Evening star., 1946-09-22
Wallace Should Not
Be Counted Out Now
Failure of Byrnes' Policy Would
Offer Real Chance of Comeback
Bu John H. Cline

By John H. Cline
Henry A. Wallaces farewell address
to official Washington was pitched on
a high note.
He dealt gently with President Tru-
man when he might have belabored
him with his own inconsistencies. This
was not only the right thing to do: it
was the wise thing, for 1t enables
Mr.. Wallace to begin his fight for
peace" with a degree of public SYM
pathy which he would not otherwise
have enjoyed AS things stand, his
position is better than some of his
critics seem to think. Those who
have been throwing up their hats and
cheering at the custer Of the last of
the New Dealers" are taking q short
sighted view Of the future. for Mr..
Wallace is far from being relegated
to the political graveyard. It is en-
tirely possible that his political pros
poets are better now than they have
been at any time since he failed of
denomination for the vice presidency
in the summer of 1914.
Henry Wallace is a man Of many
contradictions. His adventures with
the boomerang, his fondness for freak
ish diets, his mysticism" are
some of the traits which have built
up a popular impression of Wallace
as an impractical dreamer who walks
with his head in the clouds. But what
ever the justification for this there
is another side to. the man-the side
which reveals a politician of consid-
cradle astuteness and a dogged, de-
termined fighter for the things in which
he believes. 1t is always dangerous.
even foolish, to count out a man like
that when he is still on his feet.
%*
Seven years ago the late Franklin D.
Roosevelt made a speech which might
easily have come from the mind of
Henry Wallace. IF there are nominal
Democrats" Mr.. Roosevelt said, who
as matter of principle are convinced
that our party should be conservative
party-a Democratic tweedledum to a
Republican tweedledee-it Is on the
whole better that the issue be drawn
within the party, that the fight be
fought out and that if the tweedledums
are defeated they join the tweedledees."
Five years later Henry Wallace stood
before a Democratic National Conven-
ton. his hopes for the vice presidency
threatened by the conservative wing
of the party. But Mr.. Wallace didn't
give an inch. The future" he said, be
longs to those who go down the line
unswervingly for the liberal principles
Of both political democracy and eco
nomic democracy regardless Of race,
color or religion. In political, educa-
tional and economic sense, there must
be no inferior races. The poll tax must
CO. Equal educational opportunities
must come. The future must bring equal
wages for equal work regardless OF sex
or race"
There were those who discounted the
brave words in the belief that Wallace
knew he was beaten, whatever he might
say. Perhaps that is true. But the fact
remains that Mr.. Wallace was not ac-
cepting defeat as final. He was looking
to the future, making his fight along
lines that he believed ultimately GER
tain to prevail.
Since that time this country has
fought and won a great war-a war
which submerged the issues upon which
Mr.. Wallace proposed in 1914 to make
his fight for the future. But 1t has
raised new issue-the issue of peace
or another war-and Mr.. Wallace, tossed
overheard once again by his party,
must be fully aware that 1t is a better
issue upon which to wage q comeback
fight.
There is no intent to impute any un-
worthy motive to him. The sincerity of
his devotion to the cause of peace and
the genuineness of his apprehensions
concerning the established foreign policy
OF the Truman administration are be-
yond question. But 1t must also seem
evident to Mr.. Wallace that the turn
which events have taken tends to en-
nance rather than diminish his own per-
sonal political prospects.
AS member of the Truman cabinet,
going along with the Truman policies,
1t is hard to see how the future could
have held much for the man whose
name is anathema to the elements in
control of his party's machinery. But
now there is different picture. Mr..
Wallace is out of the cabinet, a free
agent, determined to fight for his own
version OF an American foreign policy.
And the chances are that the issue will
shape up about like this: Mr.. Truman
and Mr.. Byrnes and Senator Vanden-
berg will become definitely identified
in the public mind with the "get tough"
policy, with a policy which admits not
OF peace with Russia at the price of
appeasement. Mr.. Wallace, on the other
hand, will become identified as the ex-
ponent of a >"soft" policy, as the cham
pion of the belief that much greater
concessions can and should be made to
win the friendship and good will of the
Russians. 1t may be said that this is
gross oversimplification, not an accu-
rate statement of the issue. But this,
while true, matters little If, in fact the
people come to accept this as being the
issue, and the probability is that they
will
MIR. Wallace is convinced that the
Truman Byrnes-Vandenberg policy is
doomed to fail, and that in failing it
will raise real danger of war with Rus
sia. Suppose he is right. The next two
years should tell the story, and If bv