The Pittsburgh Press (October 16, 1944)
La Follette speaks up –
Foreign policy silence attacked
Washington (UP) –
Senator Robert M. La Follette (PR-WI) today accused both President Roosevelt and Governor Thomas E. Dewey of entering into a “conspiracy of silence” on the most important issues of the presidential campaign – those pertaining to foreign policy.
Mr. La Follette asserted it was time for the two candidates to “speak up” on the issues of American foreign policy.
U.S. has key position
In an editorial in The Progressive, organ of the Progressive Party, Senator La Follette declared the American people must know the peace terms before they can decide on participation in the projected world organization.
He said:
The United States has the key position in the United Nations councils today. Why then… is the settlement which is reached on each major questions stamped “Made in London” or ‘Made in Moscow”? … It is time for America to break away from the imperial designs of Mr. Churchill and the Soviet drive for power of Mr. Stalin.
Questions people should know
He then posed the following foreign policy questions to which he said the American people were entitled answers:
What about the future of Germany? Do we favor a strong China or do we side with the British and Russians to keep China weak? Are we to be committed to endorsing Churchill’s friendliness to Franco or to abandoning the Poles to Russia? What about post-war rights to air bases built with American money? Will the United States retain its dominant merchant marine position?