The Farmville herald. (Farmville, Va.) 1957-current, 1960-07-15
John Temple Groves
Pity Our Poor Delegates
Far from the maddening
/ crows n

crows
PITY OUR POOR DELE.
GATES in the confusion and
stingaree smog Of Los Angeles
especially our Southern ones SO
un-loved and little attended WV
while you and I. airconditioned
at our television sets. wit h
morning and afternoon papers
to tell all, a full glass, a glow
ing pipe, loved ones or one
nearby, clock on the mantle. cat
on the hearth ~ make a para
disc of politics.
"A book of verses under
meath the bOugh,
A jug of wine, a loaf of
bread-and thou
Beside me singing in the
wilderness
Oh, wilderness we're para
disc enow!"
1T is ESTIMATED Thy me-
that a delegate would walk-or
run-some 40.7 miles per day to
be at all the convention vantage
points. key places and bi g
scenes which you and I, d e r
hearts at home, enjoy without
lift of finger or switch of station.
And then - when the daily
paper comes to know what
and who it's all about and, if
we forget something or fail to
get it, to turn the page n d
know for sure and for the record
but you'll have to please stop
that singing, dear heart. Yes,
the name is paradise enoW!
FORMER SPEAKER JOE
MARTINS pi ece on Wendell
Willkie in last weeks Saturday
Evening Post was reminder
that the first walk-out on the
National Democratic Party after
it forgot itself was the pictur-
esque Indianan's.
The last public words. Wendell
Willkie wrote were in a guest
column for me which appeared
in September 1914, just before
he died. He corrected the proof
from the hospital. In this con-
tribution he explained why he
had left the Democratic Party.
He said it was the party which
had left him, not the other way
around. Fortunately in tn e
South we own the party in each
state and can't be left, even
t no ugh we fail progressively
more each four years to support
the national majority's ticket
Describing his distress at the
1882 National Democratic Con-
vention, Mr.. Willkie concluded
his guest column with a remind
er that the true philosopher Of the
Democratic Party was Woodrow
Wilson, who gave the individual
istic ideal of Thomas Jefferson
its necessary modern supple
ments of social umpiring: ~
After those experiences tat the
1882 convention and after the
Democratic Party in the middle
thirties began to violate t h e
very essence of Wilson'S philoso-
ply of government Govern
ment should serve society, by
no means rule or dominate it;
government should not be made
an end in itself, it is a means
only left the Democratic
Party, or. perhaps, the Demo
cratic Party left me /"
The last words of Wendell
Willkie!
HOW LONG WILL 1T TAKE
HISTORY to impress on us the
fact that Wilson and FDR were
not just two good New Deal
liberals together? Wilson was
the antithesis of the New Deal.
the only true alternative. Some
years ago when it was my dis
tinction to be the speaker at
Virginias jefferson Jackson
Day Dinner in Richmond, in
troduced by great Harry Flood
Byrd, I was tainted after
wards by Erie Jonathan
Daniels for calling Woodrow
Wilson the party's second after
Jefferson.
Jonathan thought Wilson "old
stuff" dated, except so far as
he prepared a way for FDR.
The South of 1860 knows bet
ter. In this afterglow, it recog-
nizes Wilson for his sense of a
Federal government duty-bound
to be active, true. but active in
protection of private competition,
Of anti-monopoly, decentraliza-
ton, free enterprise, state s.
rights and the individual in an
Image not one active in
socialistic elimination and re-
placement Of these things.
UNDER A TWO-PARTY SYS-
TEN each party must neces-
sarily include differing peoples
and ideas. But there's a limit
o~l - s., -, A~roloes