" she
said.
DO we here In this convention
dare ask If Jim's heroic death in
battle was historically inevitable?"
she asked. IF this war might not
have been averted? We know that
this war was in the making every
where in the world after 1918. In
the making here, too.
Might Have Averted War.
Might not skillful and deter
mined American statesmanship
have helped to unmake it all
through the sos? Or, when it was
clear to our Government that it
was too late to avert war, might not
Truthful and fearless leadership
have prepared us better for it in
material and in morale, in arms and
In aims?"
"It was not a Republican Presi-
dent who dealt with the visibily ris-
ing menaces of Hitler and Musso-
lini and Hirohito."
Before her speech Mrs. Luce told
reporters she felt "in something of
foxhole" herself. She followed to
the rostrum former President Her
bert Hoover to whose address she
listened while standing in the sti-
fling dark passage beneath the
nailed boards of the convention
platform.
At the end of her speech, the Re-
publicans' glamour woman was kept
at the rostrum while convention
Chairman Joseph W. Martin, jr.,
Of Massachusetts,, House minority
leader, led the convention in sing
! ing Let Me Call you Sweetheart"