Heath: GOP waits for Willkie to hop on bandwagon
By S. Burton Heath
While Peter Edson is absent from Washington, Mr. Heath’s series from Albany is being substituted.
Albany, New York –
Apparently, Governor Dewey is either impervious or oblivious to the strain, if any. Perhaps Wendell Willkie is, too. But a lot of lay Republicans and probably some Democrats wish something would break the existing impasse and disclose what part the 1940 standard-bearer is going to play in the 1944 election.
Polls, primaries and the party convention appeared to demonstrate that the Republican electorate preferred Governor Dewey to Mr. Willkie. Nevertheless, there is a very large segment that respects the latter highly, and a substantial body of voters with whom his stand, if not compelling, might be influential.
Governor Dewey shies away from any attempt to get him to discuss the Willkie situation. It should be noted, however, that he does so without prejudice, leaving the door open for Mr. Willkie to do this year what Mr. Dewey did in 1940.
Then, it will be recalled, Mr. Dewey appeared to have the nomination pretty well sewed up. At the last minute, an almost evangelical wave swept Mr. Willkie into the candidacy and left Mr. Dewey gasping on the shore.
Among politicians and newspapermen, it was no secret that Mr. Dewey was burned to a crisp. For a few days he sizzled, off the record except for one betrayal of confidence. Then he calmed down and went to work for the man who had done him out of the nomination.
Lent advisers
When Mr. Willkie’s early campaign threatened to explode from the lack of management, like a tanker of aviation gasoline hit by a torpedo, Mr. Dewey gave leave of absence to his personal publicity man, Lemoyne Jones, to help out. He lent the services of his personal adviser on government finance, Elliott V. Bell, now his superintendent of banks.
He took to the stump for the Willkie ticket, making two speeches near New York City and two midwestern trips in the course of which he spoke in Saginaw, Pittsburgh, Peoria, Caldwell (Idaho), Kansas City and Cleveland.
The grounds for personal bitterness between the two men were no less then than they are now; the bases of their philosophical disagreement were probably greater inasmuch as Mr. Willkie was a foremost interventionist while Mr. Dewey at that time leaned against intervention.
Therefore Republicans, including many of Mr. Willkie’s more ardent adherents in 1940 and up to the time he stepped out of this year’s race, wonder what formula can be found for bringing the two men together now, for the good of the party, and, as they see it, for the good of the country.
Democrats want breach
Democrats and other Roosevelt supporters hope that the present breach can be kept open or even widened. They would like to see Mr. Willkie bolt back to his old party or take an ostentatious walk for the duration of the campaign.
Realists doubt that this will occur. Conceding that Mr. Willkie is utterly sincere and would subordinate personal advantage to principles, they insist that he would lose every possibility of putting across his beliefs if he were either to bolt or to walk. They point, as evidence, to the innocuous desuetude in which Al Smith and John W. Davis now stagnate politically.
The difficulty appears to be in finding a way to establish the first contact without embarrassment to either man. Deweyites appear to feel that their leader went as far as he well could when, at his first press conference after the nomination, he was asked: “Will Mr. Willkie be invited into conference on campaign strategy?”
He replied:
I certainly hope to consult all leaders of the Republican Party and receive the benefit of their advice.
“Including Willkie?”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Dewey.