Willkie warns of invasion tie-up
Beloit, Wisconsin (UP) –
Although the Allied invasion of Europe will have a profound effect upon the thinking of the American people at election time, the crisis will not necessitate the reelection of President Roosevelt because the country never again will live in a placid hour, Wendell Willkie said yesterday.
Mr. Willkie, making a 13-day statewide pre-primary speaking tour on behalf of his slate of Republican delegate-candidates, predicted the western invasion would begin the next “two or three months.”
He said:
If the present administration is reelected on the basis that this will be a critical moment, it will be reelected again and again, and again because no one in this country who didn’t live before World War I will know what it is to live in a placid hour.
Mr. Willkie called upon the Republican Party to stand for “greater, more effective” contributions and sacrifice for the war.
He denied that a new President would “dismember” America’s fighting units, and said a new Chief Executive would “enliven the Army and give it new power and inspiration.”
Earlier in the day, in an address at Burlington, Wisconsin, Mr. Willkie said he was wholeheartedly behind the administration’s dealing with Éire, and didn’t believe Irish-American Democrats would swing over to the GOP because of the President’s stand.