By Thomas L. Stokes
With Willkie in Wisconsin –
There’s something a bit like the glamorous Broadway star going back to the five-a-day in the cheap and drafty theaters of the provinces in Wendell Willkie’s attempted comeback for the Republican presidential nomination on this Wisconsin circuit, preliminary to the April 4 primary.
Or, perhaps, like the major league pitcher who is sent back to the minors, ostensibly to cure that ailing left wing so the old hop will come back on the ball, who left the big town with the confident assurance from the boss, “We’ll be seeing you back soon again, old boy – you’ll like that club,” which he tried to believe as he shakes hands with teammates who smile too cheerfully.
All the trappings of the big time, all the sound effects, the perfection of detail, still cling reminiscently about this Willkie troupe back on the provincial circuit. The local committees are organized. The high school auditoriums are spick and span and frilly with flags. The suppers are laid out temptingly in the back rooms of local restaurants with that dainty touch so dear to small-town women showing themselves off to strangers.
The hotel reservations are ready in advance. The autos are on hand to transport the traveling show from town to town – Mr. and Mrs. Willkie and their entourage plus a sizable press corps which remembers the big-time circuit of four years ago, the screeching, storming multitudes, the huge auditoriums wild with frenzied people.
Towns are smaller, crowds smaller
But it’s all in miniature – 1940 on a greatly reduced scale.
The towns are smaller, the crowds are smaller, and the enthusiasm is tempered with the restraint of old folks who sit placidly and boys and girls in their early teens who gape and whisper and giggle, but don’t make hilarious noises. That vigorous middle group of the electorate is no longer here. It is off somewhere in the wars or wars’ industry. But the big, shaggy fellow is working at his electioneering job here with only 24 convention votes as the prize as if the whole thousand odd were at stake.
As he sees it, that is the stake. He is here trying to prove that he’s popular with the plain folk, despite the politicians. He wants so much to be President, so very much.
You can see he has doubts now that he didn’t profess a few months back. He’s a sobered man, but still determined.
We watched him perform for the small circuit.
Heterogeneous state politically
The high school gymnasium was full – the largest crowd it has ever had except for the county fair when the governor is a guest. It was a quiet, orderly crowd, until, at 8:15, the high school band struck up “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Everybody stood up and applauded as he made a grand entrance with Mrs. Willkie. He came smiling down the main aisle, waving now this way, now that, just as if there were 30 or 40 thousands present. There were about 2,500.
When the mayor got up, he addressed the crowd as “Republicans, Democrats, New Dealers, Progressives, Socialists, Prohibitionists and Townsendites,” and there was a chuckled through the crowd. This is a heterogeneous state politically.
He said:
A good political meeting is like an old-time religious meeting – there’s always the hope that someone will be converted.
Mr. Willkie lost no opportunities. When he had finished speaking, it was announced he would shake hands with all who wanted to come to the platform. For over half an hour, the folks filed by.
There was nothing like that on the big circuit in 1940.