Toe to Toe

For 40 days Wendell Willkie had gone up & down the U. S., challenging his opponent to come out and fight. But Franklin Roosevelt said he was too busy. For lack of a real, live adversary, Candidate Willkie perforce tilted at windmill issues. Last week in Philadelphia the President finally dropped the pretense that he had no time for politics, made his first admittedly political speech of the campaign. He wanted, said he. to answer falsifications with facts. So twelve days before Election Day, the battle was joined. Each of the contestants pretended not to know the other fellow's name: one was "the third-term candidate"; the other was "Republican leaders." But, such traditional little coquetries aside, the fight was really on; punches were given & taken, toe to toe.

Cracks & Back Cracks. The President spoke first. His opponent followed with a point-by-point rebuttal. Naturally this gave Challenger Willkie the apparent advantage, but it was only the first round.

Roosevelt: ". . . Certain techniques of propaganda, created and developed in dictator countries, have been imported into this campaign. It is the ... technique of repeating . . . falsehoods, with the idea that by constant repetition . . . and with no contradiction, the misstatements will finally come to be believed. ... I make the charge now that these falsifications are being spread for the purpose of filling the minds and hearts of the American people with fear.

"The tears, the crocodile tears, tears for the laboring man and laboring woman, now being shed in this campaign come from those same Republican leaders who had their chance to prove their love for labor in 1932 -- and missed it."

Willkie: "There is no issue between the third-term candidate and myself about 1932. I voted for and supported him in 1932. I believed in the Democratic platform of 1932."

Roosevelt: ". . . It is [a falsification] for any . . . candidate to state . . . that the President of the United States telephoned to Mussolini and Hitler to sell Czecho-Slovakia down the river. ... I know we know that [the statement was] . . . false."

Willkie : "As a matter of fact the third-term candidate didn't telephone Hitler --he telegraphed him."

Roosevelt: ". . . American business . . . is way up above the level of 1932 and on a much sounder footing than it was even in the '20s. . . . Our national income has nearly doubled since 1932. . . ."

Willkie: "A fair comparison would be to compare the record of the seven New Deal years with the seven years that preceded the New Deal. . . . [Then] we find that the national income under the Administration of the third-term candidate is down 11%; that industrial production is down 5%; construction contracts down 50% ; farm income, including Government payments, down 20%; industrial wages and salaries down 21%. . . ."

Roosevelt: ". . . We are determined during the next four years ... to make work for every young man and woman in America. ..."

Willkie: ". . . The . . . speech of the third-term candidate [in] defense of his own Administration . . was strikingly similar to the defense system . . . that he is building for these United States today. It was either obsolete or on order. It was obsolete for the reason that it discussed the issues of the 1932 campaign. It was on order because it promised jobs to you and the right to work."

Roosevelt: "We will not . . . send our Army, naval or air forces to fight in foreign lands outside of the Americas except in case of attack."

Willkie: "I hope . . . that that pledge ... is remembered by him longer than he remembered the same pledge that he made with reference to the provisions of the Democratic platform of 1932. If he does not remember it longer, then shortly our boys will be on the transports, sailing for some foreign shore."

Counterattack. Early this week, when his chance came at Manhattan's Madison Square Garden, Candidate Roosevelt did not rebut the rebuttal--he counterattacked. Taking as his text the vulnerable defense record of Republicans in Congress:

"I now brand as false the statement being made by Republican campaign orators, day after day and night after night, that the rearming of America was slow, that it is hamstrung and impeded, that it will never be able to meet threats from abroad. . . .

"For example, deeply concerned over what was happening in Europe, I asked the Congress, in January 1938, for a naval expansion of 20%--46 additional ships and 950 new planes. What did the Republican leaders do when they had this chance to increase our national defense almost three years ago? . . .

"In those days they thought that the way to win votes was by representing this Administration as extravagant in national defense, indeed, as hysterical and as manufacturing panics and inventing foreign dangers.

"But now in the serious days of 1940 all is changed! . . .

"On the radio these Republican orators swing through the air with the greatest of ease; but the American people are not voting this year for the best trapeze performer. . . .

"I recommended that the Congress repeal the embargo on the shipment of armaments and munitions to nations at war, and permit such shipment on a 'cash-and-carry basis.' . . .

"Just to name a few, the following Republican leaders voted against the act --Senators McNary, Vandenberg, Nye and Johnson; Congressmen Martin, Barton and Fish" (see p. 11).

One Issue. That this attack was not directly aimed at Opponent Willkie, but at some of his supporters, made it only slightly less effective oratorical ammunition. As a whole the debate was fought by both candidates on the bad past record of the other side. On important present issues they seldom came to grips. On only one such issue did both declare themselves, although mostly by implication: Candidate Roosevelt insisted that the New Deal's methods of dealing with business had been necessary for the welfare of labor and business alike; Candidate Willkie maintained that neither social advances nor defense could be made secure until business was given a chance to increase the national wealth.

The other issues of the campaign were not faced by either candidate last week--but the great twelve-day debate had still to run until Nov. 5.

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