The Pittsburgh Press (June 19, 1942)
I DARE SAY —
Willkie – remember him?
By Florence Fisher Parry
I felt bad to read that Wendell Willkie is seriously considering retiring from the political field. When a man who came near being President of the United States decides at the most critical moment in his nation’s history to eschew public office, it carries with it a commentary unflattering to politics. What has happened to take the heart and fight out of the man who, at the instant of his defeat, gave back to the people who would not stop calling: “We want Willkie!”, the words:
I will never give up the fight!
What he meant, of course, was that he would never give up the fight for America and the American way of life. But at that time, he was confident that the fight could be conducted within the political structure. He knows better now. It is a significant conclusion for him to reach. It is an admission that the machine is bigger than the man, that politics is stronger than principle, and that nothing, nothing succeeds like success – unlike it be a war.
The bitter portion of a defeated candidate is his to know; the wormwood of frustration his to taste. No man so strong but he can be made weak; no spirit so electric but it can be blacked out, if the powers that be so ordain. Wendell Willkie could not be broken. He could only be worn out.
The breaks
I saw a newsreel of this man, talking before a great victory mass meeting of welcome for the heroes recently here on tour. I watched his face, his gestures; I listened to his voice. They were carbon copies of what used to be there, the “ribbon” thin and pale from striking the same keys too often.
Here was a man endowed for greatness. Destiny had set a promissory seal upon his brow. But that subtle synchronization of time and circumstance did not come off. The tide that was to “lead on to fortune” did not pull with the fateful moon….
It is too bad. You would think that wherever an essentially grand soul could be spotted by the gods, they would hurl him to a pinnacle, their need now for great men being so very urgent!
But no. In this man Willkie, who in a presidential campaign put up the greatest single fight ever recorded in our history, we see today an impotent giant grown hoarse and forced and just a little seedy… the jig up – in two years!
How can such things be?
This man is the same human being as before. He has the same stature, the same features, the same promise and endowment, as he had in the most electric moment of the campaign.
But something has left him. What took it from him? Let’s call it the breaks. There are two American implements which arbitrate a man’s success or failure. They are the breaks and the skids. Nowhere on earth do they function so absolutely as here. For in America we have perfected the art of the buildup. By the same token, we are the idol-topplers of the world!
And I don’t like this disease to have attacked Mr. Willkie. He’s too good a man. It represents too much waste. We’re a pretty profligate people but even we can’t afford to waste GOOD MEN. We’ll need every Willkie we can scrape up, in the days to come.
It’s now 1942. In two years, if our American institutions are to survive, there will be another presidential election. Most folks seem to be already conditioned to accept the fourth term. But it must not be a pushover. That would be too bad.
The skids
Only two years ago, 22 million voters of the whole 49 million went crazy over a man by the name of Wendell Willkie, joined a crusade with him, worked like fanatics for him!
Well, he lost. He was steamrollered under.
He has been let down. He has been let out. Worse, he was allowed to be let out.
Well, anyway, I felt bad when I looked at that newsreel of Wendell Willkie exhorting the crowds. He looked… licked. He sounded… like a record when the needle is worn down.
A good man, Willkie. A good man, gone to waste.