The Pittsburgh Press (October 24, 1940)
WILLKIE HITS AT ROOSEVELT IN STATE TALK
…
G.O.P. Nominee Declares President’s Speech Was ‘Obsolete’
…
By William H. Lawrence, United Press Staff Writer
Harbor Creek, Pa. Oct. 24 –
Wendell L. Willkie said today in a radio address from his train here that President Roosevelt’s political speech last night was “strikingly similar to the defense system – either obsolete or on order.”
In the talk, which he repeated in almost identical words when his train stopped later at Erie, Mr. Willkie charged that “one of the greatest panics in history” will follow completion of America’s defense program unless private domestic economy is stimulated.
Mr. Willkie was to make speeches in Erie, Sharon, Pa. and Warren, Ohio late today.
Tonight he will give a major address in Akron, Ohio.
Mr. Willkie’s Akron speech will be broadcast by the Red network of the National Broadcasting Co. but Station WCAE, local out let for the network, said it had not been offered the speech.
The President’s speech last night was “obsolete,” the Republican presidential nominee said, because it “discussed the issues of the 1932 campaign.”
It was “on order,” he added, because it “promised you jobs and the right to work.”
Desires Social Gains
Mr. Willkie said that there was no issue between him and the President on social legislation, that he simply desired to preserve the social gains made since 1932, when, he said, he had supported the President and his program.
But the only way to keep those gains is to keep the country financially solvent.
Me. Willkie criticized Mr. Roosevelt for his failure to offer “even one reason” why he should be permitted to violate the American tradition against a third term for any President – a tradition that is 150 years old.
Recalls Munich Statement
Referring to the President’s statement that Mr. Willkie’s assertion, which was revised soon after it was made, that he had telephoned to Adolf Hitler and urged him to agree to the Munich Pact by which he took over part of Czechoslovakia, Mr. Willkie said:
I revised that statement as soon as it was called to my attention. That is more than the third term candidate ever has done. He never revises any misstatement.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Willkie said, the President did not telephone Hitler, but did telegraph him, urging him to carry through the Munich Pact, telling him that hundreds of millions of people would be grateful for a peaceful settlement.
Hits Job Scarcity
This telegram, he said, was sent on Sept. 27, 1938.
Referring to the President’s statement that the unemployment program was being solved, Mr. Willkie charged that the President was raking credit for increased employment resulting from defense preparation moves, for which he had no right to take credit and asserted that the record of unemployment through the first seven years of the New Deal actually was the important matter.
Mr. Willkie said:
The history of his failure is written in the relief rolls of this country.
No amount of words can cover up the record of 9 million unemployed.
And now he tells he is going to provide work for every young man and woman in America, but his own National Democratic Committee tells us that no man now living nor who ever lived can accomplish that end.
We believe that every person in this country is entitled to work. An administration that passes social security laws but which fails to put men back to work has done only half its job.
Must Stimulate Domestic Economy
Mr. Willkie said that he agreed with the President that recovery which comes from armament is a false goal.
And yet, he tried to justify his administration on the basis of recent re-employment due to armament.
Now, I intend to build armaments too, if you elect me President of the United States. That is exactly what I have been talking about from one end to the station to the other, but at the same time I want to stimulate our domestic economy, so when the defense program is completed there will not be inflation and unemployment of hundreds of thousands of men and financial chaos.
If we do not stimulate our domestic economy, it is inevitable on the completion of this defense program that we will have one of the greatest panics in history.
Mr. Willkie said that Mr. Roosevelt had failed completely to answer all questions which he (Willkie) had asked him in his recent Chicago speech.
He asked why Mr. Roosevelt ad failed to fulfill the 1932 campaign pledge that governmental costs would be reduced materially.
He asked why the 1932 pledge of a sound currency had not been fulfilled, pointed out that the President “still has the power to manipulate the value of the dollar.”
In the 1932 platform, he said the Democrats promised that federal taxes would be reduced, but on the contrary they have been increased.
Mr. Third Term Candidate, tell the people whether Wendell Willkie falsified that part of the record.
Mr. Roosevelt referring to the 1940 platform of the Democratic Party last night quoted the plank which said that we would not participate in foreign wars except in case of attack.
Urge Strong Nation
I hope, I hope sincerely, that the pledge made by him is remembered longer than the same pledge made by him in the platform of 1932. If he does not remember it longer, then shortly our boys will be upon the sea sailing for some foreign war.
The question is whether the nation can come through this critical period.
I believe it can if we make America strong, if we build a sound economy.
I plead with you now to bring that about in America.
You have no hope to bring that about through an administration whose promises have been broken so often that it cannot have your good faith.
‘Dead As Pyramids’
Mfr. Willkie previously had given his reaction to Mr. Roosevelt’s speech when he addressed the New York Herald Tribune Forum, in New York last night.
He said the President’s speech compared conditions today with those of 1932, when Mr. Roosevelt won his first term, and added:
I have not the slightest interest in re-debating the issues of 1932. They are as dead as the pyramids. I want to see the issues of 1940 discussed, and I want to discuss them face to face of I can have that privilege.
As listened…to the glowing description given by the third term candidate of the prosperous condition of the United States. I wondered how under such ideal circumstances there could be any such thing as the indispensable man.