Wall Street Campaigner

Wendell Willkie is a self-confessed political "hybrid": he says he does not agree totally with either party. For that reason many a free-wheeling Democrat, many a Republican would like to see him President of the U. S. He was willing to accept the Republican nomination for the Presidency, but no one had figured out how to start him off.* With no party backing, he was a rootless flower in the political garden. Then, in Wall Street, an amateur political gardener announced he would do the necessary spadework.

Oren Root Jr., a youthful lawyer, a grandnephew of the late Elihu Root, started a one-man campaign for Mr. Willkie, whom he had never met. Mr. Root's first step was to mail thousands of statements (each carrying spaces for 15 signatures) declaring the signers' enthusiasm for Mr. Willkie as President. Straightway he began to receive contributions. last week opened an office, announced he had already received 35,000 requests for "declarations." What did Mr. Willkie's Root intend to do with all these fertilizing signatures? Mr. Root had not yet decided.

*Said Wall Street rumor, at week's end: Mr. Willkie will go to the Republican convention, there deliver a self-starting speech that will be the obverse of Bryan's famed "Cross of Gold" oration, in effect say: "You shall not crucify the spirit of American enterprise on a cross of bureaucracy."

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