Growth of Willkie

A pause for rest and "a mild digestive upset" (temperature: 100DEG) interrupted Thomas Edmund Dewey's second swing through the West last week. He holed up at Colorado Springs, where in the heady mountain air his entourage put out claims that he will have enough G. O. P. convention votes to nominate him for President on the first ballot. Democrat Jim Farley swigged tomato juice (his strongest tope) at a succession of Manhattan cocktail parties, let "friends" announce to the press that he also has first-ballot prospects (if Franklin Roosevelt does not run). Paul McNutt paraded through Guthrie, Okla., in a ten-gallon hat. Georgia Democrats swiped the State's convention delegation from Senator Walter Franklin George, plumped for Third Term. Another 1940 prospect who made a little news and some progress was Wendell Willkie.

Up-&-coming Mr. Willkie upped himself several notches in the estimation of the American Newspaper Publishers Association (most of whose members were for Landon in 1936). After being subjected to Mr. Willkie's forceful forthrightness, many a publisher went home from the Association's annual convention in Manhattan convinced that Wendell Willkie could be a winner. Notable converts: John and Gardner Cowles, publishers of the Des Moines Tribune and Register. What inspired this conviction was more of the catchy common sense which Utilitarian Willkie has been spreading around lately. Said he to the publishers: "The conscientious liberal would find himself in agreement with most of the objects of this [New Deal] new legislation, although he might want to modify many of its provisions and change many of its methods." But: "The liberal does not see in the present administration any will to leave men free. . . . For the old American principle that government is a liability to be borne by the citizens for the sake of peace, order and security, the New Deal has substituted the notion that the government is an asset without which none of us can survive. ... Its growth becomes desirable in itself, instead of desirable only if it promotes the ease and expansion of the people's activities, the happiness and independence of their lives."

Many a publisher went home wondering if there was still time to convince his public that Mr. Willkie would make a top-notch Republican nominee.

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