Reading Eagle (October 4, 1940)
AIMS TO END CLASS STRIFE, WILLKIE SAYS
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Tells Harrisburg Crowd How He Would Try To Solve Unemployment
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PLEADS FOR UNITY
Pays Tribute to James And Assails Earle In Speech at Capital
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Aboard Willkie Train En Route to Philadelphia, Oct. 4 (UP) –
Republican presidential nominee Wendell Willkie told a Harrisburg crowd estimated at 25,000 today that he could put the 9,600,000 unemployed back to work by “ending class warfare and stimulating American free enterprise.”
Willkie said the solution of the unemployment problem was “that simple.” He charged that:
The disunion that has been preached for the last seven years is one of the causes of the continued economic depression.
Solution Simple, He Says
Men say to me sometimes, “How are you going to provide jobs for American citizens if you are elected President?” Well, I will tell you just how simple it is. It’s just this simple – to end the class warfare in America and stimulate every element of our population to be American fee enterprise citizens, and men will go back into the factories and the 9,600,00 unemployed will disappear from the relief rolls. I know the productive capacities of Americans.
Willkie said he would bring national unity, which would stimulate industry and strengthen U.S. defenses and :“thereby bring peace to America and set the example for peace throughout the world.”
He paid a tribute to the administration of Gov. Arthur H. James, denounced that of his Democratic predecessor, George H. Earle, and said that as a result of the change:
The men of Pennsylvania are going back to work.
He pleaded with his listeners to vote this fall “because you’ll never vote in a more important election.”
The theory that “any leader is indispensable,” he said, “is unworthy of representative government.”
I go forth as the champion of the Republican Party, a united party, a party that is seeking to bring union to our people and thereby bring peace to America and set the example for peace throughout the world.
Prayer For Unity
The Rev. Raymond C. Walker, Presbyterian minister, opened the meeting with a prayer for national unity, and Willkie said that unity was essential to rebuild American economy and defense.
Willkie looked across the stage at U.S. Sen. James J. Davis (R-PA) and recalled that Davis had worked in the Elwood, Ind., tin plate mill and sought to organize workers into labor unions “when organizing a union was not easy.” Willkie also recalled that his first courtroom experience as a lawyer was assisting his father in defending a union.
“I join with this prayer this morning that we may be able to bring back United States unity,” Willkie said, adding he hoped there would be “an end to class prejudice.”
His hope, Willkie said, is to bring back national unity and that he had been preaching that theme across the country.
I know the productive capacities of America; I have lived with them all my life. I have seen what could be done by enterprise by labor as well as industry.
I call America back to unity and back to economic progress so strong that no puny dictator will seek to strike us.
If the country does not prepare adequately, he said, “we will go down the road to war, because dictators strike only at the weak.”
The Republican nominee left his special train at Harrisburg to drive several blocks through lines of applauding, cheering people to the steps of the State Capitol building, where he was introduced by Governor James.
Offers Labor Program
He stopped in Harrisburg for an hour, en route from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. At Pittsburgh last night he offered a nine-point labor program to eastern industrial workers.
He presented his labor program specifically to a crowd of approximately 35,000 in Forbes Field at Pittsburgh last night, but he went into the steel mill and electrical product manufacturing districts to present his case face-to-face to the workers themselves.
Willkie rode 53 miles in an open car for four hours through most of industrial Allegheny County to reaffirm his support of labor’s right to organize to ask the workers to study the arguments of both sides and to give him a “fair shake” before deciding whether they vote for him or Mr. Roosevelt.
McNary There
The Forbes Field show brought Willkie and his vice presidential running-mate, Sen. Charles L. McNary of Oregon, together on a public platform for the first time. McNary predicted Willkie’s victory in November and renewed his “pledge of fealty” to the new Republican leader.
Willkie’s aides said they had been surprised by the volume of applause and the infrequency of boos, in the tour of the industrial sections.
Before the cheering Forbes Field throng, the nominee offered this program:
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Special legislation to bring about a “wiser administration” of the Wagner Labor Relations Act should be tried before material changes in the labor law are made.
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Labor should clean its house of “crooked racketeers who have found their way into the labor movement.”
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Employers and workers should write into collective bargaining contracts a “provision for a cooling-off period, a delay before using their economic weapons.”
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The President should call a conference of farm, factory, labor and consumer groups “to tackle the job of ending economic stagnation and of preventing a common disaster.”
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Social Security should be extended to workers who do not now enjoy it and the federal government should be made solvent so that it can fulfill its Social Security obligations.
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The federal conciliation service should be “strengthened and improved and its work should be integrated with the work of the labor board.”
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The federal wage-hour law should be continued and “enforced, both North and South.” Willkie said that he would “wield the big stick of Theodore Roosevelt…against sweatshops.”
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Federal government activities in the labor field should be decentralized “because each locality knows its own problems best.”
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States “should be encouraged to strengthen and improve their own procedures for the settlement of labor disputes.”
Renews Pledge
Willkie renewed his pledge to “make new jobs for those who now seek them so desperately,” to “clear out from federal government all Communists and their fellow-travelers,” and to appoint as Secretary of Labor a man who is “an outstanding and actual representation of labor.”
Willkie and McNary were meeting for the third time last night since their nomination in Philadelphia last June, and they were brought together by as intricate a hidden-ball play as has ever been worked out by any highly-skilled football coach.
Western Pennsylvania Republicans, headed by Allegheny County Chairman Frank J. Harris, were anxious to keep Gov. Arthur H. James of Pennsylvania, from introducing Willkie, so they worked out a plan whereby Harris introduced Republican National Chairman Joseph W. Martin Jr., Martin introduced McNary and McNary introduced Willkie.
Willkie traveled south and east through Pennsylvania today with stops scheduled at Harrisburg, the capital, at 10:20 a.m.; Lancaster at 12:25 p.m., and Coatesville at 1:20 p.m. He reaches Philadelphia at 2:30 p.m., where he will tour the factory sections, speak from Independence Hall, and address a night meeting at Shibe Park.